Teaching English to Kindergarten Students Using a Total Physical Response (TPR) Method: From Theory to Practice

Teaching English to Kindergarten Students

Using a Total Physical Response (TPR) Method:

From Theory to Practice
Written by:

Luh Ketut Sri Widhiasih



Abstract

The purpose of this study is to observe the application of Total Physical Response in teaching English to Kindergarten students. This study is descriptive study, by observing the application of TPR in teaching English in Kartika VII-14 Denpasar Kindergarten. The subject was 25 students in K-1 class. They are studying English as foreign language. The sessions for the study occurred during four of the regular weekly classes. The result of the study showed that the students enjoyed the application of TPR. After the application of the theory, the writer found some advantages and disadvantages of TPR. Finally, it could be concluded that TPR method could improve the students’ vocabulary mastery.

Key words: teaching English, kindergarten, total physical response (TPR)



Introduction

Up to now, teaching English, particularly at kindergarten in Indonesia has totally been encouraged. This attempt is geared to familiarize pupils with English at an early stage. Almost all kindergarten located in urban areas in particular conduct English teaching.

For this reason, English teachers who are concerned with teaching children should be aware of the nature of their psychology in addition to mastering all crucial components in teaching them.

So far, English teachers have been experiencing difficulty in teaching children since they are less sufficient especially in implementing appropriate teaching materials and methods. Thus, the selection of the two elements should be on the basis of learners’ age.

To successfully conduct English teaching at kindergarten, teaching materials and methods are well suited. For this reason, one method considered one of the efforts to English teaching for children, should be introduced. This method is known as Total Physical Response (TPR). The purpose of this study is to observe the application of Total Physical Response in teaching English to Kindergarten students.







Review of Theory

In learning language, children begin learning simple expressions. Broadly speaking, children learn abstract rules of language from which they listen, and even they also learn expressions that they have never heard before. It is extremely important that teachers not only get children to learn language, but they also encourage them to learn it positively. Teaching of English for Children has been of particular concerns. For this reason, in teaching children English, there are some characteristics of whom presented by Scott and Lisbeth (1992) in Widodo (2005).

TPR is one of the English teaching approaches and methods developed by Dr. James J Asher. It has been applied for almost thirty years. This method attempts to center attention to encouraging learners to listen and respond to the spoken target language commands of their teachers. In other words, TPR is a language teaching method built around the coordination of speech and action; it attempts to teach language through physical (motor) activity. Asher's Total Physical Response is a "natural method" since Asher views first and second language learning as parallel processes. He argues that second language teaching and learning should reflect the naturalistic processes of first language learning. For this reason, there are such three central processes:

(a) before children develop the ability to speak, they develop listening competence. At the early phases of first language acquisition, they are able to comprehend complex utterances, which they hardly can spontaneously produce or imitate. Asher takes into accounts that a learner may be making a mental blueprint of the language that will make it possible to produce spoken language later during this period of listening;

(b) children's ability in listening comprehension is acquired because children need to respond physically to spoken language in the form of parental commands; and

(c) when a foundation in listening comprehension has been established, speech evolves naturally and effortlessly out of it.

Asher believes that it is crucial to base foreign language learning upon how children learn their native language. In other words, TPR is designed based upon the way that children learn their mother tongue. In this respect, TPR considers that one learns best when he is actively involved and grasp what he hears (Haynes, 2004).

Imperative drills are the prominent classroom activity in TPR. They are typically geared to highlight physical actions and activity on the part of the learners. In this sense, learners play main roles: a listener and a performer. They listen attentively and respond physically to commands by the teacher. Learners need to respond both individually and collectively; they have minor influence on the content of learning inasmuch as content is determined by the teacher. At the beginning of learning, learners are also expected to recognize and respond to novel combinations of previously taught items. Such novel utterances are recombination of constituents the teacher has used directly in training. For example, the teacher directs learners with 'Walk to the table!' and 'Sit on the chair!' These are familiar to learners since they have practiced responding to them. Furthermore, learners are also to produce novel combinations of their own. Learners monitor and evaluate their own progress. They are encouraged to speak when they feel ready to speak (e.g. when a sufficient basis in the language has been internalized).

In TPR, a teacher plays an active and direct role: the director of a stage play in which the learners are the actors". It is the teacher who decides what to teach, who models and presents the new materials, and who selects supporting materials for classroom use. Therefore, the teacher ought to be well prepared and well organized so that the lesson flows smoothly and predictably.

In giving feedback to learners, the teacher is required to follow the example of parents giving feedback to their children. Similarly, the teacher needs to tolerate fewer mistakes in speech; he has to avoid too much correction in the early stages and is not required to interrupt to correct errors in that this may inhibit learners to take an action or speak out.

To sum up, in TPR, the teachers are responsible for giving commands and monitoring actions taken by the learners. On the contrary, the learners are imitators of teacher s verbal and non-verbal models. In teaching-learning process, the first phase is modeling. In this case, a teacher issues commands to learners, and performs the actions with them. In the second phase, learners demonstrate that they grasp the commands by performing them alone; the teacher monitors the learners’ actions. Above all, the interaction between a teacher and learners is signified by the teacher speaking and the learners responding nonverbally. Later on, the learners become more verbal and the teacher responds nonverbally (Rodgers, 2003).



Methodology

This study is descriptive study, by observing the application of TPR in teaching English in Kartika VII-14 Denpasar Kindergarten. The subject was 25 students in K-1 class. They are studying English as foreign language. The sessions for the study occurred during four of the regular weekly classes.



Findings and Discussion

The following results were found in observing the application of TPR in teaching English in Kartika VII-14 Denpasar Kindergarten. At that time, the writer taught the names of body parts. The writer began the lesson by saying, “Point to your head,” as she demonstrated. She asked the students to join her touching their heads, nods, and smiles as they follow her lead. The writer then asked students to touch other parts of body. the writer repeated it for some few days until the students responds the command without copying their teacher’s motion. The writer combined those games to drawing activity. The writer began to draw a circle. She accompanies the drawing of the circle with the statement, “I am drawing a head.” Then, the writer asked volunteer to draw each of the rest of the body parts. The volunteer should draw based on the command giving by the writer. On the third meeting, the writer conducted a pair game. This game is aimed at using the names of the body parts in the students’ oral communications in the classroom; it involved students giving directions in English. The writer began the game by demonstrating. She paired the students and told them to touch heads and she demonstrated with her partner. Then, the writer asked the volunteer to give directions and others follow him. This game was played for a few minutes in a meeting for about a month to give additional volunteers a chance to be the leader. The students enjoyed the activities.

According to Muhren (2003) in Widodo (2005), the basic technique of TPR is simple. Learners act out commands given by the teacher or their fellow pupils (at a later stage). These commands, or series of commands, are simple at the beginning (stand up, sit down) but after some time they may become more complex (I want the boys to stand in a circle please). A TPR sequence can be a chain of actions relating to a compound task (take pen and paper, sit down, begin at the top of your paper, write down: Dear ...) or even contain a story-line. Most importantly, a teacher helps learners to be totally involved in TPR activities so that they can act out what they have heard. There is no pressure on them to speak the foreign language. Before any learner can commence to speak out a foreign language spontaneously as well as creatively, she must feel the inner readiness to do so. When learners are ready, they feel that the words of the language-sound and meaning integrated and combined into larger utterances -spring from within themselves. This inner readiness will develop gradually but inevitably with prolonged exposure to the sound of understood language and an active involvement in its meaning.

After the application, the writer could find some advantages and disadvantages of TPR. Its advantages include:

1) It is a lot of fun. Learners enjoy it, and this method can be a real stirrer in the class. It lifts the pace and the mood;

2) It is very memorable. It does assist students to recognize phrases or words;

3) It is good for kinesthetic learners who are required to be active in the class;

4) It can be used both in large or small classes. In this case, it is no matter to have how many students you have as long as you are prepared to take the lead, the learners will follow;

5) It works well with mixed-ability classes. The physical actions get across the meaning effectively so that all the learners are able to comprehend and apply the target language;

6) It is no need to have a lot of preparation or materials using the TPR. In this regard, as long as you are competent of what you want to practice (a rehearsal beforehand can help), it will not take a lot of time to get ready;

7) It is very effective with teenagers and young learners; and

8) It involves both left and right-brained learning;

In addition to such advantages, TPR has disadvantages. Among them are:

1) Students who are not used to such things might find it embarrassing. This can be the case initially that if the teacher is prepared to perform the actions, the students feel happier about copying. Students are in a group and do not have to perform for the whole class. This pleasure is reserved for the teacher;

2) It is only really suitable for beginner levels. Whilst, it is clear that it is far more useful at lower levels because the target language lends itself to such activities even though it can successfully be applied at Intermediate and Advanced levels. In this respect, it is essential to adapt the language, accordingly. For example, when teaching 'ways of walking' (stumble, stagger, and tiptoe) to an advanced class and cooking verbs to intermediate students (whisk, stir, and grate), TPR can be employed;

3) It is not flexibly used to teach everything, and if used a lot, it would become repetitive. This method is a fun way of changing the dynamics and pace of a lesson used in conjunction with other methods and techniques.

