The Challenges of Applying Communicative Language Teaching in Indonesian Senior High School Context

Transcription

1 Encounter: Volume 3,No. 2, The Challenges of Applying Communicative Language Teaching in Indonesian Senior High School Context Hidayatus Sholihah, M.Pd., M.Ed. ( Flinders University, Australia ) Abstract Thinking about a solution of the main problem faced by Indonesian students in learning English communicatively, CLT might be a good one. CLT is proved as an effective approach that can solve the problem of many language learners who can not communicate in English fluenty after learning English for several years. This article analyzes the challenges to apply CLT approach successfully in Indonesia as one of EFL ( English as Foreign Language) contexts. First, issues of theoretical assuption on CLT such as: what should be the roles of teachers and students in CLT, what type of materials and activities in the CLT classroom are discussed. Then, how English teachers and the students in Indonesia play their roles in CLT classroom?, do they have the difficulties in playing their roles?, do the teachers can set the classroom that can encourage students to communicate in English by using CLT classroom activities and materials? are analyzed. The finding shows that applying CLT is still challenging in Indonesian school context because both teachers and students still can not play their roles well. In addition,

2 2 The Challenges Of Applying Communicative [Hidayatus Sholihah] CLT activities such as role play and games can not be applied in the classroom effectively yet. Then, authentic materials is still rare and teachers are struggling to access them. Finally, teacher training, improving classroom facilities and reforming English testing system at Indonesian schools are the solutions suggested in this article to apply CLT successfully in Indonesian school context. Key words: CLT, Communicative approach, EFL (English as Foreign language). Introduction Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is considered as an outstanding approach, which can fill the gap in a number of previous English language methods and approaches, such as audio lingual, grammar translation, and the silent way. These previous approaches are analysed and evaluated as ineffective because they do not help the students to be able to communicate. CLT is conceptualized to make students are able to communicate actively in the real life situation. This is interesting to know the reasons behind the conceptualization of CLT approach. One of them is to solve the problem faced by the students who have already learned English for several years, but they still cannot speak or communicate in English. Language is a tool of communication. Therefore, if the students only know the roles of the English language and they do not know the function of it, they will not able to communicate fluently in.

3 Encounter: Volume 3,No. 2, CLT is proved as an effective approach in many countries all over the world because it can help learners to communicate competently in the real life situation. Although CLT is regarded as an outstanding approach, the level success of applying this approach is varied in different contexts. Applying CLT in English as Second Language (ESL) context will be different from implementing it in English as Foreign Language (EFL) context. In the ESL context where English is officially used and the students can easily get access to practice the language in the outside of classroom, CLT is much easier to be implemented. However, in the EFL context, it is quite challenging to apply this approach because English does not officially use in this context, or the students only have limited opportunity to practice English in the outside of classroom. This essay will discuss the theoretical assumptions about CLT such as the roles of teachers and learners, activities and material. Then, the practices and the difficulties of applying this approach in Indonesian senior high school context will be examined. The gap between what is stated about CLT in the theory and the application of the theory in practices will be analysed. Finally, the solutions to apply CLT successfully in Indonesian school context these will be suggested. Issues of Theoretical assumptions about CLT Some theories underlined CLT are needed to be discussed in more detail below to make a clear and comprehensive understanding about CLT. CLT is a set of principles about the goals of language teaching, how

4 4 The Challenges Of Applying Communicative [Hidayatus Sholihah] learners learn a language, the kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate learning, and the roles of teachers and learners in the classroom (Richard, 2006). The definition of CLT above is explored by Richards (2006) in his book, communicative language teaching today. He provides some information about CLT to make the differences between previous methods or approaches and CLT is it clear. He identifies that CLT is more focus on the function rather than on the form of language. He goes on to argue that learners learn language best when they use it to communicate or to do something in the real context and CLT accommodate this idea. To present a real communication context, authentic materials is used in the CLT classroom activities. Thus, students will be able to use English in the real life situation because what they have learned in the CLT classroom will be the same as in the outside of classroom. The next, fluency is more emphasized than accuracy in classroom CLT activities to engage learners in language use. So, language learners become self confident to communicate fluently and become active communicators whereas, the previous approaches tend to lead students to become passive communicators. Finally, teachers in CLT classroom activities do not have the roles as instructors as it is in a traditional or teacher-centred approach. They are facilitators who facilitate communication in the classroom. Whereas their students are active communicators who negotiate the meaning; trying to understand others and to be understood. In more details, the roles of teachers, learners in the CLT classroom and the types of CLT materials and activities will be discussed below.

