LEARNING ENGLISH WITH VISUAL MEDIA AT VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS AS VIEWED BY TECHERS A THESIS Presented as a Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements to Obtain the Magister of Humaniora (M.Hum) Degree

LEARNING ENGLISH WITH VISUAL MEDIA AT

VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS AS VIEWED BY TECHERS

A THESIS

Presented as a Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements to Obtain the

Magister of Humaniora (M.Hum)

Degree

in English Language Studies

by

Nusyirwan

056332025

THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

LEARNING ENGLISH WITH VISUAL MEDIA AT

VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS AS VIEWED BY TEACHERS

A THESIS

Presented as a Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements to Obtain the

Magister of Humaniora (M.Hum)

Degree

in English Language Studies

by

Nusyirwan

056332025

THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

This is to certify that all ideas, phrases, sentences, unless otherwise stated, are the ideas, phrases, and sentences of the thesis writer. The writer understands the full consequences including degree cancellation if she took somebody else's ideas, phrases, or sentences without proper references.

Yogyakarta, January 24, 2008

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank God the Almighty for blessing me with love, luck and chance so that I can finally finish writing this thesis which is a product of my two year study at the Graduate Program in English Language Studies, Sanata Dharma University. During the time, I have learnt a good deal of precious knowledge from my excellent lecturers who have shared their knowledge and current perspectives in English language education with me. What they have given so far has given me a kind of insight and inspiration especially in relation with writing this thesis.

I really feel in debt of gratitude to Dr. B.B. Dwijatmoko, M.A. who has been very patient and helpful to me during the whole process of writing this thesis. Without his patience, support, guidance and ideas I have received in every consultation session, this thesis would never be as it is.

I am also in debt to Dr. J. Bismoko who has shared his current glocal perspectives on English Language Education. His lectures have inspired and guided me to the recent trend in English Language Education, more specifically to the scientific stream in Language Education Research.

I will not forget to say is my gratefulness to all my beloved classmates who have faithfully entertained me and shared their knowledge and jokes during the program. I know I also owe some debt to Mbak Lelly the administrative staff of the English Language Studies. Also I thank all the participants for their contribution, availability, care and involvement.

I do think that I should express my debt to LPMP of Yogyakarta Special Province for involving me and giving me some financial support to take this Graduate Program in English Language Studies of Sanata Dharma University Yogyakarta. Many thanks are also addressed to Mr. Sugeng, the head of the Department of Human Resource Development and Training in HRD of Yogyakarta Municipality for his consistent support to provide some financial support for this program.

Last but not least, I would like to express my great gratitude to my family; my wife Muntikanah, and children, Rizki, Sofi, Ina, Jibril and Alin, who have given to me a lot of freedom, so that I can spend enough time to read books, do assignments and finish this thesis writing. May Allah blesses all of us.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE i

APPROVAL PAGE ii

ACCEPTANCE iii

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vii

LIST OF TABLES ix

LIST OF APPENDICES x

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xi

ABSTRACT xii

ABSTRAK xiii

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Problem 1

B. Problem Identification 7

C. Problem Limitation 7

D. Problem Formulation 8

E. Research Goals and Objectives 8

F. Research Benefit 9

CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW

A. English Language Learning 11

1. Learning 11

2. Views of Language and Language Education 12

3. Language Function 16

4. Communicative Competence 18

5. Authentic Communication 21

6. Managing English Learning 21

a. Sitting arrangement 22

b. Grouping 24

c. ESA (Engage, Study, Activate) 26

d. Error treatment 27

e. Marking the stages of the lesson 28

f. Teacher talk time 29

B. Visual Media 31

C. Vocational Schools 33

Learning English at Vocational Schools 34

1. Features of Qualitative Approach 37

2. Meaning in an Interpretive Approach 39

3. Learner Need and Learning Need 39

4. Motivation 41

E. Theoretical Framework 43

CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A. Research Method 42

B. Identifying Initial Idea 46

C. The Nature Of The Data 46

D. Research Participants and Setting 47

E. Data Collection Techniques 49

E. Research Blueprint 50

F. Constructing Interview Questions 53

G. Conducting In-depth Interview 57

H. Techniques for Data Analysis 60

I. Validation 60

CHAPTER IV. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

A. Data Analysis 64

1. Processing classroom observation data 65

2. Processing observation and interview data 67 3. Thematizing the participants and the meaning 69 4. Constructing the tentative profile of learning English with visual media 70

5. Conducting a period of reflection 72

B. Findings

1. Learning English with visual media for Christy 73 a. English Language Learning

1. Christy’s belief on the Purpose 74

2. Christy’s view on Classroom Management 75

b. Visual Media to Christy 93

c. Christy’s View on Meaning 96

2. Learning English with visual media for Nana 103 a. English Language Learning

1. Nana’s Belief on the Purpose 104

2. Nana’s View on Classroom Management 105

b. Visual Media to Nana 125

c. Nana’s view on Meaning 128

3. The participants’ views seen from the existing theory 137 CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION

B. Implications 146

C. Suggestions 147

REFERENCES 150

APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Vignettes of the Observations 153

Appendix2: Interview Questions 162

Appendix3: Interview Transcripts 172

Appendix4: Categories of Observation and Interview Data 235

Appendix5: Data Gathering Schedule 259

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Research Schedule 51

Table 3.2 Blueprint for classroom observation 53 Table 3.3 Blueprint for the interview to teachers and students 54 Table 3.4 First interview questions (sample) of Nana 56 Table 3.5 First interview questions to Nana’s students 59 Table 4.1 First observation data (sample) of Nana 65 Table 4.2 Samples of categories of the observation and interview data of Nana 68 Table 4.3 A part of the tentative profile of what Christy and her students think

LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix 1 Vignettes of the Observation 153

Appendix 2 Interview Questions 162

Appendix 3 Interview Transcripts 172

Appendix 4 Categories of Observation and Interview Data 235

Appendix 5 Data Gathering Schedule 259

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ESA : Engage, Study, Activate

H : High

L : Low

M : Middle

S : Student

S’s : Student’s

Ss : Students

Ss’ : Students’

STT : Student Talking Time

T : Teacher

T’s : Teacher’s

TTT : Teacher Talking Time

ABSTRACT

Nusyirwan. 2008.Learning English with Visual Media at Vocational Schools as Viewed byTeachers. Yogyakarta: The Graduate Program in English Language Studies, Sanata Dharma University.

