The roles of weekly e-reflection in students’ class teaching performance in microteaching class - USD Repository

  THE ROLES OF W WEEKLY E-REFLECTION IN STUDENTS’ CL ’ CLASS TEACHING PER ERFORMANCE IN MICROTEACHING CLAS CLASS A Thesis

  Presented nted as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Ob o Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education

  By Andreas Adi Wijaya

  Student Number: 051214145

ENGLISH LANG ANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM RAM DEPARTMENT NT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATIO

  ION FACULTY OF F TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION

ION SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY SANAT YOGYAKARTA 2009

  A Thesis on

  THE ROLES OF WEEKLY E -REFLECTION IN STUDENTS’ CLASS TEACHING PERFORMANCE IN MICROTEACHING CLASS

  Andreas Adi Wijaya Student Number: 051214145

  Approved by Major Sponsor Agustinus Hardi Prasetyo, S.Pd., M.A. September 17, 2009

  A Thesis on

  

THE ROLES OF E-WEEKLY REFLECTION IN STUDENTS’ CLASS

TEACHING PERFORMANCE IN MICROTEACHING CLASS

  Andreas Adi Wijaya Student Number: 051214145

  Defended before the Board of Examiners on October 8, 2009 and Declared Acceptable

  

Board of Examiners

  Chairperson : Agustinus Hardi Prasetyo, S.Pd., M.A. ____________ Secretary : Made Frida Yulia, S.Pd., M.Pd. ____________ Member : Agustinus Hardi Prasetyo, S.Pd., M.A. ____________ Member : Dr. Retno Muljani, M.Pd. ____________ Member : V. Triprihatmini, S.Pd., M.Hum., M.A. ____________

  Yogyakarta, October 8, 2009 Faculty of Teachers Training and Education Sanata Dharma University Dean Drs. Tarsisius Sarkim, M.Ed., Ph.D.

  

”In order to find the treasure, you will have to follow the omens. God has

prepared a path for everyone to follow . You just have to read the omens

that He left for you.” (The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho: 30)

  

This thesis is dedicated to My Beloved Parents (especially My Mom in heaven),

My Sister, Uncle Daniel, and Rika Athena for their love, care, devotion, and

everlasting support to me.

  

STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY

  I honestly declare that this thesis, which I have written, does not contain the work or parts of the work of other people, except those cited in the quotations and the references, as a scientific paper should.

  Yogyakarta, October 8, 2009 The Writer

  Andreas Adi Wijaya 05 1214 145

  

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN

PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

  Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma: Nama : Andreas Adi Wijaya Nomor Mahasiswa : 05 1214 145

  Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya y ang berjudul:

  

THE ROLES OF WEEKLY E -REFLECTION IN STUDENTS’ CLASS

TEACHING PERFORMANCE IN MICROTEACHING CLASS

  Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikannya secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.

  Demikian surat pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya.

  Dibuat di Yogyakarta, Pada Tanggal: 28 Oktober 2009 Yang Menyatakan Andreas Adi Wijaya

  

ABSTRACT

  WIJAYA, ANDREAS ADI. 2009. The Roles of Weekly E-Reflection in Student’s

  

Class Teaching Performance in Microteaching Class. Yogyakarta: English

Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University.

  Weekly reflection has been used as a tool to assess students’ learning achievements and has been known as a good technique to promote students’ autonomy in learning, especially in microteaching class. It enables the students to consider and to think of the learning process taken place and also their teaching experiences in it, and also to be responsible for the actions or decisions they choose. These general objectives of implementing weekly reflection have been responded positively by students of microteaching class in the previous research conducted by Nuryadin (2007). These positive responses on weekly reflection indicated that it served positive roles i n microteaching class, especially to student’s class teaching performance. These positive roles are also expected to be obtained in the new applied format of weekly reflection, using blog as the media for writing, which provides larger dialogue opportunity .

  This study was intended to seek out: (1) the aspects of teaching performance on general teaching competence and three basic teaching skills (Set

  

Induction and Set Closure Skills, Delivery and Stimulus Variation Skills, and

Questioning and Reinforcement S kills)

  that students reflected and obtained as feedbacks in the weekly e -reflection, (2) the roles of weekly e -reflection in student’s class teaching performance. This study was a qualitative research. The participants of the study were three students of m icroteaching (class C), who originally belonged to the sixth semester of the English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University, academic year 2008/2009. The data were gathered by analyzing student’s documents, weekly e -reflections, and video recordings of class teaching performance, and interviews.

