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STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD REFLECTIVE

JOURNAL IN MICRO TEACHING CLASS

THESIS

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

Sarjana Pendidikan

Agustiana Catur Lestari

112012102

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION PROGRAM

FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS

UNIVERSITAS KRISTEN SATYA WACANA

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COPYRIGHT STATEMENT

This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published by any person except where due reference is made in the text.

Copyright@ 2016. Agustiana Catur Lestari and Anita Kurniawati Hadianto, M.Hum.

All right reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Language Education Program, Faculty of Language and Arts, Satya Wacana Christian University Salatiga.

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the students’ attitudes toward reflective journal in Micro Teaching class. This study used a semi-structured interview to collect the data. The individual interview was conducted with 10 students in one of particular group of Micro Teaching class in English Language Education Program (ELEP) of Faculty Language and Arts (FLA), Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana (UKSW). The findings of this study showed the students’ positive attitudes toward reflective journal writing. The findings also showed the things that commonly written by the students in reflective

journal including the students’ feelings, students’ experiences, students’

strengths and weaknesses, and things that should be improved during their teaching practices in Micro Teaching class.

Keywords: students’ attitude, reflective journal

INTRODUCTION

In this current global era, education becomes more challenging since it is

one of the influential things in the national development. According to Cobb,

Darling-Hammond, and Murangi (1995, as cited in Maarof, 2007), education is

considered as one of the most important factors in the national development.

Education itself is not only about how students get the knowledge, but also about

how teachers create and prepare the materials so that the students can comprehend

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activities that may be useful for the students based on the students’ level. As Cobb

(1999, as cited in Maarof, 2007) stated that the goal of teacher-preparation

programs around the world is to prepare qualified teachers. Qualified teachers are

those who can reflect their teaching and learning process in order to make some

improvement on their teaching performance. One of the improving ways is by

using reflection. The reflection is useful for the students desiring to be a teacher,

because it can help them to evaluate their experiences and improve their teaching

practices. Moreover, for the students with limited experiences of teaching,

reflection is important and necessary in improving their teaching ability.

In English Language Education Program (ELEP) of Universitas Kristen

SatyaWacana (UKSW), Salatiga, there are some courses that apply reflection

practices. One of the courses is Micro Teaching in which the students are required

to write reflective journals after having a teaching practice in order to reflect their

teaching performance. In reflective journal, the students should write about their

teaching experiences including their strengths and weaknesses in teaching,

teaching strategies, the materials, classroom management, and they should also

reflect their feeling toward their experience. According to Maarof (2007), writing

a reflective journal can support the students to evaluate their strengths and

weaknesses in their teaching. Therefore, writing a reflective journal would help

the students in improving their teaching from their mistakes.

This study focuses on the students of English Language Education

Program (ELEP) of Faculty Language and Arts (FLA) in Universitas Kristen

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Teaching course. The reason of selecting this issue is because most of the

lecturers in this department, especially in Micro Teaching course, require the

students to write a reflective journal after having a teaching practice.

Based on the reason above, the purpose of this study is to find out the

students’ attitudes toward reflective journals. The question driving this study was

“What are the students’ attitudes toward reflective journal?”.The objective of this

study may help the teachers to know the importance of writing reflective journals

including the benefits and the difficulties of writing reflective journals, students’

feelings in writing reflective journals, and the contents that are usually written in a

reflective journal. Hence, the teachers become more aware to the students’

attitudes toward reflective journal writing. In addition, the teachers may give clear

guidelines to their students to write a reflective journal and they could start by

asking the students to give more feedbacks or comments to their friends, so it

would help them in writing the reflective journal.

LITERATURE REVIEW

This literature review focuses on two primary areas. The first area focuses

on a definition of attitude. The second area focuses on the definition of reflective

journal and the benefits of reflective journal.

The Definition of Attitude

According to Abu-Hilal (2013) the term attitude refers to “an individual

mental state, which is based on his or her beliefs or value system, emotions, and

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individual mental. In social psychology perspectives, attitude is “evaluation of an

attitude object, ranging from extremely negative to extremely positive.” Similarly

to Abu-Hilal (2013), attitude is “a predisposition or a tendency to respond

positively or negatively towards a certain idea, object, person, or situation.” Since

attitude is a system which can control individuals’ thought, Abu-Hilal (2013)

divided three types of attitudes; cognitive, affective, and behavior. First, cognitive

represents someone’s thoughts, beliefs, and ideas toward something; it can be

person, object, or situation. Besides, it can be about people opinions about

something. Second, affective focuses on someone’s emotions or feelings toward

any person, object, or situation, such as fear or hate. Third is behavior, it’s about

what people do or someone’s attitude toward any person, thing, or a situation.

