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An Analysis of Three Student-teachers when dealing with Critical Incidents in a Microteaching Class
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Annisa Liliyana 112008071
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA 2013
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COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in 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 references is made in the text.
Copyright@2013.Annisa Liliyana and Nugraheny Zacharias Ph.D.
All rights 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 Department, Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University.
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PUBLICATION AGREEMENT DECLARATION
As a member of the (SWCU) Satya Wacana Christian University academic community, I verify that:
Name : Annisa Liliyana
Student ID Number : 112008071
Study Program : English Department Faculty : Language and Literature Kind of Work : Undergraduate Thesis
In developing my knowledge, I agree to provide SWCU with a non-exclusive royalty free right for my intellectual property and the contents therein entitled:
AN ANALYSIS OF THREE STUDENT-TEACHERS WHEN DEALING WITH CRITICAL INCIDENTS IN A MICROTEACHING CLASS
Along with any pertinent equipment.
With this non-exclusive royalty free right, SWCU maintains the right to copy, reproduce, print, publish, post, display, incorporate, store in or scan into a retrieval system or database, transmit, broadcast, barter or sell my intellectual property, in whole or in part without my express written permission, as long as my name is still included as the writer.
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Made in : Salatiga Date : January 2013 Verified by Signee,
Annisa Liliyana Approved by
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v Table of Content
Cover Page ... i
Approval Thesis Sheet...ii
Copyright Statement ... iii
Publication agreement declaration...iv
Table of Content Table of Content ...v
ABSTRACT ... 1
INTRODUCTION ... 1
Definition of Critical incident ... 4
Why Critical Incidents occur ... 5
Coping Strategies of Critical Incidents ... 6
The Benefits of Being Aware with Critical Incidents ... 7
THE STUDY ... 8
Context of the study ... 8
Participants ... 9
Instruments of data collection ... 10
Procedures of data collection ... 12
Data analysis ... 13
FINDING AND DISCUSSION ... 15
Language Proficiency Problem ... 15
Reasons of Having Critical Incidents ... 15
Coping strategy to cope with critical incidents ... 17
The Lack of Class Participation ... 19
Reasons of Having Critical Incidents ... 19
Coping strategy to cope with critical incidents ... 20
Classroom Management Issues ... 22
Reasons of Having Critical Incidents ... 22
Coping strategy to cope with critical incidents ... 25
CONCLUSION ... 27
ACKNOWLEDGMENT... 29
Reference ... 30
Apendix 1: Data Analysis ...32
Apendix 2: Observation Form of Video Mini teaching...33
List of Table Table 1: Instruments of collecting data ...11
List of Figure Figure 1: Emerging Themes of the Study ...14
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An Analysis of Three Student-teachers when dealing with Critical Incidents in a Microteaching Class
Annisa Liliyana ABSTRACT
The paper aims to analyze student-teachers in a microteaching class when dealing with critical incidents or unanticipated events that occur during a lesson and trigger insights about some aspects of teaching and learning (Farrell, 2005, pp.114-115). A qualitative data based on interviewing 3 participants who had passed a microteaching class shows three prominent themes: language proficiency problem, the lack of class participation and classroom management issues. Each theme has two items to be discussed: the reasons of having critical incidents and strategies to cope with critical incidents. The result of this study is about some recommendations of critical incidents‟ coping strategies such as resort back to the student‟s L1, use coercing English, use teachers pauses, and eliminate some parts of the planning for dealing with critical incidents caused by language proficiency problem. In addition, some strategies used to cope with the lack of students‟ participation are reflecting on the students‟ interest, being more flexible with the students, and giving more exposure to the students. However, adjusted the classroom condition to the activity, attached the student‟s involvement, simplified the classroom activity, and relocated the missing part to another time allocation used as critical incidents coping strategies caused by classroom management issues.
Keywords: critical incidents, student-teacher, micro teaching.
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of the study is to find out how three student-teachers in microteaching class deal with critical incidents. Life is full of plans and so is teaching. Lesson plans, materials, my appearance, my behavior, and sometimes even my jokes were already planned beforehand. Being a student of English Department in SWCU gave me a lot of opportunity learning how to plan my teaching. Yet, I am still worried welcoming my teaching practicum this semester. I am worried because when I looked at my previous mini teaching, I often found some parts of my planning could not be done in the classroom because of some unexpected events like technological tools problem. Those unexpected events usually labeled as critical incidents (Tripp, 1993, p.6). According to Richard and Farrell (2005, p.113), critical incidents are any unplanned and
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unanticipated events that occurred during a lesson and serve trigger insights about some aspect of teaching and learning.
However, being aware of critical incidents is not easy. As Tripp (1993, p.6) stated that incidents happen, but critical incidents are produced by the way teachers look at a situation. Thus, what comprises a critical incident is different for each student-teacher even in the same situation. An event might become a critical incident for me but not for others. Take for example in my last mini teaching, I found a critical incident that anyone might not know it was and couldn‟t feel that there was something wrong with my teaching. The chronology begun when I
planned the student to create a commentary text based on their name, instead of political issue which is commonly found in the commentary text. I thought it would be easier for them to write something they knew than something that they were unfamiliar with. In fact, when I did my planning some of my student said, “mam, what should I write? I haven‟t had any idea to write. How about commenting other things?” The critical incident occurred when my students were not
as happy as I thought when I asked them to write about their selves and it made my teaching didn‟t work well as my planning. Instead of giving them 5 minutes to finish their works, I gave
them 2 minutes for additional time finishing their writing. When some of my friends in the class heard those words from my students, they might think that there was no problem with my teaching because they didn‟t know my planning and my expectation. Nevertheless, for me it was
a critical incident since it was unexpected. At this point, it was clear enough to see that to take something as a critical incident is a value judgment the teacher made, and the basis of the judgment is the significance teacher attached to the meaning of the incident (Tripp, 1993, p.8). After recognizing the critical incident, of course it needs a strategy to cope with it. As Serrat
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(2010) said that critical incidents might have a significant impact of teaching, the strategies preferred will contribute to the success or the failure of individuals.
