Why almost all of Junior and Senior High School students fail to learn English and How to solve it?

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Writer : Faiz atau Khazin
Rabu, 07-Mei-2008
Abstract

Many teachers are not successful to teach English either in Junior or Senior High School. They haven't got the best way to teach. They follow many kinds of workshop to make teaching preparation and to change their own method of teaching. But one most important thing they forget in giving motivation to the students. This is the problem why the teachers fail to make the students get four kinds of language skills.

Key words: motivation, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, strategy
Introduction

The failure of teaching English in Indonesia has become the main topic in every discussion among the people's conversation. This condition has made the important educated people blame one another. This is just caused by their wrong perception about understanding foreign language learning and foreign language acquisition.

The education curriculum has been changed many times with the reason that it is not suitable anymore or something else. It has made the English teachers make teaching preparation and have to change theirs every four years or even every two years. It forces the teachers to do what the curriculum wants the teachers to do.

The English teachers have been invited to everywhere to follow what is called English teaching workshop. They are trained to make many kinds of teaching preparation making all of the teachers bored. Instead of thinking about how to teach and how to make the students enjoy learning they are busy sitting, writing, preparing their teaching planning because of their fright of their headmaster or the education controller. They are demanded to know well how to plan a lesson and to make other teaching preparation while the motivation with which the students will get a big success is almost forgotten. They almost never get special knowledge about arousing the students' motivation, intention to learn.

And something becoming the viruses in all the teachers' mind is UAN. Some teachers try to do " learning English activity happily" despite their fright of the students' failure in their last examination. The teachers hope the students to be able to speak a little bit English and become interested in learning English. On the other hand, the students NOT YET getcomplicated rules offered by the curriculum.

Many kinds of books have been printed and sold to the students without being carefully revised. The most important thing is that the books give high profit to the teachers, especially the low teaching motivated teachers. The books are said to be communicative approach but the content is really the traditional one. This also supports the failure of our English education.

For these reasons this article is aimed at giving description of learning English as a foreign language. And this is hoped to give contribution to all English teachers especially in motivating the students to learn English.

That' why?

How can teachers motivate students to study English? And how can motivation increase the students' ability to speak English?

Language learning heart strategy has been ignored for many years. It is really neglected heart of language learning. It is the most possible pathway in the realm of language learning motivation.
Motivation

What is motivation? Well let me write you some definitions drawn from a number of different sources: (1) motivation is the cause to act in particular way. (2) Motivation as "the anticipation of reinforcement. (3) Motivation is the extent to which you make choices about (a) goals to pursue and (b) the effort you will devote to that pursuit. (4) Effort, desire to learn a language and attitude toward learning the language are viewed as motivation.

This article stresses various ways of improving the student's motivation to learn. Whatever the type of motivation is intended to enhance the student's spirit to win the four kinds of language skills.
A.Elements of motivation

Gardner (1985b) stated that motivation is composed of four elements: (1) a goal 2 (2) A desire to get the goal (3) Positive attitude toward learning the language (4) and effortful behavior to the effect.
B. Motivational components that are specific to learning situations

Three sets of motivational components:

1.Course specific motivational components concerning the syllabus, the learning materials, the teaching method, and the learning tasks.

2.Teacher specific motivational components concerning the teacher's personality, teaching style, feedback, and relationship with the students; and

3.group specific motivational components concerning the dynamics of the learning group. Groups are formed for a purpose, to have fun to learn.
B.Types of motivation

Dornyei emphasizes many aspects of learning motivation, but the writer is just interested in discussingabout teaching strategies dealing with motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Highly motivated students will find themselves how to choose suitable learning strategies and determine their own attitude to the target language. And the writer considers that all normal human beings will get advantages of taking part inlanguage learning interaction.
Intrinsic Motivation

