LEARNING ENGLISH WITH VISUAL MEDIA AT VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS AS VIEWED BY TECHERS A THESIS Presented as a Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements to Obtain the Magister of Humaniora (M.Hum) Degree
LEARNING ENGLISH WITH VISUAL MEDIA AT
VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS AS VIEWED BY TECHERS
A THESIS
Presented as a Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements to Obtain the
Magister of Humaniora (M.Hum) Degree
in English Language Studiesby
Nusyirwan
056332025
THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA
LEARNING ENGLISH WITH VISUAL MEDIA AT
VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS AS VIEWED BY TEACHERS
A THESIS
Presented as a Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements to Obtain the
Magister of Humaniora (M.Hum) Degree
in English Language Studiesby
Nusyirwan 056332025
THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY
This is to certify that all ideas, phrases, sentences, unless otherwise stated, are the ideas, phrases, and sentences of the thesis writer. The writer understands the full consequences including degree cancellation if she took somebody else's ideas, phrases, or sentences without proper references.
Yogyakarta, January 24, 2008 Nusyirwan
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank God the Almighty for blessing me with love, luck and chance so that I can finally finish writing this thesis which is a product of my two year study at the Graduate Program in English Language Studies, Sanata Dharma University. During the time, I have learnt a good deal of precious knowledge from my excellent lecturers who have shared their knowledge and current perspectives in English language education with me. What they have given so far has given me a kind of insight and inspiration especially in relation with writing this thesis.
I really feel in debt of gratitude to Dr. B.B. Dwijatmoko, M.A. who has been very patient and helpful to me during the whole process of writing this thesis.
Without his patience, support, guidance and ideas I have received in every consultation session, this thesis would never be as it is.
I am also in debt to Dr. J. Bismoko who has shared his current glocal perspectives on English Language Education. His lectures have inspired and guided me to the recent trend in English Language Education, more specifically to the scientific stream in Language Education Research.
I would like to express my special thankfulness to Dr. F.X. Mukarto, M.S., Ph.D for his advices and for his share of knowledge and to Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd., M.A. for his suggestion to improve this thesis. I am also full of debt to Dr. Novita Dewi, M.S. who has given me a lot of assignments which have proved to be useful.
I will not forget to say is my gratefulness to all my beloved classmates who have faithfully entertained me and shared their knowledge and jokes during the program. I know I also owe some debt to Mbak Lelly the administrative staff of the English Language Studies. Also I thank all the participants for their contribution, availability, care and involvement.
I do think that I should express my debt to LPMP of Yogyakarta Special Province for involving me and giving me some financial support to take this Graduate Program in English Language Studies of Sanata Dharma University Yogyakarta.
Many thanks are also addressed to Mr. Sugeng, the head of the Department of Human Resource Development and Training in HRD of Yogyakarta Municipality for his consistent support to provide some financial support for this program.
Last but not least, I would like to express my great gratitude to my family; my wife Muntikanah, and children, Rizki, Sofi, Ina, Jibril and Alin, who have given to me a lot of freedom, so that I can spend enough time to read books, do assignments and finish this thesis writing. May Allah blesses all of us.