Since critical incidents can happen anytime in the classroom and it is difficult to take the right actions immediately as stated by Brennon and Green (as cited in Finch 2010, p.2), critical incidents become most nerves racking event for the beginning teacher like me. Ann (2007, pp.58-59) figured that a critical incident is stressful for beginner teacher to deal with. Therefore, this study aims to analyze student-teachers' strategies to deal with critical incidents during their mini teachings in the microteaching class.
Because of the unpredictability of critical incidents, numbers of researches about critical incidents have been done. Take for example, Mander (2008) in his study found that there may be links between teachers‟ life experiences, personality and how teacher copes with critical
incidents and critical episodes. Richard and Farrell (2005) also conducted a research and the result was being aware of critical incidents leads the teacher to have a good professional development in the present and future. However, none of these studies concerned to examine the strategies used to deal with critical incidents. Moreover, the previous study focused on how the teacher faced critical incidents and less studies concern with student-teachers as a beginner teacher who actually might have more difficulties in dealing with critical incidents. Therefore, the research question of the paper will be “How do three student-teachers in a Microteaching class deal with critical incidents when conducting their mini lessons?”
For answering the research question above, two aspects will be analyzed. Those are the reasons of having critical incidents and the strategies used to cope with critical incidents. Three student-teachers‟ critical incidents which occurred during their first, second and third mini
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teaching will be analyzed in order to understand their critical incidents better and at last find alternative ways of responding to it.
Though people don‟t really pay attention to critical incidents, actually by examining
critical incidents, it has a potential to be effective in improving teaching as it reveals successful behaviors (Khandelwal, 2009, p.1). Take for example, I begun to examine my critical incident by having a reflection. From that reflection, I tried to find out why it happened, and how to cope with those critical incidents. It gives me significant effects on handling my critical incidents. I become calm down facing critical incidents and more equipped to face it. Having come to the significant insights on the study, it will be clarified in literature review below.
Definition of Critical incident
This study aims to analyze how three student-teachers in a Microteaching class deal with critical incidents when conducting their mini lessons. Therefore, the definition of critical incident needs to be clearly defined. According to Tripp (1993, p.8) a critical incident is a significance interpretation of an unplanned event that is faced by teachers.
Thiel revealed that actually a critical incident could consist of two things, teaching low and teaching high ( as cited in Richard &Farrell 2005, p.115). Teaching high might happen when there is a spontaneous and unanticipated intervention or change in the lesson plan that has a positive effect on the lesson. On the other hand, teaching low is a specific classroom incident that is immediately problematic and perplexing and needs some struggle to cope with. Since teaching high has a positive side and there might be no confusion to deal with, hence in this paper the word “critical incident” might only represents teaching low which needs a strategy to deal with. Here are two main characteristics of critical incidents:
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1. Unpredictability: Chell (as cited in Mander, 2008) stated critical incident is a significant and unexpected occurrence (event, incident, or issue) identified by the respondent. Therefore, critical incidents could not be predicted where and when it would happen. 2. Unplanned: Critical incidents might be seen when once the action taken by the teacher in
the classroom was different with it was written in the lesson plan and other plans beforehand (Tripp, 1993).
After figuring out the definition of critical incident, the next thing should be discussed is the reasons of having critical incidents inside the classroom.
Why Critical Incidents occur
Many things can set off the occurrence of critical incident. Farrell (2008), found eight basic things which trigger critical incidents. Those are language proficiency, class participation, behavior, gender, classroom space, lesson objectives, classroom activities and attention spans. From all the reasons of having critical incidents while teaching, language proficiency problem was the most occurrence triggered critical incidents. In contrast, my study showed that language proficiency problem was the lowest occurrence causing critical incidents in teaching. In addition, Khandelwal (2009), a researcher from university of Delhi found rapport with students, course preparation and delivery, fairness, time spent with students outside of class, control could trigger critical incidents while teaching.
Therefore, this paper will develop an analysis of student-teacher‟s strategies to deal with critical incidents when conducting EIL class in the microteaching course. Some researchers have done studies related to the things trigger critical incident. Since knowing the reasons of having critical incidents might be helpful to find the strategies use to cope with it.
xi Coping Strategies of Critical Incidents
When the things which triggered critical incidents had been found, it was easier for the teacher to take an action. Unfortunately, the previous studies did not offer strategies to deal with critical incidents. Take for example Mander (2008), preferred offering suggestion on what skills should be had by the teachers in dealing with critical incidents. He suggested teachers to have self-awareness when facing critical incidents, so teachers will know which part should be adjusted to the unplanned events. Self-awareness is the ability to recognize one emotion and drives as well as their effect on other (Mander, p.3). By having self-awareness skill, it will be easier to analyze critical incidents while teaching. Therefore, this study has ARTJ (Action Research Teaching Journal) as one of the instruments of data collection to get to know about how to deal with critical incidents deeply. Mander (2008, p.3) also found other skills than self awareness that are, self regulation, motivation, empathy and social skill.
While Sarna (as cited in Mander, 2008, p.3) argued that one‟s capacity and willingness
to deal with critical incidents effectively is underpinned by qualities of the teaching and it will improve through training activities. As it is stated before, the previous studies like what Sarna has done is not offering strategies in dealing with critical incidents. While a training activities was a preventive way to minimize the occurrence of critical incidents while teaching. Another finding by Flin (as cited in Mander, 2008, p.3) revealed that there are three skills commonly needed by teachers who deal with critical incidents effectively. These are being able to cope with stress, decision making and team management.