4) It will be a trouble teaching abstract vocabulary or expressions using TPR. As a remedy, the teacher can write the word on cards with a picture if applicable.

5) It can be ineffective if the teacher uses it for a long period of time without switching it with other activities that help teach the target language.

6) Since TPR is made up of mainly of commands, it tends to neglect narrative, descriptions, and conversation forms of language.



Conclusion

When TPR is applied in the classroom, a teacher is required to provide a model. The model has three vital features: 1) grasping the spoken language must come prior to speaking, 2) comprehension is developed through body movement, and 3) the period of listening period helps a learner to be ready to speak. Such a model does not force the learner to speak. It is also recommended that TPR be applied for only short periods of time because the learner will get tired of doing it.

The TPR method also emphasizes two crucial elements: the use of movement as a memory enhancer and imperatives as the only method of instruction the teacher uses commands to direct the learners. Most importantly, when applying such a method, the use of mother tongue is deemphasized. If there are abstract words, a teacher is required to write down them on the white/black boards without expressing those words. The meaning of words is comprehended generally through an action.

To sum up, TPR should best be combined with others since it needs much energy so that learners do not feel tired of learning language; and although the use of TPR in the classroom has often been effective, it does have its flaws.



References

Haynes, J. 2004. TPR is a Valuable Tool. http://www.everythingesl.net/lessons/tpr.php

Rodgers, T. 2003. Methodology in the New Millennium. English Teaching Forum 41/4: 2-13.

Widodo, Handoyo Puji.2005. Teaching Children Using a Total Physical Response (TPR) Method: Rethinking. Politeknik Negeri Jember.

THE USE OF WRITERS WORKSHOP METHOD IN IMPROVING WRITING ACHIEVEMENT OF EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMP HARAPAN DENPASAR

THE USE OF WRITERS WORKSHOP METHOD
IN IMPROVING WRITING ACHIEVEMENT OF EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMP HARAPAN DENPASAR

Written By:

Luh Ketut Sri Widhiasih



ABSTRACT

This study aimed at finding out whether Writers Workshop could improve the writing achievement of the eighth grade students of SMP Harapan Denpasar. The subjects of the study were 37 students of Class VIII 1 of SMP Harapan Denpasar which consisting of 13 males and 24 females. This research was conducted in the form of Classroom Action Research which included four steps, namely planning, action, observation, and reflection. This study was conducted in two cycles and each cycle consisted of two teaching sessions. The instruments used in this study were tests, researcher’s diary, and questionnaire.

The result of the study showed that the students’ mean score in writing achievement improved from 50.43 out 100 in the pre-test to 66.76 out of 100 in post-test I, and then in post-test II, it increased to 71.51 out of 100; while it was also noticed that the students obtaining score below 70 decreased from 100% students in the pre-test to 70.27% in post-test I and only 27.03% in post-test II. This result was also optimized by the students’ positive response toward the application of Writers Workshop method. Finally, it could be concluded that Writers Workshop method could improve the students’ writing achievement.

Key terms: Writing, Writers Workshop method, Writing Achievement


INTRODUCTION

Suparman (2007) in Model Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP) SMP dan MTs states one of the aims of the development of KTSP is to learn how to build and find the ability of the students by active, creative, effective and fun in the learning process. It means all of the learning process should enable the students to learn at their level and enjoy the learning process. The learning activity should also be fun and effective, so that it will allow students to be active and creative in learning something. The activity should not be monotonous otherwise the students will not be bored easily. To make them active and creative, the teacher should conduct class in student-centered learning, meaning that the students are the center of the learning, not the teacher anymore. The students should have a big opportunity to explore themselves.

Further, according to Suparman (2007), the purpose of teaching English in junior high school is to construct the language skill and communicative skill orally and in writing to face the development of knowledge and technology in welcoming the globalization era. Teaching English is not a matter of teaching the students how to speak English but also how to write in English and equip them to live in this globalization era.

Based on Silabus Mata Pelajaran Bahasa Inggris Kelas VIII SMP Harapan Denpasar Tahun Ajaran 2010/2011 by MGMP Bahasa Inggris SMP Harapan Denpasar (2010), the standard competency of writing skill in second semester is to express the meaning in the short and simple functional and simple essay in the forms of narrative and recount to interact with social environment. It can be said that the students are expected to write their ideas in the form of narrative text and recount text in order to have a good relationship with their society. From that statement, it is clearly stated that writing is very important in the students’ social life, so writing skill should be maintained well in language learning, especially English.

On the other hand, pre-test that was conducted to the eighth grade students of SMP Harapan Denpasar in the academic year 2010/2011 showed that the writing score of the students was low. The mean score of pre-test was 50.43 out of 100 compared with success indicator that was 70.

Moreover, based on the observation that was conducted to the eighth grade students of SMP Harapan Denpasar in the academic year 2010/2011, there were several problems found in students’ writing. It was found that many students were unable to collect ideas to build their paragraph. They tended to write a short paragraph that has condensed ideas. Moreover, there were also a lot of incorrect grammatical sentences, misspelling, and improper punctuation in the students’ writing. Their paragraphs were also weak in vocabulary use, poorly organized and insufficiently developed.

Besides, it was also found that some students’ works lacked of originality. They tended to write a paragraph which was the same as what their teacher retold before using a series of pictures. It became uncertain as to whether the students understood the story or just memorized the pictures. The students also tended to copy their friend’s writing although they themselves did not understand the content of their friend’s writing, which is because they did not have the freedom to write what they want to write.

Further, the teaching writing at that pre-test also indicated that the teacher could not give any chance yet to the students to explore themselves, because of the perception of the teacher who was afraid that the students could not do anything without the guidance of the teacher. The classes were conducted in teacher-centered learning, indicating that the teacher is the center of the learning and the students just listen to and do what their teacher asks. The teacher takes a big part in the development of his students; it prevents the students from expressing themselves freely. That condition was not in line with what Suparman (2007) states that the class should maintain in student centered learning to give big chance to the students to explore themselves.

It could be concluded that there were two problems that were found during the pre-test: (1) writing achievement of the students that was low, and (2) the teaching learning process that was taught in teacher-centered method. Thus, the problems should be solved by using method that was student-centered learning. One of the methods that was conducted in student-centered learning is Writers Workshop method. It can be said that Writers Workshop can be used as a method to improve writing achievement. Therefore, the researcher wanted to do classroom based action research by using Writers Workshop method to solve the problems.

The problem concerned in the present study is stated as “Can Writers Workshop method improve the writing achievement of the eighth grade students of SMP Harapan Denpasar in the academic year 2010/2011?”

In relation to the problem stated above, the objective of this study was to find out whether Writers Workshop could improve the writing achievement of the eighth grade students of SMP Harapan Denpasar in the academic year 2010/2011.

The results of this study are expected to be beneficial for the students, English teachers and other researchers. The present study was limited to improve the students’ achievement of the eight grade students of SMP Harapan Denpasar, class VIII 1 in the academic year 2010/2011 in writing recount paragraph through the implementation of Writers Workshop method.

The hypothesis on this study was formulated as ”Writers Workshop method can improve writing achievement of the eighth year students of SMP Harapan Denpasar especially in class VIII 1 in the academic year 2010/2011.”



REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Based on Wagaman (2008), Writers Workshop is a method that allows the students to learn writing individually in their own level. They should not take the same steps like what their friend do. They use their own imagination in their own level of ability to write something. It is a student-centered method of teaching writing skills. The students actively do their writing; the teacher just takes a role as facilitator. The opportunity to practice their writing is widely opened. It teaches the students how to write in many points of view, from the viewpoint of the writer and reader, for the purpose of revision. The students learn how to accept criticisms from the reader about their writing, and then try to do such kind of revision to make their writing better. The revision can be in the grammar point, mechanic, structure of the writing, etc. Furthermore, there are some steps that we can find in Writers Workshop, such as group instruction time, individual writing time, sharing from the author’s chair and individual conferences with each child during the week.

It is important to use Writer Workshop to teach writing because it has more strengths than weaknesses. In addition, Frey (2000) states that the strengths of this method are huge, for example it can be used for students of different level of ability and in different curriculum's and grade levels. This is good because the students in a class have different ability in learning something, hence this method will accommodate each student’s ability. It also supported by Ritchie (2000) that had applied this method in her class. Her students liked writing because the Writers Workshop did not push the students to learn in the same pace. In line with the high interest of the students, the writing achievement of the students was also increasing. Also, Frey (2000) states that Writers Workshop provides the students with many forms of activities that will not cause them to become bored. This method benefits all of the students and helps the teacher to modify lesson plans to the particular level of each student. The students become successful writers because the teacher is able to differentiate instruction to meet their individual needs. Sheakoski (2008) explained that Writers Workshop can be flexible based on the level where we will conduct the method.