Yogyakarta, January 24, 2008 Nusyirwan
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE i
APPROVAL PAGE ii
ACCEPTANCE iii
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
LIST OF TABLES ix
LIST OF APPENDICES x
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xi
ABSTRACT xii
ABSTRAK xiii
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Problem
1 B. Problem Identification
7 C. Problem Limitation
7 D. Problem Formulation
8 E. Research Goals and Objectives
8 F. Research Benefit
9 CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW
A. English Language Learning
11
1. Learning
11
2. Views of Language and Language Education
12
3. Language Function
16
4. Communicative Competence
18
5. Authentic Communication
21
6. Managing English Learning
21
a. Sitting arrangement
22
b. Grouping
24
c. ESA (Engage, Study, Activate)
26
d. Error treatment
27
e. Marking the stages of the lesson
28
f. Teacher talk time
29 B. Visual Media
31 C. Vocational Schools
33 Learning English at Vocational Schools
34 D. Meaning
36
1. Features of Qualitative Approach
75
4. Constructing the tentative profile of learning English with visual media
70
5. Conducting a period of reflection
72 B. Findings
1. Learning English with visual media for Christy
73
a. English Language Learning
1. Christy’s belief on the Purpose
74
2. Christy’s view on Classroom Management
b. Visual Media to Christy
3. Thematizing the participants and the meaning
93
c. Christy’s View on Meaning
96
2. Learning English with visual media for Nana 103
a. English Language Learning
1. Nana’s Belief on the Purpose 104
2. Nana’s View on Classroom Management 105
b. Visual Media to Nana 125
c. Nana’s view on Meaning 128
3. The participants’ views seen from the existing theory 137
69
67
37
46 D. Research Participants and Setting
2. Meaning in an Interpretive Approach
39
3. Learner Need and Learning Need
39
4. Motivation
41 E. Theoretical Framework
43 CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A. Research Method
42 B. Identifying Initial Idea
46 C. The Nature Of The Data
47 E. Data Collection Techniques
2. Processing observation and interview data
49 E. Research Blueprint
50 F. Constructing Interview Questions
53 G. Conducting In-depth Interview
57 H. Techniques for Data Analysis
60 I. Validation
60 CHAPTER IV. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
A. Data Analysis
64
1. Processing classroom observation data
65
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION
B. Implications 146
C. Suggestions 147
REFERENCES 150
APPENDICES Appendix 1: Vignettes of the Observations 153 Appendix2: Interview Questions
162 Appendix3: Interview Transcripts
172 Appendix4: Categories of Observation and Interview Data 235 Appendix5: Data Gathering Schedule
259 Appendix5: Teacher Participants’ Profile 260
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1 Research Schedule51 Table 3.2 Blueprint for classroom observation
53 Table 3.3 Blueprint for the interview to teachers and students
54 Table 3.4 First interview questions (sample) of Nana
56 Table 3.5 First interview questions to Nana’s students
59 Table 4.1 First observation data (sample) of Nana
65 Table 4.2 Samples of categories of the observation and interview data of Nana 68
Table 4.3 A part of the tentative profile of what Christy and her students thinkAbout what they do in the classroom
71
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix 1 Vignettes of the Observation 153 Appendix 2 Interview Questions 162 Appendix 3 Interview Transcripts 172 Appendix 4 Categories of Observation and Interview Data 235 Appendix 5 Data Gathering Schedule 259 Appendix 6 Teacher Participants’ Profile 260
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
ESA : Engage, Study, Activate H : High L : Low M : Middle S : Student S’s : Student’s Ss : Students Ss’ : Students’ STT : Student Talking Time T : Teacher T’s : Teacher’s TTT : Teacher Talking Time WBG : Waktu Bicara Guru (Teacher Talking Time) WBS : Waktu Bicara Siswa (Student Talking Time)
ABSTRACT
Nusyirwan. 2008. Learning English with Visual Media at Vocational Schools as
Viewed byTeachers. Yogyakarta: The Graduate Program in English Language Studies, Sanata Dharma University.
The current trend in learning English nowadays is the so called progressive learning. The purpose of this learning is to enable individuals to progress towards self-fulfillment. Human beings learn for the future of which they take part in developing it. According to this learning trend, an educated person is someone who has learned how to adapt with the present life and able to change himself to be the best in his own right. In relation to the fact that English is the world’s lingua franca, people learn English in order to be able to use it for communicative purpose. To be a successful communicator a speaker needs to have a communicative competence. This competence can be acquired through communicative activities in the classroom where teachers can build a more interesting context of situation. This context can be built with visual media. With these visual media, teachers can increase the students’ motivation, bring in realities, explaining the lessons and so on.
The purpose of this study is to describe the meaning of learning English with visual media to the participants. It answers the research question ‘What does learning English with visual media mean to the participants?’ After this meaning is described, it is hoped that the participants understand themselves better and the readers of this study report will also understand what happens at the setting. This understanding will lead them to the emancipation which makes them able to actualize them-selves better in order to become self-excellent. The study was conducted at two different vocational schools where the teacher participants and their students do the classroom activities. Those schools were chosen for some reasons. Firstly, they were accessible to collect data. Secondly, the participants there could provide a variety of interconnected and relevant data to watch and interview. Thirdly, they are relatively small, and manageable. The research adopts the progressive qualitative study because it talks about the participants themselves, not the attribute attached to them. Through the teachers’ narratives and three of their students’ it is expected that they will be able to understand themselves better.
