Overcoming The Problem Of Ineffective Seating Arrangement In Kindergarten Level At Early Bird.

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ABSTRACT

Sewaktu saya melakukan magang di kursus Bahasa Inggris Early Bird, saya menemukan sebuah masalah dalam pengaturan tempat duduk murid. Hal ini cukup mengganggu proses belajar-mengajar di kelas. Masalah ini terjadi karena guru tidak menyesuaikan pengaturan tempat duduk murid dengan aktifitas yang sedang dilakukan, guru tidak

memperhatikan karakteristik anak dalam pengaturan tempat duduk, dan kurangnya kepedulian institusi terhadap pentingnya pengaturan tempat duduk dalam kelas. Sebagai akibatnya, beberapa murid tidak bisa

mengikuti pelajaran dengan baik, sibuk mengobrol dengan temannya, dan guru tidak bisa menangani para murid.

Untuk memecahkan masalah tersebut, saya melakukan penelitian dan saya mendapatkan empat solusi yang bisa menyelesaikan masalah di kelas untuk anak-anak kelompok usia 5 tahun di Early Bird. Solusi

pertama adalah guru terlebih dahulu merancang pola tempat duduk yang akan digunakan pada hari itu sebelum kelas dimulai. Solusi kedua adalah guru harus menggunakan pengaturan tempat duduk yang cocok dengan kegiatan hari itu serta mengajak murid untuk terlibat dalam

pengaturannya. Solusi ketiga adalah guru mengadakan pertemuan khusus yang berorientasi pada murid-murid, untuk membahas masalah

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FLOWCHART

NEGATIVE EFFECTS 4 POTENTIAL SOLUTION 4 POSITIVE EFFECT 4

The teacher in Kindergarten level at Early Bird does not apply the effective seating arrangement in class. 1. The teacher does not

change the seating

arrangements based on the activities done in class 2. The teacher does not

consider the children’s characteristics when arranging the seats

3. The owner of the institution is ignorant of the

importance of seating arrangements

1. Some children cannot see the teacher well and cannot participate in certain activites

2. The children keep talking to their friends instead of listening to the teacher 3. The teacher is not able to

control some of the children

The teacher attends student-centered meetings

o The teacher will have more knowledge about how to handle children in class

o The teacher will gain more confidence in teaching

o It will cost quite a lot of money to hold students-centered meetings

The institution should send someone to observe the class regularly

o_{The teacher will get useful}

feedback on teaching skills

o_{The teacher might feel}

uncomfortable being observed while teaching and cannot perform well

The teacher designs the seating arrangement to suit

the children’s characteristics

o_{The teacher can take}

control of the students

o The teacher will be able to place the right child in the most appropriate seating position

o_{The children might not like}

the seating chart given by the teacher.

The teacher designs suitable seating

arrangements for different activities and get the children involved in moving themselves into the new seating arrangement

o The children will not get bored

o The children will be able to follow each activity well as the seating arrangement suits the activity

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Nowadays the importance of English language cannot be denied anymore.

As Dr. G. Manivannan says in his article “Importance of the English

Language”, having English competence has been a major condition to

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vice versa. There are two reasons why I chose teaching at Early Bird for my internship. The first reason is because I like English and I really want to share my ability with others through teaching. The second reason is because the teaching and learning condition at Early Bird, with only few children per class, gives me the opportunity to gain a useful teaching experience to the upmost. However, the seating is not arranged well for the children in the

kindergarten class at Early Bird. The following chart shows the layout of the classroom :

T = teacher C= child

In the class there are six children at the age of five years old. There are usually three different activities in each 90 minute-class meeting, such as story-telling, vocabulary exercises, and watching English programme on TV.

The children’s seats are not arranged to suit the activities. This negatively

affects the learning process since seating arrangement plays an important role in determining the children’s participation in class. As is written by Colin

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Smith in his book Effective Classroom Management: “A Teacher’s Guide,

“Teachers should vary seating arrangement to suit the task in hand” (20), and

“Seating should be adjusted to the needs of the pupils and should be

arranged in an orderly and efficient way” (30). Moreover, as Suzanne Pitner says in her article “How to Plan a Classroom Seating Arrangement”, “How the teacher organizes the seating arrangement of the classroom has an effect on

the rest of the school year” (par. 1). Based on the quotations above, it is very

clear that seating arrangement is one of the important aspects in teaching and teachers are required to arrange children’s seats well so that it can help them to study well.