  The data analysis showed that, firstly, the reflected teaching aspects varied from participant from participant . The writer could not find the general tendency of them. In addition, none of the aspects was obtained as feedbacks in the column for giving comment in each participant’s blog. Secondly, the data analysis showed that the positive role of weekly e -reflection was as a place for three participants to evaluate and elaborate their teaching experiences in which each participant had their own way in doing reflection. In addition, the roles of weekly e -reflection as effective social media and as a reference of teaching aspects for three participants in preparing their class teaching performance did not appear in this study. These implied that weekly e-reflection might barely play positive role to their future class teaching performance.

  In summary, each student has their own emphasis of their teaching experiences on their reflection. Moreover, from three roles expected to appear, the role appeared was only a good place for three participants to elaborate and evaluate their teaching performances. Looking at the previous fact, some suggestions, such as exhibiting students’ b log addresses to the class and conditioning students to the new format by designing appropriate rules, were proposed.

  

ABSTRAK

  WIJAYA, ANDREAS ADI. 2009. The Roles of Weekly E-Reflection in Student’s

  

Class Teaching Performance in Microteaching Class . Yogyakarta: Program Studi

Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

  Refleksi mingguan telah digunakan sebagai alat untuk menilai pencapaian belajar siswa dan telah diketahui sebagai cara yang baik untuk meningkatkan kemandirian siswa dalam bel ajar, khususnya di mata kuliah Pengajaran M ikro. Refleksi mingguan memungkinkan s iswa untuk mengingat dan berpikir tentang proses belajar yang terjadi dan pengalaman mengajar mereka, dan juga untuk bertanggung jawab akan tindakan -tindakan maupun keputusan yang mereka pilih dalam belajar. Tujuan-tujuan umum dari mengimplementasikan refl eksi mingguan tersebut telah ditanggapi secara positif ole h siswa-siswa kelas Pengajaran Mikro dalam penelitian sebelumnya yang dilakukan oleh Nuryadin (2007).Tanggapan - tanggapan positif terhadap refleksi mingguan tersebut menunjukkan bahwa refleksi mingguan memberikan peran-peran positif di dalam kelas Pengajaran Mikro, khususnya pada penampilan siswa dalam praktek mengajar dalam kelas. Peran-peran positif tersebut yang juga diharapkan untuk dicapai dalam format baru penulisan refleksi mingguan dengan meng gunakan blog sebagai medianya yang memberikan kesempatan berinteraksi yang lebih luas.

  Penelitian ini bermaksud untuk menemukan: ( 1) apa saja aspek mengajar dalam kompetensi umum mengajar dan tiga keahlian dasar mengajar ( keahlian

  

membuka dan menutup pel ajaran, keahlian menyampaikan dan memberikan

stimulus belajar, keahlian bertanya dan memberikan penguatan belajar ) yang

  direfleksikan oleh siswa dan juga yang didapat sebagai balikan di refleksi elektronik mingguan, (2) peranan refleksi elektronik mingguan dalam performa mengajar siswa. Penelitian ini bersifat kualitatif. Subjek dari penelitian ini adalah tiga siswa mata kuliah pengajaran mikro (kelas C), yang merupakan mahasiswa tingkat semester enam program studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma, tahun akademik 2008/2009. Data penelitian diambil dengan menganalisa dokumen-dokumen siswa, refleksi elektronik mingguan dan dua rekaman video praktek mengajar kelas siswa, dan juga dengan wawancara.

  Hasil analisis data penelitian menunjuk an bahwa, pertama, aspek-aspek mengajar yang direfleksikan bervariasi dari setiap subyek studi. Penulis tidak dapat menemukan kecenderungan umum dari aspek -aspek yang direfleksikan oleh mereka. Sebagai tambahan, aspek -aspek tersebut tidak ada yang didapatk an sebagai balikan di kolom untuk memberikan komentar di blog milik setiap subyek studi. Kedua, hasil analisis data menunjukkan bahwa peran positif dari releksi elektronik mingguan adalah sebagai wadah bagi ketiga siswa untuk mengevaluasi dan menguraikan pengalaman mengajar mereka dimana masing -masing siswa mempunyai cara tersendiri dalam merefleksikannya. Selain itu, peran refleksi elektronik mingguan sebagai media sosial yang efektif dan rujukan akan aspek - aspek pengajaran dalam menyiapkan penampilan meng ajar kelas siswa tidak muncul dalam studi ini.