The result of the analysis shows that the participants thought that visual media was important to be involved in the classroom activities. Both Christy and Nana thought that visual media helped the students to understand the lesson better, and made the lessons clear. In addition, they thought that visual media reduced boredom. The study also found that all of the participants believed that visual media helped them reach the purpose of learning because the students could remember the lesson longer. Another important thing is that the participants thought that Visual media reduced TTT and increased STT. Finally, with visual media they thought that the classroom atmosphere and the students’ motivation in learning English could be improved.
ABSTRAK
Nusyirwan. 2008. Learning English with Visual Media at Vocational Schools as
Viewed by Teachers. Yogyakarta: Program Pascasarjana, Kajian Bahasa Inggris,
Universitas Sanata Dharma.Dalam dunia pendidikan, pendidikan progresif yang menjadi tren ini bertujuan mempersiapkan pemelajar bahasa Inggris agar dapat mandiri dalam memenuhi kebutuhan hidupnya. Seorang pemelajar dianggap telah berhasil apabila dia telah memahami cara belajar, cara beradaptasi dan melakukan perebahan diri sesuai dengan tuntutan hidupnya. Banyak orang mengetahui bahwa bahasa Inggris merupakan linguafranka dunia, karenanya mereka mempelajarinya agar dapat menggunakannya dalam berkomunikasi. Agar dapat melakukan hal tersebut, mereka perlu menguasai kompetensi komunikatif yang didapat dari kegiatan pembelajaran yang menyediakan kesempatan kepada mereka untuk berinteraksi dalam konteks situasi yang mendekati kenyataan. Dalam kaitannya dengan hal ini, penggunaan media visual dapat membantu guru dalam menyediakan konteks situasi, memberikan stimulus serta motivasi. Media visualdapat membawa realitas yang tidak dapat disediakan media lain, semisal gambar kecil yang dapat dipakai untuk menciptakan konteks situasi untuk melakukan pertukaran makna. Di samping hal tersebut, media visual dapat membantu guru menyediakan konteks situasi yang mendekati keadaan nyata.
Tujuan penelitian ini ialah untuk mendeskripsikan makna pembelajaran bahasa Inggris dalam pandangan peserta penelitian. Deskripsi tersebut menjawab pertanyaan penelitian ‘ Apa makna pembelajaran bahasa Inggris dengan media visual bagi para peserta?’ Selanjutnya diharapkan para peserta dapat memahami diri mereka dengan lebih baik, dan pembaca tesis ini juga dapat memahami apa yang terjadi pada
setting penelitian. Penelitian ini dilakukan di dua SMK yang berbeda. Sekolah
tersebut dipilihdengan beberapa alasan. Pertama, akses ke sekolah tersebut relative mudah sehingga dapat diperoleh data yang diperlukan. Kedua, subjek penelitian apat berbagai data yang relevan baik melalui observasi maupun interview. Ketiga, lingkup nya tidak terlalu besar sehingga memungkinkan untuk dijangkau. Metode pengkajiannya mengadopsi penelitian kwalitatif progresif, karena yang dikaji adalah pesertanya bukan atribut yang melekat pada mereka. Melalui narasi para guru beserta tiga orang siswa mereka masing-masing, diharapkan mereka dapat memahami diri mereka secara lebih baik.
Hasil analisis penelitian ini memperlihatkan bahwa secara umum subjek penelitian mengangap bahwa media visual perlu dijadikan bagian dari kegiatan kelas. Baik Christy maupun Nana menilai bahwa media visual membantu siswa memahami pelajaran dengan lebih baik, dan mengurangi rasa bosan. Penelitian ini juga menunjukkan bahwa subjek penelitian percaya bahwa penggunaan media visual membantu tercapainya tujuan pembelajaran. Penelitian ini juga menunjukkan bahwa para subjek penelitian percaya bahwa media visual dapat mengurangi WBG sementara dalam waktu yang bersamaan meningkatkan WBS.
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This chapter is the background information of this thesis problem. Its purpose
is to establish a framework for the research so that the readers can understand the importance of the issue that motivates the study. It will consist of six major parts, they are (1) background, (2) Problem identification, (3) problem limitation, (4) problem formulation, (5) research objectives, and (6) research benefit.