The current trend in learning English nowadays is the so called progressive learning. The purpose of this learning is to enable individuals to progress towards self-fulfillment. Human beings learn for the future of which they take part in developing it. According to this learning trend, an educated person is someone who has learned how to adapt with the present life and able to change himself to be the best in his own right. In relation to the fact that English is the world’s lingua franca, people learn English in order to be able to use it for communicative purpose. To be a successful communicator a speaker needs to have a communicative competence. This competence can be acquired through communicative activities in the classroom where teachers can build a more interesting context of situation. This context can be built with visual media. With these visual media, teachers can increase the students’ motivation, bring in realities, explaining the lessons and so on.

The purpose of this study is to describe the meaning of learning English with visual media to the participants. It answers the research question ‘What does learning English with visual media mean to the participants?’ After this meaning is described, it is hoped that the participants understand themselves better and the readers of this study report will also understand what happens at the setting. This understanding will lead them to the emancipation which makes them able to actualize them-selves better in order to become self-excellent. The study was conducted at two different vocational schools where the teacher participants and their students do the classroom activities. Those schools were chosen for some reasons. Firstly, they were accessible to collect data. Secondly, the participants there could provide a variety of interconnected and relevant data to watch and interview. Thirdly, they are relatively small, and manageable. The research adopts the progressive qualitative study because it talks about the participants themselves, not the attribute attached to them. Through the teachers’ narratives and three of their students’ it is expected that they will be able to understand themselves better.

ABSTRAK

Nusyirwan. 2008. Learning English with Visual Media at Vocational Schools as Viewed by Teachers. Yogyakarta: Program Pascasarjana, Kajian Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

Dalam dunia pendidikan, pendidikan progresif yang menjadi tren ini bertujuan mempersiapkan pemelajar bahasa Inggris agar dapat mandiri dalam memenuhi kebutuhan hidupnya. Seorang pemelajar dianggap telah berhasil apabila dia telah memahami cara belajar, cara beradaptasi dan melakukan perebahan diri sesuai dengan tuntutan hidupnya. Banyak orang mengetahui bahwa bahasa Inggris merupakan linguafranka dunia, karenanya mereka mempelajarinya agar dapat menggunakannya dalam berkomunikasi. Agar dapat melakukan hal tersebut, mereka perlu menguasai kompetensi komunikatif yang didapat dari kegiatan pembelajaran yang menyediakan kesempatan kepada mereka untuk berinteraksi dalam konteks situasi yang mendekati kenyataan. Dalam kaitannya dengan hal ini, penggunaan media visual dapat membantu guru dalam menyediakan konteks situasi, memberikan stimulus serta motivasi. Media visualdapat membawa realitas yang tidak dapat disediakan media lain, semisal gambar kecil yang dapat dipakai untuk menciptakan konteks situasi untuk melakukan pertukaran makna. Di samping hal tersebut, media visual dapat membantu guru menyediakan konteks situasi yang mendekati keadaan nyata.

Tujuan penelitian ini ialah untuk mendeskripsikan makna pembelajaran bahasa Inggris dalam pandangan peserta penelitian. Deskripsi tersebut menjawab pertanyaan penelitian ‘ Apa makna pembelajaran bahasa Inggris dengan media visual bagi para peserta?’ Selanjutnya diharapkan para peserta dapat memahami diri mereka dengan lebih baik, dan pembaca tesis ini juga dapat memahami apa yang terjadi pada setting penelitian. Penelitian ini dilakukan di dua SMK yang berbeda. Sekolah tersebut dipilihdengan beberapa alasan. Pertama, akses ke sekolah tersebut relative mudah sehingga dapat diperoleh data yang diperlukan. Kedua, subjek penelitian apat berbagai data yang relevan baik melalui observasi maupun interview. Ketiga, lingkup nya tidak terlalu besar sehingga memungkinkan untuk dijangkau. Metode pengkajiannya mengadopsi penelitian kwalitatif progresif, karena yang dikaji adalah pesertanya bukan atribut yang melekat pada mereka. Melalui narasi para guru beserta tiga orang siswa mereka masing-masing, diharapkan mereka dapat memahami diri mereka secara lebih baik.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter is the background information of this thesis problem. Its purpose is to establish a framework for the research so that the readers can understand the importance of the issue that motivates the study. It will consist of six major parts, they are (1) background, (2) Problem identification, (3) problem limitation, (4) problem formulation, (5) research objectives, and (6) research benefit.

A. Background of the Problem

The current trend in education is the progressive learning (process model) of which objective is to enable the individual to progress towards self-fulfillment. (Richards and Renandya, 2002: 71). This view, Richards and Renandya (2002) continued, believes that an educated person is the one who has learned how to learn, the one who learn how to adapt and change. Teachers, in this respect, are not all-knowing agents who can solve any problems rather than common human-beings who need to adapt with new situations and to be ready to change for the better.

individual lived-experience. In other words, the meaning of world reality does not belong to the expert in language teaching anymore, but now it belongs to the individual teacher. There fore, teachers need to apply reflective teaching- reflecting critically on their own teaching experiences- in order to improve their understanding of teaching and the quality of their own teaching.

People learn English, which is a world’s lingua-franca, to be able to use it in a day to day real life communication. In order to be able to use a language such as English, the learner must have communicative competence that is the ability to use semiotic resources for discourse creation in a society or culture. Learning English language ability means learning English language communicative competence which consists of discourse competence, linguistic competence, actional competence, sociolinguistic competence and strategic competence.

The activities done in communicative language teaching classrooms should facilitate and ensure learning to communicate in English, not to learn about English. It is the students who are learning, so they need more time to use English for interaction in the classroom than the teacher. This is in line with the empirical studies conducted by Spada (1990 as cited by Nunan 1999: 50). He claims that “Communicative” classrooms with instruction plus opportunities for interaction were superior to “traditional” instruction and also to immersion program. In short, real world tasks must be considered as a very important part of any language lesson.

help provide context of situation. With the situation there will be a need for communication. This need for communication which is called “context of situation” can be gained by the use of media (Celce-Murcia, 2001: 461).

The term media is derived from a Latin word medius, which can mean in the middle,between, ora messenger. In educational context, media is known as teaching aid- something a teacher uses to make a lesson clearer or more interesting. In other words, media is something used in the middle between the teaching materials and the students in order to make a lesson more clear, more interesting and more meaningful for the language learning process.