Definition of Reflective Journal

Writing journals is a common practice within education in various fields.

A reflective journal is an individual activity which consists of ideas, thoughts,

reflections and feelings which is produce into paper in various learning contexts

(Gilmore (1996, cited in Maarof, 2007)). Moreover, Farrell (1999) stated that

reflections are not only transferred in to written form but also conducted orally.

Besides, it can be either done individually or in groups. However, most reflections

are done as an individual activity, and thus it requires a certain amount of

self-discipline. As stated by Janisek (1999, cited in Maarof, 2007) that reflective

journals are used in research on teacher education in the attempt to promote

reflective thinking in teaching. Therefore reflective journal is useful for teaching

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education are not only need to reflect the incidents and activities which had

occurred in the classroom, but the students also need to tell their thought, their

feelings and their strategy to overcome problem that appeared while teaching. In

writing regularly, the students will soon discover new perspectives of particular

experiences and begin to create ideas about what actions can be taken.

The Benefits of Writing Reflective Journal

The benefits of reflective journal writing itself are reported in many

publications and research. As the definitions above, reflective journal is important

in helping the students to improve their teaching ability. It shows that reflective

journal itself offers important insights into the patterns of behaviors of the teacher

and others. Reflective journals have function as a window of experiences and are

learning tools which help the students in understanding his or her own teaching

practices, it can be about his or her attitudes, management skills and other aspect

in teaching (Kerka, 1996; Wilheim et.al cited in Ferraro, 1999, p. 4).

According to the study by Lear (2011) the findings indicated that reflective

journal have had a beneficial impact on improving certain domains of intonation

as well as increasing motivation and developing metacognitive awareness. As

defined by Sajna & Premachandran (2016), metegocnition itself is often referred

to as “thinking about thinking”. It means that metacognition is a system that helps

people to understand and control his or her own cognitive performance. Similarly,

Hacker (2009) stated that “Metacognition involves awareness of how they learn,

an evaluation of their learning needs, generating strategies to meet these needs and

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Rucinscki (1994) the findings indicated that the students had used metacognitive

thinking and journals helped foster thinking in-depth about what and how they

learned in the lessons.

As said by Rodman (2010) reflective practice also helps the students of the

teaching program to evaluate and develop their teaching strategies. Through

reflective journal students are able to plan the teaching method for their teaching

practices and create activities for their teaching appropriately. Furthermore, Farrah

(2011) conducted the study that assessed the benefits of keeping reflective journal

writing and the findings indicated that one of the benefits of reflective journal is

enhancing creativity among university students. He also added that reflective

journal also help the university students in improving their critical thinking.

Surprisingly, in the study by Dyment (2006) found that one of the benefits

of reflective journal is can improve the writing skills. Similarly, Farrah (2011)

also examined the benefits of reflective journaling and he found that it help in

improving English writing skills. Therefore, it shows that reflective journaling not

only beneficial in the teaching aspect but also in the writing skill.

The Content of Reflective Journal

In writing reflective journal there should be a clear guideline for the

students. As stated by Iwaoka (2007) that reflective journals must contain some

aspects includes the review and reflection of our teaching practice and the

resolution of the problem that may occurred in the classroom during the teaching.

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stated that there are three important element that should consist in a reflective

journal which are description, comparison and criticism. First, in the description

we have to explain about what happened in the classroom or what is the problem

that occurred in the classroom. Moreover, in this part we can describe the

participants in our teaching and the topic of our teaching. Second, in the

comparison part we compare our opinion with others’ opinion, so we can see from

the different point of views. Third, in the criticism part we have to think critically

in making decision of the problem that we faced and designing the material or

activity in our teaching.

According to the study prepared by The Learning Centre, The University

of New South Wales (2008, cited in Farrah, 2011), reflective writing has seven

characteristics which are:

1. your response to experiences, opinions, events or new information

2. your response to thoughts and feelings

3. a way of thinking to explore your learning

4. an opportunity to gain self-knowledge

5. a way to achieve clarity and better understanding of what you are learning

6. a chance to develop and reinforce writing skills

7. a way of making meaning out of what you study

Based on the characteristics above, it shows that in the reflective journal is

not only tells the reader about what was happened during the teaching practice but

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opportunity to gain self knowledge and explore our learning, so that we have a

chance to develop not only our teaching skill but also other skill.

