A CASE STUDY AT SMKN (VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL) 4 MALANG
3. Finding
The Implementation of Telegram application in teaching English at SMKN (Vocational High School) 4 Malang.
Based on the finding, the implementation of Telegram application suits with environment of the school. It is due to the fact that the school of SMKN 4 Malang is the one which focuses on teaching the students about technology and computer. As what has been implied by the students in interview section. The student said
“Yes, because my major at this school is studying about technology”. (An excerpt retrieved from an interview with student B)
Besides, the students also told
“Yes, I think it is suitable with the condition of the students who are teenagers that are attracted with the use of gadgets in daily life”.
(An excerpt retrieved from an interview with student A)
Therefore, by implementing Telegram application in English language teaching, hopefully it would make the students aware of using the development of technology in a wise way. However, the teacher did not always use Telegram as the only media to encourage the students’ awareness in taking advantage of the development of technology. There should be the utilization of other applications such as Socrative and Teacher’s Blog, but still, the main media used by the teacher was Telegram which included all the materials needed along the semester.
Mizan Yushril Rahmatullah Faqih Putra. The Teaching of English By Using Telegram Application: A Case Study At SMKN (Vocational High School) 4 Malang. 2021: Vol. 4 (2): 92-108
Other benefit obtained by implementing Telegram application in English language teaching is that it may provide the students an autonomous learning. It is due to all of the materials needed have been being inputted by the teacher to one of the Telegram’s feature, which is called as Bot API. It is proven by teacher who said
“This media is already completed with all of the materials and accessible for students”. (An excerpt retrieved from an interview with the teacher)
To access the materials, students just need to go to Bot which is named English For Grade X, then select the topic they want to study. The materials in this feature consist of quite complete package such as explanation, example, and tasks. Thus, the students would be easier to study English wherever and whenever they want. The appearance of Bot API can be seen in figure 3.
Figure 3: The Appearance of Bot API
However, to gain all the benefits mentioned above, the teacher needed to do some efforts. Before using Telegram application as teaching media, the teacher should set and create the Bot API to be used in teaching English. First, the teacher logged in to Telegram account. Then, in the search section, he typed manybot.
The following list such as in figure 4 would appear, Manybot should be selected.
Figure 4: Searching Manybot Account
After being clicked, a chat dialog would appear as in figure 5, the teacher clicked START to begin setup.
Mizan Yushril Rahmatullah Faqih Putra. The Teaching of English By Using Telegram Application: A Case Study At SMKN (Vocational High School) 4 Malang. 2021: Vol. 4 (2): 92-108
Figure 5: Interface of Manybot
After clicking START, the initial command would appear. Since the teacher was going to make a bot, he clicked on the text /addbot or clicked on "Create a New Bot" like in the figure 6.
Figure 6: Creating a New Bot
Then, the tutorial of making a new bot would appear in detail as shown in figure 7
Mizan Yushril Rahmatullah Faqih Putra. The Teaching of English By Using Telegram Application: A Case Study At SMKN (Vocational High School) 4 Malang. 2021: Vol. 4 (2): 92-108
Figure 7: Tutorial of Making a New Bot
In the figure 7, the teacher was advised to make a Bot using @BotFather. Then he clicked on the @BotFather username. After that, he would enter directly into the chat dialog with the Botfather. He clicked START to get started.
After clicking START, a tutorial on using BotFather would appear as in figure 8. To start making the Telegram Bot, the teacher clicked on the /newbot link.
Figure 8: The Interface of BotFather
Then, the teacher was asked to give a name of the Telegram Bot that would be used. In this study, the teacher used
“English for grade X” as the name of the Telegram Bot as what has been showed in figure 9.
Mizan Yushril Rahmatullah Faqih Putra. The Teaching of English By Using Telegram Application: A Case Study At SMKN (Vocational High School) 4 Malang. 2021: Vol. 4 (2): 92-108
Figure 9: Giving Name for The New Bot
Next, the teacher was asked the username of the Bot that would be made. The username should be ended with the word bot or Bot. In this study the teacher used “@English_ForGradeX_bot” as the username of the Bot. Figure 10 showed the detail information of the interface in user-naming the Bot.