Motivation is the first requirement to be successful in foreign language learning. The highly motivated students will learn faster than those who are not well motivated. Brown(1994) states that motivation is probably the most frequently used term for explaining the success of failure virtually any complex task, including L2/FL learning. Never say"that is wrong or that is not right" but motivate the students by saying "good" and hide the students' mistakes by stating "almost right, but". Keep the language politeness while teaching. Don't use difficult patterns because this will destroy the students' spirit or even they will hate the language target. Use conversational grammar because it is based on how people actually talk. It includes small chunks, mostly clauses and single words rather than complete sentences. This is true for both interactional and transactional turns and use authentic materials and media. Although they must be prepared and need a lot of time to make them there are very strong reasons to use them. Authentic materials and media can reinforce for students the direct relation between the language classroom and the outside world. In addition, authentic materials and media after a way to contextualize language learning.

One ofthe teachers' duties at school is to motivate students by engaging their interest in classroom activities or outside classroom activities. One way in which intrinsic interest in L2/Fl learning might be achieved is by providing opportunities for communication. McNamara(1973) has argued that the really important part of motivation lies in the act of communication. Rossier(1975) also emphasizes the importance of a desire to communicate, arguing that without this an integrative motivation may not be effective. It is the need to get meanings across and the pleasure experienced when this is achieved that provides the motivation to learn an L2/ FL.

One possibility, supported by a strong pedagogic literature is that interest is engendered if learners become self-directed, able to determine their own learning objectives, choose their own ways of achieving these and evaluate their own progress.

As Finocchiaro (1981) puts in:

Motivation is the feeling nurtured by the classroom teacher in the learning situation. The moment of truth-the enhancement of motivation-occurs when the teacher closes the classroom door, greets his students with a warm, welcoming smile, and proceeds to interact with various individuals by making comments or asking questions, which indicate personal concern.
Intrinsic motivation in Education

Traditionally the teacher in elementary and secondary school give rewards to the students to enhance the students' motivation. The students have a high desire to learn because of the prize or else, but they don't have an internalized thirst for knowledge and experience. Consequently, such dependency focuses students too exclusively on the material or monetary rewards of an education for creativity and for satisfying some of the more basic drives for knowledge and experience.
Extrinsic Motivation

Behaviors carried out in anticipation of a reward from outside and beyond the self have extrinsic motivation. The intrinsic rewards can be money, prizes, grades and even certain types of positive feedback. The avoidance of punishment is also one kind of intrinsic motivation because this can build the students sense of competence and determination.
Which form of motivation is more powerful?

A convincing research strongly favors intrinsic drives, especially for long term retention. Abraham Maslow (1970) claimed that extrinsic motivation is clearly superior to extrinsic. People seek out the challenging situation, optimal incongruity what Krashen (1985) called "i + 1 "- presents enough of possibility of being resolved that resolution. Jerome Brumer (1962) claimed that one effective way to help children and adults to think and learn is to free them from the control of rewards and punishment. The weakness ofextrinsic motivation is the presence of addictive nature. Once captivated by the lure of an immediate prize or praise the students become dependent on tangible rewards, even to the point that their withdrawal can extinguish the desire to learn.

Kohn (1990) gave example:

1.Subjects were asked to solve an intrinsically fascinating complex puzzle with no stated reward. Halfway through the process, the experimenter informed the students that there would be a monetary reward for solving the puzzle. From that point onward, intrinsic motivation (as measured by speed and correct steps toward a solution) waned.

2.Teenage girls were given the task of teaching some games to younger children. One group of "teachers" were simply given their task, the others were told that they would receive a reward(a free ticket to the movies) for successfully completing the teaching task. Results: The first group did their task faster, with more success, and reported greater pleasure in doing so than the second group.

Of course, intrinsic motivation is not the only determiner of success for a language learner. But if the learners in the classroom are given an opportunity to do language activities for their own personal reasons of achieving competence those learners will have a better change of success than if they become dependent on external rewards for their motivation.
Once again about motivation

Motivation is a really powerful factor in achieving language learning goals although it is not precisely known how motivation affects learning. It is not clear whether motivation improves the desire to learn or successful learning enhances motivation. Burstall (1975) has addressed just this issue and concluded that achievement affected later attitudes and later achievement to a greater extent than early attitudes than early attitudes affected either later achievement or later attitudes. In other words, it was the motivation that was engendered by the learning process itself that seemed to matter most. A similar view is taken by MacNamara (1973). He argues that the really important part of motivation lies in the act of communication itself rather than in any general orientation as implied by the integration or instrument distinction.
C.Why the writer emphasizes on motivation.