Ibrahim (1996: 432) in Arsyad (1997:16) states that teaching media bring happiness and joy to the students, they renew the students’ motivation, and help put the knowledge into the students’ mind. Joy and happiness are important parts of a lesson. When students enjoy lessons and feel happy attending and listening to the lesson, they would not object to some more lessons because they would expect that the joy and happiness will also come with the next lesson. In this case, media renew motivation. In other words, students’ motivation for learning becomes refreshed and renewed.

1999: 25). In this case, the use of media is to facilitate them to do pedagogical tasks as well as to learn how to do the real world or target tasks.

People learn something in four ways: somatic, auditory, visual and intellectual (Meier, 2002: 92-100). A somatic way of learning is learning something through kinesthetic activities. An auditory way of learning is learning by saying something and listening to people giving explanation. Students who learn visual way try to understand a concept by doing observation and picturing how something works in the mind. An intellectual way of learning is learning by doing an analysis and problem solving. To accommodate the four different ways of learning teachers need to consider the use of media in the teaching and learning activities.

There are three major categories of teaching media; visual, audio and audio visual media. Visual media are the ones used to be seen such as flashcards, still pictures, and realia; audio media are the ones to be listened, for example, cassettes tapes, audio CDs, and MP3; audio visual media are the ones the students can see and listen at the same time, such as video programs, TV programs, Computer Assisted Language Learning materials, and movies.

important because they can help teachers and students with pronunciation and intonation practice. In addition, audio media can make the lesson more effective by providing nice atmosphere through their musical background, sound effect and the narrator’s voice.

Audio visual media are media that combine visual and audio media. They consist of audio for he students to listen and visuals for them to see, for example, computer assisted instruction, video CD programs, TV programs, slide plus, and so on. These media are better than the two kinds above because they have both sounds and pictures or illustration. The problem is they are relatively expensive.

Human sight has a great capability in helping people to understand the surrounding environment (Anderson, 1987: 49). This is the reason why educators need to consider visual media as one kind of their teaching aids. Skillful teachers can attract students’ attention by saying something funny or interesting, but an explanation on gadgets and machines without something for the students to see will fail to attract their attention. Because people learn in different ways, teachers can use visual media to accommodate students with visual tendency of learning. Even with students who have a low tendency over visual learning, there are many cases where they need to know what something is like, and this illustration can only be provided by visual media.

technologies in educational arena. He continues in the following page that the financial support and bureaucratic structures do not come together with the technological development. Any educational institution needs much fund to provide both the hardware and the software. They also need electricity anytime because they cannot be operated when the power is not available. Besides those, not every teacher can operate those devices well, so they find these kinds of visual media are not user-friendly.

Because of the weaknesses of the technical classroom media, teachers do not abandon the more traditional visual media such as blackboards/ whiteboards, flash cards, mounted pictures/ photos, objects/ realia and so on. These non technical media, according to Celce-Murcia (2001: 462), are used by teachers because they have some advantages over the technical visual media. In the setting where electricity is unreliable, technical resources are scarce, or funding is limited technical media become inaccessible. Visual media are chosen because of their low cost, availability, accessibility and their user-friendliness.

In the setting where this study takes place educational budget is relatively low which is a reason why the use of the non technical visual media is still a very good choice for the teachers. Considering the importance, I wish to conduct a research on them at vocational schools.

relevant data to watch, video-record, and interview. Third, the setting was relatively small and manageable so that the study was possible.

B. Problem Identification

If the participants’ lived experience of learning English with visual media is going to be an object of description, it will raise a complexity which needs to be discussed. There are problems in the use of media in the English learning process at school. What actually happens in the classroom becomes the basis of enquiry. For example, do the lessons allow the students to achieve what has been decided as the aim of English language teaching, that is to help them able to use the language in a day to day human activities which includes negotiation of meaning? In managing the classroom, what needs to be under teachers’ attention? Does it have anything to do with motivation? What can visual media do for the betterment of the English language learning? Do the participants think that visual media can provide context of situation?

C. Problem Limitation

rich of data and the source of thick description. In addition the scope is small enough and manageable for me.

D. Problem Formulation

The research problem can be formulated as this question:

What does learning English with visual media mean to the teacher participants

at vocational schools?

E. Research Objectives

As the context of study is EFL classes where visual media are used, the study attempts to attain the following goals:

1. To show how visual media are used at the Vocational High School classrooms. 2. To describe and interpret the meaning of learning English with visual media

according to the participants.

By ‘showing’ on the first item of goals, it is meant that the study tries to make a description of what is going on in the classroom. The second goal attempts to describe the meaning of learning with visual media to the teachers and students.

those visual media. This is meant to find out information on why they have chosen the kinds of visual media to be used at any particular segment/s of the lesson and what those media mean to them as seen from the teachers’ point of view. The third is to document how the students perceive the classes with visual media. This is meant to know the meaning of visual media in the English learning process, as seen from students’ point of view. The last one is to encourage teachers to reflect on their teaching. This is meant to help teachers rethink their decisions concerning media use, whether or not a technique is important for students learning attitude and understanding of the lessons.

F. Research Benefit

When the above research objectives are gained, it is hoped that this research will be able to contribute theoretically and practically of how visual media can be used in the learning process of English. Theoretically, this research has something to do with the visual media, and the learning of English. How visual media are used in the classroom during the English lessons and what the participants think about it are the concern of this research. The result will be a description and an understanding of what learning English with visual media mean to the participants.

how to use visual media for teaching English. Autonomous means that the researcher can decide what is good or bad at his/ her classroom situation in his/ her own right. Self-fulfilling means when s/he needs to use visual media s/he can do his/ her own best to meet his/ her needs.

CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL REVIEW

The theoretical review here will discuss relevant theories concerning the research. The purpose is to give a kind of lens for the enquiry, as the construct for the categorizing the data that will be needed in the study. This theoretical review will discuss the theories on (1) English Language Learning, (2) Visual Media, (3) Vocational Schools, (4) Meaning, (5) Theoretical Framework.

A. English Language Learning

1. Learning

information that come may be forgotten, but in the long term memory, it stays for a relatively long time.

In this theory, learning consists of simply recording the relevant fact into the conceptual network (Bower and Hilgard, 1975: 453). Learning a language is not different from learning other things, so learning of a new statement like “the man is a pick-pocket” consists only of establishing an association labeled “is a” from the existing concept of manto the concept of a pick-pocket. If the speaker does not have any concept of man, then he would set up a new node in his memory to represent the new concept to which further concept would be attached.

