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Senin, 29 Oktober 2012

Descriptive Text

Let's learn about descriptive text for students in the 8th and 9th grade of Junior High School.
Description is
- about sensory experience—how something looks, sounds, tastes. Mostly it is about visual experience, but description also deals with other kinds of perception. Kane (2000: 352) 



-Specifically


Descriptive Text is a text which says what a person or a thing is like. Its purpose is to describe and reveal a particular person, place, or thing."


Mari kita belajar tentang descriptive text, ini pelajaran untuk siswa-siswi SMP, kelas 8 dan 9.
Descriptive Text adalah
- teks yang menjelaskan gambaran seseorang atau benda. Tujuannya adalah mengambarkan atau mengungkapkan orang, tempat atau benda tertentu.
- teks yang menjelaskan tentang seperti apakah orang atau suatu benda dideskripsikan, baik bentuknya, sifat-sifatnya, jumlahnya dan lain-lain. Tujuan (purpose) dari descriptive text pun jelas, yaitu untuk menjelaskan, MENGGAMBARKAN atau mengungkapkan seseorang atau suatu benda.

Generic Structure pada Descriptive Text :
Ketika menulis descriptive text, ada beberapa susunan umum / generic structure agar tulisan kita dianggap benar. Susunan tersebut adalah :
 1. Identification : berisi tentang identifikasi hal / seorang yang akan dideskripsikan.
 2. Description : berisi tentang penjelasan / penggambaran tentang hal / seseorang dengan menyebutkan beberapa sifatnya.
 
Untuk mempermudah kita membuat Descriptive Text, kita harus membekali diri dengan banyak kata sifat alias Adjective.

Contoh Descriptive Text :
My Mother
 
My mother is a beautiful person. She is not tall but not short, and she has curly hair and brown. Her eyes color are like honey and her color skin color light brown, and she has a beautiful smile. Her weight likes 120 lbs.


She is a very kind person. She is very lovely, friendly, patient, and she loves to help people. I love my mom, because she is a good example to me. She loves being in the Church, and she loves sing and dance too.

She is a very good child, wife and mother. She always takes care of her family. She likes her house to be clean and organized. She a very organized person, and all things in the house are in the right place. She doesn't like messes.

She always has a smile on her face. She is so sweet and lovely. I like when I am going to sleep or went I wake up or when I am going to go to some places, she always give me a kiss, and when the family have a problem she always be with us to helps us and to give us all her love. 

Ket : kata-kata yang digarisbawahi adalah merupakan kata sifat.
 


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Minggu, 25 Maret 2012

You

I see you in every view
I feel you in every my breath
I hold you in every moment
I get you, in the darkness in my dream

You are my friend,
You are my shadow
You are my soul
You are my stick in my steps

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Kamis, 19 Januari 2012

Humanistic Teaching

'Humanism' is one of those constructs that people argue about passionately. Instead of attempting to define it, perhaps it makes more sense to focus on some commonly agreed characteristics of humanism. These are: problem-solving, reasoning, free will, self-development, and co-operation.
• Humanism and learning theory
• The humanistic teacher
• Humanism in practice
o Teaching language items
o Teaching skills
o The teacher's status
o Flexibility
• Conclusion

Humanism and learning theory
Perhaps the most well-known applications of humanism in ELT are those of Curran (1976) and Gattegno (1972).
• The former advocated the use of 'Counselling-Learning'. In this practice, teachers sit outside a circle of learners and help them to talk about their personal and linguistic problems. The students decide the 'curriculum', while the teacher is more of a facilitator, who fosters an emotionally secure environment.
• Meanwhile, Gattegno advocated the Silent Way approach. In this, he presented challenges for learners. These challenges developed the students' awareness and encouraged their independence.

It's my view that it's possible to apply the characteristics of humanism to ELT in a less radical way than described in the practices above. In a way that might be more appealing for students, more practicable for teachers, and more plausible for education inspectors.

The humanistic teacher
The humanistic teacher should have a good grasp of language learning theories. They will realise the importance of change, which is implicit in all learning.
• They will be aware of the individual learners' 'developmental readiness' (Piaget, 1970), which will determine when and how to teach each student something.
• They will offer their students problems to solve, as, according to cognitivists, this is precisely how we learn things.
• Above all, the successful humanistic teacher will probably be a pragmatist - allowing a combination of language learning theories and their own experience to interact with each other to produce effective language lessons.