Many researchers show usthat motivation directly influences the student's behavior in learning foreign language and the students can determine themselves how to choose good strategies to learn and acquire English skills. That's why giving motivation, with various ways, to the students is a ‘must' to achieve the target language. No matter what strategies are chosen to arouse the student's motivation. The most important thing is that the students can win both kinds of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Without motivation it is extremely difficult for them to succeed in learningforeign language or the writer is brave to say it is impossible.
D.How to motivate the students.

Motivating the students can be done through many kinds of ways and all of you will agree that it is very complex. The motivation can come from the teacher, the students themselves or their environment. Gardner states: " The source of the motivating impetus is relatively unimportant, provided that motivation is aroused" (1985b,p169). The following activities are examples of giving motivation to the students.
Do meaningful learning

Almost all of the students the writer teaches consider that English is the most difficult lesson they must study and they also think that English has no relation to their life. And some of them don't want at all to know the language rules given by the teacher.

Knowing that the students have very low motivation, the teacher has obligation to find as many kinds of strategies as possible to arouse the students' desire to learn. By conducting various ways to teach, the teacher is able to choose the best way motivating the students to learn and make the students learn without having to understand and memorize complicated language rules. In this case motivation is badly needed by L2 and FL learners.
Use authentic Materials And Media

To do this, he begins with an idea in a text and based on the understanding of students' needs and interests, locate authentic materials, as well as create additional activities that make use of them. Here is as example of how the writer did this. While the students were participating in ‘a card' activity. They expressed interest learning how to offer drink in a living room.

This condition is very suitable with what Dougles Brown advises us to avoid the pitfalls of rote learning:

a. Too much grammar explanation

b.Too many abstract principles and theories

c. Too much drilling and/or memo ration

d.Activities whose purposes are not clear

e. Activities that do not contribute to accomplishing the goals of the lesson, unit or course

f. Techniques that are so focus on the mechanics instead of on the language or meanings
In short, if the students have become intrinsically motivated to all classroom or outside classroom activities, teachers might not be needed anymore.Develop students self confidence

The teacher should ask the students to do inside classroom activities or outside classroom activities by saying " You can do it" repeatedly and he should start the students' activities logically with simpler techniques and simpler concepts.

Asking the students to memorize difficult sentences and giving them complicated explanation should extremely be avoided. Just tell the students that ing-form and be, for example, are used if the time signal is "now" without writing the name of the tense and even the pattern of the tense.
Do interaction in classroom settings.

What is interaction?

Interactionis the collaborative exchange of thoughts, feelings, or ideas between two or more people resulting in a reciprocal affect on each other. Theories of communication competence emphasize the importance of interaction as human being use language in various contexts to "negotiate" meaning or simply stated, to get an idea out of one person' head and into the head of another person and vice versa.
Help the students learn the natural way

This means that learning foreign language only in the classroom is not suitable anymore. The students must be in the real context to practice communication. But they should no force themselves to use the language. A young Israeli who stressed the importance of living the language explained:

" I don't think I have to use it. If it happens to me to use it, I use it. I don't force myself to use a word, because if it is compulsive, it is not natural.
Help the students practice

The teacher should find strategies in order that the students use the language as often as possible. If someone practices he will learn "automatically", " get accustomed to speaking", " understand better', and " learn to think in English'.
Include a sociocultural component in the foreign language syllabus

Invite the students to watch films or TV recordings, play relevant music and invite interesting native speakers gusts.
Promote student contact with foreign language speakers in your country

If possible organizing school trips or exchange programs to theforeign language community; or finding pen friends for your students.
Encourage the students to set attainable sub goals for themselves that are proximal and specific.