2. Views of Language and Language Education

In language teaching, it is important to understand the nature of language. Without the idea of what language is, a teacher will find it difficult to decide what and how to teach. Bell (1981: 18-23) states that at least, there are two views of language. Linguists view language as form; sounds, letters, their combinations into larger units such as words, sentences and so forth. The set of forms have meaning, elements and sequences to be used for communication between individuals who shared the same rules. So language is considered as sets of sounds or letters combination which form larger meaningful units such as words, sentences and so on.

language is a ‘given’ code with elements which may or may not combine, and the combinations have meaning and there is arbitrariness in the system. Thus, the human scientist sees language as an open system, interacting with, changed by, and changing its environment.

From the above two definitions of language it can be concluded that it is not easy to have a construct or definition of language which include the key features. The features may vary, depending on the knowledge of the construct maker about the language. Brown mentions that language includes the following features: a. Language is systematic.

b. Language is a set of arbitrary symbols.

c. Those symbols are primarily vocal, but may also be visual.

d. The symbols have conventionalized meanings to which they refer. e. Language is used for communication.

f. Language operates in a speech community or culture.

g. Language is essentially human, although possibly not limited to human. h. Language is acquired by all people in much the same way; language and

language learning both have universal characteristics.

(Brown, 2000: 5)

The consequences of those features are that language teachers have to realize that teaching a language means teaching those features to students.

Brumfit (2001: 3) sees language as a never ending repertoire extension and repertoire reduction; there the learning process cannot be separated from the constantly changing human knowledge and linguistic practice. It is the most complex and the most creative human behavior.

languages. When people talk about language, for example Arabic language and Mandarin language, they will see a very significant difference. Language is a medium of communication specific to a society (Poole, 1999:6).

Ferdinand De Saussure views language as a system of sign. It involves the association of sound and meaning. This association is psychological and has pattern. Sign is used to indicate the association of sound and meaning. Sound is a physical phenomenon but language is psychological. Because of this, psychological equivalents are used instead of both sound and meaning (sound image and concept). The sign image and concept are termed signifieant and signifiẻ (Davis, 1973: 19). Sign is arbitrary in nature and the signifieant is linear. The arbitrariness here means that there is no relationship between signifieant and signifiẻ (Samsuri, 188: 16).

Wilkins (1975: 1) says that language is a means of communication. The word communication comes from a Latin word for “commonness” which suggests togetherness, joining, cooperation and mutuality. Therefore, communication is definable as mutual exchange between two or more individuals which enhance cooperation and establishes commonality (Oxford, 1990: 6-7).

Brown (2000: 7) states that teaching is often defined as showing or helping someone to learn how to do something, providing with knowledge, causing to know or understand. This definition is not complete. He further states that the components of learning can be extracted into:

b. Learning is retention of information and skill

c. Retention implies storage systems, memory, cognitive organization, events inside or outside organism.

d. Learning involves active, conscious focus on and acting upon events outside or inside the organism.

e. Learning is relatively permanent but subject to forgetting.

f. Learning involves some form of practice, perhaps reinforced practice. g. Learning is a change of behavior.

(Brown, 2000: 7)

Teaching cannot be defined apart from learning because teaching is guiding, facilitating learning, enabling the learner to learn, setting the condition for learning. The understanding of how the learner learns, determines one’s philosophy of education.

People often contrast learning and acquisition of language. Learning is said to be conscious knowledge of language rules. On the other hand, acquisition is thought of as something that occurs unconsciously and spontaneously which lead to conversational fluency, and comes from naturalistic language use. Oxford (1990: 4) states that the distinction is too rigid. She claims that learning a language and acquiring a language are not exclusive, but are rather parts of a potentially integrated range of experience. Besides, our knowledge about what is conscious and subconscious is not clear, for example, some elements of language use are at first conscious and then become automatic or unconscious through practice.

when they have discourse competence. In other words, learning to communicate is learning a language discourse. This is in line with what people and students usually think of language learning; to be able to use the language for communication. Unfortunately, many students do not feel that English language learning is important. For them, language learning is something they have to do because it is a part of the school curriculum. Because of this, there need to be a way of teaching that will make them interested. This is the importance of media in English language education.

3. Language Function

The Description of language function here is drawn from Halliday (1973, 1976) in Bachman (1995: 92-94). This view of language function here is taken into account because Halliday’s explanation is considered to be among the best exposition of language functions (Brown, 2000: 250). There are four macro functions of language: ideational, manipulative, heuristic and imaginative.

The ideational function of language is the one by which people express meaning in term of their experience of the real world. This includes the use of language to express proposition or to exchange information about knowledge or feelings, for example, to explain lessons or to present articles.

the environment, to make or to cause certain events to happen. For example, when someone uses a language to give command or warning, he is using a language on this function. Regulatory function is to control events; all regulations existing in society are regulatory features of language. Interact ional function is the one used to form, maintain, or change social/ interpersonal relationships. Successful interact ional communication requires knowledge on courtesy, jokes, jargons, slangs, greetings, ritual enquiries about health and so on.

The heuristic function of language involves the use of language to get knowledge, to learn about the environment. It occurs commonly in such acts as teaching, learning, problem solving etc.

The imaginative function is to create or extend environment for humorous or esthetic purposes. For example, when telling jokes, fairy tales, or write short stories, people are using language in this function. With these imaginative dimensions of language, people are free to go to the imaginary places with the language.

4. Communicative Competence

Communicative competence is the notion proposed by Dell Hymes in 1974 as an alternative to Chomsky’s linguistic competence (Nunan, 1999: 226). Communicative competence includes linguistic competence, and a range of other sociolinguistic and conversational skills that enable the speaker to know how to say what to whom, and when. Richards et al. mentions the characteristics of communicative competence as follows:

Communicative competence includes: (a) knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary of the language; (b) knowledge of rules of speaking; (c) knowing how to use and respond to different types of speech acts such as requests, apologies, thanks, and invitations; (d) knowing how to use language appropriately.

(Richards, Platt and Weber, 1985:49) Savignon (in Nunan, 1999) builds a model of communicative competence containing important characteristics. In her opinion, communicative competence is the ability to function in a truly communicative setting- that is, in dynamic exchange in which linguistic competence must adjust itself to the total information input, both linguistic and paralinguistic, of one or more interlocutors. Communicative competence for her is dynamic and it involves negotiation of meaning.

1. Grammatical competence or accuracy is the degree to which the language user has mastered the linguistic code, including vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, spelling and word formation.