RESEARCH METHODS

.The subjects of the research were the eighth grade students of SMP Harapan Denpasar, especially Class VIII 1, in the academic year 2010/2011. The average age of the students was 14 years old. They learned English for only 5 hours in a week at the school. The main consideration in choosing the subjects was due to their low ability in writing, in this case writing recount paragraph in terms of content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics as finding in the pre-test.

The present study employed a classroom based action research because the aim of the study was to find out whether Writers Workshop can improve the writing achievement of the eighth grade students of SMP Harapan Denpasar in the academic year 2010/2011. There were two cycles in this study; each cycle consisted of planning, action, observation and reflection. In order to collect the intended data, the researcher used several instruments, including pre-test, post-test, researcher’s diary and questionnaire.

There were two kinds of data that the researcher gained, namely: quantitative data and qualitative data. Both of them will be analyzed descriptively. The quantitative data were obtained from the result of the pre – test and post-test. After obtaining the result of the pre – test and post – test, the researcher then compared those results in order to learn whether or not the students’ achievement improved after the application of Writers Workshop method. Qualitative data were obtained from the questionnaires and researcher’s diary. These data were collected during the cycles. They were aimed at identifying the students’ problems in writing as well as their needs and expectations. It was also intended to get responses from the subjects to the application of Writers Workshop method in their writing. The data used to compare between qualitative data and quantitative data.

The quality of the students’ paragraphs was determined based on the following criteria proposed by (Hughes (1989) in Widiartini, 2009). The analytical scoring rubric developed in this research covered five dimensions of writing, namely: content, organization, structure, vocabulary, and mechanic. Each dimension consisted of several descriptors or criteria and had different weight in scoring. The level of the students’ mastery was determined based on the criteria proposed by Masidjo (1995) in Widiartini (2009) using criterion-reference type one.



FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION



The result of the preliminary observation showed that (1) the students’ writing ability was still low, and (2) the teaching learning activities did not run well. The proof could be seen from the mean scores of the pre – test that was 50.43 out of 100. If compared with the success indicator that was 70, the pre-test mean score was still much lower. Furthermore, it was indicated that they had problems in terms of content, organization, grammar, vocabulary and mechanics. These findings were also supported by the class situation and the students’ behavior during the teaching learning activities. Unfortunately, as we can see from the researcher’s diary, most of the students were not attentive. It means the response of the students toward the teaching learning was very low. Based on the results of the pre-test, the researcher’s diary, and questionnaire, the researcher conducted Writers Workshop to the students. The researcher’s intention was to find out whether Writers Workshop could improve the writing achievement of the eighth grade students of SMP Harapan Denpasar. In addition, the treatment was conducted in cycle I.

Moreover, there were some improvements in the students’ achievement in writing a recount paragraph after using Writers Workshop as the method. The data analysis showed that the mean score of the students was improved 50.43 (50%) in the pre-test to 66.76 (67%) in post-test I. Based on the criteria of the students’ level of mastery, the students’ mean score in cycle I can be categorized as fair to poor. The improvement of the students’ writing can also be shown from the number of students getting score 70, the percentage of students that got score below 70 decreased from 100% in the pre-test and 70.27% in the post-test I. The result of post-test I was also supported by the results of the researcher’s diary. In this cycle, there was some improvement in each step of the students’ behavior during the implementation of this method. Overall, the percentage of the students’ active involvement increased from one step to the next step. Thirdly, the improvement was also reflected by the result of the questionnaire. There were four major points that became evident from the treatment, such as: (1) the method helped the students in writing a recount paragraph (said by 91.89% students), (2) they felt free to express their idea in writing (said by 75.67% students), (3) they were helpful to find their weakness in writing (said by 83.79% students), and (4) they liked writing (said by 59.46% students). Although the result of the teaching learning process showed improvement on cycle I, the success indicator could not be achieved yet because the mean score of post-test I (66.76 out of 100) was still lower then the success indicator. Therefore, the students’ score still needed to be improved because the success indicator used by the researcher in this study was 70, besides that, the researcher also found out that the students still had problem in the quality of their writing. They found difficulty in conveying their ideas into a good sentence and making a good sentence with appropriate structure and vocabulary. Moreover, by looking the results of the classroom observation, the researcher still found some students who were less attentive while their friends paid attention to the discussion conducted. Based on the weaknesses above, the study was continued to the next cycle (cycle II) to get better improvement. Modifying the way in implementing the method had been carried out.

Then, there was some improvement in the students’ achievement in cycle II. The data analysis showed that the mean scores of the students was improved from 66.76 out of 100 (67%) in the post-test I to 71.51 out of 100 (72%) in post-test II. Based on table of the criteria of students’ level of mastery, the students’ mean score in cycle II can be categorized as good to average. The percentage of the students who got score below 70 decreased from 70.27% in post-test I to 27.03% in post-test II. The improvement of the students’ mean score was the result of the implementation of Writers Workshop method which allowed the students to write freely at their own pace. The result of post-test II was also supported by the result of the researchers’ diary. In Cycle II, each steps described that most of the students responded actively in joining the teaching learning process. It was shown by the improvement of the percentage of the students’ involvement in the class. Furthermore, the students’ responses toward the questionnaire were also the reflection of the improvement on their competency in writing a recount paragraph. The class condition during the treatment showed that the students’ participation were positive. Looking at the students’ mean score in writing a recount paragraph on Cycle II, it had been satisfying since the success indicator score, 70 had been achieved by the students. There were 72.97% of the students who could achieve the success indicator score. Since the number of percentage was reached by the students, the researcher decided to stop the study.

From the analysis of the data, the statement of problem of this study could be clearly answered. According to the findings in the pre-cycle, cycle I, and cycle II, the main objective of this study that was to find out whether Writers Workshop could improve the writing achievement of the eighth grade students of SMP Harapan Denpasar could be achieved. After conducting the study as well as implementing the action in two cycles, the purpose of this study was accomplished.

Generally, the students’ ability in writing recount paragraph could be improved through the implementation of Writers Workshop as a method in teaching writing. It could be seen from the teaching learning process as well as their mean score. The successfulness of the teaching and learning process was indicated from the result of the students’ post-test. In the pre-test, the students’ mean score was 50.43 out of 100 (50% from the maximum total score), which was categorized as being very poor. Then, after the application of Writers Workshop method in the first cycle the students’ mean score improved to 66.76 out of 100 (67% from the maximum total score) which was considered to fair to poor level mastery. In the second cycle the students’ mean score was 71.51 out of 100 (72% from the maximum total score) which was categorized as good to average. By looking at the achievement made by the students, it could be said that the implementation of Writers Workshop method could improve the students’ achievement in writing. Moreover, the students’ improvement can also be seen from the students’ mean score in each element of writing. The students’ writing skill in terms of the five elements of writing such as, content, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanic had improved both in cycle I and cycle II. This improvement can be said satisfying especially on the improvement at the second cycle.

Additionally, based on the percentage of the criteria of the students’ level of mastery, it showed a satisfying improvement from the result of the Pre – test to the result of the post-test II. The percentage of the students’ successfulness in learning was 50% at the pre-test, then, it increased into 67% at post-test I, and it increased again satisfyingly into 72% at the post-test II. For that reason, it can be said that the teaching learning process with the implementation of Writers Workshop method had run successfully.

On the other hand, based on the researcher’s diary, the teaching and learning process was successfully improved during the action. It can be seen from the students’ response and active involvement in following step of activities. The students’ response was very positive, although there were some students that looked very nervous at the first meeting, but then most of the students enjoyed the writing exercises very well.

Meanwhile, the result of the classroom observation, which was conducted through questionnaire, revealed that the students’ response toward the implementation of Writers Workshop method was very positive. The students’ response was getting closer to the class expectation from the first cycle to the second cycle. It means that they performed better behavior, stated better opinions, and expressed better feeling. All students really liked, were happy, and enjoyed toward the implementation of Writers Workshop method. It was reflected by the students’ readiness, interest, and seriousness in every steps of the action. They said that the method used was helped them to improve their ability in writing a recount paragraph.

Based on the discussion above, the theory of Writers Workshop method as a students’ guide to the writing process proposed by Wagaman (2008) had been strongly supported by the results of the present study. The study revealed that the students were given more opportunity to express their idea freely in writing because they wrote on their own ability. It also gave the students good environment of writing, which built their habit in writing. Moreover, the teaching and learning process had ran in a very good way, in which the eighth grade students of class VIII 1 of SMP Harapan Denpasar, as the beginning writers were encouraged to express their idea on the paper freely based on their ability. Furthermore, the result of the study had also encouraged the students to find their weaknesses in writing and solve it together with their teacher.



CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION



As stated previously, the major purpose of this study was to find out whether Writers Workshop could improve the writing achievement of the eight grade students of SMP Harapan Denpasar. From the result of the data analysis, the implementation of Writers Workshop method in the writing class was able to improve the students’ ability in writing recount paragraph of the eighth grade students of SMP Harapan Denpasar. The students’ problem in writing recount paragraph could be overcome with a very satisfying result. It can be clearly seen from the improvement of students’ mean score from 50.42 out of 100 in the pre-test to 66.76 out of 100 in the post-test I and 71.51 out of 100 in the post-test II. Furthermore, based on the percentage of the their level of mastery, the students’ classical success in learning also showed a very good improvement. The percentage of the students’ successfulness in learning was 50% in the pre-test, then, it increased into 67% at the post-test I. Then, from the post-test I, it increased satisfyingly into 72% at the post-test II. Based on the mean score from post-test I and post-test II, it can be said that Writers Workshop could improve the students’ ability in writing recount paragraph.

Based on the classroom observation through researchers’ diary and questionnaire, the teaching and learning process was successfully improved during the action. It could be seen from the students’ response and active involvement during the teaching and learning process.



1.

2.

3.

4.

5.



Based on the result of the study, there are some points that can be suggested, i.e.:

§ As stated previously, Writers Workshop could improve the students’ writing ability. Therefore, it is suggested that English teachers implement this method in their writing class.



§ Because Writers Workshop needs more time in its application, it is suggested that English teachers manage their time well, so that they can give the same portion to other skills, such as reading, speaking and listening.



REFERENCES

Frey, C. P. 2000. "A writers’ workshop for highly verbal students" Gifted Child Today Magazine 23.

MGMP Bahasa Inggris SMP Harapan Denpasar. 2010. Silabus Mata Pelajaran Bahasa Inggris Kelas VIII of SMP Harapan Denpasar Tahun Ajaran 2010/2011. SMP Harapan Denpasar Unpublished Silabus.

Ritchie, Gail V. 2000. "I LOVE WRITING!" Restructuring Writer’s Workshop. Kings Park ES: www.googlesearch.com

Sheakoski, Megan. 2008. “Writer's Workshop for Elementary Kids, Teach Prewriting, Writing, Revising, Editing, and Publishing Skills”. www.suite101.com.

Suparman. 2007.“Model Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP) SMP dan MTs”. Solo: PT. Tiga serangkai Pustaka Mandiri

Wagaman, Jennifer. 2008. “Teaching Writing with Writers Workshop, An Individualized Method to Teaching Students How to Write”. www.suite101.com. Widiartini, Nyoman Nina. 2009. Improving The Tenth-Year Students’ Competence in Writing Descriptive Paragraphs Trough Collaborative Writing Strategy Conducted at SMA Laboratorium Undiksha Singaraja In Academic Year 2008/2009. Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha. Unpublished Thesis.

A CRITICAL REVIEW OF SUTARSA, I WAYAN. 2011. THE EFFECT OF SHARED READING STRATEGY USING LITERARY TEXTS UPON THE READING COMPREHENSION OF THE THIRD YEAR STUDENTS OF SMP NEGERI 3 SIDEMEN IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2010/2011. UNPUBLISHED THESIS OF UNDIKSHA

A CRITICAL REVIEW OF SUTARSA, I WAYAN. 2011. THE EFFECT OF SHARED READING STRATEGY USING LITERARY TEXTS UPON THE READING COMPREHENSION OF THE THIRD YEAR STUDENTS OF SMP NEGERI 3 SIDEMEN IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2010/2011. UNPUBLISHED THESIS OF UNDIKSHA
Written by: Luh Ketut Sri Widhiasih


Reading is an important skill in learning a foreign language. Students can improve their English and expand their vocabulary outside of class by reading on their own. Unfortunately, many teachers believe that teaching reading to children causes them to lose their motivation to learn English (Pang, 2003). This view is usually based on the teacher’s experience in using reading materials in the course book that are often long, boring, and/or filled with difficult words. However, reading can be fun and motivating if the language and the tasks are at the right level for the students and if the teacher uses the appropriate method and approach.

Sutarsa carried out this study based on the consideration and assumption that until this time the students’ achievement in English especially in reading is still poor. Sutarsa said that the teaching strategy and type of the text should be taken into account because in Indonesia English teaching at school emphasizes on teaching reading. Sutarsa’s assumption stated that an effective reading strategy should provide students with a mix of demonstration, guidance and opportunities to practice what the students know. Also text selection should be able to give students many nearer aspects of the target language. Teacher should provide students with authentic reading material which students can find in their daily life. Considering that fact and assumption, Sutarsa carried on this study in order to find the best material as well as teaching strategy that an English teacher can practice.

In the literature review, Sutarsa reviewed about the definition of literary text, the nature of Shared Reading Strategy (SRS), and the nature of reading comprehension. First, he restated Klein’s concept of literary text. Then, he continued to review a little bit about the type of literary text by Hughes and the importance of using literary text from some linguists. Second, Sutarsa reviewed Winch’s concept about the nature of SRS. Winch states that SRS is an effective teaching strategy where teacher can practice. This strategy is usually done in a whole class or shared situation. SRS involves students in structures demonstrations of what effective readers know and do. During this procedure, teacher composes the knowledge and skills needed to interpret a text constructed by someone else explicitly. The most important point in SRS is that all the times the teacher will have particular learning outcomes in mind for the class and for individual students as he or she models and demonstrates ways of interacting with texts that will provide students with independent learning skills. Teacher usually uses the same texts for several lessons and on each occasion a different teaching point will be addressed. Principally, SRS is a collaborative learning activity that opens possibilities as much as possible for students to maximize their learning capacity. Finally, Sutarsa reviewed about the nature of reading comprehension.

After reviewing some literature, Sutarsa came to the methodology of his research. First, he stated that the design of his study was a Posttest-Only Control-Group Design in which it is categorized into an experimental study. Second, he stated that his study was conducted at the third year students of SMP Negeri 3 Sidemen in the academic year of 2010/2011. The number of sample was gotten by applying random sampling. It was decided class IXA and class IXB as samples of study. They were 67 together. Then, Sutarsa explained the procedures of his study. He implemented the steps of conducting SRS that he has gotten from Winch, et al. in 2006. The procedures consisted of preparation of experiment, the implementation of the experiment, and the end up of the experiment. In the preparation section, he prepared learning media, lesson plans, and instruments (reading comprehension post-tests). While, the implementation were carried out four times of meeting; three meeting for treatments and one meeting for post-test. During the implementation, the experimental group was taught by SRS using short literary text and the control group was taught by conventional strategy using descriptive text. At the end of experiment, both groups were tested by reading comprehension post test.

In the findings, Sutarsa categorized his data into two groups: (1) the data of students’ reading comprehension that were taught by SRS using short literary text; (2) the data of students’ reading comprehension that were taught by conventional reading strategy using descriptive text. Statistically, it could be seen that students who were taught by SRS had minimum scores 50 from 100, and had maximum scores 95 from 100. The standard deviation was 12.063 and means was 76.930. Meanwhile, students who were taught by conventional reading strategy had minimum scores 32 from 100, and had maximum scores 68 from 100. The standard deviation was 9.921 and means was 51.57. The study shown that there was significant effect of SRS using literary texts upon the reading comprehension of the third year students of SMP Negeri 3 Sidemen in the academic year of 2010/2011. This was provided by the gain of means scores of the experimental class more than those of the control class. Also, the category of scores between the two classes showed a significant difference after the scores were consulted to the Criteria Ideal Theory (CIT). The means score of the experimental class was 76.93 categorized Very High, while the means score of the control class was 51.54 categorized High Enough. Based on observation during the study, the students seemed to be more enthusiastic and interested in the learning process when they were taught with SRS.

This study is very important to the reviewer as a student of post graduate. This study inspires the reviewer to do the research in the same field. The reviewer thinks that there is not a research about this yet in her area. Besides for the reviewer as the post graduated student, this study will be benefit for the English teacher to help them choose the best type of reading text and teaching reading strategy to be given to the students so that they are able to achieve the best result in reading comprehension.

Sutarsa can therefore be criticized here in term of their research’s structure. Sutarsa has already constructed their abstract well. He has already fulfilled the criteria of a good abstract cited in Koopman (1997) that stated Abstract must be a fully self-contained, capsule description of the paper. The Abstract helps readers decide whether they want to read the rest of the paper. Therefore, enough key information (e.g., summary results, observations, trends, etc.) must be included to make the Abstract useful to someone who may to reference your work.

Meanwhile, Sutarsa began his research with unclear background. The background did not give any overview about what will be talked in the next part of this research. The way Sutarsa presented their background also was not so smooth. The idea jumped from one to another without any intention to it. The idea messed around and rounded about. It seemed too long for the background. Ideally, a background should give brief information about the reasons of making that research, problems that will be discussed in the content and what the purpose of conducting that research. In this research, Sutarsa did not success to bring those points in his background. The reviewer suggests beginning your background by clearly identifying the subject area of interest. Do this by using key words from your title in the first few sentences of the background to get it focused directly on topic at the appropriate level. This insures that you get to the primary subject matter quickly without losing focus, or discussing information that is too general.

