THE ROLE OF ENGLISH TEACHERS ON HELPING PASSIVE LEARNERS IN CLASSROOM (A Study at The Ninth Grade Students of SMP N 31 Andalas Padang)

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1 THE ROLE OF ENGLISH TEACHERS ON HELPING PASSIVE LEARNERS IN CLASSROOM (A Study at The Ninth Grade Students of SMP N 31 Andalas Padang) Wewen Muthia *) (Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat, awendquimby@ymail.com)**) Melvina, M.Ed dan **) Lili Perpisa, S.S., M.Pd. ABSTRAK Didalam proses pembelajaran, adanya peran guru terhadap siswa menentukan bagaimana guru harus bertindak didalam kelas. Karena peran guru secara umum adalah tentang sikap guru atau tindakan yang harus dilakukannya dalam menjalankan tugas-tugasnya sebagai seorang guru di kelas. Tercapainya peran guru dalam proses pembelajaran akan menentukan bagaimana kemampuannya dalam mengelola kelas dengan baik. Penelitian ini dilakukan bertujuan untuk mengetahui peran guru Bahasa Inggris dalam membantu siswa pasif didalam kelas di SMPN 31 Padang. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian basic qualitative yang bertujuan untuk menganalisa tentang peran guru terhadap passive learners. Dengan menggunakan purposive sampling, yakni pengambilan sample berdasarkan kebutuhan research question yang berjumlah 3 partisipan. Dalam mengumpulkan data, peneliti melakukan pengamatan, dimana kegiatan guru direkam dengan rekaman video untuk menemukan peran guru yang dilakukan dalam hal membantu siswa pasif didalam kelas. Dalam menganalisa data, peneliti menggunakan pendekatan deductive. Dari analisa data penelitian, peneliti menemukan setiap guru melakukan perannya secara umum didalam membantu siswa pasif di kelas meliputi; demonstrator, learning manager, facilitator/mediator, motivator serta evaluator, akan tetapi diantara beberapa dari peran itu adanya 2 peran yang secara specific lemah signal keberadaannya diantara peran-peran lainnya seperti facilitator/mediator dan motivator. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian dapat disimpulkan bahwa peran guru pada umumnya telah dilakukan oleh guru. Guru secara dominan menggunakan 3 dari 5 perannya ketika proses belajar-mengajar didalam kelas. Keywords : English Teachers role, Passive Learners, Role *) Penulis **) Pembimbing INTRODUCTION Education is one of the greatest services provided by teachers. Success in learning process is influenced by the performance of learning, the role of teachers and students who support each other. To be a teacher is needed to make the process of teaching learning run well. Moreover, teacher, as the key point in determining the quality of teaching and learning process serve many roles. They prepare the lessons, manage the classroom, facilitate learning, and assess the students learning. They also carry the role an alternate parents, counselor, disciplinarian, book keeper, role model, planner, and many more. These roles are handled by a teacher in order to reach the goal which has been set by the teacher. Then, in a classroom, there are many students with different level of understanding. Some of the students can understand the materials easily while the other cannot. They are often reluctant to 1

2 participate in classroom discourse. The common problems faced by the students are lack of confidence, lack of effort, unwillling to participate in learning discourse, anxiety due to high performance expectations, and their perception of the learner role. In other words, teachers dominate the learning process while students passively receive the knowledge from the teachers. In other side, the researcher found some phenomena. Firstly, the researcher found the type of students they were active and passive learners. Active students were where students engaged in doing thing and thinking about what they were doing in the classroom. They tend to actively engaged asking the question, answering the question posed by the teacher, giving opinion, willingness to participates, and tend to spoke up in the classroom. They were more involved than a passive learner. Different with passive learners were not actively engage in the classroom. When the teacher asked them to come in front of the class they just stayed on their seat. Then, the teacher asks question they instead to kept silence, but actually they knew the answer and still won t do expressed their ideas. It probably they feel ashamed with their ability, because of less self-confidence. Consequently passive learners were afraid to do participation even they had have supported and helped which were given by the teacher. Also, if there is a question from the teacher, they tend to kept to the silence mode and do not want to gave their opinion and input the additional information. Even when, there were a group or class discussion passed off they choose to kept silence than tried to participate with other friends. Besides, they were less of their self efficacy, feeling ashamed with others. Thus, when the lesson was being explained by the teacher clearly and the teacher hopes there were questions that will be ask later. There were none of them to proposed the question yet. It can be said that tend to be passive in class often be quietly, shy, less participate, accept the materials without question. In that point, both of active and passive students involve in teaching learning process. Secondly, teachers have played their roles in teaching learning process. Thirdly, teachers also have consideration to develop student skills in learning English. Based on the phenomena above, teacher s role is the crucial