The Existence of Teachers in Classroom

Teachers play an important role in classroom. They are the central figures in the class. It, however, must not be negatively interpreted. The term central or dominant in this case is not identical with the authoritarianism. It does not mean that they are only authorities in the class such as happened in the traditional teaching situations by which the teachers were the only sources of information and could not be intervened. The students, as a result, were the objects of teaching and less important. They did not have right or “bargaining position”. Although just a little, to self-actualization as asking question, correcting, reviewing their teachers’ ideas and the like. To do so, therefore, was regarded impolite and unusual.

In the modern classroom interaction, despite, the existence of teachers has changed thoroughly. Anyway, they are not the only sources of information and students are not that teaching objects anymore. The students are not only the information receivers, but they may be information givers. Teachers and student’ existence is “comparable”. They may take and give one and another, without reducing their respect to teachers.

The terms central or dominant in this discussion, then, is similar with collaboration, that is the collaboration between teachers and students and among the students in succeeding an ideal teaching learning activity. In this opportunity, teachers may perform as organizers and students are their good members. Good members will not let the leaders get explained without close attention. Conversely the leaders will not look over their followers as the supplementary objects. Teachers, in this case, should be good collaborators.

The question is why teachers are so “central” or “dominant” among the other components? This is because they are the only adult figures who are responsible to organize all the components that influence teaching learning activities including students. We cannot underestimate their strategic comedown from the very beginning. To be clear, let the writer elaborate their crucial existence in the following chapters.

Firstly, teachers are the teaching objective designers. These are their own duty to do. They could not render the jobs to others take for instance for their students or assistants. They also could not hung on their duty to their companions. They must do these themselves so they must be skillful to achieve the fruitful goals. To do so is not an easy job because they are necessary to formulate the general objectives accurately and that specific objectives accurately and that specific objectives operationally. Both of which must be different because the former should describe the general goals which will be achieved and the later describes the specific goals that will be reached. They should manage them conscientiously since the goals of learning interaction are described in the objectives and will influence in the way of elaboration.

Then, when the interaction has been going on, teachers must be skillful to perform in different styles in front of their students. They must be ideal collaborators who are able to create such a good collaboration among different students having different characteristics and potentials. They must also be managers responsible for organizing class activities, be motivators when they find their students reluctant to study, and also be facilitators making the students easy to study and the like. In arranging the class, they should not lost charisma, even though, they might not make their students frighten, to do so, they are to endeavor their ability since they are the only persons committing to create such a kind of atmosphere.

Next, presenting instructional materials in classroom is not as simply as somebody assumes. Exactly, the most instructional materials tend to be boring; teachers, however, must be qualified to reconstruct, decorate, and cover the instructional material weakness in order that the materials look important to study and are easy to understand. As a matter of fact again, they are necessary to reconsider a few aspects as different students’ characteristics or traits, intelligence, speed in studying and to adjust them with instructional materials. This aims to arrange easily comprehensible teaching materials.

Afterwards, considering the method used is another teachers’ duty. The best method consideration cannot be undertaken at glance for it will bring about a big influence towards the success of the instructional material presentation. It means the presentation will be efficient if the selected method is appropriate, and yet, it will be fail because of the un-appropriate method used. In the consideration, teachers may not forget to review several elements which influence the application of the method such as the domains they want to achieve, the different potential of the students, the availability of teaching aids and also environmental condition. Without agility and adequate skill, they may not forget to review several elements which influence the application of the method such as the domains they want to achieve, the availability of teaching aids and also environmental condition. Without agility and adequate skill, they may easily depress when preparing the ideal method for teaching learning interaction.

Finally, when the “process” ends, teachers commit to prepare evaluation. This step is sometimes regarded as the last stage of the teachers’ duty but it is not absolutely the latest. When teaching learning interaction ends, they are responsible to make evaluation of the process to know whether this succeeds or not. The evaluation of teaching learning interaction proposed in the lesson plan is comparably useful to use. In addition, they immediately concern with formative test when they have finished one topic of instruction. Then, when a teaching program ends, together with their companions they should conduct final test held institutionally. The next corresponding duty after holding final test is correcting students’ paper, grading them to get the raw and the final score. This is followed by designing feedback and preparing the following program. The teachers’ duty, therefore, is never finished. Before a duty ends, the other activities have waited for being done. It is fair then to say that teacher is “central” in teaching learning interaction.

by: Mr. Ruwandi, MA

(F)

 

 

 

Seputar Salatiga

Published by Suara Merdeka, January 15^th 2009

STAIN Terbitkan Majalah

Sidomukti-Fakultas Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STAIN Salatiga telah menerbitkan majalah berbahasa Inggris bernama LINK. Sesuai dengan namanya, majalah tersebut diharapkan menjadi jembatan yang menghubungkan mahasiswa, dosen dan sekolah-sekolah dalam berkomunikasi melalui pengetahuan dan tulisan. Ruwandi, penanggung jawab penerbitan majalah tersebut mengatakan, pihaknya membuka kesempatan kepada siapa saja untuk mengirimkan artikel dan tulisan.