From the previous studies, none of them discussed the strategies to cope with critical incidents concretely. The previous findings only offered such a general strategy and it was less
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narrow. It should be specified first before applying the strategies to cope with critical incidents during teaching. Considering the lack of studies focused on critical incident coping strategies, this paper will try to narrow down the previous findings to be more specific. Take for example Flin, he found decision-making skill is needed to deal with critical incidents (as cited in Mander, 2008, p.3). Since this is too aboard, I tried to narrow it down and related it to the Sakui‟s finding (2007). Sakui (2007) revealed that when facing critical incidents caused by classroom management issue, the teacher would be better to decrease the complex of the activity. Summarizing Sakui‟s finding and Flin(as cited in Mander, 2008, p.3), it could be said that decrease the complex of the activity was one of decision making skills to cope with critical incidents.
By narrowing down and specifying the strategies offered by the previous studies, this study might be much helpful for teachers especially student-teachers to develop their strategies in dealing with critical incidents. Although few researchers did studies in critical incident, actually critical incidents give some advantages.
The Benefits of Being Aware with Critical Incidents
Richard and Farrell (2005, p.115) mentioned some benefits analyzing critical incidents which are it can serve as a form of reflective inquiry, help identify and resolve problems, serve to identify good practice, and give a heightened sense of professional awareness. Besides, being aware of critical incidents also helped the student-teachers and the real teachers to have a good professional judgment.
Kwan and Simpson (2010) believed that critical incidents might become a clear guideline for a student-teacher engage in reflective practice. Critical incidents are not at all obvious and
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often they can be straightforward accounts of very common place events that occur in routine professional practice. The incident can happen a few minutes or a segment of the lesson. It can also occur in a whole lesson or even a sequence of lessons. Moreover, there are critical incidents characterized by an element of unplanned which can be problematic for the teacher, calling for an on-the-spot adjustment (reflection-in-action) of the planned course of the lesson. All of them are critical incidents that represent a point at which the lesson may take quite different directions depending on the student-teacher‟s strategy to respond to them. As a result, the critical incident forms valuable data for reflection.
THE STUDY Context of the study
The setting of the study is a faculty of English language and literature or English Department(ED) at Satya Wacana Christian University. This university is located in a small town Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia. English is not actively used in orally and directly with the foreigners in the society. However, English has a role as a medium of instruction in ED‟s class
room and English is taught as foreign language (EFL). The subject of this small-scale study is microteaching course. According to Hanna (2003), microteaching is a training context in which a teacher‟s situation has been reduced in scope or simplified in some systematic ways.
In ED, microteaching is a pre-requisite course before enrolling teaching practicum. The microteaching class was held once a week in the odd semester. This course spent 90 minutes. In this microteaching class, the student-teachers were exposed to teach using EIL pedagogy. The student-teachers were given maximum 20 minutes to conduct a mini teaching. During the whole
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semester, student-teachers were asked to do 3 mini teachings and they were recorded using video recorder. To guide them in conducting their mini lesson, they had to make three lesson plans before teaching. In addition, they were also asked to create three action research teaching journal (ARTJ) based on their experiences doing their mini lessons.
Participants
Three ED student-teachers who have passed Microteaching class had been chosen to be the participants in this study. Here I chose the participants purposively by having considered their experiences in facing critical incidents. Then, I continued by choosing three student-teachers only because I used a stimulated-recall interview which needed more time to interview and transcribe the data. Three participants were filtered by using convenient sampling strategy. Since It might not be easy to convince people to share critical incidents (Serrat, 2010), the participants were chosen based on the ease of accessible to be asked some information and based on their willingness to be deeply interviewed about their experience in the microteaching class. At last, I got Miranti (pseudonym), Mirua (pseudonym) and Miranda (pseudonym). All the participants are 4th year students in SWCU and they are Javanese female student-teachers with age ranged from 22 to 23 years old. They were chosen because they are willing to tell everything even though their embarrassing experience and it might offer me richer information that I need.
From those participants that were chosen, I have planned to find out how three student-teachers in the microteaching class deal with critical incidents while conducting their mini teachings.
xv Instruments of data collection
In doing this study, there were 4 instruments were used to collect the data. The data collected were analyzed to find out the strategies used by the student-teachers in dealing with critical incidents during their mini teaching. Those fours instruments are in the following.
Lesson plan
In the microteaching class, student-teachers should make lesson plan before conducting their first, second and third mini teaching. The lesson plan made should implement EIL pedagogy. In the lesson plan, the student-teachers must write the level of students, subject of the lesson, time allocation, lesson objectives, the reason of choosing the activity taught, the procedure of lesson and teaching material. There are 9 lesson plans collected and used to observe mini lessons recorded.
Video Recording
When conducting mini teaching, each student-teacher was recorded using video recorder by the lecturer. The duration on the recording is about 16-20 minutes. The video recordings gained were 9 videos from 3 student-teachers on their first, second and third mini teaching.
Teaching Journal
For supporting the data gained, the researcher also used the participants‟ Action Research
Teaching Journals (ARTJ). ARTJ is a reflective teaching journal which is made before and after conducting their teaching which comprised in five sections: topic, planning, action, observation and reflection (Burns 2010).
Action research teaching journal (ARTJ) was one of the requirements in this microteaching class. All the student-teachers should make three ARTJ before doing a mini teaching which
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comprise of topic and planning. Then, all the student-teachers should continue their ARTJ which includes action, observation and reflection. The average word of ARTJ is 1000-2000 words.
Stimulated-recall Interview
In attempting to answer the research question, the data was collected through stimulated-recall interviews. Brown and Rogers, Nunan, defined Stimulated-stimulated-recall interview as a technique in which the researcher has recorded the lesson and then gets the participants to comment on what was happening at the time the activity under study took place (as cited in Zacharias, 2011, p. 88). Examining critical incidents, I need to know decision that the teacher makes during teaching and decision that occurs before and after conducting mini teaching. Therefore, Stimulated-recall interview accommodated since it can tap into both teachers‟ reflection -in-action and reflection-on--in-action (Zacharias, 2011, p. 88).