Figure 10: Giving Username of The New Bot
After determining the username, the Telegram Bot has been created and the information as shown in figure 11 would appear.
Figure 11: The Information of Bot Token
This process is actually not finished yet, the teacher should verify the Bot token. Then, he copied the token listed and went back to Manybot. Next, the teacher clicked “I’ve copied the API token”. The teacher then waited until Manybot had answered with the words "Good. Send the API token in the next message”. After that, the teacher should paste the token that was copied before in the Manybot chat column then clicked “send”. Finally, the teacher waited until he got a reply that the token for the Telegram bot has been received as in the figure 12 and Manybot would inform the teacher that the Telegram Bot was ready to use.
Mizan Yushril Rahmatullah Faqih Putra. The Teaching of English By Using Telegram Application: A Case Study At SMKN (Vocational High School) 4 Malang. 2021: Vol. 4 (2): 92-108
Figure 12: The Information That Bot Is Ready To Use
After creating the Bot, the teacher inserted the materials, exercises, and quizzes in the Bot. Then, the teacher asked the students to download and install the Telegram application in their device as well as making Telegram group class. Finally, the teacher can share the information about the Bot by sending the link or asking them to find it in Telegram’s searching feature.
The Telegram group class in this study consists of thirty-five students and a teacher. The teacher started the class by broadcasting a text that includes some points that students need to pay attention. The teacher explained what the students should study that day. By doing that, the students would know that they were going to learn about daily routine task. After explaining what was going to be studied, the teacher also informed them what they should do to complete the course. Firstly, the students should click the online link provided to study the material. The online link was the gate to get all the materials (explanations and examples), tasks, and activities regarding to the topic provided.
Besides, the students are also allowed to go to Telegram’s Bot API set by the teacher for the class and choose the daily routine menu. Both online link and Bot API provides the same materials. The display of the materials can be seen as in figure 13.
Figure 13: Display of daily routine materials
Mizan Yushril Rahmatullah Faqih Putra. The Teaching of English By Using Telegram Application: A Case Study At SMKN (Vocational High School) 4 Malang. 2021: Vol. 4 (2): 92-108
The second, after studying about the topic discussed, the students are asked to complete the quiz lied after the material section. The quiz consists of two sections. The first section is matching the picture and daily activities. Here, there are 25 pictures and 25 daily activities such as getting up, washing face, doing homework, and so on. The students are asked to write down the daily activities that is suit with the picture provided below the picture. The second section is that completing the paragraph by choosing the appropriate word. This section contains a paragraph that its some words are missing. The students should choose the appropriate words among A, B, C, or D option by writing it down on a paper and submitting in the form a picture in the Telegram group class. The number of the missing words is 12. Thus, the total number of the quiz is 37. The detailed information about the quiz can be found in figure 14.
Figure 14: Quiz of daily routine materials
Thirdly, the students should write their own text of their daily activities in the form of telegraph (a blogging platform provided by Telegram) just like the example given previously in the materials section. After that, the students should send the online link of their work to the group to be checked and scored by the teacher. The students should submit their work before the due date which was the next day after the teacher gave the materials at 24.00.
Those who sent their job out of the due date, their score will be decreased. Figure 15 is the display of Telegraph by Telegram application.
Figure 15: The Display of Telegraph
To publish a writing on Telegraph, firstly, the students only need to go to an instant web called telegra.ph.
There, the students would see a blank white space with some boxes to write down their title of the writing, name, and of course their writing the same as what has been provided in figure 4.13. They can add some pictures from their device, videos from YouTube, or even tweets from Twitter by only providing the link in the writing. After the writing is finished, the students need to press “publish” button at the top right of the page. Finally, the writing is published.