  Dapat disimpulkan bahwa ketiga siswa memiliki penekanan masing- masing akan pengalaman mengajar mereka di dalam refleksi mereka. Selain itu, dari tiga peranan yang diharapkan, hanya satu peran yang muncul yait u blog dianggap sebagai tempat yang baik bagi ketiga siswa untuk menguraikan dan mengevaluasi penampilan mengajar mereka. Melihat fakta tersebut, beberapa saran diajukan, seperti mengumumkan kepada kelas alamat -alamat blog siswa dan mengkondisikan siswa terhadap format baru tersebut dengan membuat aturan aturan yang sesuai.

  

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to God Almighty for His blessings, love, and guidance that have motivated me to accomplish this thesis.

  I would like also to express my greatest gratitude to Agustinus Hardi

  Prasetyo, S.Pd., M.A.,

  my thesis sponsor, for the opportunity given to conduct this study in one of his microteaching classes and also for his guidance, patience, and constant support so that finally I can finish this thesis. I really appreciate all of his efforts that were given, even when he had many duties and was in a weak condition due to suffering calculus, in order to make me careful in making this thesis.

  I would like to thank Maria Stella Gradiana, Maria Henny Sari, and

  Rufina Andang Paskaningsih

  for their willingness to be the participants of my study by permitting me to access their weekly e-reflections and videos of their class teaching performance, and setting aside their time to give me the opportunity to conduct interview with them personally. These really help me smooth the process of conducting this research. My sincere gratitude also goes to Laurentia

  

Sumarni, S.Pd. , my academic advisor, for her guidance for four years in this

  campus, and Caecellia Tutyandari, S.Pd., M.Pd. , my thesis writing lecturer, for her guidance in discussing this thesis topic in thesis writing class.

  I would like to give credits to all the lecturers and secretariat staff of PBI,

  

Mbak Dhaniek and Mbak Tari, and to all the librarians for their assistance during my study. My thanks also go to all my PBI fellows, whose names I really, really cannot mention one by one, for their supports while we were struggling together throughout our unforgettable years at English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University.

  I would also like to, as always, express my greatest gratitude to my family: My Father, My Mother (Alm), Mbak Nia, Om Yul for their everlasting support in everything I do. I would also like to specially thank the one holding the other part of my soul, Rika Athena, for keeping me sane with her everlasting love and support, particularly during my time of frustrations and depressions.

  I am also extremely grateful to have such wonderful friends like Ibam,

  Ronny, Jody, Verdi, Sam, Gran

  and Dion, who have shared their life with me in Pringgading 9 and Gendis, Esti, Wahyu (Bocong), Julex, Funny, Wiwin,

  Dea, Mega

  , and Indra who have shared their life in campus and also Bu Etik

  

and Realians (Ella, Mas Ahmed, Mbak Betha, Mbak Tutu, Mas Ari, Anggo) ,

who always give me support in finishing this thesis.

  Finally, my deepest thanks go to everybody who has directly and indirectly helped me write this thesis.

  Andreas Adi Wijaya

  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

  TITLE PAGE……… ...……………………………….…………………… i APPROVAL PAGES……………………………………………………… ii DEDICATION PAGE…………………………………………………….. iv STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY……………………………. v

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK

  ………………………………………………

KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

  vi ABSTRACT…………… ……………………………………………….…

  . vii

  ABSTRAK ……………..……………………………

  ..………………….…. ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………… xi TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………….. xiii

  LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………… …. xvi LIST OF FIGURES…… ………………………………………………...… xvii LIST OF APPENDICES…………… …………………………………… … xviii

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION A. Research Background………… ………………………………………..…