Sutarsa wrote their review of literature from specific to general. For example, he wrote about Literary Texts first, then continued by the nature of SRS, The nature of reading comprehension, and finally the definition of reading. The judgment of what is general or specific is difficult at first, but with practice and reading of the scientific literature you will develop firmer sense of your audience. Also, Sutarsa only put somebody’s statement without gave some interpretation to that statement. It looked incoherent. In the same part, Sutarsa wrote only a sentence in a paragraph. It can be suggested to Sutarsa to give some elaboration to his sentence. Maeve (2011) stated that a paragraph is a unit of thought that develops an idea. A traditional paragraph contains a topic sentence that states the idea to be developed, plus additional sentences that develop the idea stated by the topic sentence. Maeve (2011) also said that a paragraph will contain more than one sentence. Reviewer suggests Sutarsa to add more sentences to support the idea on that paragraph. Moreover, Sutarsa, also did not link that statement to his study. He only wrote somebody’s statement and enough, nothing correlated with his study. Sometime, Sutarsa forgot to put reference on some idea that he take from somebody. Although he put reference, the reference did not match with the reference list at the back of this thesis. This can be a kind of plagiarism. Further, he forgot to add some empirical reviews related with his study. It is important to review some empirical study about the same topic, so that the researcher can have hypothesis about what they will research.

There are still many mistype words and grammatical mistakes in Sutarsa’s thesis. It can not be tolerable in a thesis. Reviewer suggests that the writer should do proof-reading to crosscheck whether there is still a mistype word or grammatical mistake in his thesis. Moreover, in some parts of Sutarsa’s thesis was unclear. He only put idea without elaboration on it. It is better to explain what Sutarsa means by putting that sentence, so the reader will get the meaning. Because of those unclear sentences, many times the reviewer lost in interpreting this thesis and it seemed difficult to understand it.

Finally, since SRS using literary texts has been proved to give better result for students in reading comprehension, the reviewer suggest English teacher to give more attention to the use of a such text and implement SRS in teaching reading. Also, literary text that is used in this study had given good impressions to the students, it is better to English teacher to variant his collection of text by adding literary text. Further, other researchers should do more research on this since this study still had some limitations.

Overall, Sutarsa result of study is really significant for some elements of community, such as teachers, students, schools, and others researchers. Meanwhile, he has some mistakes of the way they presented his work. It should be revised by him, so that this research can be the best source for other researchers.

References

Koopman, Philip. 1997. How To Write An Abstract. Carnegie Mellon University. PDF file.

Maeve, Maddox. 2011. How Many Sentences in a Paragraph?. http://www.dailywritingtips.com/how-many-sentences-in-a-paragraph/ Pang, S. Elizabeth and Friends. 2003. Teaching Reading. http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/archive/publications/EducationalPracticesSeriesPdf/prac12e.pdf

LANGUAGE PLANING IN MAINTAINING THE EXTINCTION OF BALINESE LANGUAGE

LANGUAGE PLANING

IN MAINTAINING THE EXTINCTION

OF BALINESE LANGUAGE

Written by: Luh Ketut Sri Widhiasih

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION



A. Background

Balinese language is a local language that is mostly used by Balinese. Balinese language functions are as regional languages and the mother tongue for the Balinese that serves as the language of communication between Balinese. In relationship to the function of Indonesian, the local language serves as (1) Indonesian language supporters, (2) the language of instruction at the elementary school beginning level in certain areas to facilitate the teaching of Indonesian / or other lessons, and (3) the source language to enrich Indonesian language. And in certain circumstances, the local language can also serve as a complement of Indonesian in the management of local governance. Balinese language also plays the same role as other local language in Indonesia (Yadnya, 2004).

In the other hand, the existence of the Balinese language, especially in urban areas increasingly alarming even it can not be said to have been marginalized (Yadnya,2004). This linguistics symptoms is also felt by Jendra (2002) in Yadnya (2004), which indicated the use of language in a number of Balinese family has shrunk and has been unrivaled by use of Indonesian. In the contextual traditional situation of Balinese language also has urged by the use of Indonesian. The trend toward marginalization Balinese language is caused by at least 3 things: (1) the status of the Balinese language, (2) loyalty of the speech community, and (3) strategy formation and development of the Balinese language (Yadnya, 2004).

Predicted by Bagus (2001) in Yadnya (2004), Balinese language will become extinct before the end of this century. Although, such statements have a reason and concern for the survival of regional languages, it should be appreciated. As citizens who love Balinese language, Balinese must begin to think critically to assist government’s language planning to language extinction signs of Bali.

B. Statement of Problem

Based on the background above, the writer can state a problem, that is:

- How to maintain Balinese Language in term of language planning to save it from language death?


CHAPTER II

THEORITICAL REVIEW



A. The Definition of Language Planning

Language planning is a deliberate effort to change a language or its functions in society. Moreover, language planning is deliberate effort to influence the behavior of others with respect to acquisition, structure, or functional allocation of their language code. Language planning is as an activity which has as its main goal to solve problems and to provoke changes in the society concerned, (Wikipedia).

B. The Goals of Language Planning

These are some goals of language planning based on:

a. An Ideological goal.

It motivates decision making in language planning. There are four ideological goals, they are :

1. Linguistic assimilation, it is the belief that every member of a society, irrespective of his native language, he should learn and use the dominant language of the society in which he lives. A quintessential example is the English-only movement in the United States

2. Linguistic assimilation, it stands in direct contrast to the first one. It supports linguistic pluralism. It recognizes and supports of multiple languages within one society. It is also called a multi-lingual society. For example, in Switzerland they use French, German, Italian, and Romansh to communicate. In Singapore, the language exits English, Malay, Tamil, Chinese.

3. Vernacularization, it denotes the restoration and development of an indigenous language along with its adoption by the state as an official language. For example, it includes Hebrew in the state of Israel and Quechua in Peru.

4. Internationalization, it is adopted a non local variety or non-indigenous language for wider communication such as official general use or for particular function or domain, as education, trade etc. For example the use of English in Singapore, India, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea.



b. Other goals (from Linguists).

They recognize eleven language planning goals. They are:

1. Language Purification, it is prescription of usage in order to preserve the “linguistic purity” of language. It protects language from foreign influences, and guard against language deviation from within.

2. Language Revival, it is the attempt to turn a language with few or no surviving native speakers back into a normal means of communication.

3. Language Reform, it deliberates change in specific aspects of language, like orthography, spelling, or grammar, in order to facilitate use

4. Language Standardization , it is the attempt to acquire prestige for a regional language or dialect, transforming it into one that is accepted as the major language, or standard language, of a region.

5. Language Spread , it is the attempt to increase the number of speakers of one language at the expense of another

6. Lexical Modernization, it is word creation or adaptation

7. Terminology Unification, it is development of unified terminologies, primarily in technical domains

8. Stylistic Simplification, it is simplification of language usage in lexicon, grammar, and style

9. Interlingua Communication , it is facilitation of linguistic communication between members of distinct speech communities

10. Language Maintenance – preservation of the use of a group’s native language as a first or second language where pressures threaten or cause a decline in the status of the language

11. Auxiliary-Code Standardization – standardization of marginal, auxiliary aspects of language such as signs for the deaf, place names, or rules of transliteration and transcription



C. Types of Language Planning

1. Corpus planning

Cooper’s (1989) in Diallo (2005) argued that corpus planning could be associated with activities such as coining new terms, reforming spelling, and adopting new script. It refers to the creation of new forms, the modification of old ones or the selection from alternative forms in a spoken or written code.

Based on Wikipedia (2010), corpus planning refers to the prescriptive intervention in the forms of a language, whereby planning decisions are made to engineer changes in the structure of the language. Corpus planning activities often arise as the result of beliefs about the adequacy of the form of a language to serve desired functions. Unlike status planning, which is primarily undertaken by administrators and politicians, corpus planning generally involves planners with greater linguistic expertise.

On the other hand, Liddicoat, 2005 in Richard and Baldauf (2010) states that Corpus planning – with its focus on the nature of the language to be taught and learned – is the activity area most dependent on linguistic input for its methodology, but it is shaped by status planning decisions, its output contributes in a major way to language-in-education planning and it may contribute to, or benefit from, the prestige that a language has in the community.

Gardelii (1999) adds that corpus planning refers to such activities as the production of grammars and dictionaries, the design of orthographies, the choice of script, spelling reforms, the production of primers and readers, etc.

Stating in Diallo (2005), in England, corpus-planning matters are addressed usually by universities, independent publishers of dictionaries, or scientific and technical terminology committees. In contrast, in French, corpus policy and corpus planning are dominated by vigorous government involvement. Corpus planning, in the first instance, is an entirely technical issue even though at times political authorities may interfere–as is often the case in France and other countries. Linguists mainly carry out corpus planning activities, along with other language-related specialists like writers, publishers, educators, translators, and lexicographers. However, it is noteworthy to mention that, according to Eastman in Diallo (2005), anthropologists might be included in developing corpus-language matters, especially at the codification phase (Eastman 1983: 69). Most corpus planning works are assigned to language academies (for instance, the Spanish Academy, the Urdu Academy, and French Academy), universities (e.g. English) and language directorates (e.g. Hindi and Tamil in India) just to name a few.