THE STUDY

In this study, the researcher used the qualitative method. According to

Cassell and Symon (1994, p.7), qualitative method is “a focus on interpretation

rather than quantification, flexibility in a process of conducting research, a

concern with context regarding behavior situation as inextricably linked in

forming experience.”

Context of the Study

The study took place in Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana (UKSW) which

is located in Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia. The researcher chose English

Language Education Program (ELEP) in Faculty Language and Arts (FLA) of

Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana (UKSW) because it is already accredited A.

English Language Education Program (ELEP) also provides a course called Micro

Teaching where all of students are required to write reflective journal after they

finish their teaching practice. Since the students are required to write reflective

journal, it is important to know about the students’ attitudes toward reflective

journal in Micro Teaching class.

Participants

The participants were ten students of Micro Teaching course. The

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19 – 22 years old. To be specified, the participants were those who have already

experienced or passed Micro Teaching Course, especially for bench 2013 and

2012 in semester six. There were four participants from bench 2012 and six

participants from bench 2013. The participants were taken from one group of

Micro Teaching Course. Therefore, the researcher used convenient sampling in

selecting the participants.

Instrument of Data Collection

This study applied a semi-structured interview for obtaining the data from

participants. The advantages of the interview are the researcher will get richer

data, opinions, patterns, and various thoughts toward the topic (Trost, p.7 as cited

in Carlsson, 2008). According to Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill (2007), the

researcher has the possibility to control the collections process of the primary data

and the possibility to get deeper data in face to face interviews. The researcher

divided the questions into several parts because some of the questions were

double-barreled. In the interview session, the researcher gave follow-up questions

to get thoughtful and richer data.

Moreover, the interview was done using Indonesian to make the

participants understood the questions easily. Then, the interview was recorded by

using a mobile phone. There were 9 question items for the interview questions.

The interview questions were divided into three attitude components; students’

cognition (belief or opinion), students’ affection (feeling and emotion) and

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Data Collection Procedures

In collecting the data, the researcher conducted piloting which was

followed by three participants. The piloting was done to find out whether the

questions were understandable or confusing for the participants. It also helped the

researcher to decide whether the data provide necessary information or not which

related to the research question. After piloting, the interview was conducted in

order to get reliable data. The interview was recorded using a mobile phone. The

participants were interviewed individually and it focused on the participants’

attitudes toward reflective journals in Micro Teaching class.

Below is the table of detail information about the participant, the time, and

length of interview of each participant:

No Participant Date of Interview Length of Interview

1 Participant A June 6th, 2016 14 minutes

2 Participant B June 6th, 2016 18 minutes

3 Participant C June 11th, 2016 15 minutes

4 Participant D June 17th, 2016 18 minutes

5 Participant E June 14th, 2016 18 minutes

6 Participant F June 15th,2016 19 minutes

7 Participant G June 20th, 2016 17 minutes

8 Participant H June 21st, 2016 15 minutes

9 Participant I June 22nd, 2016 14 minutes

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Data Analysis Procedures

After the interview and collect data, the data were transcribed. After

transcribing, the data were grouped into 3 main categories of attitude which were

students' cognition (beliefs or opinion), students' affection (feeling and emotion)

and students’ behavior (attitude). Therefore, the data was analyzed based on the

classification of the content or themes from the participants. This theme

classification helped the researcher to analyze the data easily. Moreover, this

classification became the theme in each question and the interview result was

translated into English in the findings and discussion parts. Those sections and

subsections used a clear transcription of the interview result to classify the

answers belong to the subsections provided.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This part will discuss about students’ attitudes toward reflective journal in

a Micro Teaching class. The discussion will be divided into several sections

which are students’ cognition (belief and opinion), students’ affection (feeling and

emotion), and students behavior (attitude). The themes are arranged based on the

answers of the participants.

The Benefits of Reflective Journal

In the first section, the discussed topicwas about the students’ belief or

opinion about writing reflective journals. According to the participants, there are

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Micro Teaching class. Most of them believed that reflective journals helped them

to evaluate themselves in the teaching practice of the Micro Teaching class as they

could realize their strengths and weaknesses so that they could improve their

performance, express their feelings, develop their creativity and improve their

writing skill.

