CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents a highlight of this study. This chapter consist of seven sections, which
are background, statement of problem, purpose of the research, scope of the research, significance
of the research, clarification of terms and organization of paper.
1.1Background
Teaching English to young learners is considered necessary needs in Indonesia especially in
big cities (Rodliyah, 2009). Many parents compete to make their children learn English as younger
as they are. The issue is how the school deals with this phenomenon and how they could provide
the students with effective and efficient learning. There are many factors influencing the effective
and efficient teaching-learning. Two of them are the media and the characteristics of the students.
Media is defined by Cambridge Advance Learners Dictionary as a method or a way of exploring
and expressing something. Smaldino et al., (2006) argue when media is used for instructional
purposes and utilized to canalize teacher-students communication, it categorized as instructional
media. Nevertheless, the utilization of the instructional media seems not effective in teaching
English to young learners in Indonesia (Mutohhar, 2009). The effectiveness of media is not about
the teachers utilize media or not in the classroom, but it deals with how the teachers optimize the
utilization of the instructional media in the classroom.
According to a study conducted by Mutohhar (2009), many elementary school teachers in
Indonesia deliver their material in such a way but makes the students still bored, not enjoying the
learning process. Many of the teachers only utilize the provided media in the schools and utilize it
to show the materials only without transferring the knowledge in attractive ways to the students.
This phenomenon appears because some of them think that a good media is expensive media and
sophisticated media which needs cost much money. Whereas, Mutohhar (2009) argues that a good
media is media which is suitable for the topic, material, the students, and practical to use. In other
words, a good media doesn’t need to be expensive, it just needs to be reusable, and so it can help
Effective instruction is a result of a systematical planning design. According to Reiser and
Dick (1996, p. 3), effective instruction is “the instruction that enables students to acquire specifies
skills, knowledge, and attitudes.” It means an effective instruction is a series of materials, activities
and media which can facilitate students to acquire the objectives of the lesson. This series cannot
reach the effectiveness if one of the elements do not work together.
In making the effective instruction, choosing instructional media is one of key principles in the
effective instruction. Reiser and Dick (1996, p. 68) define instructional media as “the physical
means by which instruction is delivered to students”. In line with this, Scanlan (n.d) states that “the instructional media which encompasses all the materials and physical means an instructor and teacher might use to implement instruction and facilitate learners' achievement of instructional
objectives”. In other words, a media is used to help the teacher in delivering the materials and
teaching in classroom to help the students to achieve the objectives. There are many variety
instructional media which can be utilized in the classroom. Some of the instructional media
commonly used in the classroom are whiteboard, books, realia, pictures and computer-based
technology.
Instructional media itself has several benefits for teacher. One of the benefits in using
instructional media is motivating students, for example, by presenting young learners with
interesting images, teacher can gain their students’ attention (Reiser and Dick, 1996). Interesting
images also can courage students’ curiosity to learn or to involve in the learning process. Other benefits of using instructional media are (1) solving the lack of learners’ experiences, (2) bringing things that couldn’t be brought to the classroom, such as places, animals, big things, etc. (3) creating possible interaction between learners and environment, (4) integrating the experience
from the concrete things to abstract ones (Rusli et al., 2009). Looking at those benefits,
instructional media will be very useful for teacher to teach English to young learners when the
teachers utilized it optimally.
As mentioned before, in creating effective instruction, the use of instructional media is
necessary. However, most teachers do not show the awareness of the instructional media
utilization. Many of them only utilize some instructional media to deliver materials and do not use
media to make interesting activities in the classroom. Whereas, to cover one of the young learners’
to engage and avoid boredom of the students (Musthafa, 2010). Since using only one type of
instructional media seems will not engage students in learning process, the teachers will need
several instructional media to make the learning becomes effective and meaningful for the children
(Kasihani, as cited in Mutohhar, 2009).
Regarding to the use of instructional media, there are several studies that have been conducted.
One of the studies is conducted by Abdo & Semela (2010) taken place in Gedeo Zone, Southern
Ethiopia. The paper portrays several factors in term of the instructional media use, such as the
availability of media resources in their school, their manageability of classroom task and the
administrative support and encouragement provided by the school which comes to result that there
is infrequently use of instructional media among primary school teachers.
Another research focusing on the use of instructional media was published by SMART
Technologies Inc. (2006) which compiled several observations from Australia, United Kingdom
and United States of America which used interactive whiteboards as the object. From the paper,
positive effects from interactive whiteboards emerged; (1) interactive whiteboards engaged
students’ motivation, (2) it had ability to accommodate a variety of learning style and it also helped
teachers to have efficient preparation.