part in maintaining the classroom teaching and learning process. Due to their role, it can help passive learners to achieve their learning objectives. The students who are passive in the class are less participations, little contribution than an active. The use of teacher s role in teaching learning process will assist passive learners to make them more participate to obtain high achievement in classes. Through the role of teacher it can be the ways in which teacher improvise their quality of learning process in order to engage students to be more active, participative, and there is no longer for them to be shy keep silent, and just waiting for the teacher as an information provider. A. The Nature of Role According Dornyei and Murphey (2003, p.109), role as a technical term originally comes from sociology and refers to the shared expectation of how an individual should behave. In other words, roles describe what people are supposed to do. This meaning, in fact is very close to the more common usage of the word that refers to an actor s role in theatre performances: enacting a certain role there means behaving in a way that meets the expectations of the director and the audience with regard to the particular character. According to the expert description above, it can be conclude that role defines what the person or thing is appointed to do or expected to fulfill. It also how well the teachers perform or act to take a part in classroom process. This occasion can be the ways for them to help the students to obtain their learning objectives. B. Teachers Roles According to Kearsley in Mulholland & Chris (2013, p. 26), outlines various aspects of the teacher role, which can be utilized for teaching in workplace they are: Feedback, motivation, authority, Demonstrator or personal role, facilitator, delegator. Feedback and reinforcement are two of the most pivotal concepts in learning. Motivation is pivotal concept in teacher role. Authority Teachers who have a formal authority approach to their role tend to focus 2

3 on content. This style is generally teachercentred, where the teacher feels responsible for providing and controlling the flow of the content and students is expected to receive the content. Teacher who has a demonstrator or personal model role tend to run teachercentred classes with emphasis on demonstration and modeling. Teachers who have a facilitator role tend to focus on activities. Teachers who have a delegator role tend to place much control and responsibility for learning on individuals or group of students. From the some expert explanation above, all of the kinds of teacher roles are useful to increase his teaching and learning process. The roles in which help, engage the student to be more participate in classroom teaching, whether these roles useful or not it depends on how the teacher play it through effectively and efficiently. The researcher concludes that there are various roles from different features. But, in this occasion, the researcher wants to analyze the role of teacher as a demonstrator, learning manager, facilitator/mediator, motivator, and lastly as an evaluator. These roles supported by Usman (2001, p. 9). a. The Role as Demonstrator According to Horn (2011, p.31), a demonstrator is somebody who models effective classroom and instructional practices. It can define this role of teachers act as role model by demonstrating behaviour, skills, and the process. Then they acts as coach in helping students develop and apply the skills and knowledge. The teachers and their experience is still of utmost importance with this teaching role, yet it is the teacher s knowledge and experience that are at the forefront, not scientific facts. b. The Role as Learning Manager Manager or most usually called controller is responsible to handle the students in classroom teaching. In addition, Spratt (2005, p.145) states that the teacher acts as a manager is responsible for controlling students establishing the rules, routines and things that are usually done in the classroom. Based on expert explanations above, teachers as a learning manager is expected to be conversant with the message they want to pass across to the students, they must be competent in his use of medium/media of communication, and have also approachable to all students. c. The Role as Facilitator/Mediator It is support by Nieman and Monyai (2006, p.5) in Enos Makhele define that an educator is mediator who facilitates communication between the learner, the environment, other learners and subject matter. It means that, teacher acts of facilitating a process of acquisition knowledge, skills, value, and attitudes. According to Mulholland and Chris (2013, p.28) state that, teachers who have a facilitator role tend to focus on activities. This teaching style emphasizes studentcentred learning and there is much more responsibility place on the students to take the initiative for meeting the demands of various learning tasks. The role of teacher as facilitator helps the students to alleviate the obstacles in teaching learning process. Based on the explanations from the experts above, the facilitator teaching style focuses on the experience of the student rather than the teacher. Meanwhile, the mediator mediates the learning process. Teacher facilitates or creates a situation in which the students learn material on their own learning. There is more independent learning, and the teacher must be comfortable with students discovering their own truths and experiences about the material. Facilitator teachers use group activities, individual study, and collaboration between students to solve problems presented to students. In this way, students learn by applying the material in the classroom setting. d. The Role as Motivator According to Sahu (2013), motivation in teaching is an essential process of effective teaching. Motivator is a very strong factor for the educators to educate the people. If the motivation is powerful and strong, the rest of process will be easy and comfortable. It means that students affect 3