The interview scheduled to last around 15-30 minutes and the interview‟s questions based on the videos, lesson plans and journal of their teaching practices in microteaching class. The interviews were recorded by using audio recording.
In summary all data is seen in the following:
No. Kind of artifact Total artifacts
1 Lesson plan 3 person x 3 mini teaching = 9 Lesson plans
2. Video recording 3 person x 3 mini teaching= 9 mini teaching videos 3. Teaching Journal 3 person x 3 mini teaching = 9 journals
4. Stimulated-recall interview 3 person x 2 interview= 6 recording of interviews
Total data 42 artifacts
Table 1 : Instruments of collecting data
xvii Procedures of data collection
The data for the study were collected using 4 instruments lesson plan, video recording, teaching journal and stimulated-recall interview. The procedure was begun by finding the participant. First, purposive sampling was conducted to ensure all the participants had ever faced critical incident by reading thirty six lesson plans from twelve students in the microteaching class and then watching their videos to find out the possibility of the critical incidents occurrences. From choosing the participant purposively, I got eight students who fit with the criteria of the participants. After that, I chose three student-teachers by using sample of convenience. The participants were asked their willingness and their accessibility in giving information as detail as possible whenever I need. At last I got Mirua (pseudonym), Miranti (pseudonym) and Miranda (pseudonym) to be the participants.
Second, a stimulated-recall interview was adopted for the study. The interviews took about 15-30 minutes and they were recorded using audio recorder. The interviews were done twice. The first interview was done to make the participant become more aware and familiar with critical incidents. Therefore, the questions addressed involved general questions to gain background knowledge and to set the scene. For example the interview was questioning their failure when teaching, what they knew about critical incidents in their mini teaching, and how they reacted to that unpredictable event based on their first video of mini teachings. After analyzing the result of the first interview, the second interview was conducted. In this interview, few general questions was addressed and the questions concern on what triggered critical incidents and what strategies used to cope with their critical incidents happen in the second and third mini teaching.
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Third, the recordings were transcribed in the form of detail transcription using Express Scribe. Then the transcription was analyzed using content analysis strategies which was focusing on possible things trigger critical incidents and strategies used by student-teachers. The descriptive data that I got from transcribing the interview were analyzed qualitatively by using NVIVO. When analyzing the data, I got some emerging themes under those two big themes as the following. See Appendix 1
Data analysis
A stimulated-recall interview was designed to elicit how student-teachers deal with critical incidents while conducting their mini teaching. The data were analyzed and categorized into reason of having critical incidents and strategies to cope with critical incidents. After coding, some emerging themes appeared. Under the reason of having critical incidents, there are student‟s lack of interest, student‟s lack of background knowledge, teacher‟s struggle in teaching difficult words, teacher‟s struggle in giving instructions, less dedicate time in whilst-teaching, the lack of material copies, less dedicate time in pre/whilst/post-teaching and technical problem.
While under the coping strategies, there are giving more exposure (addressing question, giving more explanation), resort back to the student‟s L1, use teacher‟s pauses, use coercing
English, eliminate some detail of teaching, adjust classroom activity, simplify the activity, eliminate some detail of teaching, foster the student‟s participation inside the class and fix the technical problem.
Finding the results of coding the data was varied, the emerging themes were classified into three categories. They are language proficiency problem, the lack of class participation and classroom management issues. Each category has two items to be discussed which are reason of
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having critical incidents and strategies to cope with critical incidents while teaching. It is outlined as the following:
Critical Incidents
(CI)
Language Proficiency
Problem
Reasons Having CI
tea her’s struggle i tea hi g English and/or Indonesian difficult words, tea her’s struggle i explaning the
material and giving instructions using English,
Strategies to Cope with CI
resort a k to the stude t’s L1, use tea her’s pauses, use coercing english, eliminate some detail of teaching,
The Lack of CLass Participation
Reasons Having CI
stude t’s la k of i terest toward the aretial, stude t’s lack of background knowledge about the material
Strategies to Cope with CI
give more exposure (addressing question, giving more explanation) about the material, be more flexible with the students, be considered to the students' interest
Classroom Management
Issues
Reasons Having CI
less dedicate time in pre/whilst/post-teaching, the lack of material copies and technical problem.
Strategies to Cope with CI
adjust classroom condition to the activity, simplify the activity, eliminate some detail of teaching, foster the stude t’s parti ipatio and fix the technical problem.
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FINDING AND DISCUSSION
After conducting this research, it was found three emerging themes which are language proficiency problem, the lack of class participation and classroom management issues. Those themes were observed based on what things triggered critical incidents and how the participants coped with critical incidents during their mini teaching. The finding was illustrated in this chart
Language Proficiency Problem
Reasons of Having Critical Incidents
The first thing that set off the occurrence of a critical incident was language proficiency problem. The occurrence of critical incidents caused by language proficiency problem was not too high, only 8 per 42 occurrences. In the classroom, a critical incident commonly happened because of the teacher‟s difficulty in explaining vocabularies using English (Farrell, 2008, p.6).
Almost all the participants found difficulty in explaining vocabulary using English and they considered that their difficulties could trigger critical incidents. Take for example, Miranda in her first mini teaching. She intended to use English all the time inside the classroom but, she was in difficulty to explain some Indonesian vocabularies using English and this unplanned event forced her to change her planning. At that time Miranda planned not to use student‟s L1 when teaching. Since she found Indonesian traditional food couldn‟t be explained in English. Hence,
13
8 21
The la k of stude t’s parti ipatio
Language proficiency problem
Classroom management issues
Figure 2 : The percentage of critical incidents occurrences
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Miranda chose Bahasa Indonesia because she was not able to find suitable English terms of Indonesian traditional food such as arem-arem (Miranda, Interview1). Besides, in her first mini teaching she also utilized Bahasa Indonesia when she was unable to find English words for explaining English difficult words as she said in the interview:
They didn‟t understand „purvey‟ so, naturally I translated it into Bahasa Indonesia to make them understand easily. (Miranda, Interview1, May the 25th 2012).
