THE REASONS OF USING OF POWERPOINT IN
LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of
The Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
Mikhael Kristiani 112010158
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
This thesis contains no such material as has been submitter for examination on any course or 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 or written by any other person except where due reference is made in the text.
Copyright@2016. Mikhael Kristiani and Dian Toar Y.G. Sumakul, M.A
All right reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the permission or at least one of the copyright owners or the English Language Education Program, Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana University, Salatiga.
TABLE OF CONTENT
PowerPoint in Language Classroom……… 13
Conclusion………. 22
Acknowledgement……… 24
THE REASONS OF USING OF POWERPOINT IN LANGUAGE
CLASSROOMS
Mikhael Kristiani
ABSTRACT
In modern era, the uses of PowerPoint presentations had considerably increased through teachings in classrooms. It had an important role in presenting ideas and explaining materials. This study was aimed at helping both teachers and students in using PowerPoint presentations in language classrooms. Observation method was used in this study. Four lecturers in English Department, Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University were interviewed after each class had been observed. The instruments of this study were notes that described usages of PowerPoint presentations in the classrooms and semi-interviewed questions to gain more reasons to consider when to use PowerPoint presentations. The findings revealed
Key words: PowerPoint, reasons, language classroom
INTRODUCTION
A study done by Alkash & Al-Dersi (2013) found advantages of PowerPoint presentations. In that research, Libyan EFL learners were being interviewed. The interviews done for two times, before the use of the PowerPoint Presentation in their class and after that method were settled. From the data gathered, the students faced many difficulties using the old method that their teachers have used. And as a result of the discussion, the learners in Sebha University expected their teachers to use PowerPoint Presentation for presenting the lectures. They were helped in understanding the main concepts of English and being motivated to learn English more with the using of PowerPoint Presentation.
Furthermore, a study conducted by Rajabi & Ketabi (2012) proved a better performance of a group received PowerPoint materials compared to a group who received the traditional textbook teaching style. Sixty two BA students from University of Isfahan were examined in a 90 minutes “advanced writing" course
during ten sessions. This study assessed the result of employing new technology to the class. The pretest and posttest were administered to two groups. There was no different from the result of pretest. However, the result from posttest had significant difference in number. The frequency use of cohesive devices in PowerPoint group was 47.79 and the frequency use of cohesive devices in traditional teaching style was 27.79.
English while the using of PowerPoint presentations in classrooms. In addition, the test result showed a better comprehension of the students when they were exposed to learning by means of PowerPoint presentations. The result was supported by a comparison between the PowerPoint group and traditional teaching group. The comparison of posttest presented an increasing number gained by the PowerPoint group.
As it has already expanded to schools long time ago, the use of PowerPoint presentation still bring up a positive effect on teaching learning activities. Xingeng & Jianxiang (2012) summarized several advantages of PowerPoint presentation as great efficiency in information transfer, making better visual effects, specific and complete knowledge arrangement. There were many studies of PowerPoint presentation effects on teaching and learning in classroom, which mostly said that it was useful. However, the instructor has a role also in making the use of PowerPoint Presentation effective. Broke and Joglekar (2011) found that the teachers’ teaching style determined the effectiveness of classroom use of the PowerPoint Presentation.
PowerPoint presentations in classrooms. This paper will try to answer some factors related to the teachers utilize the PowerPoint presentations in language classrooms. The aim of this study is to support both the lecturers and the students in using the PowerPoint presentation in order to enhance learning English. By knowing the reasons in using PowerPoint presentation, the users are expected to produce an effective presentation. The audiences also will get a better impact if the presentation was effectively made. The study of lecturers’ usage of PowerPoint presentation was expected to give an overview in how effective it is to use for the lecturers in their classroom. The significance of this study is to provide a new insight in preparing the quality of the lecturers as the human resources to operate the technology which is required to meet the students’ expectations in
learning through media presentation. The findings could help both the lecturers and the students in using PowerPoint presentations in order to enhance learning English and produce an effective PowerPoint presentations.
LITERATURE REVIEW
PowerPoint
reviews, and for tests. He talked in the end, about too many computers were required as the unfortunately the negative side of the existence of PowerPoint presentation in the classroom.