5 1. The roles of teachers Encounter: Volume 3,No. 2, Breen and Candlin cited in Richards and Rodgers (2001) have stated that there are two main roles of teachers in CLT classroom activities. First, teachers act as facilitators who facilitate a communication process between learners and various texts and classroom activities. As facilitators, they have to set a classroom becomes conducive setting for communication where students are encouraged to communicate mostly with their peers or groups. During the activity, teachers monitor their students activities and then take notes of their errors to be worked on the next communicative practice. The second role of teachers is as independent participant. Different from their students who participate in peers or group, teachers participate independently in CLT classroom activities. Beside of those two main roles, teachers still have other roles which are implied as their second roles in CLT. These roles have the same objective with the role of teacher as the facilitator. They are as organizers of sources and as sources themselves. As the organizers of sources, teachers have to organize activities and materials needed during the classroom activities. Then, as the sources themselves, they have to be able to answer all the questions from their students. Whenever their students have difficulty during communicative activities within the classroom, as the sources, they are the best person to refer. Moreover, they are also guides within the classroom procedures and activities. As the guides, they have to be able to direct and guide all their students to follow class procedures and activities. Richards and Rodgers (2001) have stated that teachers also have the

6 6 The Challenges Of Applying Communicative [Hidayatus Sholihah] role as need analysts who determine and respond to the learner language needs. Then they are also counsellors who have to be models giving example of effective communication. Therefore, teachers play essential roles in CLT classroom activities 2. The roles of learners The roles of learners in CLT are different from those in the traditional language classroom because the focus of these approaches is not the same. CLT focuses on the function, whereas traditional language classroom that usually applied teacher centred approach emphasizes forms or grammar. Learners have the role as negotiators between themselves, the learning process, and the object of learning in CLT (Richards & Rodgers, 2001). This means that they are as communicators who are actively engaged in negotiating meaning- in trying to make them understood and in understanding others. Nunan (1999) suggests that learners should negotiate their interest with their teacher; what and how they want to learn. As a result, in order to acquire language skills and knowledge, the students have to become active communicators and manage their own learning. 3. CLT materials and activities Authentic materials included language-based realia, such as advertisements, newspapers, magazines have to be used. The purpose of this is to solve the typical problem why students get difficult to apply what they have learned in the classroom to the real context. Types of learning and teaching activities in Communicative

7 Encounter: Volume 3,No. 2, Language Teaching approach is unlimited as long as that activities engage learners in communication and require interaction, negotiation of meaning and information sharing in communicative processes. To engage students in communication, teachers can use games, role play, task-based communication activities which emphasis on peers or group work (Richards & Rodgers, 2001). Freeman-Larsen (2000) analyses that game is essential activity in CLT because there is a purpose to exchange and, speakers can negotiate meaning. They get immediate feedback from listener whether or not he or she can be understood or understand others. Therefore, games have the same characteristic with real communicative event. In addition, role play is used in CLT activities because it is essential to bring social context of the communicative event within the classroom. This activity gives opportunity for the students to practice how to communicate in different social roles and different contexts. Beside of all information above, it is essential to discuss the characteristics of communicative approach of language teaching. Based on Richards and Rodgers (2001), CLT has several characteristics as mentioned below: 1. Communicative competence development: learners are able to use English for communicative purposes. They can use all English macro skill, speaking, and reading, listening and writing in balance. 2. Using aspects of mastering English to support oral and written as active communicative ability in English.

8 8 The Challenges Of Applying Communicative [Hidayatus Sholihah] 3. An organization of material is based on the topic or theme and functional skills 4. Integrated and communicative assessment that means it is not only including one element and it is not focus exclusively on linguistics aspects. 5. Several objectives in communicative approach cannot be measured by using paper and pencil test, such as reading for enjoyment. In addition, many language experts have defined communicative competence as the ability to use language for the purpose of communication in the Real context. So, what it means by communicative competence? As stated by Canale and Swain (1979 cited in Mustafa, 2001), there are four areas of communicative competence 1. Strategic competence is the ability to understand and to be understood in communicating with the targeted language even when they have lack of vocabulary and in understanding structure. Communicators can use strategy to make communication flow. One example is by trying to find a synonym of the word or the vocabulary that they do not know or forgot to avoid communication breakdown. They also can use other strategies such as asking for repetition to make the meaning clear and guessing the meaning of the word from the context where this word used. 2. Sociolinguistic competence is ability to various English uses in wide array of social context and situation (time, place and role relationship). To improve this competence, language learners are

9 Encounter: Volume 3,No. 2, encouraged to engage social interaction to practice various English uses. 3. Discourse competence is the ability to make a link of several ideas together appropriately. To have the discourse competence, learners need to engaged in extended discourses in communicative context, such as taking notes from teachers in English; participating in conferences, seminars, symposium, discussions/debates, etc. 4. Grammatical competence is the ability to apply the grammar rules to understand a message and to be understood when sending the message. This competence is very essential because without understanding the grammatical rules, learners will not be able to use English correctly because they are only in the vocabulary words level. Those are the theoretical assumption of CLT. In the following, the application of this theoretical assumption in one of the EFL contexts, Indonesian Senior high schools, will be analysed. An application of CLT in Indonesian Senior High School context Some information about an application of CLT in Indonesia here will be based on my observation and experience as an English teacher in one of senior high schools in Indonesia for several years. Then, it will be supported by the result of research on CLT that is conducted by a language expert in Indonesian School context.