The humanistic teacher also needs to be aware of what motivates their students. Some will probably want to learn English because they have to (e.g. for their job), while others want to simply for the sake of it. The former is called 'extrinsic motivation', while the latter is called 'intrinsic motivation'.
• Those students who are more extrinsically motivated will be more goal-oriented and might want, for example, a lot of tests and exams.
• Students who are intrinsically motivated will derive a lot of satisfaction from solving language problems - the solution will be a reward in itself.

In reality, of course, students can be both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated. They may be learning English for a specific purpose (e.g. to be accepted into a speech community or to get promotion), but they might also really enjoy the process of learning.
• Teachers need to be aware of this mix and need to use this information to determine issues like:
o How much testing to do
o How much fun can be had
o Should the target language be representative of one particular speech community or not?
Humanism in practice
Teaching 'language items'
In an attempt to be a humanistic language teacher myself, I introduce every new language item at the optimum time of readiness for my class.
• I firstly elicit the target language. This fosters a sense of co-operation between the students and me.
• Then I try to make the meaning of the language items as clear as possible by using a number of techniques (e.g. pictures, mime, or a mini-explanation). Such work on the concept of the target language needs to be repeated later in a way that is appropriate to the abilities and progress of the group.
• At the appropriate time, students also need to practise speech production by saying or writing the target language.
• After enough practice, through both teacher-centred and student-centred phases, the student should gradually learn the target language. The student will have fundamentally changed.

Teaching skills
As I want my classes to be able to understand the 'gist' of a spoken interaction, I make sure that they are mentally prepared for it. This means that:
• The 'text' is not dauntingly hard for them
• I create the right conditions for understanding the text by, for example, arousing interest and pre-teaching lexis
• Then, by setting an appropriate task I am setting a problem for the students to solve. If I can steer my students towards focusing on the main points of the text then I am enabling learners to become more successful listeners.
• After this, students can be encouraged to carry out their own, related, role plays, with the result that students' ability to carry out certain situation-specific interactions will be enhanced. It's worth noting that these principles relate to reading texts too!

The teacher's status
It cannot be denied that the teacher plays a different role from that of his/her students. We each have a particular job. This does not mean, though, that we have higher status. We are certainly not in the classroom to order people around. I try to provide students with learning opportunities, which the students are free to take or not.
• However, if a student chooses not to take up an opportunity, and then goes on to become a malign influence in class, I then ask the rest of the class if their learning is being affected and whether they want the offending student to stay in class or not. I then have the authority to ask the student to leave.

Flexibility
Without flexibility, a teacher cannot teach humanistically, because students will never learn completely in step with any designated syllabus. This is why I always make a point of observing my students very carefully so that I know when to introduce certain tasks, according to the progress they're making.
• The same applies to lesson plans. I know that if I plough on through my plan regardless of how my students are responding, some students will be lost forever and lose confidence both in me and their own ability to learn English.

Conclusion
The thrust of humanism seems, to me, to be the ability to advance as a species through understanding and co-operation. This means that humanistic language teachers need to have a thorough grasp of both how people learn and what motivates them to learn. They need to shed the old image of the teacher being the fount of wisdom and replace it with the teacher as facilitator.

Further reading
Counseling-Learning in Second Languages by Curran C. Apple River
Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools: The Silent Way by Gattegno C. Educational Solutions
Structuralism by Piaget J. Basic Books
'Class, Status, and Party' in Essays from Max Weber by Weber M. Routledge and Kegan Paul
Humanising Language Teaching. An online journal for language teachers.
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Kamis, 05 Januari 2012

