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Reflective Thinking Journal 1

Teaching by Principles (Oct 8 th 2013)

Rohib Adrianto Sangia (137835102), Kemenag class, rohib_sangia@yahoo.com

Teaching English as the second language and even the foreign language has been done for years

with different approach, method, and technique. This activity has challenged the teacher and researcher

to make an effective teaching activity. The data from the primary source in the classroom has been

taken for years in addition to make an improvement to combine all the approach, method, and teaching

technique to a higher place as the principles. Thus, no matter what approach you do or what method

you use, but an ideal teaching language activity needs to consider with the principles. The problem

arose when seeing the reality in public schools especially junior high school, I can find many English

teachers more focused in teaching grammar than teaching skills even though the curriculum has been

design from the expert to focused in language skills. From this reality, I wonder that it is important to

teach grammar first or to teach skills. The problem happens maybe because the stigma in the learners

that grammar in addition the tenses are the hardest thing to be master in English as the key how people

can speak English better. Another thing to be consider that evaluating system in this country focused in

cognitive field in grammar and structure of language in use rather than four language basic skills itself.

Our curriculum recently is implementing English with CLT (communicative language teaching)

approach (Departemen Pendidikan Nasional, 2006). It means that the English learning in junior high

school is purposed to give the student skills in doing communication in proper English. In CLT approach,

brown suggest that in teaching grammar, we have to consider some variable(Brown, 2001:363). He

stated that younger the learner means less grammar to be given. As we know junior high school

students theoretically face the English for the first time, even though in elementary school they may be

got it as a supplementary subject.

In my opinion, much grammar in the classroom makes the students fell boring. As we agree that

the stigma of tenses has scared the students. This situation is not the significant from the principle of

meaningful learning. The opposite of meaningful learning is rote learning which is giving too much

grammar explanation(Brown, 2001:57). I am not saying that grammar in not necessary but not too much

in the classroom.

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Kroeger (2005:5) define that grammar is the complete set of rule which is needed to produce all

regular pattern of a language system. In my opinion, we cannot give the grammar straight to the junior

high school as they are the beginner learners. My analogy is, when we teach the beginner to be good in

language skills, we let them to explore by themselves. After they used to producing the language, we

can organize to use the grammar. It is opposite with the beginner student who studied the grammar

first, in producing language, they will be hesitate. It is because of the filling about the grammar makes

them uncomforted to produce the language.

Teaching English in public school has been restricted by the government curriculum. The English

curriculum in Indonesia is more focused in communicative learning teaching that has goal to make the

learners produce the language as good as possible. In here, the mismatching material focused on

grammar which given by junior high school student is not appropriate for the language accusation

process. When we are teaching grammar, we need to consider some factors. As Brown (2001:363)

outline that the factors in teaching grammar that we must to consider are the age of the learners,

proficiency level, educational level, skill, register, and the use of the language.

References

Brown, H. Douglas. 2001. Teaching by principles : an interactive approach to language pedagogy (2nded.). White Plains, N.Y.: Longman.

Departemen Pendidikan Nasional. 2006. Permendiknas Nomor 22 Tahun 2006 tentang Standar Isi untukSatuan Pendidikan Dasar dan Menengah . Jakarata: Depdiknas.

Kroeger, Paul. 2005. Analyzing grammar : an introduction . Cambridge, UK ; New York: CambridgeUniversity Press.