In addition one of the participants also faced difficulty in explaining the materials which triggered critical incidents. Take for example Mirua in the third mini teaching, she faced a critical incident when she couldn‟t explain the material:
When I‟m nervous, it influences my language ability. What I have planned in my mind, things that I am going to say to my students was messed up. My language proficiency was decreasing because of the previous problem (Technical problem) that I have. (Mirua, My translation, Interview 2, Mini teaching 3, 9th august 2012)
From Mirua‟s experience, critical incidents happened because the teacher couldn‟t find the
suitable words to explain the material. Mirua in her ARTJ 2 wrote that she already planned all the things that she wanted to explain. Since she didn‟t expect that there would be a technical
problem, she couldn‟t remember anything.
Another reason of having critical incidents in the case of language proficiency problem is teacher‟s difficulty in giving instruction inside the class. As it was experienced by Miranti in
Mini teaching 3:
... I only gave the instruction without doing a grouping. I tried to be more focus on my instruction because the instruction of the game was rather difficult and a lot. (Miranti, my translation, Interview 2, Mini teaching 3, September 18th 2012)
From Miranti‟s statement above, it can be seen that her difficulty in finding the right words in giving the instruction led her to face critical incidents. She planned to do grouping first before giving the instruction but, she crossed out her grouping planning.
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Therefore under language proficiency problem, there were teacher‟s struggle in teaching English and/or Indonesian difficult words, teacher‟s struggle in explaining the material and
giving instructions using English as the reasons of having critical incidents. With all the reasons of having critical incidents caused by language proficiency problem that were found in this study, the coping strategies also displayed in this study according to the participants‟
experiences.
Coping Strategies of Critical Incidents
When finding difficulty in explaining vocabularies, both explaining Indonesian and English, most of the participants decided to resort back to students‟ L1 as the strategy to cope
with critical incidents (Farrell, 2008). In fact, explaining Indonesian difficult words using Indonesia was done when it was the teacher who faced critical incident caused by language proficiency problem. On the other hand, the use of Indonesian to explain English difficult word usually happened because teacher felt that it was the students who faced language proficiency problem which triggered critical incidents. For example Miranti, she indicated that the students were lack of language proficiency problem when she was explaining English unfamiliar words. At last, she decided to resort back to the student L1:
Actually I didn‟t plan to use Bahasa Indonesia in the mini teaching but, I found my students didn‟t know the meaning of the words such as „Chayote stew‟ and „fresh salad with peanut sauce‟, I decided to just translate it into Indonesian .(Miranti, my translation, interview1, May the 25th 2012).
Analyzing what Miranti had stated above, the word “just” meant she did the easiest way to cope
with a critical incident caused by her difficulty in explaining English difficult word using English. Therefore, the use of student‟s mother tongue was easier than finding the other English phrases of Indonesian food. In other words, she would need more struggle if she forced herself explaining vocabulary using English. Moreover, if she forced to use English, she would need
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longer time to think. Indeed, spending longer time to do one activity would bother the next activity. Thus, what Farrell (2008) has revealed in his study that resorting back to the student‟s
L1 was the most effective way to cope with unplanned event caused by language proficiency problem. Farrell (2008, p.6) suggested that rather than forcing the students to use English, teacher should first try to build up the student‟s self confidence by letting the class used their L1,
as Miranti and Miranda have done in their mini teaching. Ethel (2003, p.12) also supported teachers resorting back to the learner‟s L1 as one of the strategies in dealing with critical
incidents triggered by language proficiency problem, but teacher should used L1 only if necessary.
Besides the difficulty in explaining difficult word, one of the participants also faced difficulty in explaining the materials that triggered critical incidents. On the contrary, one of the participants was reluctant to use their L1. Miranti preferred to use coercing English as a strategy to deal with unplanned event caused by her difficulty in explaining the material. Although the grammar was incorrect, Miranti tried to encourage the students to use English inside the classroom as possible as she could under any situation, even when she was stuck in using English. Coercing English is using grammatically incorrect English and it is aimed to avoid non-English language used inside the classroom (Westbrook, 2008, p.3). Westbrook (2011, p.3) found that there was a teacher who faces unpredictable events because of her struggle to explain material using English. The teacher tried to cope with that critical incident by speaking in the target language to explain the materials but she became grammatically incorrect because of avoiding the use of mother tongue. Since it was believed that using only the target language in the classroom helps the students to imitate the “real life” use of English (Westbrook, 2008, p.3).
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In addition, teacher‟s pause was the other strategy to cope with unexpected event caused
by language proficiency problem (Ethel, 2003, p.9). Mirua is the one who preferred using teacher‟s pauses to deal with critical incident because of her difficulty in explaining the material.
She admitted such the following:
… So what I have planned before (Teacher‟s speech and explanation), what I am going to teach to my student was mess up. What it is called. Oh ya, my Language proficiency went down if I got such a problem (Technical problem). That‟s why, my 3th mini teaching I use “eee” pauses
a lot. (Mirua, My translation, Interview2, Mini teaching 3, 9th august 2012)
From the statement above, Mirua didn‟t want her students knew her critical incidents caused by language proficiency problem. She tried to cover it up by using teacher‟s pauses. However,
Ethel(2003, p.56) found the use of pauses is unwise solution for dealing with language proficiency problem. Teacher‟s pauses could make the teacher sounds not fluent and students
will be difficult to understand the material delivered.