10 10 The Challenges Of Applying Communicative [Hidayatus Sholihah] The role of teachers Teachers should work hard to prepare teaching materials for CLT classroom activities especially in EFL classroom contexts in order to play their roles successfully. One of the examples of the EFL contexts is in Indonesian where applying CLT is still challenging especially for teachers who live in district area. It is because teachers have difficulties to get the authentic materials such as English newspapers and magazines or English news on TV or Radio. While for Indonesian teachers who live in the big city, they might get much better internet access or other media to get authentic materials for CLT classroom activities. However, they might have to spend a lot of money because an internet access, English magazines or newspapers where teachers can get authentic materials are still rare and might be expensive. Moreover, to be good facilitators, teachers should be creative and imaginative as they have to provide communicative activities which are suitable for their students need and interest. For example, for teachers living in district area in Indonesia who want to use games as one of important activities in the CLT classroom, they have to be able to create the games. While for them living in the urban area, they have to be able to modify the games cited from books or internet, in order to suit their students need, interest and level. How successful teachers provide the classroom as a setting of communication depends on their creativity. In addition, to be good counsellors who exemplify effective communication, teachers have to be self confident in using targeting language.

11 Encounter: Volume 3,No. 2, However, according to Musthafa (2001), in Indonesian school context, most English teachers are still lack of confidence to communicate in English, and this become the reason why CLT is still difficult to be applied as teachers are not able to give example as effective English communicator. Many teachers still have difficulty to encourage their students to be communicative in the second language (L2) because they failed to show confidence and enthusiasm in L2. Several English teachers cannot speak fluently and communicatively. The roles of students Indonesian students tend to be passive and shy to speak or ask questions in the classroom. They are reluctant to speak English in the classroom, and they do not have initiative to negotiate the activities that they are interested in; they depend on their teacher to decide most of the activities, and, they just follow these activities. Many reasons try to be analysed to know what are behind the problems above. One of possible reason is Asian students tend to be shy and quite reluctant to speak in the class because of their cultural characteristic. As Yule (2006) mentions that they are afraid and ashamed of making mistakes or errors in pronunciation, choosing inappropriate vocabulary and also in accent that they used. Another possible reason is Indonesian students used to be taught how to learn English by focusing on the language roles or mechanical habit where the best habit is producing a sentence which is free from errors. This habit leads them to be afraid of making mistakes and, resulting language learners who are master in grammar but cannot

12 12 The Challenges Of Applying Communicative [Hidayatus Sholihah] speak at all after learning English for several years. As a result they were not encouraged to be active and communicative language learners. In addition, for learners who live in EFL context, it is more difficult to be able to communicate fluently than they who live in ESL context. This is because they have less opportunity to practice their English outside the classroom. CLT materials and activities Indonesian teachers still get difficult to apply CLT classroom activities because of several reasons (Bachrudin, 2001). First, it is because of class size which usually consists of 40 or more students in the classrooms. It is not easy to manage the big class size in order to be the setting of communication activities. Second, limited time to learn English in the classroom becomes the challenge of applying CLT. Students only learn English 4 hours in which each hour consist of 45 minutes or twice face to face meeting in a week. Over-loaded curriculum has an effect on limited flexibility for teacher to design communicative instruction. In addition, Final exam to decide whether or not the students can graduate is Nationally-administered in which the content of the test is still focus on the grammar and the form of the questions is close questions or multiple choices. The question is only listening and reading, and there is no speaking or writing skills which are tested. Consequently, with or without realizing, this kind of test will lead the mindset of teachers and learner to focus on grammar as they may think that this is the