First, 3 out of 10 participants believe that reflective journal helps students

to evaluate their teaching practice. Here are some interview excerpts of the

participants:

“Ya ada, sebagai tempat mengevaluasi cara mengajar.” (Participant A)

(“Yes, it can be as a way of teaching evaluation.”) (Participant A, my translation)

“Ya tentu saja.Ada begitu banyak manfaat dari menulis reflective journal.

Pertama, saya bisa mengevaluasi apa yang telah saya lakukan di kelas sehingga

saya bisa membuat perbaikan dalam mengajar berikutnya.” (participant F)

(“Yes, of course. There are many advantages of writing reflective journal. First, I can evaluate what I have done in the classroom, so I can make some improvements in the next teaching.”) (Participant F, my translation)

According to the opinions above, it shows that writing reflective journals

is useful for the students in evaluating their teaching performance, so that they can

make some improvement for their next performance. According to study by Lear

(2011), the findings indicated that reflective journals have a beneficial impact in

improving certain domains of intonation as well as increasing motivation and

developing metacognitive awareness. Metacognitive awareness itself includes of

how a person evaluate their own learning. As stated by Hacker, Keener and

Kircher (2009) that “Metacognition involves awareness of how they learn, an

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then implementing the strategies”. It is similar to Sajna and Premachandran

(2016) that metacognition can help people to understand and control their own

teaching performance. Hence, it can be concluded that writing reflective journals

support the students to be aware to their own teaching performance in order to

improve their next performance.

Second, 3 out of 10 participants believed that reflective journals helped

them to realize their strengths and weaknesses so that they can improve their teaching performance. Here are some participants’ excerpts:

“Manfaat menulis reflective journal adalah saya bisa mengetahui kelemahan dan kelebihan saya, jadi saya kedepannya bisa perlahan memperbaiki kelemahan dan

mempertahankan kelebihan saya pada kelas mengajar berikutnya.” (Participant

D)

(“The benefits of writing reflective journals are that I could realize with my weaknesses and strengths, so in the future I can gradually correct my weaknesses and maintain my strengths in the next teaching.”) (Participant D, my translation)

“Menurut saya reflective journal itu membantu sekali karena dengan reflective

journal kita bisa memperbaiki kesalahan yang terjadi di praktik mengajar yang sebelumnya karena reflective journal dibuat setelah kita melakukan praktik mengajar. Jadi dengan menulis reflective journal saya bisa mengingat kesalahan yang kita lakukan dan kemudian memikirkan cara untuk memperbaikinya.” (Participant I)

(“In my opinion, reflective journalsare helpful as we can correct our mistakes in the previous teaching practice since reflective journalswerewritten after we have done the teaching practice. Therefore, by writing a reflective journal I can remember the mistakes that we have done and then we could think of the solution to overcome them.”) (Participant I, my translation)

Based on the opinions above, it shows that writing reflective journal can

help them to realize their strengths and weaknesses so that they improve their

teaching performance. According to the study by Arredondo and Rucinscki

(1994), the findings indicated that the students had used metacognitive thinking

and that journals helped foster thinking in-depth about what and how they learned

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Third, the participant believed that reflective journals can help him/ her to

express his/her feelings. Below is the participant’s statement:

“Kedua, saya bisa mengungkapkan perasaan saya ketika mengajar di dalam

reflektif pribadi ini.” (Participant F)

(“Second, I could express my feelings when I was teaching through this reflective journal.”) (Participant F, my translation)

According to the opinions above, it shows that there is self-reflection in

reflective journals and the students can express their feelings. Gilmore (1996,

cited in Maarof, 2007) stated that a reflective journal is an individual activity

which consists of ideas, thoughts, reflections and feelings which is written into a

paper. It can be seen that feeling is one of the elements that is usually written in a

reflective journal, so the students can express what and how their feeling is during

the course.

Fourth, a participant who believes that reflective journal helps them to

develop their creativity. Here is an excerpt of her:

“Dengan menulis reflective journal kita bisa mengembangkan kreatifitas dalam mengajar….” (Participant C)

(“By writing a reflective journal we can develop our creativity in teaching….”) (Participant C, my translation)

According to the opinion above, it shows that reflective journal helps the

students to develop their creativity. As Farrah (2011) stated that one of the

benefits of reflective journaling is enhancing creativity among university students.