One last strategy to cope with critical incident caused by language proficiency problem was eliminating some activities. Miranti tried to focus on her instruction and therefore she decided to eliminate grouping activity. What made it became special was eliminating some activities in teaching was usually done when teacher facing classroom management issues such as running out of time and it was not commonly done for coping with language proficiency problems. Some researchers such as Macaro (2001, p.4), suggested that the use of L1 can be very helpful in clarifying instructions.
The Lack of Class Participation
Reasons of Having Critical Incidents
The lack of class participation was the other things trigger critical incidents. (Farrell, 2008, p.6). It was found 13 per 42 occurrences of critical incidents caused by the lack of class
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participation. Under the lack of class participation, it was found two reasons of having critical incidents: students‟ lack of interest and student‟s lack of background knowledge about the
material. Take for example Mirua in her third mini teaching, found the situation in classroom was so quiet and it elicited the occurrence of an unexpected event. She thought that the students already knew about the material so that she could directly jump to the activity without giving more explanation. However, the student‟s won‟t participate inside the class because of their lack
of background knowledge about the material.
Besides, Miranda learned that critical incidents triggered by lack of class participation were not always caused by the students‟ lack of material comprehension. However, it might be
the materials which discourage the students to participate actively inside the classroom. Miranda found that her activity “drink Jamu” didn‟t work well because her students didn‟t want to drink
brotowali, because it tastes bitter. According to her, the students‟ lack of interest caused the lack of the class participation and it triggered critical incidents (Miranda, Interview 2).
After knowing some reasons of having critical incidents caused by the lack of class participation, it is better to know coping strategies used by student-teachers to deal with them.
Coping Strategy of Critical Incidents
In dealing with critical incidents caused by the lack of participation inside the class, Farrell (2008) revealed that teachers preferred to give more exposure about the material to the students. For example, teacher gave more guidance to do classroom‟s activity, gave more examples to clarify the material and addressed some questions for building student‟s
understanding when dealing with critical incidents caused by lack of class participation. Take a look at Miranda, she attempted to deal with a critical incident caused by the lack of participation in the class by giving more exposure to the students in the form of giving more example of
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picture related to the topic and addressing some questions for building students‟ understanding
about the topic:
(Miranda was showing the picture) Do you know the location of the beach? Can you guess the location of the beach? Jogja. Can you guess the name? This is Baron Beach. (Miranda, Video of first mini teaching, October 11th 2011 )
Similar to Miranda, Mirua also addressed some questions written on the whiteboard for building student‟s understanding as a strategy in facing critical incidents caused by lack of class
participation. (Mirua, interview 2, Mini teaching 3).
Besides addressing question, Mirua was also giving more exposure in the form of giving examples to clarify the material when facing critical incidents caused by the passiveness of the classroom (Farrell, 2008). She stated as the following:
Yes, I did (giving more examples acted in front of the class), Not only the accent but also the language used. (Mirua, my translation, Mini teaching 2, 9th august 2012).
Sometimes giving more exposure toward the material didn‟t work well to encourage student‟s participation in the class. In her third mini teaching, Miranda reported that she became more flexible and didn‟t force her students to do what she wanted. She stated as the following:
One of my student shouted, “Poor you! You got the bitter one, Right? Will you drink it?”. Then, I realized that I should find another way to teach them that it (Brotowali) is bitter. At last I decided to drink it. (Miranda, my translation, secondinterview, Mini teaching 3, September 18th 2012)
Miranda tried to build student‟s comfort inside the class by letting herself drunk the
bitter jamu instead of forcing the student to drink it (Miranda, interview 2, Mini teaching 3). It made the student be more enthusiastic doing the activity. In her second mini teaching, Mirua also be more flexible to deal with the student‟s poor participation:
I decided to be more flexible, I don‟t want the students do the same with my expectation. Since I realize that they (the students) didn‟t have plenty of time preparing it (Acting in front of the class). (Mirua, my translation, interview 2, mini teaching 2, 9thaugust 2012).
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Another strategy to face critical incident triggered by the lack of class participation was integrating the student‟s interest into teaching. Almost all the participants assumed integrating the students‟ interest into teaching was a good way to deal with student‟s lack of participation. From the interview, Mirua found the class was very passive. Then she integrated the student‟s interest into teaching as a strategy to cope with the students‟ passiveness inside the class:
In my opinion, this (Repeat the teacher‟s utterance when discussing new vocabulary) is the most effective ways to grab students‟ attention... Based on my experience when I was in senior high, the students were very enthusiastic repeating after the teacher. So, the students were happy when they were asked to speak English together. From my past experience, I think this technique worked well to grab student‟s interest and automatically raise the students‟ participation too. So I think shouting out aloud could become student‟s interest.(Mirua, My translation, Interview 2, Mini teaching 3, 9th august 2012)
From Mirua‟s experience, we can see that there was a strong correlation between student‟s interests and students‟ participation (Fu, X. Wang and Y. Wang, 2012, p. 116). Since students‟ participation can be influenced by students‟ interest, Mirua dealt with critical incident caused by the lack of students‟ participation by considering the student‟s interest. When students
were interested with the learning subject, their desire to participate in the class activities would become more intense and thus it would form a good cycling (Fu, X. Wang and Y. Wang, 2012, p. 116). Therefore, it can be inferred that one of the critical incidents coping strategies caused by students‟ lackof participation is reflecting on the students‟ interest.
Classroom Management Issues
Reasons of Having Critical Incidents
Another important dimension in teaching which can trigger critical incidents was Classroom Management issues. Duke (as cited in Yi, 2003, p.128) concluded that classroom management issues were any crisis that occurred related to classroom management of time,
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space, materials, auxiliary personnel, and students. In this study, the occurrence of critical incidents caused by classroom management issues was very high, 21 per 42 incidents. Different with critical incidents caused by the lack of class participation, classroom management issues have more reasons of triggering critical incidents. Those reasons are less dedicate time in pre/whilst/post-teaching, the lack of material copies and technical problem.