Therefore, in this term-paper I would like to analyze how to overcome the problem of ineffective seating arrangement in Kindergarten class at Early Bird because I realize that seating arrangement is a vital thing to consider when teaching in order to have an effective lesson.

B. Identification of the Problem

In this paper, I would like to analyze several factors, as stated below: 1. Why is the seating arrangement in the kindergarten class at Early Bird not

effective?

2. How does the ineffective seating arrangement in the kindergarten class at Early Bird influence the learning process?

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4. What is the best solution to the problem of ineffective seating arrangement in kindergarten class at Early bird?

C. Objectives and Benefits of the Problem

The objectives of this research is to examine why the seating arrangement in the kindergarten class at Early Bird is not efffective, how it affects the learning process, what should be done to solve the problem, and also what is the best solution to the ineffective seating arrangement in kindergarten class at Early Bird.

There are some benefits for the Early Bird institution, the readers of this term-paper and me. The benefit for Early Bird is that my research will help its teachers to know how to arrange the suitable seating arrangements. The readers will get information on how to set effective seating arrangements in class. Moreover, I hope that this research can be a useful information for me in my future career.

D. Description of the Institution

Early Bird is an English institution that is owned by Mrs.Elly. It was

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senior high school students as well. Early Bird is equipped with instruments and materials that are very useful for the students, for example, coloured

books which attract children’s interest, a story-telling stage inside the class,

animated story books, and many others. Besides providing English courses for various levels, Early Bird also provides music courses for learning guitar, piano, keyboard, and violin.

E. Method of the Study

In order to finish this term-paper well, I gathered data from my thirty-day-internship at Early Bird. I observed one teacher and six kindergarten children who were five years old. I observed how the seating was arranged in class, how the teacher taught and controlled the class, and also how the children followed the lesson. After each class, I wrote a journal about what I had experienced that day. To analyze the problem during my internship, I browsed the Internet for relevant ideas and I searched for information from the books given by my lecturers and from those I borrowed from the library at Maranatha Christian University.

F. Limitation of the Study

My research analyzes the ineffective seating arrangement at the

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2010. The subjects were one teacher and six kindergarten children in one class.

G. Organization of the Term-Paper

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CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSION

During the internship at Early Bird, I found a problem that was quite distracting while teaching, which was the ineffective seating arrangement. This problem was caused by several things. The first one was that the teacher did not change the seating arrangement based on the activity done in class. The second one was the teacher did not consider the

children’s characteristics when arranging the seats. The last cause was the institution’s ignorance of the importance of seating arrangements. Moreover, this problem also had some serious bad effects on the learning process that need to be solved. The first effect was some children could not see the teacher well and they could not participate in certain activities. The next effect was some children kept talking to their friends instead of listening to the teacher. The last effect that I found was that the teacher was not able to control some of the children.

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suit the activities and children’s characteristics before entering the class. The second potential solution is that the teacher has to apply suitable seating arrangements for every activity and gets the children involved in moving into the new seating arrangements. The third solution is the teacher attends student-centered meetings. The last solution is the institution should send someone to observe the class regularly.

After summarizing the contents of the previous chapters, I choose to apply all of the potential solutions above together as the best solution. My suggestion is the teacher first does the third solution which is attending student-centered meetings, to gain new knowledge about teaching. After that, the teacher can have some practice by doing the first and second solutions, which are the teacher designs the seating arrangement to suit

children’s characteristics, and the teacher designs the suitable seating arrangements for different activities and get the children involved in moving into the new seating arrangement. Should the teacher prepare different activities that require different seating arrangement, she can get the children involved in the new seating arrangement instead of asking them to go outside or step aside when the teacher changes the

arrangement.

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to be used that day and set certain sounds that represent each

arrangement, then applies it in the class. While the teacher is doing this, the fourth potential solution can be done by sending a qualified person, the owner for instance, to observe and give feedback to the teacher in class. By having all these potential solutions done, the class teacher will be able to improve herself in teaching maximally, especially in how to arrange the seats in classroom.

In conclusion, the problem of ineffective seating arrangement in the kindergarten class at Early Bird has brought bad effects on the students’ progress; therefore, teachers should pay attention to this matter. Knowing

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Printed sources

Ilies, Beatrice-Georgeta. Classroom Observation in Teacher Training and Development in Romania. London: Longman, 1994.

Smith, Colin. Effective Classroom Management: A Teacher’s Guide. London: Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.

Wright, Andrew. Storytelling with Children. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

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