Mizan Yushril Rahmatullah Faqih Putra. The Teaching of English By Using Telegram Application: A Case Study At SMKN (Vocational High School) 4 Malang. 2021: Vol. 4 (2): 92-108
After announcing what the students should do to complete the course, the teacher closed the text by wishing them to have a nice job and a good luck. The teacher also suggested them to share the information about that day’s announcement to their friends so that no students would miss the information. Without any further do, some students started sending their work to the Telegram group class. If the students asked about the materials or task, the teacher directly share the answer in the group class. Hence, after the students collected their works and no longer asked about the topic or the materials, it can be determined that the materials are successfully delivered.
Besides, using telegram in online ELT classroom also gives some contributions to the development of students’
English competencies. Regarding writing skill, Telegram provides Telegraph application which allow the students to post their writing to be read by the other users.
It was supported by the teacher who said
“Telegram promotes students autonomous learning so they can learn every time and everywhere. It helps students to improve their skills in English such as reading and writing”.
(An excerpt retrieved from an interview with the teacher)
This was beneficial for students to foster their self-confidence to publish their writings. To make the students write on Telegraph, the teacher usually asked them to publish their work such as writing recount text, daily activities, and so on. Then, after publishing their writing, the students just need to drop the online link to submit the work. Out of the school task, the students of course can publish their own writings on Telegraph.
The telegraph supports not only students’ writing skill but also reading skill. Since the published writing task was usually submitted by dropping the online link at the Telegram group class, every student may read the others’
work by clicking the online link. As much as they keep reading, their reading skill would be increased. However, telegraph was not the only source for practicing reading skill. The teacher provided some materials that includes some readings on it. It was in line with the students’ interview result that they said
“We can learn a new vocabulary by reading the material provided by the teacher”. (An excerpt retrieved from an interview with student A)
Thus, to increase the reading skill, the students may read the other students’ writing on telegraph or read the readings provided by the teacher in Bot API feature.
To conclude, the implementation of Telegram application as the teaching media in teaching English is suitable with the environment of SMKN (Vocational High School) 4 Malang. Furthermore, it is also beneficial for supporting students’ development in English comprehension especially in writing and reading skills. Meanwhile, to utilize the Telegram in teaching English, teacher needs to provide all the materials and insert them to Bot API. Teacher should also make a group class consisted of all of the students in the class to organize the teaching process well. Therefore, by doing this, the benefits of using Telegram and the learning objectives can be reached.
Challenges in Implementing Telegram in Teaching English at SMKN 4 Malang.
The problems found are based on the teacher and students’ interview as well as observation. Thus, this finding will be divided into two parts which are teacher’s problems and students’ problem.
1. Teacher’s Problems As the teacher saying
“Usually, the problems are the internet connection access and making sure students study and do the exercise by themselves”,
(An excerpt retrieved from an interview with student the teacher)
The problem probably faced by the teacher is regarding internet connection access. Based on the observation, since Telegram application cannot be operated offline, the teacher should connect to internet access when he wanted to conduct or start the class. The use of Telegram also needs a stable signal to be able to connect well. If the internet connection is bad, it can be a problem that could potentially disturb the operation of Telegram. For example, when the teacher wants to send materials to be a project for students in group class, it cannot be sent because the internet connection does not work well, so when it occurs, it can be impacted to the project timeline.
The second problem is that the teacher cannot control whether the students study the materials or not. In accordance with the observation, it is difficult to make sure that the students pay attention to the materials given or teacher’s explanation because the teacher cannot see students’ real activity during the online class. Making sure that
Mizan Yushril Rahmatullah Faqih Putra. The Teaching of English By Using Telegram Application: A Case Study At SMKN (Vocational High School) 4 Malang. 2021: Vol. 4 (2): 92-108
the students do the quiz by their selves is also difficult to be known. Furthermore, these problems may affect to teacher’s decision in marking the score of each student.
Overcoming the problems, the teacher provided some solutions by saying
“I usually make sure the internet connection is available and running well before starting the class, then give students essay question to fix the second problem”.