A. Background of the Problem
The current trend in education is the progressive learning (process model) of which objective is to enable the individual to progress towards self-fulfillment.
(Richards and Renandya, 2002: 71). This view, Richards and Renandya (2002) continued, believes that an educated person is the one who has learned how to learn, the one who learn how to adapt and change. Teachers, in this respect, are not all- knowing agents who can solve any problems rather than common human-beings who need to adapt with new situations and to be ready to change for the better.
In the past, during the methods era, many teachers found the attractive methods and enthusiastically used them to solve the language teaching problems (Richards and Renandya, 2002: 5). On this era, which is called the “post-methods era”, attention has shifted to teaching and learning processes and contributions of the individual teacher to language teaching pedagogy. In language teaching, the truth does not come from the method makers anymore, but it comes from the teachers’ individual lived-experience. In other words, the meaning of world reality does not belong to the expert in language teaching anymore, but now it belongs to the individual teacher. There fore, teachers need to apply reflective teaching- reflecting critically on their own teaching experiences- in order to improve their understanding of teaching and the quality of their own teaching.
People learn English, which is a world’s lingua-franca, to be able to use it in a day to day real life communication. In order to be able to use a language such as English, the learner must have communicative competence that is the ability to use semiotic resources for discourse creation in a society or culture. Learning English language ability means learning English language communicative competence which consists of discourse competence, linguistic competence, actional competence, sociolinguistic competence and strategic competence.
The activities done in communicative language teaching classrooms should facilitate and ensure learning to communicate in English, not to learn about English.
It is the students who are learning, so they need more time to use English for interaction in the classroom than the teacher. This is in line with the empirical studies conducted by Spada (1990 as cited by Nunan 1999: 50). He claims that “Communicative” classrooms with instruction plus opportunities for interaction were superior to “traditional” instruction and also to immersion program. In short, real world tasks must be considered as a very important part of any language lesson.
To be able to learn those competences, students need to be given a chance to help provide context of situation. With the situation there will be a need for communication. This need for communication which is called “context of situation” can be gained by the use of media (Celce-Murcia, 2001: 461).
The term media is derived from a Latin word medius, which can mean in the
middle , between, or a messenger. In educational context, media is known as teaching
aid- something a teacher uses to make a lesson clearer or more interesting. In other words, media is something used in the middle between the teaching materials and the students in order to make a lesson more clear, more interesting and more meaningful for the language learning process.
Ibrahim (1996: 432) in Arsyad (1997:16) states that teaching media bring happiness and joy to the students, they renew the students’ motivation, and help put the knowledge into the students’ mind. Joy and happiness are important parts of a lesson. When students enjoy lessons and feel happy attending and listening to the lesson, they would not object to some more lessons because they would expect that the joy and happiness will also come with the next lesson. In this case, media renew motivation. In other words, students’ motivation for learning becomes refreshed and renewed.
As has been stated earlier, one of the benefits of using media is to help provide context in classroom communication practice. Media brings in the reality in a manageable way as small as pictures which can be used to create situations or contexts as closest as true situations. This will enable students to learn to negotiate
1999: 25). In this case, the use of media is to facilitate them to do pedagogical tasks as well as to learn how to do the real world or target tasks.
People learn something in four ways: somatic, auditory, visual and intellectual (Meier, 2002: 92-100). A somatic way of learning is learning something through kinesthetic activities. An auditory way of learning is learning by saying something and listening to people giving explanation. Students who learn visual way try to understand a concept by doing observation and picturing how something works in the mind. An intellectual way of learning is learning by doing an analysis and problem solving. To accommodate the four different ways of learning teachers need to consider the use of media in the teaching and learning activities.
There are three major categories of teaching media; visual, audio and audio visual media. Visual media are the ones used to be seen such as flashcards, still pictures, and realia; audio media are the ones to be listened, for example, cassettes tapes, audio CDs, and MP3; audio visual media are the ones the students can see and listen at the same time, such as video programs, TV programs, Computer Assisted Language Learning materials, and movies.
Audio media are the kinds of media which educators produce for the students to listen (Anderson, 1987: 127). He further states that this kind of media are very economical because once they are produced, teachers and students can use them over and over again. Anderson (1987: 127) then clarifies that in audio media the teaching material and its sequence of presentation becomes permanent and can be used for important because they can help teachers and students with pronunciation and intonation practice. In addition, audio media can make the lesson more effective by providing nice atmosphere through their musical background, sound effect and the narrator’s voice.