4 from different factors. According to Mulholland and Chris (2013, p.28), motivation is a pivotal concept in the teacher role. It is closely related to arousal, attention, anxiety, and feedback/reinforcement. Referring to the expert explanations above, motivating students are one of the most important aspects. Teachers should encourage open communication and free thinking with the students to make them feel important. Because the classroom is a friendly place where students feel heard and respected, and there will be more eager to learn. For example in giving reinforcements to encourage themselves such as good job or nice work. e. The Role as Evaluator According to Lefever (1995, p.219), evaluator or guide, the teacher probes, enlarge ideas, encourages, and challenges. The teacher allows the students to experience self-discovery as they take what they have been taught a step further by adding their own creativity to it. The English teachers are very much accountable for making challenges and encourage teaching if they want to make their teaching success. From the expert explanation above, the role as evaluator is vital to a teacher s success. This role that allows the teachers to discover the worth of the students works. The researcher concludes that there are many roles of teacher in teaching learning process, these roles are: the role of teacher as demonstrator; the role of teacher as learning manager; the role of teacher as facilitator/mediator; the role of teacher as motivator; and the last the role of teacher as an evaluator. C. Passive Learners 1. Definition of passive learner According to Emelo (2013, p.30), passive learners quietly take in new information and knowledge, but they typically don t engage with the information they get. They may not interact with people, share their insights or contribute to the conversation. These behaviors can negatively impact the learning experience for even for the most enthusiastic people. In the passive learning experience, students do not actively engage in the learning process, but they may adsorb some of the information being presented. Examples of passive learning include attending a teacher, reading a paper or watching a video. All of these activities can become a more active experience for the student but they can also be very passive activities requiring little interaction from the student. It is important that students do more than just listen and are active participants in their learning. In conclusion, passive learners are less participated student in engaging themselves in the learning process, whereas they have given an opportunity to take part in selecting activities and assignment in the classroom teaching. They tend to be receptor than sharing to the other students. 2. Characteristic of Passive learner According to Hartman and Stewart (2010, p.38) the characteristic of passive learner are: sits quietly in the class, stay confused about the lesson, studies alone (or not at all), use only the course textbook, studies the same old way. Concerning on explanations above, passive learner is too far different with an active learner in classroom. It comes up from all the teacher provides teaching and learning process. Meanwhile, passive learner tends to be inactive students, acts as a receptor and do not start with sharing the experience or new ideas to others. RESEARCH METHOD The design of this research was basic qualitative study. Ary et all (2010, p.453), basic qualitative study also called basic interpretative study by some, provide rich descriptive accounts targeted to understanding a phenomenon, a process, or a particular point of view from the perspective of those involved. To do this research, the researcher needs the data to be analyzed. The researcher used observation (checklist, field note and video recording) that has been constructed by According to Ary et all (2010, p.431), observation is a basic method for obtaining data in qualitative research. of data. 4

5 After the process of collecting the data, the researcher tried to analyze the data to obtain conclusion whether the research questions are answered or not. According to Ary et all (2010, p. 481), there are three stages in analyzing qualitative data. They are: organizing and familiarizing, coding and reducing, interpreting and representing. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Basically, after explaining the observation process specifically, the researcher found that the teachers at SMPN 31 Padang used three roles of English teacher in the classroom. In these cases, it is clearly defined SMPN 31 Padang the teachers do not implemented all of English teacher roles; they just more applied three roles during English learning process. There is only one of three teachers played in the classroom. Furthermore, the result from observation can be seen from this following description: The role of English teacher on helping passive learners in classroom at SMPN 31 Padang The researcher found that teacher A as the first participant used three of teachers roles that were demonstrator tend to focused on helping passive learners in classroom, learning manager, and evaluator. Besides two others role such facilitator/mediator and motivator were not used as the appropriate one in helping passive learners in classroom. Meanwhile, the teacher B used three role of teachers, they were demonstrator, learning manager, and also evaluator, but actually not directed to the passive learners itself. She emphasized those roles in general implementation as teacher of the classroom. For the last, teacher C was also used the same roles likely in the previous explanations. It means that the roles of English teacher on helping passive learners was applied by the first participant Teacher A, and two of others did not applied as well as they should be, there were demonstrator, learning manager, and also evaluator. It can be said that, all of the teachers were not used completely to the passive learners such facilitator/mediator and motivator after the researcher had done the research well. a. Demonstrator All of the participants had done this activity in the classroom during observation process. The teachers were showed this activity while English teaching and learning process. Actually, this activity involve in the process of learning in classroom, where the teacher models their teaching learning process. This role had seen as the general implemented used by teachers to encourages students overall. b. Learning Manager During of twice observations that was done by the researcher, all of the teachers used this role while English learning process. It gives the important aspect in assisting the passive learners as the one who control learning in classroom. Besides, there is the only one of teacher who applied their roles in English learning process in order to help passive learners of the classroom. Inside of the classroom, the teacher used this dominantly role as the general point in English learning process. c. Evaluator This role of teacher was used by all of the participants during the observation process in the classroom. It gives impact to the students where they can encourage their learning English. Through the evaluator role of teacher helps students in order to assess their learning ability through the achievement level of them. Nevertheless, it just tends to the whole students in classroom. The others such passive do not get specifically in the process. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION This research has revealed useful insights about what is the ways the teacher to increase passive learners to be more participated in classroom. Through this understanding, the teacher can plan the variety of methods, strategies, approach and employ the proper learning situation where the students are less active or passive in classroom. Automatically, the role of English teacher had implemented by the teacher whereby helped the passive learners in classroom. It can be seen as the teachers 5

6 were able to take a part in process of learning. Although there are some of teacher roles that more concerned to the other students and preferred to the whole of entire classroom. It was happened because the teacher stressed to the all of the students in classroom and do not truly give attention to the passive learners of the class. They tended to ignored their roles to the passive learners and tried to delivered the lesson only in order to get material well done. For the first suggestion will be address to the English teachers, in order to encourage and stimulate the passive learners in classroom, they should play and implement their roles as demonstrator, learning manager, facilitator/mediator, and evaluator. The next suggestion lay up to the passive learners, they should learn much how to be active one, to be more participate, to be involved of it they can learn with their friends. It is the best ways for the teacher and students to know what exactly their role as the one who is giving and the one who is receiving. It was back to the nature of the teaching and learning process in the classroom. The third to the researcher, this research can develop the writer knowledge about the role of teacher on on helping passive learners. Lastly, for the further researchers, the result can be used for further researchers which focus to found the differences problem about why teachers do these roles in the classroom teaching and learning process. with Readings (2 nd ed.). Canada: Wardsworth Cengage Learning. Horn, Patty J., & Kristin Metler- Armijo. (2011). Toolkit for Mentor Practice. California, USA: Corwin A Sage Company. Makhele, Enos. Retrieved March 6, 2015, from 1/Article-THE-EDUCATOR-AS- A-MEDIATOR-OF- LEARNING-1. Mulholland, Joan., & Chris Turnock. (2013). Learning in the Workplace. A Toolkit for Facilitating Learning and Assessment in Health and Social Care Settings (2 nd ed.). Third Avenue, New York: Routledge. Sahu, Anil. (2013). Retrieved June 8, 2015, from /2013/06/teacher-asmotivator.html Spratt, Mary., Alan Pulverness., Melanie Williams. (2005). The TKT (Teaching Knowledge Test) Course. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. REFERENCES Ary, Donald., Lucy Cheser Jacobs., Chris Sorensen. (2010). Introduction to Research in Education (8 th ed.). Canada: Wardsworth Cengage Learning. Dornyei, Zoltan.,& Tim Murphey. (2003). Group Dynamics in the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Emelo, Randy. (2013). Engage Passive Learners. Hartman, Kathleen., & Thomas Stewart. (2010). Investing in Your College Education. Learning Strategies 6