(An excerpt retrieved from an interview with the teacher.)
Therefore, providing enough internet data before starting the class as well as checking students’ work should be conducted. The internet data needed is not too much. 2 Giga bytes of internet data are way enough to operate the Telegram application. To make sure that the students study the materials given, the teacher gave them an essay question to be answered. For instance, as what has been mentioned previously, the teacher asked the students to make daily routine text. In the form of essay, each student should have different answer. If different students have the same answer, it means that one of them copied the other student’s answer.
2. Students’ Problems
Similar with the problem of the teacher, students also face internet connection access matter. The student said
“The problem is the internet connection access because without the data internet connection, we cannot use Telegram during the learning process”.
(An excerpt retrieved from an interview with student A)
This implied that sometimes the implementation of Telegram is affected by the internet connection access. The observation activity found that it needs a strong signal to be able to have a well connection. If the internet connection is not running well, it can be a problem that could disturb students when they want to send the task. Sometimes, it may cause students send their tasks out of due date.
The other problems faced by the students is that, at the beginning, students found some difficulties to operate the application. In the interview section, student also said
“Sometimes, I find difficulties in operating Telegram at the beginning”. (An excerpt retrieved from an interview with student B)
It is in line with the observation that Telegram application is quite different from other mainstream social media such as WhatsApp. Telegram is way more complicated with a lot of features in it. However, this is not kind of a big problem because the students are already used to work with other more complicated application such as Coreldraw, Photoshop, and so on.
To sum up, the teacher and students have similar challenge in using Telegram application which is internet connection access. Separately, teacher faced the problem regarding making sure that the student study the materials as well as do the quizzes by themselves. Meanwhile, students also faced the problem of using Telegram application.
Thus, beside both the teacher and student have similar problem, they also have their own problem in using Telegram.
Students’ Responses toward Telegram Application Implementation in Teaching English at SMKN 4 Malang.
In this part, the researcher focused picturing students’ responses toward the Telegram application implementation in English language learning at SMKN 4 Malang. The data are obtained from students and teacher interview, and the observation.
Based on the finding, students are pretty interested to use this Telegram application as the teaching media used to deliver the materials. The teacher said
“They seemed enthusiast and interested”.
(An excerpt retrieved from an interview with the teacher)
In line, students also mentioned
“I think my friends and I enjoy using Telegram in the process of teaching and learning because the atmosphere in Telegram group is friendly and attractive” and “In my opinion, the students enjoy during the learning process while using Telegram because it easy to use”.
(An excerpt retrieved from an interview with student A and B.)
Mizan Yushril Rahmatullah Faqih Putra. The Teaching of English By Using Telegram Application: A Case Study At SMKN (Vocational High School) 4 Malang. 2021: Vol. 4 (2): 92-108
There are several reasons why the students showed this particular response. Based on the observation, the first is that they do not need to open the book to study the materials. They just select the materials they would study at Bot API because all of the materials were already there or they can study the material which sent by the teacher in the Telegram group class. The second is that Telegram application is accessible. The application can be easily downloaded in the Playstore or Appstore. Besides, it is also available to be operated at PC devices.
Furthermore, the students perceive that the use of Telegram application as teaching media is appropriate. The teacher organized this application well and the concept was clear. Students could study the materials autonomously.
They also stay connected with the teacher if they want to ask or clarify something about the materials. Students said
“Telegram may help us which we can learn autonomously with all of materials that were already in this media and we can connect and ask directly to the teacher by Telegram”.
(An excerpt retrieved from an interview with student A)
Similarly, the teacher said
“The students do not need to bring a lot of books and it may increase students’ awareness of using technology wisely.
It also may attract students’ attention toward learning process”.
(An excerpt retrieved from an interview with the teacher)
Based on the observation, the atmosphere in Telegram group was also welcoming and friendly. The teacher sometimes cracks some jokes to break the ice. The communication among the students in Telegram group was also interesting. They may give comments each other work when they are submitting it to the Telegram group but still in conducive way.