Audio visual media are media that combine visual and audio media. They consist of audio for he students to listen and visuals for them to see, for example, computer assisted instruction, video CD programs, TV programs, slide plus, and so on. These media are better than the two kinds above because they have both sounds and pictures or illustration. The problem is they are relatively expensive.
Human sight has a great capability in helping people to understand the surrounding environment (Anderson, 1987: 49). This is the reason why educators need to consider visual media as one kind of their teaching aids. Skillful teachers can attract students’ attention by saying something funny or interesting, but an explanation on gadgets and machines without something for the students to see will fail to attract their attention. Because people learn in different ways, teachers can use visual media to accommodate students with visual tendency of learning. Even with students who have a low tendency over visual learning, there are many cases where they need to know what something is like, and this illustration can only be provided by visual media.
The current trends in visual media are technical media such as video based and computer based visual media (also known as multimedia). Sokolik in Celce- technologies in educational arena. He continues in the following page that the financial support and bureaucratic structures do not come together with the technological development. Any educational institution needs much fund to provide both the hardware and the software. They also need electricity anytime because they cannot be operated when the power is not available. Besides those, not every teacher can operate those devices well, so they find these kinds of visual media are not user- friendly.
Because of the weaknesses of the technical classroom media, teachers do not abandon the more traditional visual media such as blackboards/ whiteboards, flash cards, mounted pictures/ photos, objects/ realia and so on. These non technical media, according to Celce-Murcia (2001: 462), are used by teachers because they have some advantages over the technical visual media. In the setting where electricity is unreliable, technical resources are scarce, or funding is limited technical media become inaccessible. Visual media are chosen because of their low cost, availability, accessibility and their user-friendliness.
In the setting where this study takes place educational budget is relatively low which is a reason why the use of the non technical visual media is still a very good choice for the teachers. Considering the importance, I wish to conduct a research on them at vocational schools.
The schools were chosen for some reasons. First, accesses to those schools were relatively easy for me that I have opportunities to collect data. Second, the relevant data to watch, video-record, and interview. Third, the setting was relatively small and manageable so that the study was possible.
B. Problem Identification
If the participants’ lived experience of learning English with visual media is going to be an object of description, it will raise a complexity which needs to be discussed. There are problems in the use of media in the English learning process at school. What actually happens in the classroom becomes the basis of enquiry. For example, do the lessons allow the students to achieve what has been decided as the aim of English language teaching, that is to help them able to use the language in a day to day human activities which includes negotiation of meaning? In managing the classroom, what needs to be under teachers’ attention? Does it have anything to do with motivation? What can visual media do for the betterment of the English language learning? Do the participants think that visual media can provide context of situation?
C. Problem Limitation
Because there are a lot of limitations I have for this research: time, financial support and experience, I will focus the research on visual media used by the
participants during the observation. I choose the focus for some reasons. First, the
research participants have an access to visual media and they are familiar with rich of data and the source of thick description. In addition the scope is small enough and manageable for me.
D. Problem Formulation
The research problem can be formulated as this question:
What does learning English with visual media mean to the teacher participants
at vocational schools? E. Research ObjectivesAs the context of study is EFL classes where visual media are used, the study attempts to attain the following goals:
1. To show how visual media are used at the Vocational High School classrooms.
2. To describe and interpret the meaning of learning English with visual media according to the participants.
By ‘showing’ on the first item of goals, it is meant that the study tries to make a description of what is going on in the classroom. The second goal attempts to describe the meaning of learning with visual media to the teachers and students.
By exploring what learning English with visual media mean to the participants there are some objectives to follow in this study. The fist objective is to document how the participants use visual media. This is meant to know what kinds of visual media they use in the observed lessons and how they are used in the English those visual media. This is meant to find out information on why they have chosen the kinds of visual media to be used at any particular segment/s of the lesson and what those media mean to them as seen from the teachers’ point of view. The third is to document how the students perceive the classes with visual media. This is meant to know the meaning of visual media in the English learning process, as seen from students’ point of view. The last one is to encourage teachers to reflect on their teaching. This is meant to help teachers rethink their decisions concerning media use, whether or not a technique is important for students learning attitude and understanding of the lessons.