Language Classrooms
When teaching language, especially second language, teachers’ goal are
using as much as the target language as possible. Dr. Olenka Bilash (2011) on her website said that daily practices make best use of the target language use. The researcher belief that the more frequent the language is used, the more fluent the students will be. The exposure of target language both spoken and written will enhance students’ comprehension of the language.
PowerPoint in language classrooms
In recent years, the use of PowerPoint and other multimedia in education has increased globally (Connor and Wong in Nouri and Shahid, 2005). Many researchers have discussed both advantages and disadvantages of PowerPoint Presentation in the classroom. The popularity of PowerPoint Presentation comes from a set of Microsoft Office packages. Even though other presentation software has the same functions, PowerPoint is the most common and user friendly. In that case, teachers are welcome to perform using PowerPoint in classrooms. In fact, there are many researchers has investigated the teachers’ skill of using PowerPoint
as a consideration the correspondence of teachers’ readiness to teach using the
technology.
facilitating the organizing of a presentation in a professional style. PowerPoint presentation offers an alternative form of presenting largely text-based material that used to be delivered using whiteboard and talk (Jones, 2003).
THE STUDY
Method of Research
This study describes some initial reasons that are taken by the lecturers in their way of using the presentation media to conduct the teaching and learning activities in the language classroom. The common presentation media used is PowerPoint presentation with a help of a LCD and a computer. The methodology used for this research is qualitative, using observation and interview. The reasons why qualitative method is used are (a) the purpose is to obtain “insight, discovery
and understanding rather than hypothesis testing” (Merriam, 2001, p. 28); and (b)
the qualitative methodology is great tools for increasing our understanding of teaching and learning (Johnson, 1995, p. 4).
Context
The researcher chose lecturers from English Department, Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga because they have used PowerPoint Presentation while teaching English. In addition, the researcher believed that the lecturers will work for the best to their students in the form of preparing some slides in PowerPoint Presentation beforehand. As well the traditional method of teaching, PowerPoint Presentation will enhance the lecturers' performance. (Inoue-Smith, 2016)
Four English lecturers in English Department, Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University participated in this study. They were actively using English and providing a good material to their students via PowerPoint Presentation. Furthermore, the PowerPoint Presentation was the additional teaching material that the lecturers’ use to complete their performance
besides handbook. Research Instrument
The observation took place while the teaching and learning process was going on. Here, the lecturer was still active explaining the material. The researcher took notes while observing the using of PowerPoint presentation by the lecturers. In the notes, a descriptive ways of PowerPoint usage was written to present the data in its natural ways. The interview is semi-structured interview that carried out directly after the observation and teaching have been done, to gain some valuable perceptions toward PowerPoint use in the classroom. Besides, semi structured interview allowed the interviewee to express their thought in their own positions. Equally, the answers can accommodate a new topic that can be explored more for the data completeness. The lecturers were asked about the reasons why they decided to use PowerPoint presentation in their classrooms.
Data Collection Procedures
observing each class where PowerPoint presentation was used. After that, the interview was done separately with each lecturer during their free time. Once, the researcher made a time with the lecturers and asked about the factors related to the using of PowerPoint presentations. Here the function of open ended questions was to hear the reasons why PowerPoint presentation was used in the classrooms. Data Analysis Procedures
LeCompte and Schensul (1999) determined a data analysis as a process of reducing the data collected into a story and its interpretation in order to be comprehensible. In order to analyze the information gathered from observation and interview, the researcher made some points with explanation related to the factors in using PowerPoint presentations in classrooms. The researcher would divide the three reasons based on Penciner (2013) into three subheadings. They were emphasis, augmentation, and multimedia learning. Each part served the explanation of the reasons, the evidence found on observation and interview, and the relation between the explanation and the evidence. Furthermore, the researcher provided some more reasons from the lecturers regarding their background in using PowerPoint presentations.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
Findings
interview, the researcher asked about some factors related the teachers utilize the PowerPoint presentation in language classroom. The findings below were explanations toward the using of PowerPoint presentation in language classroom which divided into three subheadings: emphasis, augmentation, and multimedia learning.