2.Sociolinguistic competence is the extent to which utterances can be used or understood appropriately in various social contexts. It includes knowledge of speech acts such as persuading, apologizing, and describing.

3.Discourse competenceis the ability to combine ideas to achieve cohesion in form and coherence in thought, above the level of the single sentence. 4. Strategic competence is the ability to use strategies like gestures, or “talking around” an unknown word in order to overcome limitations in language knowledge.

(Oxford, 1990:7)

Diagram 2.1. Communicative competence (Celce-Murcia et al. 1995: 10 in depdiknas 2004: 51)

competence to solve difficulties in communication in general, and the ability to compensate deficiencies in the process of communication.

In conclusion of the above discussion, the purpose of language teaching is to help the learners get communicative competence which is also known as discourse competence. This competence consists of four sub-competences: linguistic competence, sociocultural competence, actional competence and strategic competence. Visual media, in relation to this, help both teachers and students to provide better learning atmosphere so that the learners can get communicative competence in a better way.

5. Authentic Communication

Bachman (1995: 301) states that a criterion for authenticity in communication is the reference to the real life performance. This means that an authentic communication is the one where people do something with the language. Nunan (1999: 27 and 2003: 33) says that authentic texts (communicative use of language), either written or spoken is created in a genuine communication (in a natural way), not specially created for teaching and learning.

ability to function in a truly communicative setting- that is in a dynamic exchange, which involves the negotiation of meaning.

Learning English must be aimed at real and natural way of using the language. Visual media, in this case, should be able to be used to provide context with which students and teachers employ communicative competence.

6. Managing English Learning

A good classroom situation is the one which is managed in such a way that it is conducive for learning. Without a good management, not everybody can learn equally as well. Sitting arrangement, for example, is important because teachers who do not care for the students’ sitting position may have worse result. If a big and tall student sits in front of a short little student, he will block the little students’ sight. If this little student wants to see something written on the board or look at the pictures that the teacher shows, he will find a difficulty. In this section, I will discuss some aspects of managing English learning: (1) sitting arrangement, (2) grouping, (3) E S A, (4) error treatment, (5) marking the stages of the lesson.

a. Sitting arrangement

students sit in a large circle around the walls of the classroom. Sometimes they are arranged in a horseshoe shape (in Indonesia usually termed as U shape).

There are at least three different approaches in the sitting arrangements as Harmer (2005: 18) states. They are: (a) orderly rows, (b) circles and horse shoes, and (c) separate tables. When the students sit in rows the teacher has clear view of all the students, and the students can face the teacher who is in front of them. Harmer says that this sitting arrangement makes lecturing easy, enable the teacher maintains eye contact, and it also makes discipline easier. This arrangement is the best solution when a teacher is faced with classes of anywhere between 40 to 200 students at a time.

When the classroom is smaller, teachers often prefer a circle or horse shoe. In a horseshoe, a teacher is usually at the center of the open end of the arrangement because it is a place where the board, viewers, and overhead projectors are placed. Lewis and Hill (2002: 40) state that this arrangement is effective if the class consists of 5-15 students. They do not recommend this arrangement for a school class that has around 30 students; instead they still suggest conventional arrangement.

with the horseshoe shape, although a teacher may still be at the center, the teacher has a much greater opportunity to get close to students.

Separate tables are used if circles and horseshoes still feel rather formal. In the classes where students are seated in small groups, at individual tables, the teacher can walk around to check the students’ work and help out if they have difficulties. At this sitting arrangement, theatmospherein the class is much less hierarchical than in other arrangements. It is easier for the teacher to work at one table while the others get on with their own assignment or task. Their relationships feel less like teacher and students and more like adult people doing business, in this case the business of learning.

The problem that may happen with this arrangement is the students can feel bored because they may want to be with different colleagues since their preference may sooner or later change. Another weakness, because the students are more diffuse and separated it makes the whole class explanation difficult.

b. Grouping

The purpose of a seating arrangement is to make it easy for the teacher to manage or organize a class. Classes, according to Harmer (2005), can be organized in different ways: a whole class, groups, pairs or individual.

that the class has to have an orderly row sitting arrangement. Whatever seating arrangement is applied the teacher can still have the students focus on him or her and focus on the task in their hand too.

Groupwork and pairwork are now becoming the most popular organization in language teaching since they are considered of having a lot of advantages. In groupwork, for example, the activity is cooperative; five students, discussing a toping, doing a role-play, or solving a problem. In groups students tend to participate more equally because they feel safer, and they are also more able to experiment and use the language than in the whole class arrangement because don’t feel being monitored by their teacher or become the center of the class attention.

Pairwork has the same advantages. When the students work on a problem more of them will talk, and share ideas than in group or whole class activity. Lewis and Hill (2002: 47) say that pairwork increases student talking time. Although the teacher is still busy moving from pair to pair, he or she is relatively quiet and many more students are using English.

(2002: 46) more students are directly involved, more of them are talking while the teacher talks less. They also claim that groupwork and pairwork make classroom atmosphere more relaxed and conducive to good language learning. Another advantage of a group or pairwork organization is that they give an opportunity for the teacher to work with individual students. While other groups or pairs are doing the tasks, the teacher is able to spend some time with a group that needs special attention.

There are some weaknesses of groupwork and pairwork organizations as explained by Harmer (2005: 21). The students may not like other students they are grouped or paired with. In anyone group or pair one student may dominate, while others keep silent. In particular difficult classes, the students may turn to their mother tongue, rather than English, and when the teacher is not working with them, they may talk about something else which is not relevant with the topic of the lesson.

c. ESA (Engage, Study, Activate)

attention. It is intended to involve their emotions. Engage can be a way to lead the students in to what the teacher is going to talk about.

Some activities and materials which engage students include: games, music, discussions, stimulating pictures, dramatic stories, amusing anecdotes and so on. When those materials are not used, teachers usually want to engage students to the topic, exercise or language they are going to deal with. The idea behind this all is that they learn better then when they are partly or wholly disengaged.

One of the forms of the engagement is elicitation. Elicitation, as stated by Nunan (2003: 237) means asking the students to provide information or examples based on what they know about those. Elicitation is not putting learners on the spot, because it only works when a teacher tries to elicit what the students are likely to know.