F. Research Benefit
When the above research objectives are gained, it is hoped that this research will be able to contribute theoretically and practically of how visual media can be used in the learning process of English. Theoretically, this research has something to do with the visual media, and the learning of English. How visual media are used in the classroom during the English lessons and what the participants think about it are the concern of this research. The result will be a description and an understanding of what learning English with visual media mean to the participants.
Practically, this research will be useful for the researcher, the students and the teachers of Vocational School. For the researcher, the understanding can help him to be empowered, autonomous and self-fulfilling. Empowered here means that the how to use visual media for teaching English. Autonomous means that the researcher can decide what is good or bad at his/ her classroom situation in his/ her own right.
Self-fulfilling means when s/he needs to use visual media s/he can do his/ her own best to meet his/ her needs.
For the participants and readers of this thesis, the understanding on the meaning of visual media will also help them to be empowered, autonomous and self fulfilling. It is hoped that the learning process with visual media can increase the students’ interest and help them learn better so that they will not become marginalized, but empowered, autonomous and emancipated.
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW The theoretical review here will discuss relevant theories concerning the
research. The purpose is to give a kind of lens for the enquiry, as the construct for the categorizing the data that will be needed in the study. This theoretical review will discuss the theories on (1) English Language Learning, (2) Visual Media, (3) Vocational Schools, (4) Meaning, (5) Theoretical Framework.
A. English Language Learning
1. Learning
Cognitive psychology views that learning is storing information (Bower and Hilgard, 1975: 421). They further state that human brain is like computer that has many distinct levels of organization (feature analyzer, pattern recognizers, sensory and conceptual memories), and at one level we can treat it like symbol- manipulating system. Like a computer, it puts any new information in the short- term-memory; then it undergoes a recognition or classification procedure which attempts to match the input to the known pattern or rules in the memory or tries to describe the incoming patterns in terms of elementary concepts. The cognitive systems, which can program itself to adapt and act successfully, then send important information into the long-term memory. In the short term memory, the information that come may be forgotten, but in the long term memory, it stays for a relatively long time.
In this theory, learning consists of simply recording the relevant fact into the conceptual network (Bower and Hilgard, 1975: 453). Learning a language is not different from learning other things, so learning of a new statement like “the man is a pick-pocket” consists only of establishing an association labeled “is a” from the existing concept of man to the concept of a pick-pocket. If the speaker does not have any concept of man, then he would set up a new node in his memory to represent the new concept to which further concept would be attached.
2. Views of Language and Language Education In language teaching, it is important to understand the nature of language.
Without the idea of what language is, a teacher will find it difficult to decide what and how to teach. Bell (1981: 18-23) states that at least, there are two views of language. Linguists view language as form; sounds, letters, their combinations into larger units such as words, sentences and so forth. The set of forms have meaning, elements and sequences to be used for communication between individuals who shared the same rules. So language is considered as sets of sounds or letters combination which form larger meaningful units such as words, sentences and so on.
Human scientists, such as anthropologists, sociologist, and socio- language is a ‘given’ code with elements which may or may not combine, and the combinations have meaning and there is arbitrariness in the system. Thus, the human scientist sees language as an open system, interacting with, changed by, and changing its environment.
From the above two definitions of language it can be concluded that it is not easy to have a construct or definition of language which include the key features.
The features may vary, depending on the knowledge of the construct maker about the language. Brown mentions that language includes the following features: a. Language is systematic.
b. Language is a set of arbitrary symbols.
c. Those symbols are primarily vocal, but may also be visual.
d. The symbols have conventionalized meanings to which they refer.
e. Language is used for communication.
f. Language operates in a speech community or culture.
g. Language is essentially human, although possibly not limited to human.
h. Language is acquired by all people in much the same way; language and language learning both have universal characteristics.
(Brown, 2000: 5) The consequences of those features are that language teachers have to realize that teaching a language means teaching those features to students.
Brumfit (2001: 3) sees language as a never ending repertoire extension and repertoire reduction; there the learning process cannot be separated from the constantly changing human knowledge and linguistic practice. It is the most complex and the most creative human behavior.