  1 B. Problem Formulation …..………………………………… ……………… 3

  C. Problem Limitation ………..…………………………………………...… 4

  D. The Objectives of the Study ………...…………………………………… 4

  E. The Benefits of the Study ………………………………………………… 5

  F. Definition of Terms ………….………… …………………………………

  6

  1. Weekly E-Reflection …...………….………………………… ...………6

  B. Research Participants …………………………………………… ………

  D. Data Gathering Techniques .…….....…………………………….……… 24

  4. Interview …………………………………………………………….... 23

  3. Observation Sheet ………………………………… ………….……… 23

  2. Video Recording ……………………………...……………………… 22

  21

  1. Weekly E-Reflection …..……….……………………………………

  21

  20 C. Research Instruments ……………… …………………………….………

  A. Research Method ………………………………………… ..………..…… 19

  2. Class Teaching Performance .………......…………...………………… 7

  17 CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

  15 B. Theoretical Framework ……………………………………… ……..……

  13 4. Microteaching ………………………………………………………….

  12 3. Weekly Reflection and Student’s Motivation……………………… .

  2. Weblogs as Media for Weekly Reflection .…………………….……

  11

  1. Reflection and Self-Assessment in Teacher Education Programs ….… 9 a. Weekly Reflection as a Student’s Diary……..………………….

  CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE A. Theoretical Description ……………………………… ..…….…...…….…9

  3. Microteaching …………………………………………………………. 7

  E. Data Analysis Techniques ………..…………..…..……………...……… 27

  F. Research Procedure …………………………………… ………….………

  29 CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH RESULTS AND FINDINGS

  A. Each Student’s Reflected Teaching Aspects of General Teaching Competence and Three Basic Teaching Skills…….…… ……………………………..

  30

  1. Fani …………...…..…………………………………………...……… 32

  2. Santi …………..………..…………………………………..…………. 34

  3. Sheila…………….………………………………………………..…… 37

  B. The Roles of Weekly E-Reflection for Each Student in Their Class Teaching Performances …………………………………… …………...............… 40

  1. Fani …………………………………………………………………...... 44

  2. Santi ……………………………. …………………………….……..… 45

  3. Sheila ………………………………………………………………..… 47

  CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS A. Conclusions …..…………………………….……………………..………50 B. Suggestions …………….………………………………………………… 52

  1. Suggestions for Microteaching Lecture rs …………...…...……….…… 52

  2. Suggestions for Future Research …………….……………..…………. 53

  

REFERENCES ……..………...………………… ..…………...…………… 54

APPENDICES ………...........……………………………..…...……… ..

  57

  

LIST OF TABLES

  Table Page 3.1 The Scoring System of the Observation Sheet…..…………………..

  27

  

LIST OF FIGURES

  Figure Page

  3.1 The Timeline for Gathering Data ………………………………………

  24

  3.2 The Process of Gathering Data from Participants’ Weekly E-Reflection25 3.3 The Process of Gathering Data from Observing Video Recording……..

  26

  3.4 The Process of Analyzing Data ………... ………………………………

  28

LIST OF APPENDICES

  Page Appendix 1: Samples of Students’ E -Weekly Reflections…………….. …

  58 Appendix 2: Samples of Observation Results of Students’ Class Teaching Performance…………………………………………………………… ...… 79 Appendix 3: Samples of Intervie w Transcripts……………...…………… 104

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Research Background Weekly reflection has been used as a tool to assess students’ learning

  achievement and encourage them more in the learning process. In teacher education programs, reflection, which is defined by Hatton and Smith (1995), as cited in McCotter and Ward (2004: 245) as thinking about practice in order to enhance it, is believed to help the students improve and develop themselves in teaching by relating what they have learned and by exploring further their previous experiences in the classroom.

  The use of reflection in teacher education programs is considered essential to build reflective teaching (an enquiry -oriented habit). This habit can be a kind of training of self-assessment for teacher candidates in which they evaluate what they have done in the practices (Srimavin and Darasawang, 2004: 2). Oscarson assessment (an evaluative habit) can build students’ responsibility for their own learning objectives. Students will learn that they have to be prepared to take the consequences of choosing and do ing their actions and be responsible for and in control of their own learning. Thus, weekly reflections are also a good method to promote students’ autonomy in learning.

  2 Nowadays, together with the big leap of technology innovation, learning in some ways also has been set up to follow this phenomenon. Reflection processes today can be done in a medium named a weblog or a blog. According to Dudeney and Hockly (2007: 86), a weblog is basically a web page to have a regular diary.

