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instructors had to motivate the students. The motivation like giving good comments such as
“You are good.”, “You have done very well.”, “Keep studying
.”, “You can do it.”. Then, the instructors had to monitor every student in the class in order to know his or her development in learning English in Kumon
English Course . It was because the
students’ characteristics were different and some of them had less motivation from family. The last role was the instructors
had to communicate students ’ development to their parents and parents also had to
communicate students’ development at home while doing homework.
3. The Parents’ Roles
As stated in the interview result in appendix 1, all of the participants had the same answers toward the parents’ role. There was a relation between parents,
instructors and children. According to Kumon Educational 2011, the students succeed through their own efforts, but that success is made possible by a
partnership between the students, instructors and parents. The parents’ roles were
parents had to give support and motivation for students at home, parents did not permit to teach or give correct answers to their children, and the children must do
their homework independently. At home, the students had to also listen to CD-
textbook independently. If parent s’ roles did not work in this case, the
independent learning would not work well.
4. Advantages and Disadvantages for Implementing the Method
Based on the interview result, all of the participants had the same answers toward the advantages for using independent learning implemented in Kumon
English Course . The advantages were the students would have a certain study
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habit and good pronunciation. Besides, they would be autonomous, responsible to do something and interest to try something new that was more challenging.
When the researcher asked about the disadvantages of independent learning in Kumon English Course, all of the instructors had their opinion. There were
three of four participants said that since students had to do their worksheet independently, they were not confident enough to speak English in conversation.
First instructor said that Kumon ’s method was a
long-term program. If there were students who could not enjoy with this method at the first time, the aims of
independent learning did not work.
5. The Children’s Responses on Independent Learning
Since independent learning implemented in Kumon English Course were something new for students and parents, therefore Kumon English Course had to
introduce this program to students and parents. As stated on the result of the interview section in the appendix 1, the third instructor explained that:
Kumon mempunyai sebuah program bernama Coba Gratis, program ini digunakan untuk memperkenalkan metode yang kita gunakan kepada anak-
anak. Selama program ini, instruktur akan mengamati sejauh mana kemampuan anak dan kemauan mereka untuk belajar. Biasanya respon
mereka sangat baik, mereka senang karena ini adalah hal baru bagi mereka.
Kumon has a program named Coba Gratis, this program is used to introduce Kumo
n’s method for students. During this program, the instructors will monitor stu
dents’ skills and willingness to learn. They are interested in this program because they like doing something new.
The first and second instructors shared similar answer toward the students’
responses of independent learning implemented in Kumon English Course, they said that at the first time, students were confused with the learning method
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because it was different with the learning method that was used at school. The first instructor said that some of children complained about homework. However,
homework would be a burden thing or not would depend on children’s
environment. Forth instructor said that Kumon ’s methods had good influences for
the students, therefore they would be interested.
B. Students’ Perception on the Implementation of Independent Learning in
Kumon English Course
To answer the second question in the question research, the researcher distributed a questionnaire and interviewed students who were studying English in
Kumon English Course . This section
was divided into three main parts, namely the students’ background knowledge of English, the students’ learning-process in
Kumon English Course , and the
students’ result of using independent learning in Kumon English Course
.
1. The Students’ Background Knowledge of English
The researcher found out the students’ background of knowledge of English
by questionnaire and interview. The background knowledge of English was students’ interest in English. The students’ perception on teaching-learning
process at Kumon English Course was affected by their interests in English, because of the process of meaning of a stimuli was affected by our interest in the
stimuli. The data results of questionnaire as presented in appendix 3 showed that
most of the participants were interested in English subject. From the first question, 97 of the all participants were interested in English, and 3 were not interested
