Language Teaching Methodologies Observation Report

Learning twelve principles of teaching makes me more curious about education’s world. It is because these principles widen my knowledge about teaching. Talking about these principles is also talking about ideal language teaching. When the principles appear in a language teaching, it means that the teaching process has covered all the students’ need. The principles are:

1. Automaticity
2. Meaningful Learning
3. Anticipation of Reward
4. Intrinsic Motivation
5. Strategic Investment
6. Language Ego
7. Self-Confidence
8. Risk Taking
9. Language-Culture Connection
10. Native Language Effect
11. Interlanguage
12. Communicative Competence

But is it to possible to bring out all of the principles to the classroom activity? I want to see the real condition in the class that I observe for Teaching Assistant Program. I was placed in St.Theresia Senior High School. The classes’ constructions are quite unique since they are only half-walled so both people outside and the students can see each other. The learning activity itself ran very well and strict.

Then, based on my observation and interview with some students, I found some principles that appear in the teaching language activities. The methods for acquiring the data are not only observation but also interview. I did the interview to some students because we were only given one chance to observe the master teacher’s class. After that I combine the data. The first principle appeared was automaticity. I could see it from the student’s opinion. He said that he seldom overanalyzes the English language. He would rather be brave to speak English than thinking too much about its forms. The second principle appeared is intrinsic motivation. Student said that he learns language because he wants to study abroad, so he keeps improving his English skills. No body drives him to learn English except himself. The third is strategic investment. Student stated that he often takes some effort in order to master the language. For example he always does his English tasks well and seriously. He also ever took conversation course outside so that he would be more trained to speak English. He thinks that joining the course will counterbalance the materials given in the school since they are mostly about grammar. The fourth is self-confidence. It can be seen in the class although it wasn’t clear enough. When the teacher asked the students to raise their hands if they could answer the question, no body raised. But when the teacher pointed out randomly, the chosen student did not get ashamed and started to speak confidently. It happened several times in a session. The fifth is risk taking. The student I interviewed said that he often chooses to “gamble” in speaking English than thinks whether the grammar is true or not. He explained that if he never tried to just speak, he would never speak English fluently. The sixth is language-culture connection. He said that he needs to not only learn about the grammar or speaking skill, but he also needs to learn the culture of English native speakers. He assumed that if he understands their culture, it will be easier to have communication with them. The seventh is the native language effect. In the classroom it could be seen as the students use English to speak. They still use their native language manner (Bahasa) to communicate in English. They also found some terms in Bahasa that they do not know the English version of the terms, so they mixed them. The last is interlanguage. The interviewed student told that he would be able to know his weaknesses when he learns English. He is not very good at grammar and writing according to himself.

After I read again my findings, a question passed my mind. Do we need to rise all of the principles appear in the language teaching activities in order to gain maximal result? In my opinion, yes we do. Those principles have already covered all of the teaching skills that I need. So the students will not only learn the outer parts of language learning, but also the whole cores. I certainly hope that with these principles the students will be better than me as the teacher in the future. Of course it is almost impossible to bring them all into real condition, but I believe that they are like ‘my reminder’. For example, when I have taught the students about a material with some teaching techniques, perhaps I’ll feel satisfied. But then when I see the principles, I will directly realize that I am still far from the perfection. So I will always chase it. Moreover, there are still many aspects that I must learn. I will be very curious to meet other new things.