CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
41.1 The English day
Before going to the result of interviews, the researcher presented the participants of the interviewer through the following table:
Table 41.1
NO NAME CHARACTERISTIC
1 Miss ND The head of boarding school of Muallimat and English teacher of intermediate class in English day
2 Miss FN The teacher of English in formal school of MA Muallimat
The school where the study was conducted provided an English language extracurricular, English day. Based on an interview with Miss ND as a teacher in an intermediate class of English extracurricular and the head of the boarding school. The English day had been running for almost two years when the number of Covid-19 began to decline. The purpose of establishing English Day was to help students and motivate them to learn English because the school observed it combines schools and Islamic boarding schools. They should have many activities such as memorizing the Koran, learning Arabic, studying religious knowledge, qiroah sab'ah and Qur'an interpretation. Those activities became one of the reasons why English day was held on weekends, on Saturday mornings, starting from 08:00-09:30. Also, according to Miss ND, compared to Arabic lessons, English was a subject with a few enthusiasts in Islamic boarding schools. As Miss ND said.
“In Islamic boarding schools, students are more familiar with using Arabic in learning activities. Arabic dominates more than English which only exists in formal classes. Mastery of Arabic is needed to support learning activities in Islamic boarding schools. Almost all the books studied in Islamic boarding schools are in Arabic, not
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English. Therefore, I hope English day can increase students’ motivation to learn English (Miss ND, June 25, 2022).”
Based on the statement above, Miss ND expected that English day could help students and motivate students to learn English. Especially students in Islamic boarding schools that use Arabic more in their learning activities. In addition, Miss ND said that English day was divided into three classes, namely basic, intermediate and advanced, each class has a different teacher. The statement is as follows:
“English day is provided for senior high school and junior high school. Therefore, to make learning easier, we divide the class into three levels, basic, intermediate, and advanced, which are taken from their English proficiency test results (Miss ND, June 25, 2022).”
Miss ND also explained that English day was an extracurricular provided for junior and also senior high school. The class placement was based on students' scores when doing the test. Meanwhile, the researcher found that teaching and learning activities in English day used various sources as teaching materials. Miss ND said that she used sources, such as language center books from one of the favorite courses in Pare English language village and English lessons from the Modern boarding school of Darussalam Gontor. The two books have been arranged according to levels in English. The statement is as follows:
“The books used in English day differ from the textbooks provided by the government in public schools. I am as a teacher, use English books from the English language center of Pare Village as a reference in teaching. The language center itself is well-known as one of my favorite fun courses. In addition, I also use English lessons from the modern Islamic boarding school Darussalam Gontor. Besides having good content, they are also easy to learn and have been arranged according to levels in English (Miss ND, June 25, 2022).”
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English day, as an informal school, has different sources of teaching materials. If in formal school, the teacher uses a guidebook provided by the government, while in English day, the teacher is free to use any book in teaching and learning activities according to the class level. For example, if the student's English ability is at the primary level, then the student will learn basic English, but if the student has impressive English skills, then they will learn English at the advanced class level.
On English day, an exam was conducted at the end of the semester to determine students’ ability levels. Students who have good scores in the examination are placed in classes according to their abilities, as Miss ND said:
“At the end of the semester, we have exams for extracurricular languages, either English or Arabic. The exams are written and oral exams. They will be placed according to their score based on the final exam (Miss ND, June 25, 2022).”
The statement above explained that even though students were in the advanced class, they would be placed in the basic or intermediate class if they got a low score on the final exam. On the other hand, the researcher also found that teaching English in Islamic schools with a Boarding school background was more challenging than teaching English in public schools. It caused Arabic in boarding schools to be more in demand than English. Therefore, students need more enthusiasm for learning English. According to a statement from Miss FN.
“Teaching and learning activity in Islamic boarding schools is more challenging than teaching and learning activity in public school. As we know, students have many busy activities outside regular schools. They have a more dominant focus. They have to memorize the Koran, learn various religious lessons unrelated to English, and even use Arabic more often than English. Therefore, English day helps me in teaching and learning activities, students who participated in English day are more enthusiastic
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about learning English, and they are easier to understand, and it affects their performance exactly (Miss FN, June 25, 2022).”
It concluded that English day activities positively influence English learning performance in formal schools. Moreover, English day could increase students' motivation to learn English.