S is studyactivities where students are asked to focus on language or information and how it is constructed. Students can study in a variety of different types. They can study language evidence to discover grammar for themselves; they can work in groups to study a reading text or vocabulary. Study is a stage at which the construction of language is the primary focus.

grammar, vocabulary, or function) but to produce language. Activate exercises include role-plays, advertisement design, debates and discussions, story and poem writing, etc. When the students come to this stage, they learn how to get things done through language.

d. Error treatment

One way to monitor what the students are doing and how well they are doing it is by keeping a mistake log (Nunan 2003: 237). A mistake log is a note taken of the activity and the class. As the teacher moves around, he writes down the mistakes (grammatical, lexical, or cultural) he hears the students making. In Nunan’s opinion, the mistake log can then be used in a number of ways. It can be used directly after an activity and elicit correction from the students.

In an activity to practice polite ways to ask for something, for example, the teacher may notice that some of the students were not using the wordplease which was in the examples in the book. After the activity he can write two contrasting examples on the board, one sentence uses please, the other does not. The teacher can then discuss the difference between the two sentences.

improvement at all. Second, error treatment can be done with visual media. How a teacher treats errors with visual media can be interesting especially to be reported in this research report.

e. Marking the stages of the lesson

When a teacher arrives in the classroom, he or she needs to start the lesson off. Where possible and appropriate s/he needs to tell the students what they will be doing although s/he does not always to explain exactly what they are going to do (Harmer 2005: 17). With the statements, it can be inferred that a teacher needs to indicate the start of a lesson. The indicators for the start of the lessons are:greeting(to indicate a shift between non-English lessons with English, or used to claim the time for an English lesson), andelicitation (to indicate a new topic/ thing that is coming up).

Harmer’s second statement above suggests that a teacher should tell the students the objective of the lesson. However, for some reason, for example if he or she wants to maintain an element of surprise, a teacher does not have to do this. If it is not done, it is necessary for the teacher to make the start of the lesson clear. The students need to be made clear of the end of something and the beginning of what is coming next.

the student do an exercise) andconsolidation (a final review at the end of a unit lesson). Sometimes a teacher is in the middle of something when the bell goes on and s/he leaves unfinished business, and sense of incompleteness. In this case, the teacher had better round the lesson off. To do these things, teachers may use visual media, and if it is so, it is a part of this study.

f. Teacher talk time

Considering an appropriate Teacher Talking Time (TTT) is important in a classroom communication. Riddell (2003: 19) states that keeping TTT low does not mean ‘avoid speaking at all. In fact, it means don’t use too much unnecessary language, because the more a teacher says, the more likely s/he is to be misunderstood. Riddell (2003: 19) further says that there are times when the lesson needs to be teacher centered and the teacher has to do a lot of talking. It is easy for a teacher to start talking far more than s/he has to, and this runs a risk of confusing students.

Getting students to speak, to use the language they are learning, is a vital part of teachers’ job, because students are the people who are learning, and need the practice, not the teacher. That is why Harmer (2005: 4) says that a good teacher maximizes Student Talking Time (STT) and minimizes TTT.

their productive level but which they can more or less understand. A classroom where a teacher talks much, and where students hardly say anything is not the ones most teachers and students would approve of.

What a good lesson looks like, in Harmer’s opinion, is the one where STT is maximized, but where at appropriate moments during the lesson the teacher is still confident to summarize what is happening, tell a story, and to share a discussion etc. In short, good teachers use their common sense and experience to get the balance right.

English learning visual media in relation to this issue can hopefully help minimize TTT and maximize STT. When the teacher explains what to do with the media, s teacher will talk, but then there will be a longer time for the students to do the task, and therefore they will do a lot of talking while the teacher is monitoring what is going on in the classroom with the teacher’s assignment.

B. Visual Media

enable the students to learn are all media. In this sense, teachers, textbooks and the students’ environment can be identified as media.

Anderson (1987) classifies teaching media into three major categories; audio, visual, and audio visual media. Audio media includes radio and cassette recordings. The visual media are media that can be seen like film strip, pictures, paintings, and photos that show what something look like; diagrams that show relationships between concepts; maps and graphs. Visual media also includes realia, which refers to actual objects and items brought into a classroom as examples or as aids to be talked or written about and used in teaching. It consists of a lot of media that can be seen such as pictures, miniatures of animals, buildings and so on. And the audio visual media are the ones that produce sounds as well as pictures such as television, video recordings and computerized teaching media.

Teaching media has a lot of benefits. Hamalik (1986: 27) mentions seven: 1. It provides basis for thinking and reduces verbalism.

2. It attracts students’ attentions.

3. It provides basis for learning development and retains knowledge. 4. It gives experience of a real world and generates self-fulfilling. 5. It develops logical thinking.

The chance to get experience is usually limited to individual factors and conditions existing in society. The students who live in the cities usually have better chance to experience a lot by seeing the environment, and enjoying facilities. Rich students have more chance to make a study tour, and to read books. They can also enjoy facilities they provided by heir parents. There are students who are not very lucky because they are limited by the social economic conditions as well as geographical factors. Visual media in this case can become an abridgement to understand the things which are beyond their experience so that they can share the similar experience with those in the cities. Many things that cannot be brought into the classroom can be provided within the students’ reach by way of using visual media. Visual media in this respect help those marginalized students in order to become emancipated.

C. Vocational Schools

Vocational education is a subsystem of the Indonesian national education system whose main goal is to prepare the students so that they become competent to fulfill the need for middle level of labors (Sutrisno, 2005: 1). He continues that those who study at the vocational schools are hoped to fulfill an aspect of longlife learning and a preparation for responsible citizenship. The consequence of this goal is that vocational schools have duties.

(Sutrisno, 2005: 1). He states further, to do the duty, vocational schools need a curriculum which include job competency, hardwares and softwares to be used in the laboratories, qualified teachers, budget and management.

The duties that the vocational schools have make them play important roles in Indonesian national Education system (Sutrisno, 2005: 1). He further argues that there are two reasons for the important roles and position they play. First, vocational schools have become among other places to educate people, and the places where the government try to meet people’s right for education. Second, vocational schools have given important contribution to Indonesian economy by providing skilled labors for business and industry.

There are a number of vocational school varieties. They are divided into many fields of studies, business and management, technology and industry, art and craft, health, tourism, maritime, social service and so on. Every field of study has its own study programs which are more specific.

Today, the government has decided that vocational schools have to be developed into nationally standardized vocational schools or internationally standardized vocational schools (Sutrisno, 2005:3). This policy aims at producing quality out put that can compete to gain jobs in Indonesia or foreign countries. The by the year 2009, the government is planning to have 1000 nationally standardized vocational schools and 200 internationally standardized vocational schools.