  One of its advantages as a medium of reflection is that it prov ides larger dialogue opportunities. It is not only the lecturers who can give comments on what the student reflects but also other students who visit his or her b log. Thus, beneficial feedbacks for his or her learning can come from both lecturer and the other students who experience the same learning situation in the classroom.

  The use of e-reflection (electronic reflection) in microteaching class of English Language and Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma Uni versity has been done since 2008. In this class, the students are expected to have a weblog to write what they have experienced, learnt, and practiced during microteaching class weekly, including pair teaching practices, group teaching practices, and class teaching practices. Therefore, students’ weblogs can be their accounts of learning and teaching practices during mi croteaching class and the places for them to obtain feedbacks.

  From what students reflect in their weblogs and also the feedbacks given by the visitors, the students are expected to be able to enhance and improve their teaching performance, especially in class teaching practice which is conducted twice in the microteaching class. Nuryadin (2007) has once shown this in his previous research. It showed 10 positive responses from the students toward s weekly reflections as a tool of assessment in the class. T hough the objective of

  3 Nuryadin’s research was students’ perception on weekly paper -based reflection, the writer believes the results of the research can be applied as references to this study since the difference is only on the media of writing the weekly reflection. Three from ten positive responses were that most students felt that doing weekly reflection helped them review each week’s lesson, know their weaknesses, and improve their teaching. This implies that students’ weekly reflections contain a number of teaching aspects which often appear in the students’ evaluation of their or their friend’s teaching practices. Therefore, the writer, in this study, wants to seek out the reflected teaching aspects which become students’ consideration to improve their future teaching performance .

  Furthermore, those three positive responses also imply that doing weekly reflection can help them improve their future teaching performance. Therefore, this issue will also be one of the aims of this study in which the writer wants to find out the roles of weekly e -reflection in students’ class teaching performance in microteaching class.

B. Problem Formulation

  Based on the discussion above, there are two problems formulated for this study. The problems are:

  1. What are the reflected teaching aspects of general teaching competence and three basic teaching skills ( setting induction and closure skill, delivery and

  stimulus variation skill, and questioning and giving reinforcement skill ) (Puji et

  al., 2008) that students reflect and obtain as feedbacks every week?

  4

  2. What are the roles of weekly e -reflection in students’ class teac hing performance?

  C. Problem Limitation

  There are three kinds of teaching practices that the stude nts have to do in microteaching class. They are pair teaching, group teaching, and class teaching.

  The two initial teaching practices often serve as a place to practice three basic teaching skills separately. These teaching practices were held to help the students enhance their performance later in the class teaching practices in which their performance will be evaluated. Therefore, class teaching practices will be a place for them to perform their integrated teaching skills after they practice them in the pair and group teaching. Then, the students reflect their class teaching performance on general teaching competence and three basic teaching skills. Thus, the writer also would like to see the roles of weekly e -reflection to students’ class teaching performance on those skills.

  D. The Objectives of the Study

  The objectives of this study are the followings:

  1. The reflected teaching aspects of general teaching competence and three basic teaching skills (set induction and closure skill, delivery and stimulu s variation

  skill, and questioning and giving reinforcement skill ) (Puji et al., 2008) that students reflect and obtain as feedbacks every week.

  2. The roles of weekly e-reflection in students’ class teach ing performance.

  5

E. The Benefits of the Study

  This study is expected to give positive contributions to ELESP students, microteaching lecturers, ot her researchers, and all readers in general. The expected benefits are described as follow:

  1. ELESP’s Students

  This study is expected to give further compr ehension about reflective teaching in which weekly reflections give positive contribution to teaching practices. Hopefully, by understanding the benefits of reflective teaching in the microteaching class, English Language and Education Study Program studen ts, who are prepared to be teachers, can develop and improve their teaching skills. Therefore, in the future they could be professional English teachers who could give better services to the school and society where they work.

  2. Microteaching Lecturers

  This study is hoped to give evaluation of the method and also contribution for the microteaching lecturers for their strategy to improve students’ achievement.

  3. Other Researchers

  For other researchers, this study expectantly is beneficial and very helpful for those who will conduct similar research and further discussion of microteaching.

  4. All Readers in General

  This study may broaden the readers’ knowledge of what microteaching is and the roles of weekly reflection in the learning process in the course.