(F)

In 2005 the leader of the State Institute for Islamic Studies (STAIN) Salatiga obliged all male and female undergraduate students to join the Ma’had. This year it is optional because of the fact that most students staying in the Ma’had did not comply with all regulations that have been made by the board of Ma’had. It may be influenced by their lack of interest. The students who had big motivation to stay in the Ma’had got maximum result while those who had little motivation got minimum result.

My Experience in the Ma’had

At the first time I was in the Ma’had, I felt very happy after hearing information from a lecturer of STAIN Salatiga that there would be a foreigner who would teach us English. I was challenged to talk to the foreigner as if I were fluent English speaker. But unfortunately I could only have conversation with her once in a week. It was not a problem though. It was my pride. The most important thing was I could practice my English with a foreigner.

At the beginning, I felt afraid to stay in Ma’had because I thought that staying in the Ma’had would require students to be very discipline and there would be plentiful punishments for the students who broke the regulation of Ma’had. I had never stayed in the Ma’had before. I proved to myself that what happended in Ma’had was not like what I imagined before.

I felt happy after staying several months and knowing the real condition of Ma’had. I had many new friends from different background of education. Someday I felt pessimistic because I thought that the students who stayed in the Ma’had were all clever and more experienced than I was. When I heard one of my new friends was speaking English in front of me for the first time, I was dazzled because his English was very good. I didn’t whether it was because he stayed in the Ma’had or not, because I had not known him before and I joined the Ma’had late.

In the Ma’had I was taught by asstidz about how to pray after performing five daily prayers, how to reach ambition, how to face modern life and many things besides Arabic and English. The students were asked to memorizing it, one day ustadz appointed to be the leader of Maghrib prayer. I did it nervously and my body trembled. Eventually, I could do my duty without any difficulties. To be a leader of a praying together was the most impressive experience for me.

By staying in the Ma’had I got more spirit to study English and Arabic because I had to compete with other students who were able to speak Arabic well, while I was not able to speak Arabic fluently so they became my inspiration to study Arabic harder.

By the end of the year I was very happy because I could memorize part of the Qur’an of 30 from Al-Ikhlash up to An-Naba and I got more vocabularies, science and experience of English and Arabic and I intended to prolong my study time in the Ma’had. Even though in the beginning I felt satiated and lazy because I had to wake up early in the morning and I was reluctant to get up.

The Unpleasant Experience

          I was so afraid to go to campus because there were many dogs on the way to campus. I had to go to campus on foot in order to save my money. One day a dog run so fast to chase me so I had to turn very fast too. In the middle of it, my friend screamed, “Do not run? The dog will not stop chasing you!” Then, he asked me with loud voice, “Sit down!” I did it and that’s when the dog stopped chasing me.

          In the Ma’had I could not stay up late because at 10 pm every student had to be quiet. Usually I had not been able to sleep before midnight. Sometimes in the morning I was woken up impolitely by one of my friends using his leg or a pillow thrown at my face. I was so annoyed that I decided to stay in a boarding house instead of the Ma’had but after thinking about it twice finally I chose not to move.

          After staying in the Ma’had for a year I got significant improvement and I wanted to stay in the Ma’had a year longer. In the Ma’had I could manage and utilize my time as good as possible.

About the contributor:Ahmad Samingan (TBI_2005) is the second student who wrote an article for this lovely bulletin. He is an honest man and all he tried to share to the readers about his experience staying in the Ma’had are true.