In this case, creativity which meant is the students’ creativity in teaching aspects,

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In addition, there are 2 participants with unique opinion because they

stated that by writing reflective journals they can improve their writing skill.

Below are their interview excerpts:

“Ketiga, membuat jurnal reflektif juga membantu dalam meningkatkan kemampuan menulis saya.” (Participant F)

(“Third, writing a reflective journal also helps me in improving my writing skills.”) (Participant F, my translation)

“Manfaatnya selain untuk memenuhi persyaratan kelas tersebut adalah dapat mengasah kemampuan menulis kita…” (Participant H)

(“Besides fulfilling the requirements of the course, we could also sharpen our writing skill…”) (Participant H, my translation)

Based to the above opinions, it shows that the benefit of writing reflective

journalscould be also out of teaching context. By writing reflective journals,

students can also advance their writing skills. According to O'Connell and

Dyment (2006), one of the benefits of journaling is in improving the writing

skills. Similarly, Farrah (2011) stated that reflective journal have benefits on

improving English writing skills.

According to the interview results, there are some benefits of reflective

journalsfor the students in the Micro Teaching class. Reflective journals help the

students to evaluate their teaching practice in the micro teaching class, to realize

their strengths and weaknesses so that they improve their performance. Moreover,

by writing a reflective journal they can express their feelings, develop their

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Students’ Feeling toward Writing Reflective Journal

In the second section, the discussed thing is about the students’ belief or

opinion about their feelings in writing reflective journals. Based on the interview

results, there are some different opinions about feeling in writing reflective

journals. Some of the participants stated that they were happy with some reasons.

However, some other participants also said that they were confused in writing

reflective journals with some reasons.

First, 6 out of 10 participants said that they felt happy in writing reflective

journals. Here are some statements of the participants:

“Saya merasa senang karena dalam reflective journal saya juga harus menulis kekurangan saya kesulitan yang saya alami saat praktik mengajar di kelas Micro teaching, jadi hal itu membuat saya termotivasi untuk memperbaikinya di praktik

mengajar yang selanjutnya.” (Participant I)

(“I felt pleased because in reflective journals I had to write the weaknesses and the difficulties that I experienced when I was doing the teaching practice in the Micro Teaching class, so it could motivate me in improving the next teaching practice.”) (Participant I, my translation)

“Saya merasa senang karena pada dasarnya saya memang suka menulis. Ketika saya menulis saya bisa mengekspresikan perasaan saya. Dan dengan reflective journal ini saya bisa menuliskan apa yang saya rasakan ketika praktik mengajar.” (Participant F)

("I felt glad because actually I like writing. By writing, I could express my feeling. And by writing reflective journals, I could write about what I felt when I was teaching.") (Participant F, my translation)

“Saya merasa senang dan menikmati proses menulis reflective journal karena di dalam reflective journal saya menulis pengalaman saya sendiri selama praktik

mengajar di kelas Micro Teaching …” (Participant J)

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Based on the statements above, it shows that some students felt happy in

writing reflective journals although they have different reasons. Some participants

felt pleased because by writing reflective journals they can realize about their

strengths and their weaknesses, so that they can make some progress for their next

teaching practice. Other reasons are that they felt gladnow that in reflective

journals they write their experience and they could also express their feeling when

they were teaching. Schon defined “reflective practice as thinking through his

own experience of putting knowledge to practice while under the supervision of

experienced experts in the field” (1987,cited in Ferraro, 1999). It is similar to

Farrah (2011) who stated that a reflective writing has some characteristics which

are exploring the experiences, opinion, feelings and how to improve performance.

Second, 3 out of 10 participants said they felt confused in writing a

reflective journal. In this case, there are different reasons behind that. The first

reason is it was hard to him or her to evaluate him or herself. Here is the

participant’s statement:

“Namun terkadang saya juga merasa bingung karena saya kesulitan untuk menilai

diri sendiri.” (Participant C)

(“However, sometimes I was confused because it was hard for me to evaluate myself”) (Participant C, my translation)

The second reason is he or she was confused about what they have to write

in a reflective journal. Since the feedback from his/her teacher and friends are not

enough to support him/her in producing the reflective journal. Here is the

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“Bingung karena pas saya mengajar komen (komentar) dari teman atau dosennya

tidak begitu banyak jadi kadang bingung mau nulis apa di reflective journal

tersebut.” (Participant E)