Ideally, these sub goals can be integrated into a personalized learning plan to each student.
Make the syllabus of the course.

The syllabus must be relevant by basing it on needs analysis and involving the students in the actual planning of the course program.
What else should the teacher do?

Teachers play very important roles in the course of teaching- described in the form of metaphor: teacher as manufacturer, teacher as doctor, teacher as judge, teacher as gardener and others. And the following is another set of metaphors to describe the possibilities of teachers' roles.

The teacher should make students group work. By grouping the students, the teachers can give the students more opportunities to speak, interaction happens. Douglas Brown describes the importance of interaction in the language classroom:
1.The teacher as Controller

A role that is sometimes expected in traditional educational institutions is that of "master" controller, always in charge of every moment in the classroom. Mater controller determine what the students do, when they should speak, and what language forms they should use. They can often predict many students' responses because everything is mapped out ahead of time, with no leeway for divergent paths. In some respects, such control may sound admirable. But for interaction to take place, the teacher must create a climate in which spontaneity can thrive, in which unrehearsed language can be performed, and in which the freedom of expression given over to students makes it impossible to predict everything that they will say and do.

Nevertheless, some control on your part is actually an important element of successfully carrying out interactive techniques. In the planning phase especially, a wise controller will carefully projecthow a technique will proceed, map out the initial input to students, specify directions to be given, and gauge the timing of a technique. So granted that allowing for spontaneity of expression involves yielding certain elements of control to students, nevertheless, even in the most cooperative of interactive classrooms, the teacher must maintain some control simply to organize the class hour.
2.The Teacher as Director

Some interactive classroom time can legitimately be structured in such a way that the teacher is like a conductor of an orchestra or a director of a drama. As students engage in either rehearsed or spontaneous language performance, it is your job to keep the process flowing smoothly and efficiently. The ultimate motive of such direction, of course, must always be to enable students eventually to engage in the real life drama of improvisation as each communicative event brings its own uniqueness.
3.The Teacher as Manager

This metaphor captures your role as one who plans lessons, modules, and courses, and who structures the larger, longer segments of classroom time, but who then allows each individual player to be creative within those parameters. Managers of successful corporations, for example, retain control of certain larger objectives of the company, keep employees pointed toward goals, engage in ongoing evaluation and feedback, but give freedom to each person to work in his or her own individual areas of expertise. A language class should not be markedly different.
4.The Teacher as Facilitator

A less directive role might be described as facilitating the process of learning, of making learning easier for students: helping them to clear away roadblocks, to find shortcut, to negotiate rough terrain. The facilitating role requires that you step away from the managerial or directive role and allow students, with your guidance and gentle prodding, to find their own pathways to success. As facilitator capitalizes on the principle of intrinsic motivation by allowing students to discover language through using it pragmatically, rather than by telling them about language.
5.The Teacher as Resource

Here you take the least directive role. In fact, the implication of the resource role is that the student takes the initiative to come to you. You are available for advice and counsel when the student seeks it. It is of course not practical to push this metaphor to an extreme where you would simply walk into a classroom and say something like, " Well, what do you want to learn today?"Some degree of control, of planning, of managing the classroom is essential. But there are appropriate times when you call literally take a back seat and allow the students to proceed with their own linguistic development.

In the lesson that you deliver, you should be able to assume all five of these roles on this continuum of directive to non directive teaching, depending on the purpose and context of an activity. The key to interactive teaching is to strive toward the upper, non directive end of the continuum, gradually enabling your students to move from their roles of total dependence to relatively total independence. The proficiency level of your class will determine to some extent which roles will dominate. But even at the lowest levels, some genuine interaction can take place, and your role must be one that releases your students to try things for themselves.
Conclusion

Teaching English is not just teaching, giving information, explaining the lesson as many as possible so that the students can get knowledge faster, giving exercises and just doing any activities in the classroom. Teachers should do more than justteaching, giving information, explaining the lesson, giving exercises and just doing any activities in the classroom. Motivation to learn must be administered to them in order that they determine their own way to learn and automatically have positive attitude to learn the language.