Based on the research that I conducted, technical problem was the most frequent critical incidents triggered by classroom management issues since all the participants had already faced it more than once. Wood E. et al. (2005, p. 195) defined technical problem as the issues concerned not the presence or absence of resources but problems using those resources in terms of malfunctions, compatibility and change. Mirua was the person who faced three technical problems in her third mini teaching. She couldn‟t play the recording on the laptop, the speaker didn‟t work and the projector was broken. Those technical problems led them to face the critical incidents. She couldn‟t did her plan in the pre-teaching smoothly and she spent longer time to did her pre-teaching (Mirua, Interview 2).
Another classroom management issues which can lead critical incidents was the lack of material copied. Miranti, in her second mini teaching was upset by the lack of handout for the students. She changed her plan from giving individual assignment to be pair assignment (Miranti, Interview 2, Mini teaching2).
Talking about classroom management, it always tangles up with time management. Less dedication of time in pre, whilst and post-teaching are the issues of classroom management which could trigger critical incidents. Less dedicate time in pre-teaching was experienced by Miranda in the 2nd mini teaching. She planned to give the clue of the video in the pre-teaching but, she gave the clue in the whilst-teaching (Miranda, Interview2). Miranda felt that she spent
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quite long time in fixing the technical problem in pre teaching. For covering up the planned, she decided to decrease time allocation in pre-teaching. However, it triggered new unplanned things. She missed one plan which was giving the clues of video played in the pre-teaching.
Besides, less dedicate time in whilst-teaching was also another classroom management issues which triggered critical incidents. Miranti in her second mini teaching met with critical incidents, since she was dedicated more time in pre teaching and less dedication in her whilst teaching. She felt that she was going to run out of time because the video and LCD were in a trouble in the pre teaching. So Miranti simplified the activity in the whilst-teaching (Miranti, My translation, Interview 2, mini teaching 2, September 18th 2012). Actually she planned to ask the students repeating the teacher and reading out aloud the text, but she only asked the students to read the text individually.
In addition, less dedicate time in post teaching also led to critical incidents and it was revealed in this study. Mirua in her third mini teaching, revealed her experience of as the following :
My lecturer stop my teaching, I just remembered it. But, what is it? I was stopped before I gave leave taking to my students. So, I think all the material were delivered even though I took so long time to fix technical problem.(Mirua, my translation, interview2, mini teaching 3, 9th august 2012).
It can be seen that Mirua run out of time when doing her post-teaching. She knew that she used longer time to do her pre-teaching and it changed her planning. She planned to do leave taking, but she couldn‟t do that.
As having those difficulties in dealing with critical incidents caused by classroom management issues, each the student-teacher has their own strategies to cope with.
xxx Coping strategy of critical incidents
Even though there are many strategies to cope with critical incidents caused by classroom management issues, interestingly all the participants chose to attach the student‟s involvement to deal with technical problem. Yi (2003, p.131) stated that by foster the students‟ involvement when there is some unexpected event caused by classroom management issues, it will create positive climate for learning. Mirua was the one who met with several technical problems all at once, and then she decided to attach the students‟ involvement:
... I tried to make the students getting involved in the class by having a conversation with them. ... I only remember that we were discussing about sea games. (Mirua, my translation, interview2, mini teaching 3, 9th august 2012).
From the interview above, Mirua tried to make the student shifted their attention from a critical incident caused by technical problem to the topic of the lesson. She wanted to create a positive learning climate by attaching students‟ involvement in the class. Additionally, when coping with critical incidents caused by technical problems she tried to involve the students in fixing the technical problems. Mirua knew that letting the students waiting for her to fix the technical problems would affect their mood of learning. The students will be annoyed waiting the class started. Therefore it was important to attach the students‟ involvement when facing critical
incidents caused by technical problem (Mirua, ARTJ3). Not only that, Mirua tried to get another benefit from attaching students‟ involvement in fixing the recording, so that the recording was able to be played (Mirua, video of third mini teaching, November 11, 2011).
In addition, different strategies were used when facing critical incidents caused by lack of material copied, Miranti adjusted the classroom condition to the activity as a strategy to cope with that unplanned event. She had planned to give individual assignment. Since there were only 4 copies available for 7 students, she decided to make the assignment in pair (Miranti, ARTJ2).
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While facing critical incidents caused by less dedicate time in pre-teaching was faced by Miranda. Miranda in her firstmini teaching, found that her students were in the difficulty. She realized she was less dedication of time in pre teaching. She immediately looked at her cheating notes which unintentionally told her that she had skipped a plan and she relocated the missing plan to another time allocation. She repeated the same strategy, relocating the missing part to another time allocation, as well in her secondmini teaching. When I asked her why she gave clues in the middle of the video played, she answered to the following:
Actually, it should be in the beginning (before the video played). It happened because I was nervous the video couldn‟t be played. Then my mind was in the total of confusion. So, I looked at my cheating note which arranges all my plans. (Miranda, My translation, Interview 2, mini teaching 2, September 18th 2012)
From Miranda standpoint, the role of cheating note was very important to remind her planning arrangement while teaching. Here, after she examined her cheating notes, she could relocate the missing plan to another time allocation when she met with critical incidents caused by less dedicate time in pre-teaching.
While Miranti in her second mini teaching, realized that she spent more time in pre teaching and less dedication in her whilst teaching. She tried to cover up the material in whilst teaching by simplifying the activity ( Sakui. K, 2007). In the interview she admitted that her planning was asking the students to read out aloud repeating the teachers. But, when conducting her mini teaching she asked the student to read it individually without giving the example first. She explained the reason of the changing as follows:
… It seems like I‟m going to run out of time because the video and LCD were in trouble in the pre teaching. So I tried to be more efficient in doing my whilst-teaching. (Miranti, My translation, Interview 2, mini teaching 2, September 18th 2012)
From the interview above, Miranti actually had more than one instruction in one activity but she simplified the activity and at last she had one instruction only.