LET’S BE A PROFFESIONAL TEACHER

A professional teaching qualification does not make you a professional, in the true sense of the word. Belonging to a particular profession does not automatically guarantee that the service you provide, is a professional one. Read this article to find out how you can stand out as a true professional in your field: the classroom and larger school community.
1. Inspire the trust of your clients - the students and parents. Create a good first impression from day one of the academic year.
2. Dress like a professional. It is important for teachers to dress tastefully. Revealing clothes are the number one "no-no" for female teachers. Male teachers should remember that a tie and jacket worn to work, can easily be removed should the need arise. Teachers should arrive at work, looking the part.
3. Always be on time for work. A professional teacher understands the need to start the day well, every day. Truly professional teachers will make sure that they arrive at least ten minutes before the first bell rings, so as to prepare themselves mentally for the day ahead.
4. Be prepared. Check your diary the night before and plan the day ahead. Professional teachers plan thoroughly too for every lesson and class. They stick to their work programme and assessment schedule, to ensure that not only syllabus content is covered, but also the necessary skills for their students' longer-term success in their specific subject or learning area.
5. Follow procedures and the protocol expected at your school. Professionals embrace the corporate identity and values and model these for the clients - in this case, the children they teach.
6. Take charge of your classroom. Manage your students' behaviour. A professional teacher will not keep running to school management for assistance with classroom discipline, for example.
7. Take pride in the process and product. Make sure your notes and handouts are professionally presented. Professional teachers should never have to be asked to re-do a piece of work because its presentation is shoddy.
8. Never miss a deadline. Professionals keep their work up to date and plan ahead. Amateurs leave work until the last minute.
9. Keep up to date with your marking and grading of students' tasks. A three day rule of thumb should apply. If you take too long to hand back class tests and so on, the students will have lost interest in the task and their results by the time you return their work.
10. Treat your colleagues and supervisors with respect. Model respect for authority for your students and gaining their respect will be much easier for you.
11. Be passionate, positive, and enthusiastic about your work. A professional teacher will not create negativity in a staff room or engage in mindless gossip and the spreading of dissent.
12. Embrace change. A professional teacher will not be a doomsayer and throw cold water on new ideas or suggestions for positive change. A professional will not vocalise negative thoughts like "That will never work at this school."

13. Take an interest in every child. The better you get to know your students, the more influence you will have on their attitude towards your subject, and on their lives in general. Remember the adage: "Teachers touch eternity, they never know where their influence may end."

14. Treat your students with respect. Follow the maxim "Do unto others." Never publically humiliate or belittle your students. Do not discuss their results or grades in front of other students. Don't personalise issues with students.Leave their family, background, religion,behaviour, and personal circumstances out of public disciplinary processes and discussions.

15. Be a mentor not a friend. Model responsible adult values, exhibit self-control, choose your words carefully and consider the impact they may have on a particular student or group of students.

16. Maintain confidentiality. A professional teacher will use students'personal information to assist in helping a child to reach his or her potential. Confidential information will not be disclosed over tea during recess, or used as a weapon against a student. Confidential information such as the content of staff meetings too will be treated in the strictest of confidence.

17. Consult parents. Try to include parents in the educational process and encourage their support of the school's disciplinary processes and procedures. Be polite and calm when dealing with parents. Keep reminding them that every discussion about the child needs to be undertaken with the child's best interests at heart.

18. Put safety first. Remember that as a professional teacher you are offering a service to the students and the school community. You are duty-bound to take your "in loco parentis" role seriously. Explain why certain rules are in place and follow all institutional risk management procedures.

19. Support your colleagues and school management. Walk the talk. Put the needs of the institution above your own. Remember you are one person in a group of professionals who share a common goal and vision.

20. Let excellence be your aim. Constantly provide benchmarks for improvement for your students. Give praise when it is due, lots of it. Draw gently alongside those who are in need of help and find creative ways to assist them to improve their grades.

21. Take responsibility for your students' results. As a professional teacher, the grades your students achieve are a reflection on you. Bear this in mind, in all you do.

22. Behave professionally in public. Always support your school if negative people are bad-mouthing the institution. Swearing and drunkeness in public will cause community members to lose respect not only for you, but for the profession at large.

23. Keep abreast of education policy and legislation.

24. Constantly seek new subject knowledge and share this with your students. Take short courses to keep yourself mentally stimulated. Your renewed enthusiasm for your subject will be rewarded by increased student interest and enthusiasm for the subject itself.

25. Simplify your lessons: Good teachers make it easy to understand complicated things. Use examples, models and colored pictures and fotographs. Teach in illustrations that your students can relate to.

26. Keep your students attention. Teach your students why the knowledge you convey is important and how they can apply what they learn in their daily lives. Then they are more likely to remember what you teach.

GOOD LUCK
READ MORE - LET’S BE A PROFFESIONAL TEACHER