Language is a universal characteristic of the human race. However, people do not share one medium of communication. Arabs and Chinese speak different languages. When people talk about language, for example Arabic language and Mandarin language, they will see a very significant difference. Language is a medium of communication specific to a society (Poole, 1999:6).
Ferdinand De Saussure views language as a system of sign. It involves the association of sound and meaning. This association is psychological and has pattern. Sign is used to indicate the association of sound and meaning. Sound is a physical phenomenon but language is psychological. Because of this, psychological equivalents are used instead of both sound and meaning (sound image and concept). The sign image and concept are termed signifieant and
signifi ẻ (Davis, 1973: 19). Sign is arbitrary in nature and the signifieant is linear.
The arbitrariness here means that there is no relationship between signifieant and signifi ẻ (Samsuri, 188: 16).
Wilkins (1975: 1) says that language is a means of communication. The word communication comes from a Latin word for “commonness” which suggests togetherness, joining, cooperation and mutuality. Therefore, communication is definable as mutual exchange between two or more individuals which enhance cooperation and establishes commonality (Oxford, 1990: 6-7).
Brown (2000: 7) states that teaching is often defined as showing or helping someone to learn how to do something, providing with knowledge, causing to know or understand. This definition is not complete. He further states that the components of learning can be extracted into: b. Learning is retention of information and skill
c. Retention implies storage systems, memory, cognitive organization, events inside or outside organism.
d. Learning involves active, conscious focus on and acting upon events outside or inside the organism.
e. Learning is relatively permanent but subject to forgetting.
f. Learning involves some form of practice, perhaps reinforced practice.
g. Learning is a change of behavior.
(Brown, 2000: 7) Teaching cannot be defined apart from learning because teaching is guiding, facilitating learning, enabling the learner to learn, setting the condition for learning. The understanding of how the learner learns, determines one’s philosophy of education.
People often contrast learning and acquisition of language. Learning is said to be conscious knowledge of language rules. On the other hand, acquisition is thought of as something that occurs unconsciously and spontaneously which lead to conversational fluency, and comes from naturalistic language use. Oxford (1990: 4) states that the distinction is too rigid. She claims that learning a language and acquiring a language are not exclusive, but are rather parts of a potentially integrated range of experience. Besides, our knowledge about what is conscious and subconscious is not clear, for example, some elements of language use are at first conscious and then become automatic or unconscious through practice.
In communicative language teaching, this implies that learning a language takes place during the communication among members of the society. Learning a when they have discourse competence. In other words, learning to communicate is learning a language discourse. This is in line with what people and students usually think of language learning; to be able to use the language for communication. Unfortunately, many students do not feel that English language learning is important. For them, language learning is something they have to do because it is a part of the school curriculum. Because of this, there need to be a way of teaching that will make them interested. This is the importance of media in English language education.
3. Language Function
The Description of language function here is drawn from Halliday (1973, 1976) in Bachman (1995: 92-94). This view of language function here is taken into account because Halliday’s explanation is considered to be among the best exposition of language functions (Brown, 2000: 250). There are four macro functions of language: ideational, manipulative, heuristic and imaginative.
The ideational function of language is the one by which people express meaning in term of their experience of the real world. This includes the use of language to express proposition or to exchange information about knowledge or feelings, for example, to explain lessons or to present articles.
The manipulative functions are those of which purpose is to affect the world around the speaker. These functions include instrumental function, regulatory the environment, to make or to cause certain events to happen. For example, when someone uses a language to give command or warning, he is using a language on this function. Regulatory function is to control events; all regulations existing in society are regulatory features of language. Interact ional function is the one used to form, maintain, or change social/ interpersonal relationships. Successful interact ional communication requires knowledge on courtesy, jokes, jargons, slangs, greetings, ritual enquiries about health and so on.
The heuristic function of language involves the use of language to get knowledge, to learn about the environment. It occurs commonly in such acts as teaching, learning, problem solving etc.
The imaginative function is to create or extend environment for humorous or esthetic purposes. For example, when telling jokes, fairy tales, or write short stories, people are using language in this function. With these imaginative dimensions of language, people are free to go to the imaginary places with the language.
From the discussion on language competence and language function it can be concluded that the aim of language learning is to reach communicative competence in order that the learners can use the new language according to language functions. The competence and functions are the proof of language ability someone has. Visual media in this respect is a tool to make language learning more manageable for a teacher to bring communicative competence to
4. Communicative Competence
Communicative competence is the notion proposed by Dell Hymes in 1974 as an alternative to Chomsky’s linguistic competence (Nunan, 1999: 226).
