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Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Contoh Simple of A Field Research

Field Research Report
Title
“A Case Study of Fourth Grade Students’ Motivation for Learning English at SDN Kebun Bunga 6

Introduction
The purpose of this research is to help English teachers in Indonesia better understand the ways in which children are motivated to learn a foreign language. This research is concerned with the students’ motivation for learning English in Indonesia with the population from SDN Kebun Bunga 6. The following questions will guide my study:
1.      What is motivation?
2.      What motivate students to learn?
3.      What activities in class should be done to motivate the students to learn English?

Theoretical Framework
According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (1995; 758) motivation (derived from word “motive”) causes movement or action. Then, McDonald (In Djamarah, 2008; 148) said that motivation is an energy change within the person characterized by effective arousal and anticipatory goal reactions. In the learning process, motivation is needed to make students able to reach their goals. Related to Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis, motivation can be built by providing a low-anxiety environment for the learners. It will maximize their learning and make their confidence high. In this condition, of course, students will be active and have great passion if spoken production is not forced. Then in another theory, The Input Hypothesis, Krashen’s said that acquisition of a second language is also directly related to the learner’s understanding of the target language in natural communication situations. Input language must be understandable. The key to make students understand is (I+1) which can be taught using cues, context, gestures, pictures, and background knowledge. Both these theories helped me to conduct this research. I am interested in observing students’ motivation in learning English. I want to better understand whether the students’ confidence and their understanding the target language as well as the teacher’s effort to build these conditions in the classroom will influence their motivation in second language acquisition. Thus, my focus in this research is to better whether both hypotheses work, especially in fourth grade students’ motivation in learning English at SDN Kebun Bunga 6.

Method of Research
The context of this research is a foreign language classroom at an elementary school in Banjarmasin. I conducted this research at SDN Kebun Bunga 6 which is located on Jl. Ahmad Yani KM. 4.5, Komplek IAIN Antasari, Kelurahan Kebun Bunga, Banjarmasin, ZIP. 70235, telp. 0511-7477430. The headmaster of this school is H. Ismail H. Saberi. There are about 19 teachers and 313 students. In this school, there are 9 nine subject are taught including English as a foreign language. This school has the following vision and mission:
Vision:
“To Develop Students Moral and To Gain The Best Achievement Based On 6 K[1] Concept “(Safety, Cleanness, Orderliness, Beautifulness, Family Togetherness, Respect for the environment).”
Mission:
1.      Constructing students’ belief through implementation of Islamic teaching.
2.      Optimizing the successfulness of learning and guidance process.
3.      Making students get their reading, writing, and mathematics skill, basic science and technology, practice, art and culture, based on the students’ interest and level.
4.      Having a harmonious coorporation between school and environment.
5.      Maximizing implementation of 6 K (Safety, Cleanness, Orderliness, Beautifulness, Family Togetherness, Respect for the environment).
I conducted my research here for a span of month and obtained my information through observation and interviews with the students. I observed a classroom of fourth grade students and focused particularly on Boo (pseudonym) based on a consideration that he is one of the most active students in the class so that I think it will be interesting to know his motivation in learning.

Findings
The following is a report on the theory of motivation, the fourth grade students’ motivation for learning English, and what the teacher should do next to motivate the students to learn English.
A.    Theory of Motivation
Maslow, Wainer, and Deci agreed that motivation is the key in learning process generally (H. Doughlas Brown, 2008;183). According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (1995; 758) motivation (derived from word “motive”) causes movement or action. Then, McDonald (In Djamarah, 2008; 148) said that motivation is an energy change within the person characterized effective arousal and anticipatory goal reactions. Next, many of Psychologists stated that motivation can be divided into two kinds (http://nurannuran.wordpress.com/2008/02/17/influence-of-motivation-in-the-language-learning/):
1.      Intrinsic motivation: motivation that comes from us, ourselves. In students, by having this motivation, those students will learn the language with the best result, with or without praise or punishment from the teachers.
2.      Extrinsic Motivation: a motivation that comes from the outside. For students, they usually learn language with some praise or fear of teacher’s punishment.
Between both motivations, H. Douglas Brown quoted Maslow (2008:189) stated that intrinsic motivation is superior to extrinsic motivation.
Furthermore, motivation has some significant roles in the learning process, Some of those roles has been explained by Drs. Syaiful Bahri Djamarah (2008:157)  in Psikologi Belajar as following:
1.      Motivation encourages students to learn. By having motivation, students will have spesific reasons why they need to learn and what they want to achieve in that learning process.
2.      Motivation directs students to do what they should do. Students who have motivation can select what should and shouldn’t be done. Motivation will guide them to do things that can improve their learning achievement.
In brief, in the learning process, motivation to learn is needed to make students successful in achieving their goal.