Generally, corpus planning follows a four-step model summarized below:

1) Graphization (Diallo, 2005) is the development or the creation of a writing system for unwritten languages. Graphization proceeds after a language or a variety of a language is selected. Usually, the choice is made with respect to an individual’s, group’s, community’s or country’s needs and aspirations while keeping in mind international linguistic communication challenges as well. Graphisation involves preparation of a script, and writing down an orthography and a spelling system.

Based on Wikipedia (2010), graphization refers to development, selection and modification of scripts and orthographic conventions for a language. The use of writing in a speech community can have lasting sociocultural effects, which include easier transmission of material through generations, communication with larger numbers of people, and a standard against which varieties of spoken language are often compared. In establishing a writing system for a language, corpus planners have the option of using an existing system or inventing a new one.

2) Standardization or codification (Diallo, 2005) is a matter of elevating one model (pronunciation, lexicon, and grammar) of a language among a number of varieties for acceptance as the norm of usage (Eastman 1983; Ferguson 1983; Haugen 1987 among others). Standardization or codification aims at creating harmonious communication and understanding between speakers of the same speech community regardless of the geographic spread of the language.

Wikipedia (2010) states that standardization is the process by which one variety of a language takes precedence over other social and regional dialects of a language. This variety comes to be understood as supra-dialectal and the ‘best’ form of the language. The choice of which language takes precedence has important societal consequences, as it confers privilege upon speakers whose spoken and written dialect conforms closest to the chosen standard. The standard that is chosen as the norm is generally spoken by the most powerful social group within the society, and is imposed upon the less powerful groups as the form to emulate. This often reinforces the dominance of the powerful social group and makes the standard norm necessary for socioeconomic mobility. In practice, standardization generally entails increasing the uniformity of the norm, as well as the codification of the norm.

3) Based on Diallo (2005), modernisation or elaboration of a standard for the selected language is the third phase. This process may involve terminology and style development and grammatication. According to Kaplan and Baldauf (2010), grammatication “involves the extraction and formulation of rules that describe how a language is structured”. Haugen in Kaplan and Baldauf (2010), paraphrasing Ferguson, contended that modernisation is “making the language fully translatable for the terminology of technological, social, artistic, and intellectual endeavors of our time”.

Modernization is a form of language planning that occurs when a language needs to expand its resources to meet functions. Modernization often occurs when a language undergoes a shift in status, such as when a country gains independence from a colonial power or when there is a change in the language education policy. The most significant force in modernization is the expansion of the lexicon, which allows the language to discuss topics in modern semantic domains. Language planners generally focus on creating new lists and glossaries to describe new technical terms, but it is also necessary to ensure that the new terms are consistently used by the appropriate sectors within society (Wikipedia, 2010).

Language has a significant communication role in society. Consequently, it should be able to fulfill this social function. Today’s society is marked by fast changes that affect all aspects of life. Ideally, to modernize and to develop a language is to keep it at the speed of social, political, economic and technological transformations by selecting and developing the appropriate lexicon, the structure, and the phonology of the language. Modernization is an intensive language activity that takes place through coining of new words, borrowing, loanwords, and translation among others.

4) Cooper (1989) in Diallo (2005) introduced renovation, the fourth phase of corpus planning. According to him, corpus planning designates “an effort to change an already existing writing code, whether in the name of efficiency, aesthetics, or national or political ideology”. He supported his statement by referring to the eradication of Persian and Arabic loanwords from Turkish and the feminist campaign for non-sexist language in English.



As discussed earlier, significant differences in procedures and approaches with regard to language corpus issues may appear across countries. In general, factors such as socio-historical, geographical, and political contexts and ideological orientation of the country account for these differences.



2. Status planning

Based on Wikipedia (2010), status planning is the allocation or reallocation of a language or variety to functional domains within a society, thus affecting the status, or standing, of a language. Language status is a concept distinct from, though intertwined with, language prestige and language function. Strictly speaking, language status is the position or standing of a language vis-à-vis other languages. A language garners status according to the fulfillment of four attributes, described in the same year, 1968, by two different authors, Heinz Kloss and William Stewart. Both Kloss and Stewart set four qualities of a language that determine its status. While Kloss and Stewart’s respective frameworks differ slightly, they emphasize four common attributes:
Language origin – whether a given language is indigenous or imported to the speech community
Degree of standardization – the extent of development of a formal set of norms that define ‘correct’ usage
Juridical status
Sole official language (e.g. French in France and Turkish in Turkey)
Joint official language (e.g. English and Afrikaans in South Africa; French, German, Italian and Romansh in Switzerland)
Regional official language (e.g. Igbo in Nigeria; Marathi in Maharastra, India)
Promoted language – lacks official status on a national or regional level but is promoted and sometimes used by public authorities for specific functions (e.g. Spanish in New Mexico; West African Pidgin English in Cameroon)
Tolerated language – neither promoted nor proscribed; acknowledged but ignored (e.g. Native American languages in the United States)
Proscribed language – discouraged by official sanction or restriction (e.g. Basque and Catalan during Francisco Franco’s regime in Spain; Macedonian in Greece)
Vitality – the ratio, or percent, of users of a language to another variable, like the total population. Kloss and Stewart both distinguish six classes of statistical distribution. However, they draw the line between classes at different percentages. According to Kloss, the first class, the highest level of vitality, is demarcated by 90% or more speakers. The five remaining classes in decreasing order are 70-89%, 40-69%, 20-39%, 3-19% and less than 3%. According to Stewart, on the other hand, the six classes are determined by the following percentages: 75%, 50%, 25%, 10%, 5%, and less than 5%.

Together, origin, degree of standardization, juridical status, and vitality dictate a language’s status. Van Els argues however that whatever the status purposes, that status planning decisions should be based on community needs.

Diallo (2005) states that status planning refers to the processes of the selection and use of languages in relation to education, administration, judiciary, mass media, trade, and international relations. Language status decisions intervene at several levels of language planning. Depending on the linguistic make-up of the society, language status may focus on issues such as which local languages or local variety to choose. Language choice may be also between local languages on one hand and local or international on the other. Consequently, status planning deals with crucial topics regarding which language should be official, national, regional, and so forth. The language choice is generally associated with wide social, cultural, and psychological factors in response to relevant sociolinguistic functions of the languages and the linguistic needs of the people. For instance, suggested that decisions regarding language choice and language of literacy might be carried out on the basis of the following questions:

1. Is literacy desired in the first language alone?

2. Is literacy desired in the language of a larger regional group if that language is neither a first nor a national language?

3. Is literacy desired in the language of a person’s domicile regardless of region of birth?

4. Is literacy desired in both the first language and/or a second language (most often the official national language)?

5. Is literacy desired in the official national language alone?



The questions above suggested by Eastman may serve as an excellent framework to make a language choice. In countries under former colonial domination, language choice has been made primarily either on the basis of nationism or nationalism or the combination of both. Nationism, in this context, refers to the use of an international language or language of wider communication for political integration and linguistic efficiency while nationalism is concerned with the choice of an indigenous language in order to foster patriotism and to preserve culture and traditions. The choice of a language and its development are essential elements of language planning. A great deal of attention has been given to language choice by sociolinguists. In 1969, Fishman, developed a model of language choice in which he claimed that language choices are made primarily with respect to six key features. Those key features were later modified and expanded by Eastman (1983).

Language status activities can affect linguistic distribution and language use in different ways. The most frequent language status activities are related to provision of a high or low status to languages. In multilingual countries of Africa and Asia, the encounter between international languages (associated with “high status and prestige”) and indigenous languages (associated with a “low or less high status”) has made language choice a complex issue. In Kenya, for example, language choice includes the attribution of prestige to Swahili – a local language – along with English. In Cameroon, the two international languages, French and English, have been given equally high status. The language policy of the European Union gives high status to all official languages of member countries of the Union.

Status planning has a fundamental role to play in the redistribution of linguistic resources and the maintenance of minority and community languages. Also, status planning has an important role for the protection of the language rights, especially the linguistic rights of the indigenous minorities and migrant communities.



3. Acquisition planning

Acquisition planning (Cooper, 1989 in Diallo (2005)) or language-in-education planning is closely associated with language learning and literacy skills development as well as literature production and language use in the media. It also focuses on planning and cultivation policies. Acquisition policy is not restricted only to the teaching of official or foreign languages but may include the teaching of minority and indigenous languages. Language-in-education policy has a tremendous impact on behavioural and attitudinal changes. These changes are achieved through curriculum development policy, teaching methods, and the material used. Indeed, the design of curriculum should consider the demographic make-up and reflect the socio-cultural diversity by integrating some essential elements of local as well as other cultures.

