IDEA ENGINEERING

“Is Teacher Talk Pernicious to Preschool English Classes?”

Lecturer : Tiarnita Maria Sarjani br. Siregar, S.Pd., M.Hum.

EXT B 15

Created By :

Lidia Seavriana 2153321013

Nurcahaya Sinaga 2153321022
Sisca Indayani Damanik 2153321034
Rebecca Theresia 2153321029

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF LITERARURES AND ARTS

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN

MEDAN

2018
 PREFACE

First of all, let’s say thanks to the almighty God Allah SWT has been giving the
authors health and his blessing so we can accomplish the “ Idea Engineering“ paper as well as
the authors can .

May Shalawat and greeting to our prophet Muhammad SAW that had brought us from
the darkness to the lightness world.

The authors purpose in writing this paper is to fulfill the assignment that given by
Mrs. Rita Suswati, S.Pd., M.Hum. as the lecturer in Functional Grammar subject and also this
assignment was done by authors.

The authors realized that, the paper of Idea Engineeringis still imperfect in
arrangement and the content. Then the authors hope the criticism from all the readers can
help the author in perfecting the next Idea Engineering.

Medan, May 2018

The authors
 CHAPTER I

BACKGROUND

A. The Background of The Study

Teaching English has spread significantly in the past few years and a growing trend in
learning languages at pre-school age has emerged. Even though research findings for the
optimal age to start learning foreign languages remain inconclusive and some of them even
speak against pre-school language teaching, parents continue to perceive English as an
advantage they can offer their children. This fact has led to growth in private lessons for as
young as three-year-old learners and public as well as private kindergartens began to focus
their education on foreign languages.

Very young learners require special approach including competent handling, which
considerably differs from teaching teenagers or adults. It is necessary to realize that such
learners are not able to read yet and therefore the methodology has to be adjusted to their
abilities. Attention span, interest, motivation and other factors need to be taken into
consideration when designing a pre-school English lesson. The same importance needs to be
placed on the quality of the language a teacher uses. For the lessons to be effective, academic
literature recommends teachers to use the target language for communication. As it is mostly
he or she who does the talking, not only correct grammar, suitable vocabulary and correct
pronunciation are desirable, but also adjusting the language to very young learners cannot go
unheeded. Simplified structures, repetition, adequate speed of speech and clear pronunciation
are only some of the features a teacher should be mindful of. The language learners hear
during pre-school lessons is most likely the only language input they have, therefore its
quality is crucial for further language development.

Nevertheless, the supply of experienced and adequately trained teachers is very

limited as they are either qualified to teach English as a foreign language or to generally teach
pre-school children, but hardly ever can they offer both. Consequently, teachers trained to
teach English to teenagers or adults end up teaching preschoolers which is one of the reasons
why specialists do not always fully support such education. This thesis is concerned with
teacher talk in preschool English classes and examines the language teachers during such
classes. taped in order to analyze the discourse. Despite the fact that video recordings would
provide markedly better sources to be examined, due to copyright law and parents’
disagreement, this was not possible. For the purpose of evaluation, an observation sheet was
created, helping to focus on relevant elements.

This paper consists of two main parts, namely the theoretical and practical one. The
theoretical part is divided into five chapters; the first one addresses language learning and
defines key terms. The second chapter is concerned with preschool English classes and its
participants, while the third one focuses on languages used in the class. Next, language input
is further discussed and the final chapter of the theoretical part briefly looks into classroom
discourse.

The practical part is dedicated to the observations of preschool English classes which
have been conducted by the author of this thesis. The description of methods, procedures and
participants can be found at the beginning of the practical part, followed by the analysis of
both observation sheets and the discourse. Towards the end of the practical part, the findings
from the study are summarized.
 CHAPTER II

CONCEPT AND HYPOTHESIS

A. The Purpose of The Research

In the Czech Republic, it is generally believed that the quality of teaching languages
to very young learners is still in its infancy and therefore the preschool courses often lack
both quality and effectivity. The aim of this study was to analyze teacher talk in preschool
English classes with the focus on the choice of the language and methods the teacher uses and
to ascertain whether the way the teacher communicates with children corresponds with the
procedures recommended in academic literature. Based on the teacher talk analysis, any
possible connections between the way teacher conducts the lesson and the way learners
respond to these stimuli were looked for.

B. The Hypothesis of The Research

Considering the fact that both methodology and proficiency level of preschool
English teachers are hardly ever sufficient, it was presupposed that the mother tongue will be
spoken more often than necessary with the target language used mainly in order to express
routinized expressions (greetings, thanking, praising etc.). Secondly, it was hypothesized that
the language used by the teacher will not be satisfactory in terms of fluency, pronunciation or
grammar. Next, is was assumed that the teacher will unambiguously outbalance the talk ratio
and the learners will have little opportunity to speak. Finally, it was presupposed that less
visual support and techniques to avoid mother tongue will be applied in a kindergarten where
English is spoken on daily basis.
 CHAPTER III

COLLECTING DATA

A. The Collecting Data of The Study

This qualitative study examined four high school teachers’ classroom discourse. What
teachers said to students and how they said it to students was compared to what they stated
they knew and believed about their students.