Learning vocational English is not different from learning general English, in the sense that the language, which the vocational school students are learning, is English and the methods are English language teaching methods. The difference with general English language learning is, in vocational language learning, the purposes for learning or the reasons for learning influence the content of language and method of learning. In short, the language content and the method used, depend upon the target use situation.

At any vocational school in Indonesia, students learn English both for academic purpose and vocational purpose. Students, in this case, learn English for immediate use in a study environment, and they also learn English for future use when they get a job (Hutchinson and Waters 1994: 16). This statement is in line with the objectives of English language education in Indonesia, as quoted from the 2006 KTSP (School-based Curriculum) that is:

1. To make students understand the basic skills of English to help them reach the vocational competencies.

2. To make the students able to apply their ability and skills in English to communicate- spoken and written.

The ability to use these skills has something to do with context of situation. A discourse competence can be seen from how people create texts or language within the context of situation. This context of situation controls what language to use by whom and to whom in the vocational world. Visual media in this respect can be used to give a picture of vocational situations where English can be used in their future career.

Theoretically speaking, vocational school students need to learn vocational English which varies according to their vocation and their need for English in the future. Students of technical groups need technical English in the sense that they need to learn English which include a number of technical lexico-grammars. Students of Tourism and Restaurant group need English containing lexico-grammars which suit their context of situation. Unfortunately this does not go as expected.

The government’s policy to standardize school quality by holding the national examination program for vocational schools force the teachers to forget vocational English because the examination problems are design on the basis of general English. The government does this because it is difficult for them to prepare many kinds of measurement according to the many kinds of vocational schools. The uniformity for vocational school national measurement in English language test influences teachers’ decision for teaching materials. Now, teachers of English at the vocational schools teach general English instead of vocational English.

vocational schools in Indonesia is to help the learners gain the basic skills of English in order that they can learn their vocational skills better. Secondly, learning English at the vocational schools should make them able to use English spoken and written so that they can compete with people from other countries to get a job at the international society. English as the world’s lingua franca should be able to help them learn to adapt with the present and future life.

D. Meaning

Meaning that is discussed in this section will be deduced through qualitative research. Before discussing meaning according to the interpretive approach, I would present the features of qualitative approach. By discussing this before hand, it is hoped that it would be easier to understand the following part.

In discussing meaning, there are four parts (1) Features of qualitative research, (2) meaning according to interpretive approach, (3) learner need and learning need, and (4) motivation. They are discussed under the umbrella of meaning because they are closely related to one another. Meaning comes from interpretations, and how people interpret realities of the world depends upon their needs and motivations.

1. Features of qualitative research

experience and interpretation of reality. This implies that the truth must be sought from the participants and the researcher ought to find out how the participants view the reality. The meaning of things is constructed by human-beings, and as they get engaged with the world around them they are interpreting reality.

The second feature of qualitative research is researchers are part of research settings. Holliday (2002:38) believes that research settings are cultures, where qualitative research is essentially culture learning. As human-beings, any researchers are a part of cultures, and therefore they are a part of the setting. This is in line with what Patton (2002: 81) says as ethnography method in which the investigator is immersed in the culture under study. This method assumes that any human group of people who interact together for a period of time will gradually develop a culture. Thus a qualitative researcher who interacts with the participants for a period of time will develop a culture of which he belongs.

conscious of the cultural, political, social, linguistic and ideological origin of the researcher’s perspective and voice, and at the same time the voices of people one interviews and those to whom one reports.

The last feature is that the aims of qualitative research are to problematize, reveal hidden realities and initiate a discussion. Patton (2002) further explains that progressive qualitative researchers portray people as constructing the social world, and researchers as, themselves are constructing the social world through their interpretation of the way people construct their social world. The job of a researcher is to describe how the participants interpret a social phenomenon and then to describe his interpretation of the participants’ interpretation.

2. Meaning in an Interpretive Approach

In the naturalistic enquiry human actively construct their own meaning of situation (Cohen et.al, 2003: 137). Individuals have their interpretations of the world around them and the researcher begins with these individuals to understand their interpretations. Meaning comes out of situations and is handled out through interpretive processes.

phenomenon? Here the analyst examines the data and his own perspective and understandings to make sense of the evidence. Both the data and perspective which give evidence are elucidated to search for meaning.

3. Learner Need and Learning Need

Hutchinson and Waters (1994: 60) say that it is a common practice to ask both educators and students about the students’ English needs. On the side of educators, the need of English is often exaggerated. Educators have a personal investment in giving the impression that English need is high. The students may give a much lower indication of need for English because they know that it is not really necessary. The students may agree that English is needed for their future employment, for social status or even they may think that English is not needed at all. In other words, the interpretation of needs can vary according to participants’ point of view. However, knowing the learners need is important because by asking the students about the target situation and their attitude towards it, language educators can try to make a compromise with the students and make them understand of what they are supposed to learn.

route according to the vehicles and guides available (for example, the condition in the learning situation), the existing roads (their knowledge, skills and strategies), and the learners motivation for traveling (learning).

Learners’ need is what the students say important and what they want to learn. This need purely comes from the students themselves. Learning need is what educators say about what the students’ need at the students’ target situation. In this case, the students’ need English in order to be able to learn their vocational subjects better and their need for English in order to be able to actualize themselves in the target situation.

Now it can be concluded here that what is important for someone to learn depends upon who says it and what position the person is in. What is important for a student might be different from what a teacher thinks important for his students. Students have different learning styles and strategies too. With visual media the learners’ needs for suitable teaching media can be fulfilled. In other words, teaching media can give a variety of ways how English can be learnt by students who have different learning styles and strategies.

4. Motivation

Motivation deals with why people behave as they do (Wlodkowski, 1986 in Dörnyei, 2005: 12).

The quotation “why people behave as they do” indicates that there are reasons for people to do things. In the English education context, students in this respect also have reasons for learning English. These reasons which Ellis (2003) calls “motivation” varies from person to person. Ellis (2003) differentiate motivation into two kinds of motivations. They are integrative motivations and instrumental motivations.