(“I was confused because when I was teaching, the feedbacks from my teacher and my friend are not enough. Therefore, sometimes I was confused about what I would write in my reflective journal. ”) (Participant E, my translation)

The third reason is that he/she did not have any idea in his/her mind, so he/she was confused when writing a reflective journal. Below is the participant’s statement:

“Yang saya rasakan ketika saya menulis reflective journal pertama kali adalah

bingung. Karena saya sering mengalami “nge-blank” ide tidak langsung muncul

di pikiran saya.” (Participant H)

(“When I wrote my reflective journal, the first thing that I felt was confused because Iwas often blank and I did not have any idea in my mind.”) (Participant H, my translation)

According to the participants’ answers above, they faced difficulties in

evaluating themselves. Some other students also said that they did not have any

idea what they should write in a reflective journal.

Topic That Students Write in Reflective Journal

This part discussed about things that the students’ write in a reflective

journal. As one of the lists of characteristics stated by Farrah (2011) “the

characteristics of reflective journal writing as follow your response experience,

opinion, events….”. It is appropriate with the interview result that the researcher

achieved in this study. Based on the participants’ statements, there are four

categories that theywrote in a reflective journal. The first is about the students’

feeling, the second is about things that should be improved, the third is about the

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First, 4 out of 10 participants said that in their reflective journals they

wrote about their feeling. Here are some statements of the participants:

“ Tentang feeling, hal-hal yang dialami selama berada di kelas tersebut…..” (Participant B)

(“I wrote about feelings, things that I experienced during the class.…”) (Participant B, my translation)

“Yang saya tulis dalam reflective journal adalah tentang apa yang saya rasakan selama mengajar…..” (Participant C)

(“Things that I wrote in my reflective journal was about what I felt during the teaching process….”) (Participant C, my translation)

“Saya terbiasa menulis masalah yang saya hadapi di kelas, kekhawatiran saya saat mengajar….” (Participant D)

(“I usually wrote the problem that I faced in my class, about my fears when I was teaching….”) (Participant D, my translation)

According to the interview result above, it shows that the students can

express their feeling by writing a reflective journal. As Gilmore (1996, cited in

Maarof, 2007) statement that a reflective journal is an individual activity in that

teachers commit feelings to paper in various learning contexts.

Second, 5 out of 10 participants stated that in their reflective journals they

usually wrote about things that should be improved. Here is the participant’s

statement:

“Yang saya tulis dalam reflective journal adalah tentang langkah apa yang harus

saya lakukan dalam memperbaiki praktek mengajar selanjutnya.” (Participant C)

(“Things that I wrote in my reflective journal was about what I should do in improving my next teaching practice.”) (participant C, my translation)

Based on the interview result above, it shows that the students also wrote

their reflective journalsabout the things that should be improved in their teaching

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changed or improved in their teaching practice. Hence, they would know about

what they should do next and it makes them easier in developing their

performance. As Farrell (2012) illustrated on how language teachers can use

reflective writing as a mean of reflective practice for professional development

purposes.

Third, 4 out of 10 participants said that the other thing that they write in

their reflective journal is about their experience. Here are some excerpts of

participants:

“Yang saya tulis dalam reflective journal hanyalah hal apa yang sudah saya

lakuakan….” (Participant G)

(“In reflective journal I only wrote about what I have done….”) (Participant G, my translation)

“Di dalam reflective journal biasanya saya menulis tentang pengalaman setelah mengajar….” (Participant H)

(“In the reflective journal I usually wrote about my experience after teaching…”) (Participant H, my translation)

The statements above indicated that experience is also one of the things

that are included in a reflective journal. The students usually wrote or shared

about their experience during the class through reflective journals. As one of the

lists of characteristics stated by Farrah (2011) “the characteristic of reflective

journal writing as follow your response experience, opinion, events….”.

Third, 4 out of 10 participants explained about their strengths and

weaknesses in the reflective journal. Below are the interview excerpts of the

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“Yang saya tulis dalam reflective journal adalah tentang kekurangan dan

kelebihan selama mengajar” (Participant C)

(“Things that I wrote in my reflective journal was about my strengths and weaknesses during teaching.”) (Participant C, my translation)

“Saya menulis tentang kekurangan dan kelebihan saya pas ngajar....” (Participant

E)

“I wrote about my strength and weakness when I taught…” (Participant E, my translation)

The statement above indicates that in reflective journals the students also

tell about their strength and weakness during their teaching practice in the Micro

Teaching class. According to the study by Farrah (2011) about the benefits of

reflective journaling, reflective journals help the university students in improving

their critical thinking as the students on that level are required to think more

critically about their environment and also about themselves.