Data collected from observations, teacher interviews, and the annual accountability
and accreditation report became part of the analysis. Recordings and notes were reviewed
after each set of observations. Richards (2005) recommends having an organizational
cataloging system in place to assist in analyzing the volumes of qualitative data collected.

Data were categorized as:

 Classroom observations – audio and notes from direct observations,

 Teacher interviews – audio and notes from the interviews,
 Annual accountability and accreditation report.

The main research method of this study is conversation analysis and unit of analysis
in this method is speech turn. The goal of conversation analysis is to investigate what is being
done by the speaker in each turn (McKay,2006). In order to assess and evaluate the efficacy
and quality of teacher talk, a criterion or yardstick should be established. There are different
effective language functions that several authors believe that instructors should use
 CHAPTER IV

DATA ANALYSE

A. Analysis and Interpretation of Teacher Talk

For the purpose of analysis, some turns of the transcript were chosen. They are
interesting to be commented on, either because of their harmful or helpful effects on learning
and students ' personality (see Appendix A).

The teacher was threatening and discouraging the student (I give zero this time).
Intimidating either through expertise, or the threat of grades - are but some of the behaviors
which prevent students from engaging in the active processes needed for significant learning
to take place. Security, which is underscored by humanistic approach more than any other
theory of learning, was not ensured by the teacher. He created an unsecure and unfriendly
atmosphere in the classroom.

Even though he made explicit correction, not preferred type of correction, the teacher
has used the situation to engage the student in communication (how long did he stay there).
This is true or real communication.

According to some language theories, for example, comprehensible input,

comprehensible output and interaction hypotheses, real communication and negotiation of
meaning maximize the opportunities of language acquisition.

The feedback to the students’ responses is simply acknowledgements, that is to say,

the answer is acceptable or not. The follow up interaction including the reason for accuracy
of the answer allow the learner to notice the language and discover the gap in their
interlanguage.

The student knew the meaning word and he was able to use it in a meaningful
sentence. However, his answer is not acceptable because he should have done it in the
teacher's preference. He has to follow the teacher style of learning and he has to forget about
his own style of learning. The student was supposed to memorize the definition of the words.
To be more specific, memorization and rote learning was emphasized and meaningful was
deemphasized and the teacher provided the student with metalinguistic feedback.
 CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

A. Conclusion

This study investigated teacher talk in the classroom interactions. The finding
indicated that the teacher was not successful to create genuine or authentic communication
and the class was anything but bona fide communication. Nearly all of the questions are all
display questions. The feedback to the students’ responses is simply acknowledgement, that
is to say, the answer is acceptable or not. The talk follows the IRF sequence allowing the
teacher more turns and talk. This routine and monotonous sequence will stultify the most
vibrant and enthusiastic students and make them more and more uncooperative. In such
context, they often begin to talk to each other, flip through the book or even fall asleep in the
class.

The teacher followed Audio lingual Method in his classroom. He taught the new
grammatical point as follows: first he presented the sentence 'Ali watched TV yesterday.' And
then he gave the students some examples in the hope that students can deduce the grammar
rules of the past tense. In the last stage, he made the students to produce the language in the
controlled exercises. The teacher attempted to show what the past tense signifies and how
students can use the rule to develop sentences. In other words, the language was taught as
system and how this grammatical system works. But these sentences and this system have
little communicative significance in real life situations? When we teach language as a
communication system, it is important to distinguish between two different kinds of meaning,
one of which refers to the explicit meanings that language items have as elements of the
language system, and the other is that part of meaning that the language items have when
they are actually put to use in acts of communication. The first kind of meaning is refereed as
significance, and the second kind as value. During the communicative class, it is the value
rather than significance that should be taught. What the students are concerned about is the
value, because they can find the significance in text books and dictionaries.

Concerning the choice of words and their motivating role, it should be mention that
our choice of words is important. Just like advertising words can persuade us to buy products.
Teacher's utterances can shape students' attitudes, feelings, and thoughts and it can motivate
or hinder interaction among teachers and students. Teacher language plays a vital a role in
classroom. As teachers or educators, we must continually ask ourselves how we can use
language for our ultimate purpose: to support students' development and learning.

Regarding classroom security and stressed-reduced atmosphere, teacher talk plays an

important role in this regard, therefore, teachers should try to understand what language
would be more efficient in creating an environment in which students feel more comfortable
and more confident and become more involved in interactive activities in the language
classroom. Particularly, more positive commenting and encouraging languages should be
employed by teachers.

B. Suggestion

Thus paper can help to create a teacher talk learning process environment that more
accurately reflects how teacher can manage classroom interaction and encourages learners
toward their goal of how to representing their ability in learning process. This part of paper or
this chapter can used and can be a good references for the readers.
 REFERENCES

Betáková, L. (2010). Discourse and Interaction in English Language Teaching. Praha:

Carolinum.

Cazden, C.B. (1986). Classroom Discourse. In Handbook of Research on Teaching,

3rded., ed. M.C. Wittrock. New York: Macmillan

Curtain, H., & Dahlberg, C. (2010). Languages and children: Making the match (4th

ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Cullen, R. (1998). Teacher talk and the classroom context. ELT Journal 52(3), 179-
187.

Pinter, A. (2006). Teaching young language learners. Oxford: Oxford.