Communicative competence includes linguistic competence, and a range of other sociolinguistic and conversational skills that enable the speaker to know how to say what to whom, and when. Richards et al. mentions the characteristics of communicative competence as follows:
Communicative competence includes: (a) knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary of the language; (b) knowledge of rules of speaking; (c) knowing how to use and respond to different types of speech acts such as requests, apologies, thanks, and invitations; (d) knowing how to use language appropriately.
(Richards, Platt and Weber, 1985:49) Savignon (in Nunan, 1999) builds a model of communicative competence containing important characteristics. In her opinion, communicative competence is the ability to function in a truly communicative setting- that is, in dynamic exchange in which linguistic competence must adjust itself to the total information input, both linguistic and paralinguistic, of one or more interlocutors. Communicative competence for her is dynamic and it involves negotiation of meaning.
Oxford (1990:7) states that communicative competence is the ability to communicate. This concerns both spoken and written language, and all four language skills. She further offers a model of communicative competence as follows:
1. Grammatical competence or accuracy is the degree to which the language user has mastered the linguistic code, including vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, spelling and word formation.
2. Sociolinguistic competence is the extent to which utterances can be used or understood appropriately in various social contexts. It includes knowledge of speech acts such as persuading, apologizing, and describing.
3. Discourse competence is the ability to combine ideas to achieve cohesion in form and coherence in thought, above the level of the single sentence.
4. Strategic competence is the ability to use strategies like gestures, or “talking around” an unknown word in order to overcome limitations in language knowledge.
(Oxford, 1990:7) The curriculum 2004 adopts and develops Celce Murcia et al.’s model for it is considered to be easy to understand by teachers because it has a detail of coverage for a language teacher to know what to cover in language teaching, and how to define what competency to reach (depdiknas 2004: 50). The model includes 1) discourse competence, 2) linguistic competence, 3) actional competence, 4) sociolinguistic competence, and 5) strategic competence. This model can be shown in a diagram below. Diagram 2.1. Communicative competence (Celce-Murcia et al. 1995: 10 in depdiknas 2004: 51) The model shows that the essence of communicative competence is discourse competence. It is the heart of competence that makes it possible for someone to use semiotic resources for discourse creation in a particular society and culture. Linguistic competence refers to aspects of language at the lexico-grammatical level which deal with language ranks of clause/sentence, phrase, word and morpheme, and the level of phonology (dealing with phoneme)/ graphology (dealing with grapheme). Sociocultural competence is the understanding of sociocultural values in the respective society and culture. Actional competence is the one that enable a person to employ speech functions, forms and expressions appropriately in a given context of situation. The strategic competence is a
competence to solve difficulties in communication in general, and the ability to compensate deficiencies in the process of communication.In conclusion of the above discussion, the purpose of language teaching is to help the learners get communicative competence which is also known as discourse competence. This competence consists of four sub-competences: linguistic competence, sociocultural competence, actional competence and strategic competence. Visual media, in relation to this, help both teachers and students to provide better learning atmosphere so that the learners can get communicative competence in a better way.
5. Authentic Communication
Bachman (1995: 301) states that a criterion for authenticity in communication is the reference to the real life performance. This means that an authentic communication is the one where people do something with the language. Nunan (1999: 27 and 2003: 33) says that authentic texts (communicative use of language), either written or spoken is created in a genuine communication (in a natural way), not specially created for teaching and learning.
From the discussion, then it can be stated that authenticity has something to do with real and natural use of English for communication. This means that in an authentic communication the participants employ communicative competence. Sandra Savignon (in Nunan 1999: 226) defines communicative competence as the ability to function in a truly communicative setting- that is in a dynamic exchange, which involves the negotiation of meaning.
Learning English must be aimed at real and natural way of using the language. Visual media, in this case, should be able to be used to provide context with which students and teachers employ communicative competence.
6. Managing English Learning
A good classroom situation is the one which is managed in such a way that it is conducive for learning. Without a good management, not everybody can learn equally as well. Sitting arrangement, for example, is important because teachers who do not care for the students’ sitting position may have worse result.