13 Encounter: Volume 3,No. 2, way to get good mark in English and graduate from their school. In my experience in teaching in one of Indonesian Senior High School, when I applied games or role play as CLT activities in the classroom, during the games, students tend to share their first language and this is difficult to be controlled because they are in monolingual classroom. The purpose of the game to encourage students to exchange the information and to give or get immediate feedback is difficult to reach because they lack of vocabulary and cannot speak spontaneously and fluently. Especially when learners level of English is still under intermediate level. Furthermore, when I applied role play in the classroom, my students learned by heart the scrip that I gave. I tried to solve this problem by giving only the context of role play without giving the script in the next class meeting. However, my students got difficult to play the roles and write down what they want to say. After that, they read or memorize it in order to be able to play the roles, and this consumed a lot of time. Here, the spontaneity lost as they only produced reproductive language but, they did not produce communicative language. 4. How to apply CLT successfully in Indonesian context CLT represents progressive way of English language teaching, however, both teachers and students still find difficulty to apply this approach. This fact does not mean that CLT is not applicable in EFL context as the concern is not the concept of CLT, but how this concept can be applied and adapted to suit learners needs (Harmer

14 14 The Challenges Of Applying Communicative [Hidayatus Sholihah] cited in Hiep, 2007). To apply CLT successfully in Indonesian school context, there are several steps which should be taken. First, teacher should be trained in order to be good facilitators. Teachers as the key practitioner of the concept cannot be leaved alone to face their problems. There should be assistance in facilitating classroom activities become real to their learners within EFL context. Training is essential for teachers in order to understand well CLT concept, then able to apply this approach without burden. Second, conducive classroom for communicative process to provide opportunity for students to practice their English must be set. There should be good facilities in the classroom, such as video, audiotapes, television, computer software and the internet access for teachers, especially for non native English speakers who teach in rural schools who get difficulties to access authentic resources, lack of experience to provide group work communicative activities, and lack of confidence in using the targeted language and also who are not able to be effective English speaker for their students. Brown (2000) confirms that these technology can help the teachers to solve their difficulties to implement CLT and reach communicative objectives in the classroom Second, in order to motivate teachers and learners to apply CLT and get benefits from this approach, there should be test reform. English test should focus on formative test or emphasis on the process rather than summative test which focus on the products or outcomes. The Nationally-Administered Test forms of the questions are close questions using multiple choices which do not encourage students to think creatively

15 Encounter: Volume 3,No. 2, (BSNP, 2009). There should be open questions which give a space for students to build their creative thinking. The next is giving additional time for learners to learn English in the schools as students only learn English four hours a week. For Indonesian learners who have limited opportunity to learn and practice their English skills in the outside of classroom, it is better to add the time to learn English in the class. It may be difficult to give additional time to learn English in the classroom because of the crowded curriculum. The best alternative solution is by providing English extracurricular activity in which learners can learn communicative English, by the guidance from their teachers, and that is facilitated by the school. Conclusion CLT provides fun communicative classroom activities that encourage language learners to communicate in English fluently. Some interesting communicative activities in the CLT classroom are games, role play, and information gap, interviews, pair works. In CLT, Teachers have the roles as facilitators who facilitate communication activities for learners, whereas the learners play the role as active communicators. Then, to support communicative activities within the classroom authentic materials are used to encourage learners to be able to communicate actively in the real language context. Thus, CLT is an outstanding language teaching method that different from all the previous approaches. However, this outstanding approach is still challenging to be applied in Indonesia senior high school

16 16 The Challenges Of Applying Communicative [Hidayatus Sholihah] context because the Indonesian teachers and the learners have difficulties to apply this approach. Some teachers get difficult to access English newspapers or magazines or English news on TV or Radio to get authentic materials. Then, most English teachers have low degree of self confidence to speak in English, while students are reluctant to speak English in the classroom and do not have initiative to negotiate the activities that they are interested in, and they depend on their teacher to decide all activities. Moreover, the big class size, limited time, overloaded curriculum and test system which mainly focus on grammar also become the reason why CLT is difficult to be implemented. In order to solve these problems, there should be teacher training which will improve teachers skills to be a good facilitators in CLT classroom. Then they should be facilitated by technology which can help them to reach communicative goals, and additional time for the students to learn English more in the school as one of the solution of learners problem in applying CLT in EFL context. Finally, by solving all of the problems facing by teachers and students, improving facilities and English test system, CLT can be applied in Indonesian context successfully.

17 Encounter: Volume 3,No. 2, References Brown, H. D. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching (4th ed.). New York: Pearson Education. BSNP (2009). National Currirulum: Nationally- Administered Test for Senior High School. Retrieved November, 18, 2009, from Freeman-Larsen, D. (2000). Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hiep, P. H. (2007). Communicative language teaching: Unity within diversity. ELT Journal, 61(3), Musthafa, B. (2001). Communicative language teaching in Indonesia: Issues of theoretical assumptions and challenges in classroom practice. Journal of Southeast Asean Education, 2(2). Nunan, D. (1999). Second language teaching and learning. Boston: Heinle Chengange Learning Richards, J. C. (2006). Communicative language teaching today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T. S. (2001). Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yule, G. (2006). The study of language (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press