In Indonesia, the use of interactive instructional media in teaching English to young learners,
was conducted by Kaosar (2011). This research reveals two main conclusions about the use of
video (interactive instructional media used in the research) in teaching vocabulary: (1) video
increased students’ vocabulary mastery; (2) video was positively responded by the students.
Teaching English to young learners does not only talk about how good the media that is used
by the teachers. The other important element that needs to be considered is the characters of young
learners. While looking at the their age, students in elementary school (up to the age of about
eleven) are still in an intellectual stage (Brown, 2001) of what Piaget (as cited in Brown, 2001)
called concrete operations. In this stage, children start to apply logical thinking yet they cannot
generalize their understanding (Pinter, 2006).
Despite their intellectual stage, characteristics of young learners also becomes a major point in
with. It means if the teachers only give them explanation, they are likely to pay no attention the
materials.
Another characteristic of young learners that is important to be considered is their attention
span. Musthafa (as cited in Aini, 2013) defines attention span as is the amount of time in seconds
the children are working on task without distraction. Relating to children’s attention span, Harmer (2007, p. 38) argues that young learners “have a limited attention span”, if they are not given
interesting activities, they can lose their attention easily. In line with Harmer, Musthafa (2010)
states that young learner have only 15-20 minutes to pay attention to their activities in a row.
Research on the use of instructional media in teaching English to young learners is conducted
by Aini (2013) in Kuningan, Jawa Barat. From her research, she found that the use of instructional
media by the teacher needs to improve which was proven from lacking availability of instructional
media and also lacking of utilization of various instructional media in the schools.
Looking at the problems and benefits of instructional media and how the instructional media
has been utilized in previous research, this study intends to conduct a study about the utilization
of instructional media in teaching English to young learners for an English elementary school
teacher in an elementary school which has A grade for level accreditation but it is located a
suburban area in Bandung to see how the teacher prepares, utilizes media and reflects his teaching
perception on the use of media in the classroom. This study also tries to uncover the teacher’s
philosophy on teaching English to young learners.
1.2Statements of Problem
This research is used to answer the following questions.
1. What kind of preparation does the teacher have in utilizing instructional media?
2. How does teacher utilize the instructional media in the classroom?
1.3Aims of Study
The purpose of the research are:
1. to describe what kind of preparation that teacher has in utilizing instructional media; and
2. to explain the process of an English teacher in an elementary school utilize the instructional
1.4Scope of the Research
Based on the aforementioned problems, the scope of this research is to explain the process
of an English teacher in an elementary school utilizes the instructional media in teaching,
includes the description of problems teacher faces while utilizing it and how the teacher deals
with the problems.
1.5Significance of the Research
This study is expected to be significant in several parties. First, it is expected to give deeper
information about how teacher utilizes the instructional media in the classroom for young
learners. Thus, this study explores on the teacher’s perception on instructional media for
teaching English to young learners.
Finally, this study is expected to be meaningful both for teachers and young learners
through the information which will encourage teachers to improve the media utilization which
will lead to meaningful teaching learning in classrooms.
1.6Clarification of Terms
To prevent some misunderstanding of the research, there are several terms that need to be
clarified:
1. Young Learners
Young learners are defined by Kalendova (2008) as children from the first year of formal
2. Instructional Media
According to Reisser and Dick (1996, p. 65), instructional media is “the physical means by
which instruction is delivered to students”. In line with this, Scanlan (n.d) states that instructional media is media which consist of the materials and physical means that might
be used to implement instruction and facilitate leaners’ of instructional objectives. It may
encompasses traditional materials such as chalkboard, slides, flash card, real object,
handouts and newer materials such as computers, DVDs, CD-ROMs, and internet.
3. Teacher’s Philosophy
Dawson et al., (2012) in Teaching Philosophy Statement defines teacher’s philosophy as teacher motivations that relate to teacher’s view about effective learning and how it has effects to students’ learning.
1.7Organization of Paper
The paper is presented into five chapters:
CHAPTER I : This chapter is an introduction which covers the background of the study,
statement of problem, the purpose of the research, the significant of the research, research
methodology, clarification of terms and organization of paper.
CHAPTER II : This chapter discusses the background and the foreground of the study
which covers instructional media, teaching English to young learners and teacher’s philosophy.
CHAPTER III : This chapter discusses the design of research methodology of this study.
This chapter covers research design, research site and respondent, data collection, reliability and
validity, procedure of study and data analysis.
CHAPTER IV : This chapter presents the findings of the study from the observations,
interviews and document analysis. It also presents the discussions of the research findings.
CHAPTER V : This chapter presents the conclusions of the research. This chapter consists