B.     The Fourth Grade Students’ Motivation for Learning English
The class period was an hour. There was just one teacher to handle 27 students. The Students arranged in rows. See the diagram below for an example:
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*= Boy
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   = My student focus observation (Boo)




I have observed the class two times and I found that what students do from week to week tended to stay the same. Here were the activities in the classroom:
§  First week
Greeting - Reading aloud – Assignment – Translation – Read one by one (just some students) – Vocabulary – Evaluation – Checking evaluation together- – Homework.
On this first observation, I found students had high enthusiasm in reading aloud, translation, and translating vocabulary activities. During the assignment, students were  little bit noisy. Some students are talking. Then, students’ enthusiasm decreased at the end of lesson (Evaluation). Meanwhile, the teacher mostly just sat on his chair. He just walked in front of the class sometimes (at checking evaluation activity). He used students’ first language when he changed the activity. Some students received a warning from the teacher if they did not pay attention to the teacher, but unfortunately they did not got reward when they answered the teacher’s question.
In brief, the class was noisy but interesting at first. Students had high enthusiasm from the teacher’s loud voice. They competed each other (raised their voices) to be heard by the teacher. Unfortunately, the teacher was not show his attention to all students, especially for students who sat in back of the class. In the end of class, I did not see the teacher prompt the students to ask a question so that there were no question from students.

§  Second week
Greeting – Submitting homework – Reviewing last meeting lesson – Reading aloud the passage one by one – Exercise – Checking the exercise together.
Same as the previous week, the first hour of the lesson, I found students great passion in answering what the teacher asked. The difference was during this week I saw the teacher shared his attention to the students better than the week before. Some students in the back had the opportunity to answer his questions notwithstanding some students who wanted to volunteer were still ignored.
Based on what I found on my observation, I summarize that the students are motivated because of these factors:
1.      Teacher loud voice.
Teacher’s loud voice as the style of his teaching has influenced the students to do the same thing.
2.      Students understanding of what they were learning.
Topics taught in the classroom during my first and second observations were “At the Park” and “Human Body.”  I found students passion increase when the teacher related the topic with things in IAIN “Green Park” and when he used clues to point to the human body.  Students had high motivation to answer the teacher’s question when they understood what the teacher meant.
3.      Getting teacher attention
Every student competes to answer the teacher’s questions by increasing the volume of their voice. They compete to be heard by the teacher.
Then, based on the interview, I found that Boo’s motivation for learning English is getting a good score and avoiding punishment from the teacher.

C.    What the teacher should do to motivate the students
After conducting my observation and an interview, I realize what students need are:
1.      More creative activity in the end of class.
2.      More activity that involves the students to speak and act.
3.      More attention to be focused on whole class.
4.      More rewards rather than punishment.

Implications
After spending time observing these students and their language learning, I have discovered that students’ motivation for learning English mostly depend on external motivation. As Maslow said “Intrinsic motivation is superior to extrinsic motivation” so that it is important for the teacher next year to increase the students intrinsic motivation.  Intrinsic motivation is motivation that comes from the students themselves. Thus, to build this kind of motivation the teacher should know what students needs are. Based on what I have found, I suggest the teacher to do the following things:
1.      Create a teaching method and approach to make students engage in more activities that involves them as the center of learning and easy to understand. Related to Krashen’s  theory – The input hypothesis – :
Acquisition of a second language is directly related to the learner’s understanding the target language in natural communication situations so that the input language should be understandable.
(Psycholinguistics’ class, 2010)

In this case the learners are fourth grade students.  Thus, as young learners, they have a lot of energy that cause them like to move and to make a lot of noise in the class. Creating instructional activities that involves students to move and make them as a center of the learning process will solve this problem. Using Total Physical Response (TPR) can be an alternative method instead of the Audiolingual method. In this method, students will do many physical activities that change their energy become a part of lesson. Learning through physical activities/gestures also makes students think and try to understand what they are learning. Then, another activity such as singing a song and games can increase their attention to the lesson. As Drs. Andi Irlina, M.Hum presented in the International Seminar at IAIN Antasari “Games and song are two teaching methods that very helpful to present in the children classroom.” Asleigh Sayer M.A, a Psycholinguistics Lecturer also stated by quoting Bob Lake on that seminar  “Music can help familiarize students with connections and    provides a fun way to acquire English.”
Another way to make students better to understand the lesson is to use media, such as pictures.
2.      Children always need a lot of attention. Thus, it will be better if the teacher walks around the class to check the students’ progress and to make them feel that “the teacher is in the class,” especially for students who sit in the back. The teacher’s attention also can increase the level of students’ confidence.
3.      Students need rewards to be better motivated. For instance, when students answer questions volunteerly or they do their assignment or homework well, the teacher should give praise or ask friends to give applause. A verbal reward can be very useful for them because it indicates that the teacher appreciates their passion, loves their work, and that teacher wants  them to do it again next time. If the teacher does this things, I believe that the teacher has provided a fun and motivating environment to learn. Students will compete with each other to be the best in the class. This is what I think of as a low-anxiety environment. Related to Krashen’s Affective Hypothesis, a low anxiety environment will maximize the students learning and make their confidence stay high.

Conclusion 
In summary, after a month of research at SDN Kebun Bunga 6, I have learned that students’ motivation for learning English are:
1.      Teacher’s loud voice.
2.      Their understanding to what they are learning.
3.      Getting the teacher’s attention.
4.      Getting a high score.
5.      Avoiding teacher’s punishment.


Based on this research, I also have found that the students’ motivation can be improved if:
1.      The teacher creates a teaching method and approach to make students engage in more activities that involves them as the center of learning and allow them to understand the lesson.
2.      More attention to be paid to the whole class.
3.      More rewards rather than punishment.


[1] 6 K= Keamanan, Kebersihan, Ketertiban, Keindahan,   Kekeluargaan, dan Kerindangan (in English: Safety, Cleanness, Orderliness, Beautifulness, Family togetherness, Respect for the environment).

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