Based on Wikipedia (2010), acquisition planning is a type of language planning in which a national, state or local government system aims to influence aspects of language, such as language status, distribution and literacy through education. Acquisition planning can also be used by non-governmental organizations, but it is more commonly associated with government planning. Frequently, acquisition planning is integrated into a larger language planning process in which the statuses of languages are evaluated, corpuses are revised and the changes are finally introduced to society on a national, state or local level through education systems, ranging from primary schools to universities. This process of change can entail a variety of modifications, such as an alteration in student textbook formatting, a change in methods of teaching an official language or the development of a bilingual language program, only to name a few. For example, if a government decides to raise the status level of a certain language or change its level of prestige, it can establish a law that requires teachers to teach only in this language or that textbooks are written using only this language’s script. This, in turn, would support the elevation of the language’s status or could increase its prestige. In this way, acquisition planning is often used to promote language revitalization, which can change a language’s status or reverse a language shift, or to promote linguistic purism. In a case where a government revises a corpus, new dictionaries and educational materials will need to be revised in schools in order to maintain effective language acquisition.

In Baldauf & Kaplan, 2005 in Richard and Baldauf (2010) review of language-in-education policy and planning, sometimes known as acquisition policy, it was noted that language-in-education policy and planning often constitutes the sole language planning activity in many polities, but that such activities are limited in their impact by slow rates of dissemination, a limited audience and often a lack of resources. While language-in-education planning occurs most often in schools, it also implicates less systematic teaching situations in the community or the workplace.

Based on Wikipedia (2010), the education ministry or education sector of government is typically in charge of making national language acquisition decisions based on state and local evaluation reports. The responsibilities of education sectors vary by country; Robert B. Kaplan and Richard B. Baldauf in Wikipedia (2010) describe the sectors’ six principal goals:
To decide what languages should be taught within the curriculum.
To determine the amount and quality of teacher training.
To involve local communities.
To determine what materials will be used and how they will be incorporated into syllabi.
To establish a local and state assessment system to monitor progress.
To determine financial costs.

Further, acquisition planning may also deal with problems related to language use in various sociolinguistic contexts. For example, Baldauf and Ingram (2001), Cooper (1989), and Kennedy (1984) in Diallo (2005) among others have examined the five goals of language acquisition policy in relation to language use. These aims are:

1) language reacquisition, e.g., the revitalisation of Hebrew in Israel or Quechua language in Ecuador;

2) language maintenance, for example, the Bengali community maintains its language in Delhi in spite of the pressure from, and the domination of Hindi;

3) language shift, for instance, in Leeds, the Sikh community, especially the younger generation, is shifting towards the English language and in Delhi the Punjabis are shifting towards the Hindi language; and

4) the teaching of foreign and second languages.

5) language preservation and revitalization, e.g., native languages in California and West Africa, Schawenda in Brazil, and Quechua in Colombia.



Acquisition planning includes among other activities: curriculum design, teaching methodologies and materials to be employed, teacher selection and training, and evaluation. It also includes issues related to language choice, i.e., language planning should meet the full range of language needs by providing a wide choice for languages teaching. In fact, language acquisition planning should be able to cater for individual, group, and community needs, interests and aptitudes.

There are other important tasks to be carried out by the language acquisition machinery, such as curriculum content, time and resources allocation, selection of teaching materials, and the provision of infrastructures. There is also the central issue of personnel policy: the selection and recruitment of the teaching personnel, their initial and continuing training, and their qualifications and recruitment. The organization of systematic evaluation at each stage of the acquisition policy is of immense significance for the language-in-education policy in particular, and language planning in general. The feedback helps to monitor the necessary changes while the activities are in progress and ideally feeds back into the language policy-making itself. .

Acquisition planning has developed important tools such as schools for language acquisition purposes. Indeed, schools together with the media, just to name these two, are among the most effective places to introduce powerful and radical attitudinal and behavioural changes through the teaching of languages.



4. Prestige planning

Prestige planning or image building is the fourth range of language planning. According to Omar, the prestige planning concept stemmed from the observation that status planning, corpus planning, and acquisition planning are “… not sufficient to achieve the various functions the language should fulfill” (Omar, 1998 in Diallo (2005)). The objective of prestige planning is to promote the language for wider acceptance. Omar argued that image-building focuses on the functions rather than on the form of the language. Besides, Haarmann, 1990 in Diallo (2005) believes that corpus planning and status planning should be subsumed under the umbrella of prestige planning activities when he stated that: In language planning, all activities which are directed at the structure of a language (that is, at its corpus) and at its status appear in the light of prestige values which form a network of evaluations and attitudes.

The prestige and the positive image of a language are essentially associated with the attitudes of the recipients of the policy rather than those who plan or design for languages. Indeed, those who use the language are indeed the real choosers because the speakers are the people who shape the future of the language and bring its prestige to higher level.

The goal of prestige planning or image building is to promote the image or the prestige of a language in a given society. Indeed, according to Omar (1998) in Diallo (2005), a language needs to have a good image in order to be able to stand proud as a national and official language. The image is a necessary ingredient in the building of the confidence of its users, and it is this confidence that will take the language to greater heights.

However, Haarmann (1990) in Diallo (2005), from his own perspective, elaborated the goals of prestige planning in a larger frame. He argued that any kind of planning has to attract positive values, that is, planning activities must have such prestige as to guarantee a favorable engagement on the part of the planners and, moreover, on the part of those who are supposed to use the planned language.






CHAPTER III

DISCUSSION



The extinction of a language is not entirely due to the language itself but likely caused by factors of non-language. Based on Yadnya (2004), empirical facts presented earlier revealed that the powerlessness of the local language is parallel to the national language and declining loyalty of local language usage, especially among the younger generation in urban areas. It is caused by the speakers own attitudes and behavior by the impact of the allocation of language function which was formulated in the National Language Policy. Yadnya (2004) stated that the strategy should be focused on community revitalization speakers.

Efforts to revitalize the Balinese language must be intentional (voluntary) and provide convenience facilities and possibly through the method of inter-generational inheritance of language within the family from parents to children. In this case the parents should be encouraged to use the Balinese language. It also can be done by using Balinese language in the teaching-learning process at school. Addiction in government, in this case or the Pusat Bahasa, or too dependent on local governments, needs to be changed to the speakers of the Balinese language while the climate and facilitation provided by local governments (Yadnya, 2004).

In the Balinese language status planning and corpus planning need to run parallel with the social planning (Yadnya, 2004). In the status planning, in addition to the status held as a means of communication, the Balinese language has once given bigger vehicular load, thus the use of the Balinese language domains can be extended beyond the area of culture and communication activities within the family. If you want to stay alive Balinese language, it was not enough by the increasing number of children and adults learn Balinese language, linguistic environment must also be created so that the Balinese language can be used exclusively. Even once is ideal if you can make Balinese language as a prestige language by making the language as youth language among Balinese children and teenagers so that kids who learn Balinese language will continue to use it throughout her adolescence until they become parents and inheritance to their children. Thus the loyalty of the language among the Balinese will become stronger. This is the key to the survival of the Balinese language, which in turn strengthen the resilience of culture.

In corpus planning of Balinese language, the development of Balinese language should be directed to the parallelization of Balinese language to Indonesian language even with foreign language, for example through the absorption of Indonesia, another regional language or foreign language to accommodate the concepts of life, science and technology and other modern way of life. This also supported by Suastra (2007) that said society should create a broader language sphere; more the realm of language usage can be created (education, science and information technology) will be smaller gap between the needs of speakers to express themselves in various aspects of life. These efforts should also be supported by the movement of awareness to the public speakers of the Balinese language that the absorption of another language into mother tongue is not a pollution problem but enrichment process of the language so that the resistance to natural language symptoms in this multilingual society is reduced.

Standardization of Balinese language that has speech level in it needs to be directed at proposing standardization of lexical items or expressions of a more neutral or free of traditional social stratification (caste) to make the language more egalitarian in accordance with current usage trends and to make Balinese language more democratic. These steps are intended to limit or avoid Balinese’s speakers to switch the language because of avoiding the used of Sor Singgih.

In social planning, correctional of Balinese language needs to be directed at increasing positive attitudes toward the Balinese language, especially among the younger generation and encourage inter-generational inheritance Balinese language in a family environment. Balinese language speakers should have a positive attitude towards Balinese language to increase loyalty that are marked by an attitude to maintain language independence, language pride that drive to make the language as a personal or group identity, as well as differentiate it from other groups, and understanding the norms of Balinese language that encourage careful, correct, and courteous use of language (Suastra, 2007). Other steps that need to be taken is that to maintain the path of religion, education and culture as a point of Balinese language development in the potential domains of the society. In addition, encouragement and assistance need to be sought for the published of new local media that use Balinese language and to give appreciation to the mass media both newspapers, magazines, radio and television which has provided a column, the time to fill the cultural shows or local events and broadcast programs in Balinese language. Moreover, it is also important to campaign for the use of local languages through entertainment and performances of traditional arts which is a public pleasure in Bali. A government institution also can handle a training, seminar or workshop about the development of Balinese languages to solve the problem.