Integrative motivations are motivations that come from the internal needs of the learners. When the students learn English to get internally rewarding consequences like the feeling of competence and self determination, these students have the integrative motivations. The instrumental motivations are the ones that come from the needs of the externally rewarding consequences, for example, the expectation of having money, prizes, grades, and even some kinds of positive feedback (Brown 2000: 164).

fulfilled. In short, once a deficiency need is fulfilled, at some future time a deficiency may be detected, and if so, the individual will do something to remove the deficiency. When all those deficiency needs are met, an individual is ready to act upon the growth needs.

This growth need is differentiated into two groups; lower level and higher level growth needs. The lower level growth needs are the needs to know and understand the world around an individual person, and aesthetic needs- the needs to understand and enjoy the values of beauty. The higher level growth needs are self actualization and transcendental needs. Self actualization is the need to be approved and accepted by others in a society. Transcendental need is the need to reach the highest position among human-beings within one’s group.

In order that they can reach the highest needs, they have to become empowered, self-fulfilling, and autonomous. To reach those, they need to learn English so that they can work anywhere in the world. In vocational school context, the students need to learn vocational English in order that they can use the language to understand vocational subjects better and in the future they can function well in their career. In this respect, whatever motivates or generates the students to learn, English teachers’ should consider the use of visual media in order to improve or at least to keep their students’ motivations.

The goals of learning English at vocational schools are to help the students to learn the vocational competencies better and to make the students able to apply their ability and skills in English to communicate- spoken and written. This ability will make them able to compete with people from other nations to win the jobs where ever in the world.

The ability to use English to communicate spoken and written is known as

communicative competencethat is the ability to function in the target language. The indicator of being able to function appropriately in a language is the ability to negotiate meaning with the native speaker or people who use the other language according to the context of situation. Different contexts of situation allow the establishment of different kinds of text. The aim of language teaching then is to make the students able to build texts according to the respective context of situation.

To replicate English language classroom activities is not easy, but as what Nunan says in the former part of the theoretical description, a good classroom learning organization consists of at least three major parts which he calls ESA. A successful lesson has these three sequences of elements:engage, studyand activate. In relation to these three elements, visual media may become a part of each of those three.

by media. Because authentic communication involves negotiation of meaning, the use of visual media to provide authentic situation is a great idea.

Media as a messenger that brings things into the classroom can be a miracle for the students because it can make a lot of concepts clearer. By seeing or hearing new things from media the students can be more motivated because there are a lot of difficult things that are made easy by media. It is, therefore, very important to include visual media in English education.

In this study, meanings can be seen as the binoculars. The meanings of all classroom activities with visual media were deduced from the teachers’ point of view, and the meanings that were deduced from the students’ point of view were used for triangulation.

CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The objective of discussing methodology is to qualify the use of approach and techniques and methods in response to the kinds of the research so that the researcher can meet the goal of the study. It presents the appropriate steps of how I came to the answer of the research questions systematically.

This chapter presents the research methodology and procedures that will be employed in this research. The discussion will be organized into ten sections (1) research method, (2) identifying initial idea, (3) the nature of the data, (4) research participants and setting, (5) data collection technique, (6) research blueprint, (7) constructing interview questions, (8) conducting interview (9) techniques for data analysis, and (10) validation of the data.

A. Research Method

In this research there was a sequence that would be conducted in order to achieve the desired goals. The Sequence can be visualized as seen in the following chart:Chart 3.1: Research Sequence

IDENTIFYING INITIAL IDEA

OBSERVATION OBSERVASION DATA

GENERAL PLAN (BLUEPRINT)

OBSERVATION AND INTERVIEW DATA

PROCESSING BLUEPRINT FOR INTERVIEW

CONDUCT THE INTERVIEW

THEMATIZE OBSERVATION AND INTERVIEW

CONDUCT REFLECTION

CATEGORIZATION

CONSTRUCT PATTERNS OF ENGLISH LEARNING WITH VISUAL MEDIA IN THE CLASSROOM

VERIFIED DATA

CONCLUSION

INTERVIEW DATA

B. Identifying Initial Idea

The researcher was interested in the teaching media especially the ones related to English education. When there was a job at hand to write a research report, the idea of doing a research and writing the research report on it became dominant. It was not easy to decide which teaching media to study, but a few friends spoke highly about Mrs. Christy and Nana who were successful in creating and using visual media in their classroom activities. The idea became stronger when a friend convinced that those two teachers should be willing to be the research participants. The researcher then made a follow up by making informal visit to make a lobby whether the two teachers were willing to be the participants. The next step was writing a research proposal and letter of permit to conduct a research at Vocational School F Yogyakarta and Vocational School G Kalasan. The researcher then came to those schools and talked to the headmasters who were happy to help succeed the research project. This was how the initial idea developed.

C. The Nature of the Data

obtained from interviews with teachers and students. The interviews were conducted based on the categorization of the construct and observation notes. The categorization made on the basis of the discussed construct was used as a guideline for the interview, so that the interview did not go as questionnaire (one question to one answer) but dynamic, according to the development of the answers until the interviewer had no more follow-up questions. These data were tape recorded and then transcribed. Thirdly, a period of reflection at which the researcher reviewed what happened in the classroom and why. All those data were then categorized.

D. Research Participants and Setting

The idea of doing a research on visual media had directed me to consider the feasibility of doing the research. It was related to me as the one who would conduct the study, the possible participants who could make the required setting, and the stake holders. The first thing to do was establishing good relationships with the participants and the stake holders. I started making relationships with the stake holders by doing an informal visit to the vocational schools to meet “the would-be participants” and their principals. When everything was all right, I started to make a formal relationship.

This research was done in two different vocational schools in Yogyakarta province with two teacher-research participants and six student-research participants. Both teachers have taught English for many years and they have frequently used visual media in he lessons they handle. So, they would make good settings. Both the teachers and students were observed on the basis of categories derived from the construct. Based on the class conditions, the researcher would know the kinds of visual media they used in the classroom and how they were used in English learning. The data would then be used to dig out the meaning of those media for them in learning English.

The two different vocational high schools were: (1) SMKN F Yogyakarta and (2) SMKN G Kalasan. The first teacher research participant was observed with two different students. Because from each class the researcher interviewed three students, the three classes observed made nine students altogether. The teacher participants were: Christy and Nana (pseudo names). The students are Ms. Student 1, Ms. Student 2, and Ms. Student 3, from Food and Beverage Department; Cyndi, Babay and Shella from Hotel and Restaurant Department. All of them are Mrs. Christy’s students of SMKN F Yogyakarta. The other three were Mrs. Nana students: Mei Nining, Sheffy and Ariawan from Hotel Accommodation Department of SMKN G Kalasan.