  6

F. Definition of Terms

  For the sake of avoiding misunderstanding, the writer provides some definition of terms used in this study. They are stated as follows:

1. Weekly E-Reflection

  Boud (2001: 2) defines reflection as a process of looking at experiences and learning new things from them. Reflection often deals with considering a number of experiences and engaging with them to get the picture of what has happened. It often includes lo oking at unpleasant occurrences and concentrating on the thoughts and feelings which go together with them (Boud, 2001: 2)

  Schon (1983, 1987), as cited in Tang (2002: 2), views reflections must have the relation with an action. He proposes two kinds of reflection. Firstly, when a student is able to think while acting, he does reflection-in-action. Secondly, when a student is able to consider to what he has done, he does

  

reflection-on-action . Therefore, to reflect means to query what is seen, heard,

  read, and experienced in teaching practices. Moreover students, then, relate them to what have been learnt and what have been done before in order to help interpret and enrich them, so that future decisions and actions related to students’ teaching performance are enhanced.

  The writing process of the reflections can be done in several media. One of the media is a weblog or a blog. According to Dudeney and Hockly (2007: 86) a weblog is basically a web page to have a regular diary. Weblogs are generally managed by one person. He will regularly post many forms of content, such as comments, ideas, opinions, and experiences of daily life, links to interesting sites,

  7 and jokes, to a web page (Dudeney and Hockly, 2007: 87). Since reflections often contain one’s thinking of his experiences, weblogs, in microteaching class, can be suitable media for the students to write their personal reflection, let their thoughts or comments out, and sha re their personal teaching experiences during the microteaching class. Teachers can utilize weblogs as a means of assessing their learners by encouraging each of them to set up and keep using their own individual blogs.

  In this study, weekly e-reflections are students’ consideration of the teaching practice they have done and they have experienced in microteaching class (reflection-on-action) weekly and the reflections are written in a blog or a weblog.

  2. Class Teaching Performance

  In this study, class teaching performance is a student’s teaching performance in class teaching practice in microteaching class of English Language and Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University. The performance covers general teaching competence and three basic teach ing skills.

  They are the skills of setting induction and closure, delivering and varying stimulus, and questioning and reinforcing (Puji et al., 2008).

  3. Microteaching

  Puji et al. (2008), view microteaching as a subject in which teacher candidates firstly manage a teaching -learning process structurally. In addition,

  8 Richards (1998: 20) defines microteaching as “a training -based view of teaching” in which teaching can be broken down into individual skills that can be isolated and practiced individually. In the microteaching class in the English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University, the skills practiced are the general teaching competences and three basic teaching skills (setting induction and closure, delivering and varying stimulus, and questioning and reinforcing) (Puji, et al., 2008). However, microteaching class in ELESP also gives the opportunity for the students to practice the whole skills in a practice named class teaching practice.

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE This study aims to find out (1) the reflected teaching aspects general

  teaching competence and three basic teaching skills ( set induction and closure

  

skill, delivery and stimulus variation skill, and questioning and giving

reinforcement skill ) that students reflect and obtain as feedbacks every week, and

  (2) the roles of weekly e-reflection in students’ class teaching performance. Therefore, there are four sections discussed in this chapter in order to help the writer to answer two research questions previously stated. They are reflection and self assessment in teacher education programs, weblogs as med ia for weekly reflection, weekly reflection and student’s motivation, and microteaching.

A. Theoretical Description

1. Reflection and Self-Assessment in Teacher Education Programs

  The use of reflection in educational field has been known widely. For many researchers, reflection al so becomes one of the interesting issues to discuss.

  Therefore, they also have many descriptions of what reflection is. Boud (2001: 2) describes reflection as a process of looking at experiences and learning new things from them. Boud et al. (1985), as cited in Boud (2001: 2), also add that reflection does not only deal with intellectual activities (thinking and reasoning of

  10 experiences) but also affective activities in which individuals engage to explore their experiences in order to lead to new understandings.

  Looking at its definition, reflection has been considered imp ortant to be implemented in teacher education programs for the sake of teacher candidate development. During following the programs, teacher candidates is expected to do reflection. They are encouraged to think about teaching practices they have in order to enhance it. Thus, reflection is bound with practices (Hatton and Smith, 1995, Schon 1983 as cited in McCotter and Ward, 2004: 245). In addition, Schon (1983, 1987), as cited in Tang (2002: 2), views reflections must have the relation with an action. He proposes two kinds of reflection. Firstly, when a student is able to think while acting, he does reflection-in-action. Secondly, when a student is able to consider to what he has done, he does reflection-on-action. Therefore, to reflect means to query what is seen, heard, read, and experienced in teaching practices. Moreover students, then, relate them to what have been learnt and what have been done before in order to help interpret and enrich them, so that future decisions and actions related to students’ teaching performance are enhanced.