In addition to the harmony among status planning, corpus planning and social planning, it should attempt to minimize conflict of language through multilingualism symmetrical arrangement of non-discriminatory. Local Government should do evaluation, adjustment, and setting new policy for planning the local language through a synergy between the intellectuals, local governments and communities. In terms of national language policy, as suggested Purwo (2000:30) in Yadnya (2004), one way to prevent the extinction of local languages is the national language policy improvements through the elimination of the ways counseling and guidance from top to bottom (top-down) which continuously seen as force to use Indonesian in daily life.






CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSION



Balinese language as part of culture, cultural index, and the symbolic culture should be maintained parallel to the national language. Increasing fears of extinction of regional languages which have been marked by the declining number of speakers, the language competition (urging the Indonesian language and foreign languages), and the decreasing loyalty of speakers to use the local language as mother tongue and at the same time as a supporter of Balinese culture. Balinese language revitalization needs to be done to maintain the sustainability of Balinese culture. To achieve maximum results Balinese language revitalization and preservation should take place through inheritance interests in the home by family. Moreover, regulations and decisions made by the government could only provide a friendlier environment but not a substitution for efforts of Balinese that focused on using the language of Bali in homes and at every event. Awareness of using Balinese language is important in creating a positive language attitude which will further strengthen the functions of the Balinese language as a symbol of identity and support the noble values of local culture, especially religious values. Finally, the success of revitalization efforts, development, and preservation of the Balinese language requires sacrifice, support, and self discipline of Balinese.






REFERENCES



Diallo, Ibrahima. 2005. Language Planning, language-in-education policy and attitudes Toward Languages in Senegal. Griffith University.

Richard B. and Baldauf Jr. 2010. Language Planning and Policy: Recent Trends, Future Directions. University of Queensland, Australia.

Gadelii, Karl Erland. 1999. Language Planning: Theory and Practice. The United Nations Educational.

____________. 2010. Language Planning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_planning

Suastra, I Made. 2007. Bahasa Bali Sebagai Simbol Identitas Manusia Bali. Universitas Udayana

Yadnya, Ida Bagus Putra. 2004. Revitalisasi Bahasa Daerah (Bali) di Tengah Persaingan Bahasa Nasional, Daerah, dan Asing Untuk Memperkukuh Ketahanan Budaya. Universitas Udayana.

SYNTHESIS ON KRASHEN’S MONITOR MODEL: THE AFFECTIVE FILTER HYPOTHESIS

SYNTHESIS ON KRASHEN’S MONITOR MODEL:

THE AFFECTIVE FILTER HYPOTHESIS

By Luh Ketut Sri Widhiasih

Program Pasca Sarjana, Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha



Stephen Krashen is one of the expert in linguistic who is concern in studying second language acquisition. His most popular theory that he proposed is a model which is called Monitor Model. Schutz (2007) reported that in Monitor Model, Krashen constitutes five hypothesis, namely (1) the acquisition learning hypothesis, (2) the monitor hypothesis, (3) the natural order hypothesis, (4) the input hypothesis, and (5) the affective filter hypothesis. The focus of this paper is on one of Krashen’s Monitor Model hypothesis, namely the affective filter hypothesis. In this hypothesis, Krashen states that affective filter play an important role in acquiring a second language, but it has not a causal role. It also believes that when the filter of affective is done, it will disturb the process of acquisition. Lagos and Almuna (2010) reported Krashen believe that when the affective filter is high, the learners will be failed in achieving their target language. Based on Schutz’s report (2007), Krashen divides the affective variables into: motivation, self-confidence and anxiety. Du (2009) in his report added attitude in those variables. Different with Krashen and Du, Andres (2002) also added self-esteem and inhibition into it.

Motivation is something that motivates someone to do something. Lagos and Almuna (2010) reported that person should has effort and desire to get the target language, it is called the person has motivation. There are two kinds of motivation that reported by Lagos and Almuna (2010). First, instrumental motivation is a motivation to learn a second language with a purpose to get better life or job. This motivation comes from outside the learners. Second, integrate motivation is a motivation to learn a second language because the learners want to have relationship or communication with the native of L2. This motivation comes from the learners themselves. Moreover, integrate motivation should be increased because it will help the learners to learn their target language.

The attitude toward the second language is also important to be discussed. When the learners have positive attitude toward the target language, they will achieve the target language faster than the learners that have negative attitude. By having positive attitude, the learners open them selves to receive input about the second language. In this case the affective filter is low. Also, Du (2009) reported that attitude puts an effect on the learners’ commitment in learning that second language. The learners who have positive attitude commonly have a strong commitment to learn, so that the will not easily give up when they find some struggles in learning the second language. That condition can happened vise versa when the learners have negative attitude. Moreover, Du (2009) explained that the positive attitude of the learner can make them more active in teaching learning process. The teacher of L2 should facilitate the learners’ positive attitude to be faster get the target language.

To make the learners in a low anxiety is one of the teacher’s duties when they want their learners’ success in learning a second language. Du (2009) reported that there are correlations between anxiety and performance. Further, anxiety has three sub-divisions; as a good teacher, the teacher should know in order to able to handle the problems. First is communication apprehension. The learners have a high anxiety when they ask to communicate in using the target language. As an illustration, the learners will find trouble in expressing their thinking to the target language’s word. This condition will make the learners silent and shy. Then, the anxiety also increases when the learners ask to face a kind of test. This is called test anxiety. This condition can be caused of unreadiness of the learners or the negative experience of the learners in facing a test. The teacher should prepare the learners for this condition by building high self-confidence so that the learners can have positive attitude toward the test. The third kind of anxiety is fear of negative evaluation. Not only have the learners of L2, but also people in general often had a fear to be criticized or evaluated by others. They tend to do nothing rather than get negative evaluation. This condition is really dangerous to be happened in the learning process of L2, because it means that the learners will never learn from their mistakes. It is important for the teacher to build positive attitude of the learners so that they will open them selves to be criticized by others to get input in the process of their success.

Besides anxiety, there are two more affective variables that can be a struggle in learning L2, they are self-esteem and inhibition. Andres (2009) reported that “Inhibition is closely related to self-esteem: the weaker the self-esteem; the stronger the inhibition to protect the weak ego.” It can be said that the learner with a low self-esteem will less success in learning L2, and vice versa. The self-esteem is important as a barricade of believing about the strength of one self. If the learners believe them selves can be successful learners, it will build their self-confidence to learn L2. The high self esteem makes the high self confidence. The learners who have a high self-confidence believe them selves can successfully achieve the target language, because they dare to take a risk to make a mistake in practicing their target language.

Further, Krashen in Cabello (2007) suggests that adolescence and puberty may not be good periods for SLA, as this ‘affective filter’ arises out of self-conscious reluctance to reveal oneself and feelings of vulnerability. The inference would be that starting to learning a language as a teenager would be a bad idea. In contrast, Greg in Romeo (-)claimed that Krashen seems to indicate that perhaps the affective filter is associated with the emotional upheaval and hypersensitivity of puberty, but Gregg notes that this would indicate that the filter would slowly disappear in adulthood, which Krashen does not allow for. McLaughlin (1987) in Fry (-) also does not support Krashen’s idea. In fact, it suggests early adolescence is the best time to start learning a second language. In his evaluation McLaughlin rejects the Affective Filter Hypothesis by saying Krashen has “provided no coherent explanation for the development of the affective filter and no basis for relating the affective filter to individual differences in language learning”

As discussed above, it could be concluded that Krashen’s affective filter hypothesis explain some affective variables that can influence the learners in second language acquisition. There are some variables such as motivation, attitude, anxiety, self-esteem, inhibition and self-confidence. However, there are also a critic towards Krashen’s hypothesis. Greg in Romeo (-) and McLaughing (1987) in Fry (-) claimed that early adolescence is the best time to start learning a second language. Further, he claimed that Krashen does not have coherent explanation and basic of his affective filter hypothesis.

The writer accepts Krashen’s affective filter hypothesis that say by minimizing the affective filter of the learners will make the learners faster to get the target language. However, the writer doubt with Krashen’s idea that says adolescence and puberty may not be good periods for SLA. It is because Krashen does not include evidence in supporting his idea.




References



Andres, Veronica de. 2002. The Influence of Affective Variables on EFL/ESL Learning and Teaching. http://www.njcu.edu/cill/vol7/andres.html

Cabello, Jose Luis. 2007. Is Krashen’s Monitor Theory No Longer Valid?. http://englishteachinglab.blogspot.com/2007/04/is-krashens-monitor-theory-no-longer.html

Du, Xiaoyan. 2009. The Affective Filter in Second Language Teaching. China. www. Ccsenet.org/journal.html.

Fry, Collin. ---. Second Language Acquisition-Krashen and His Critics.

Lagos, Nicole Amigo and Almuna, Juan Jara. 2010. The Importance of Motivation in SLA. http://syntaxrules.blogspot.com/2010/07/importance-of-motivation-in-sla.html.

Romeo, Ken. --. Krashen and Terrell’s “Natural Approach” by, http://www.stanford.edu/~kenro/LAU/index.htm Schutz, Ricardo. 2007. Stephen Krashen’s Theory of Second Language Acquisition. http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html