Emphasis
According to Peciner (2013), “Emphasis is by using a single word or phrase on a slide, PowerPoint can be used to emphasize a concept.” Many studies
suggested in how constructing and delivering PowerPoint Presentation should be. One of the don’ts on preparing the PowerPoint presentation was by avoiding too much text on the slides. Jones (2003) on his journal gave advice, “Try to avoid
having more than 6 lines of text per slide and make them primarily headings or subheadings.” (p. 6) He added the aim was to provide a clear structure for the
students during the learning activity.
From the slide found that the teacher used a phrase to present the material. While showing that slide, Teacher A narrated the explanation to her students. There she did not use a full sentence. Instead, she used a phrase to explain a formula regarding the material of English for Specific Purposes.
Picture 2: the 7th slide of English Specific Purposes class’ PowerPoint
The seventh slide, in fact, was the instruction only. Here the emphasize reason happened in using PowerPoint presentation.
Excerpt 1
” I want to emphasize that they were just need to do some with their spread sheet the thing that I have already given them.” (Teacher A)
Augmentation
Augmentation is by using a well-designed graph or table or a relevant picture. (Peciner, 2013, p. 3). Those can increase the presentation’s visual so that the presentation is not merely the narratives. A study guide from University of Leicester (2009) gave more explanation, “Ensure that the images that you use are simple and clear enough to be easily read at a distance.”
From the observation result, the researcher found a lot of tables from Advanced Grammar class’ PowerPoint Presentation. There were twenty-seven
slides altogether as explanation from a handbook. There were eight slides full of tables explaining the examples found in certain sentences. There was one slide using a graph. The lecturer gave an explanation in interview session, that all of the content on PowerPoint’s slides were on the handbook as well. The lecturer had
decided to use PowerPoint Presentation because she wanted to make the students easier to comprehend what were written in the handbook.
Excerpt 2
“The same reason, actually. To make the students more understand if we used graph or diagram, especially to compare something” (Teacher B).
Multimedia Learning
This third part covered both auditory and visual principles. Peciner (2013) noted that multimedia referred to presentations involving words (such as spoken or printed text) and pictures (such as animation, video, illustrations, and photographs). This multimedia learning will effectively engage the learners to be a better in understanding and memory. Since the study form Sung and Mayer (2012) stated that people learn better from words and pictures than from words alone.
From the observation result, there was Extensive Listening class. There are only two slides there. The first was consisting of the title and the second was a list of questions. The lecturer decided to use PowerPoint Presentation because the issue of practicality.
Excerpt 3
“Basically I’m teaching two classes, the same class, Extensive Listening. And I use it for what of the reason is for saving time.” (Teacher C).
Discussions
The finding is clearly revealed that those three reasons are including emphasis, augmentation, and multimedia learning when deciding whether to use PowerPoint Presentation. Some other reasons also found when the lecturer was being interviewed. As emphasis is for the learners to get easily understand the concept which have already summarized in points. The teacher who will make a presentation using PowerPoint can put a single word or phrase in order to emphasis a certain point of an important part in the materials. For the second reason is augmentation. The addition of a picture, a graph, and a table can present a good-looking type of presentation. The presenter, both the teacher and the students, can get a good point in preparing the presentation for the students. Another reason is the multimedia learning, the teacher and the students can learn in how to combine both words and pictures as one. The combination’s goal is engaging the students via narratives and visual. Thus, the PowerPoint itself should be well prepared to support the presenting of it.
CONCLUSIONS
This study’s purpose is to help both the lecturers and the students in using
the PowerPoint Presentation in order to enhance learning English. By knowing the reasons in using PowerPoint, the users are expected to produce an effective presentation. Based on Peciner (2013), the three reasons are investigated toward four lecturers in English Department, Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University. This study also aimed to gain more insights from the lecturers who use PowerPoint Presentation in their classroom.
The finding of this research concluded that those three reasons are useful and important to consider when to use PowerPoint Presentation in the classroom. Hopefully, the teacher and the students who want to make a presentation using PowerPoint will regard their background in making that presentation. In addition, all of the presenter who will use PowerPoint Presentation should consider those reasons in order to make an effective learning activity.
PowerPoint will provide the users to use those effects in order to make an effective presentation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
REFERENCES
Alkash, K. A., & Al-Dersi, Z. E. (2013). Advantages of Using PowerPoint Presentation in EFL Classroom & the Status of its Use in Sebha University. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies.
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