  The use of reflection in teacher education programs is considered essential to build reflective teaching (an enquiry -oriented habit). This habit can be a kind of training of self-assessment for teacher candidates in whic h they evaluate what they have done in the practices (Srimavin and Darasawang, 2004: 2). Oscarson (1989), as cited in Srimavin and Darasawang (2004: 1), also thinks that self - assessment (an evaluative habit) can build students’ responsibility for their own learning objectives. They are responsible for and in control of their own learning.

  11 Thus, self-assessment, which is also associated with reflection, helps the teacher candidates to reflect on their practice and understand that learning is a process (Oscarson, 1989, as cited in Srimavin and Darasawang, 2004: 1). In other words, together with doing reflection in their learning process, the students are expected to evaluate their own level of knowledge, performance, and get information about their learning in order to achieve the objectives of their learning.

a. Weekly Reflection as a Student’s Diary

  Concerning the importance of assuring microteaching students to self - assess their learning, their lecturers have applied a tool named weekly reflection in microteaching class. It is based on a perception that s elf-assessment and reflection can be a synergy process, especially for teacher candidates who do teaching practice. By applying weekly reflection, each student is hoped to assess and enhance their performance by making individual account which contains their honest, open, and detailed report on their teaching experiences or on what they see in the class. Thus, weekly reflection serves as “a diary study” for microteaching students (Bailey, 1990, as cited in Richards, 1990: 120).

  Richards (1990: 121) proposes that keeping a diary should be followed by an intention to review and think about what have been written since a student diary is a source of past experiences, which have been recalled and examined, for planning and doing future action (Bartlett, 1990, as cited in Richards, 1998: 21).

  By doing that action, students, as teacher candidates, benefit by being able to find something that may have not been obvious before when they wrote their

  12 reflection. Thus, students will not just record their teaching experiences or events that took place during the class but also make sense of what they have written.

  The process above, thus, can trigger critical reflection. This kind of reflection is defined as an activity or process of recalling, thinking, and assessing an experience for more extensive aims (Richards, 1998: 21). Richards (1998: 21) divides the process in reflecting critically into three parts, namely the event (actual teaching), the recollection of the eve nt (producing an account of what happened), and the review and response to the event (reviewing and evaluating the event in order to be at a deeper level). This reflection process is hoped to be taken place on students when weekly reflections are applied i n microteaching class.

2. Weblogs as Media for Weekly Reflection

  According to Dudeney and Hockly (2007: 86), a weblog is basically a web page to have a regular diary. It is generally managed by one person. He will regularly post many forms of content s, such as comments, ideas, opinions, and experiences, to a web page. (Dudeney and Hockly, 2007: 87).

  Nowadays, together with the big leap of technology innovation, learning in some ways also has been set up to follow this phenomenon. One of the uses of technology in educational fields is utilizing weblog as students’ journals or diaries. Blogs which serve as students’ diaries are called student blogs (Dudeney and Hockly, 2007: 87). In microteaching classes, lecturers can utilize weblog as a means of assessing their students by encouraging each of them to post their blogs once or twice a week. Blogs also can provide an environment for students to

  13 communicate with lecturers and with their peers. In addition, teachers also can encourage their students and th emselves to post comments on blog entries.

  Comments given, in the setting of microteaching class, are hoped to provide constructive and beneficial feedbacks to the blog’s owner. Thus, here, blogs establish a cyber-community around teaching topics (social s oftware), and serve as “reflective blogs”. (Dudeney and Hockly, 2007: 87).

3. Weekly Reflection and Student’s Motivation

  Previous research carried out by Nuryadin (2007) entitled Weekly

  

Reflection in Microteaching Class of The English Language Education Study

Program of Sanata Dharma University: The Implementation and Students’

Perception

  showed positive responses from the students towards weekly reflection as a tool of assessment in the class. The result of the study pointed out that: a. Most students preferred to do weekly reflection in written form.