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Mirua faced critical incidents caused by her less dedicate time for whilst teaching by choosing similar strategy used by Miranti in coping with critical incidents. Mirua simplified her activity by playing the video only twice, in fact she planned to play the video three times. She chose to simplify the activity as the strategy to cope with critical incidents because she believed that the students seemed already get the idea of the video and the she felt that the changing didn‟t
really matter for her students (Mirua, Inteview2, mini teaching2).
In addition, in this study all the participants preferred to eliminate some detail of teaching to cope with this critical incident caused by less dedicate time in post-teaching. Take a look at Mirua‟s experience, she eliminated some detail of teaching more than once during her first and third mini teaching. From Mirua‟s experiences in her 3rd
mini teaching, she must have some words or sentences she wanted to deliver. However, her time was much allocated in pre and whilst teaching for fixing technical problem. Hence, she had less dedicate time for her post teaching which force her to eliminate her detail of teaching which is reviewing the material (Mirua, Interview2). Miranti experienced the same situation with Mirua. She knew that her time are limited so that she only reviewed the material and eliminated leave taking in the post-teaching (Miranti, interview 2).
Although this study already found some critical incidents‟ coping strategies, it is possible for the other researchers to find more strategies to cope with it.
CONCLUSION
The present study examined how three student-teachers in the microteaching class deal with critical incidents during their mini lesson. In knowing how the participants deal with critical incidents, the analysis focused on two aspects, the reasons of having critical incidents and coping
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strategies of critical incidents. The results of this study show a variety reason of having critical incidents. Therefore, critical incidents found in this study were classified into three themes: language problem proficiency, the lack of class participation and classroom management issues.
The result of this study also suggested some critical incidents‟ coping strategies such as resort back to the student‟s L1, use coercing English, use teacher‟s pauses, and eliminate some
parts of the planning in dealing with language problem proficiency. While under the lack of class participation, some strategies used like reflecting on the students‟ interest, being more flexible
with the students, and giving more exposure to the students. However, adjusted the classroom condition, attach the student‟s involvement, simplified the classroom activity, and relocated the
missing part to another time allocation were used as critical incident coping strategy caused by classroom management issues.
Surprisingly, the finding of this study shows significant difference compared to Farrell‟s finding. Farrell (2008) found that the most critical incidents were caused by language proficiency problem. On the other hand, the finding of this study reported classroom management issues the highest occurrences caused critical incidents.
Since the present study is merely a small-scale research project, with a small student sample size, it is possible for me to get different findings compared to Farrell‟s finding. It would be worth investigating student-teacher‟s critical incidents while teaching with a larger sample size. Another limitation of the present study is the context of the study. The present study was conducted to examine student-teachers in microteaching class. As we know, conducting a mini teaching in a microteaching class has less complexity than the real teaching. It may be most useful to conduct a study related to the teachers‟ coping strategies of critical incidents in a real
teaching and in a real classroom. For the further research, it is suggested to focus only one
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theme, since each theme of this study still is considered to abroad. For example, classroom management issues has a lot of thing which is actually can be explained more deeply. Despite the shortcomings, it is hoped that the present study provides clearer and more specific strategies so that it can be a guidance for teachers especially student-teachers to deal with critical incidents during teaching
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
First and foremost, I offer my sincerest gratitude to The Almighty Allah SWT for blessing me and establishing me to accomplish my thesis. I have been indebted in the preparation of this thesis to my supervisor, Mrs. Nugrahenny Zacharias whose patience and kindness, as well as her academic experience, have been invaluable to me. My deepest appreciation to my examiner, Mrs. Anita Kurniawati who is willing to examine my thesis became satisfactory. In addition, I am extremely thankful to Mrs. Martha Nandari who has supported me and has given me advices throughout all my studies in English Department with her patience and knowledge. There is nothing could express my thankful to my parents as constant source of support emotional, moral and of course financial during my graduate years. And this thesis would certainly not have existed without my beloved sisters Ayu and Yuli for becoming my reminder when I was lazy to do my thesis. The informal support and encouragement of my friends have been indispensable, and I would like particularly to acknowledge the contribution of Arum Widya Wardani, Ardiyani Widya Permatasari, Kanthi Rusana and Mega Putri who always be besides me. Thanks to Benny who always gave me information about supervising and second reader. Thanks also addressed to my gentleman, Prana Jaya who encourage me to accomplish this paper. Finally, my senses of gratitude are to my English Department lecturers and eighters.
xxxv Reference
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Appendix 1 DATA DISPLAY
Reasons of Having Critical Incidents
Strategy to Cope with Critical Incidents Total
Student‟s lack of background
knowledge
Give more exposure (addressing question) Give more exposure (giving more explanation)
3 5
Student‟s lack of interest Be more flexible to the students Integrate the student‟s interest
2 3 Teacher‟s struggle teaching
English and/or Indonesian difficult word
Resort back to the student‟s L1 5
Teacher‟s struggle in giving instructions using English
Use teacher‟s pauses
Use coercing English
Eliminating some detail of teaching
1 1 1 The lack of material copies Adjust classroom condition 1 Less dedicate time in pre-teaching
Less dedicate time in
whilst-relocate the missing part to another time allocation
4
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Less dedicate time in post-teaching
Simplify the activity
Eliminate some detail of teaching.
3 5 Technical problem Foster the student‟s involvement inside the
class
Fix the teachnical problem
5
4
Appendix 2
Observation Form of Video Mini teaching. Name of the participants:
Mini teaching : I / II / III
Planning in the Lesson plan Action in the Mini Teaching Time of occurence
Possible Explanation of the critical
incidents