Glossary:

Undergraduate Students (Noun): Mahasiswa S1

Optional (Adj.): Tidak wajib/pilihan

To comply (Verb): Mentaati

To challenge (Verb): Menantang

Pride (Noun): Kebanggaan

To require (Verb): Mempersyaratkan

Punishment (Noun): Hukumam

To be + Dazzled (Passive): Terpesona

To appoint (Verb): Menunjuk/Mengangkat

To tremble (Verb): Bergetar

Impressive (Adj.): Mempesona

Satiated (Adj.): Jenuh

Reluctant (Adj.): Malas

To chase (Verb): Mengejar

Impolitely (Adverb): dengan tidak sopan

To be + annoyed: Terganggu

To move (Verb): Pindah

To utilize (Verb): Memanfaatkan

 (F)

Learning English is quite difficult but it is also interesting. Three of us, students from State Institute for Islamic Studies (STAIN) Salatiga once got a chance to join a program called a ‘home stay with American family’. Actually it was not a school program but it was a result from the good relation between an American family and several lectures in our university. The Foshdale family, the American family, consists of 6 members: Mr. Frank Foshdale, Mrs. Karren Foshdale, Rachel, Nathan, Rebecca, and David.

The first and second children are now studying in America. The third and the fourth are still studying in Mountain View International Christian School in Salatiga. When we had our home stay program Rebecca and David were spending their holidays in America. So for about 3 weeks there were only Mr. and Mrs. Foshdale in the house.

On Sunday afternoon, June 19^th 2006 we started living in their house. We would stay there for three weeks up to July 10 2006. Fajar, Lukman, and me, myself, Azis were happy with our first experience living with Americans. Although they lived in Indonesia but they had American atmosphere in their house so we felt like we had been in America.

Bedroom

I stayed in a purple room with Fajar and in this room there were plenty of pictures of those who have stayed there. The tradition in the Foshdale family were among others we should not let the door open when we went out and we had to turn out the lamp when we were not in the room. We tried to always follow this tradition but sometimes we forgot. We also tried to make our bed so that it didn’t look messy

 English Program

We joined the home stay because we wanted to study English more and many thanks to Karren that she had prepared scheduled activities in the afternoon to practice our English, such as playing games, performing drama and delivering speech. We had a deal that we should use English as the language for all activities outside our bedrooms. However, Fajar and I tried to use English wherever and whenever we were in the house.

One day, Karren gave us lots of stuffs and we had to make a drama using all the stuffs, Fajar and I performed “the Robbery of Antic Bottles” and “Children Toys’ Salesman”. We only had five minutes before performing our drama. It was amazing that we spontaneously changed the plot that we had planned before and the drama turned to be funnier than the one we planned.

In another occasion Karren provided a topic and we had to simultaneously deliver short speech without adequate preparation so it felt like we had to use our English as best as we could. Believe me it was fun because some words were not pronounced correctly and Frank marked our mistake and gave correction every time we finished our speech.

Twice we were divided into two teams and each team had one handy talkie. The first team went out first and after several minutes the second team tried to find them by getting information about the location, road conditions, and directions. Thus, we practiced to use English through handy talkies. It was fun because we lost several times and we had to go back to our previous position. When we found the opponent team we felt very happy. Each team was guided by Franks and Karren. They helped us when we did not use the correct English to say to our opponent team.

Praying Times

We didn’t have any obstacles performing our daily prayers in our bedrooms. Although Mr. and Mrs. Foshdale are Christian but they are very tolerant to our religion and rituals. Occasionally, we had a discussion about religion.

Dogs

There were two dogs in the house. They are Duck and Dash. The first was male and the later was female. they did not bother us. they were obedient dogs. Even though at our first encounter before these dogs recognized us they always barked at us but after a couple of days they were okay. we also felt okay having them around.

Food

At the first dinner we had fried chicken, and French fries (fried potatoes). Actually Frank and Karren did not eat rice but because we were there they provided us rice. Karren knew that we were still hungry if we only had food without rice. She also provided snacks, cake and so on in hte kitchen and we were allowed to have them whenever we wanted and they let us make Indocafe Coffemix or Nutrisari anytime. The next days we had more Indonesian food to keep us from taste shocked. Karren said, “I do not want you guys to be frustrated because of the food we provided”.

Games

they taught a lot of interesting games and of course there was no Indonesian there was only English. The names of the games are “Game of Life”, Monopoly (English Version), Domino and Detective game (we had to find the correct murderer, place and weapon that the suspect used to kill someone in scene by collecting many evidences. It was really challenging. We also played Play Station 2 (PS2) and DDR (dance-dance revolution) to have fun.

About the Contributor:

Nurul Aziz, alumnus of STAIN Salatiga. He got a scholarship to join short course in 2 months in USA. After graduating, he taught Bahasa Indonesia for 9 months in USA through FLTA, Fulbright Program (AMINEF) then the last is he just taught Bahasa Indonesia also in Australiia around 2 years.

He knew Karren for the first time when he stayed in Ma’had STAIN Salatiga. He is the first student to write article for this bulletin. He has set a good example and hopefully the rest of you would follow his way.

(F)