CONCLUSION

The purpose of the study is to find out the students’ attitudes toward

writing reflective journal in a Micro Teaching class. The research question is

“what are the students’ attitudes toward reflective journals in Micro Teaching

class?” The participants were 10 students of Micro Teaching class in English

Language Education Program (ELEP) of Faculty Language and Art (FLA),

Universitas Kristen SatyaWacana (UKSW).

Based on the results, all of the participants have positive attitudes toward

reflective journals. The participants believe that there are some benefits of writing

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evaluate their teaching performance and to realize about their strengths and

weaknesses. Besides, there is also a participant who stated that reflective journals

can help him/her to express his/her feelings. In addition, there are some

participants with unique opinions about the benefits of writing reflective journals.

They stated that by writing reflective journals they can improve their writing skill.

This research also found the fact that most of the participants felt

contented in writing reflective journals. It is caused by writing reflective journal

they can express their feeling and their experience, and they can also make some

improvement after they know about their strengths and weaknesses. However,

there are some participants who felt confused when writing reflective journals.

The first reason is because it was hard for them to evaluate themselves. The

second is because the teacher and friend’s feedback were very limited and not

enough to support him/her in writing the reflective journal. The third reason is

because they did not have any idea when they wrote a reflective journal.

Other finding in this research is about what the students write in a

reflective journal. The result indicated that in reflective journals they write about

their feelings, things that should be improved, their experiences, and also about

their strengths and weaknesses.

The present study may help the teachers to know the importance of writing

reflective journals including the benefit of writing reflective journal, the students’

difficulties of writing reflective journals, students’ feeling in writing reflective

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the teachers become more aware to the students’ attitudes toward reflective

journals writing and they could give clear guideline to their students to write

reflective journals. Besides, the teacher can start to guide the students to give

more feedbacks or comments to their friends in order to help the students to write

the reflective journals. Although the research has reached its aims, there is an

unavoidable limitation. The result cannot be generalized to other students because

the samples are only 10 participants taken from a group of Micro Teaching

course. Other students may have different opinion about reflective journals

writing.

For the further research, I hope that the researcher can investigate about

the effect of reflective journal writing for student teachers in the Teaching

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This research was accomplished with the help of many people. First, I

would like to thank to Allah SWT because Allah gives me a soul that never loses

faith and my prophet Muhammad as my inspiration to write this thesis.

I would like to appreciate and thanks for my supervisor Ibu Anita

Kurniawati Hadianto, M.Hum. , Ibu Victoria Usadya Palupi, M.A-ELT and Ibu

Frances Sinanu, M.A. because their patience and kindness in guiding me until I

finished my thesis. Also, thanks for all participants who help me in collecting

data.

Special words for my family due to support and motivate throughout the

whole thesis process. I am indebted to the participants for the patience and

dedication to my thesis. The last but not least, I am also thankful for my best

friends; Lusiana Setya N, Anestasia Y, Widya Eka, Rizza Faoziah, Rahmawati

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APPENDIX

Interview questions

1. Apakah kamu pernah menulis reflective journal?

2. Apakah kamu suka menulis reflective journal? kalau iya alasannya kenapa

dan kalau tidak alasannya apa ?

3. Menurut Anda apa ada manfaat dari menulis reflective journal di kelas

Micro Teaching? Kalau ada, tolong jelaskan manfaatnya.

4. Apakah ada kesulitan menulis reflective journal di kelas Micro Teaching?

Kalau ada, tolong jelaskan kesulitan yang Anda hadapi.

5. Menurut Anda apakah ada hubungan antara menulis/tidak menulis

reflective journal dengan praktek mengajar Anda di kelas Micro Teaching?

6. Menurut Anda menulis/tidak menulis reflective journal mempengaruhi

Anda sebagai calon guru?

7. Apa yang Anda rasakan ketika menulis reflective journal? Mengapa Anda

merasa demikian? Jelaskan!

8. Apakah yang Anda tulis dalam Reflective journal? Mengapa Anda

menuliskan itu? Jelaskan!

9. Bisakah Anda menceritakan pengalaman Anda dalam menulis Reflective