AN ANALYSIS OF TEACHERS’ ATTITUDE IN MAINTAINING STUDENTS’
ATTENTION IN ENGLISH LEARNING PROCESS AT SMPN 25 PADANG
Oleh:
ERSTI PALMITA*)
**) Hevriani Sevrika and**) M. Khairi IkhsanStaff Pengajar Program Studi Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat.
ABSTRAK
Sikap guru dalam mempertahankan perhatian siswa dalam proses pembelajaran sangat penting diterapkan oleh guru. Sikap guru tersebut mampu mempengaruhi suasana pembelajaran dan aktivitas pembelajaran siswa. Oleh karena itu, dengan adanya sikap seorang guru dalam mempertahankan perhatian siswa maka tujuan pembelajaran bisa terwujud dengan baik dan menjadikan proses tersebut lebih berkualitas. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk melihat sikap-sikap yang digunakan oleh guru dalam mempertahankan perhatian siswa dalam proses pembelajaran.
Partisipan adalah guru Bahasa Inggris SMPN 25 Padang. Adapun jumlah dari guru Bahasa Inggris di sekolah tersebut adalah 4 orang. Dalam penentukan partisipan, peneliti menggunakan total sampling teknik. Jadi peneliti menetapkan keempat guru tersebut menjadi partisipan dalam penelitian ini. Dalam pengambilan data, peneliti menggunakan observasi. Dalam observasi ini terdapat 26 aktivitas yang berasal dari 8 indikator sikap guru yang terdiri dari move around the classroom, make eye contact, use signal, manipulate the voice, wait, make use of physical proximity, plan seating carefully dan give appropriate and specific verbal feedback.. Dalam menganalisa data, peneliti menggunakan tahap analisa deskriftif yang diusulkan oleh Gay dan Airasian. Dari analisa ini di dapat kesimpulan bahwa sikap guru berdasarkan tiap-tiap indikator adalah bervariasi. Untuk partisipan pertama menerapkan 18 aktivitas selama proses pembelajaran.
Sedangkan partisipan kedua menerapkan semua aktivitas yang terdapat pada indikator. Kemudian, partisipan ketiga menerapkan 25 aktivitas dan partisipan yang keempat menerapkan 22 aktivitas dari indikator sikap guru dalam mempertahankan perhatian siswa dalam proses pembelajaran bahasa Inggris.
Key words: Teachers’ Attitude, Students’ Attention
*) Peneliti
**) Pembimbing
\
Introduction
Learning English is the process of obtaining knowledge and skill about English subject. This learning needs a considerable concern of students about what is learned which is called students’
attenttion. Attention can be a driving force for students in achieving English learning goal. The students who have big attention can steer themselves to learning material that is given. Otherwise if the students have a low attention, they will not focus in following learning materials.
Attention of students toward learning material can be looked by many actions. The first action is their response in answering a question that is given by teacher. The students who have attention are able to provide well answer based on teacher’s question. The second action is students are enthusiasm in following a learning material. The third action is students’ understanding toward learning material that is discussed. There are actions of students who have attention in learning process.
These actions have influence in getting the goals.
Lack attention of students toward learning material that is being discussed is the students’
behavior that can disrupt the learning climate. The behavior is shown by certain actions, such as talking while the teacher is explaining. Behavior that is showed by students come from a lack motivation of them. Beside that also students are bored or do not fit with the teaching pattern that is applied by the teacher. The solution to solve these problems is the teachers should have attitude to handle these problems.
Attitude itself is one of the terms in psychology that relate behavior. Attitude is basically a result of the process of socialization and interaction of person with environment, which is a manifestation of the mind, one's feelings as well as the assessment of the object. The attitude are based on the knowledge, understanding, opinions, beliefs and ideas towards an object to produce a tendency to act on an object. Thus, the attitude is the tendency of individuals respond positively or negatively to the object
According to Eagly and Chaiken in Breakwel (2004:155) attitude is a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor. It means that attitude is an evaluation or judgment towards object is reflected in the form of feelings of agree- disagree, support-not to support, as a potential reaction to an attitude object. Thus, it becomes evaluation process that is internally or subjective which contained in the person and cannot be observed directly, but it can be seen if the attitude has been realized to be the behavior. Therefore, the attitude can be seen as positive and negative. If someone likes to something, one's attitude will be positive and tend to approach it, but if someone doesn't like something, one's attitude tends to be negative.
Attention is psychic center, one of psychological aspects which focused on an object that comes from inside and outside of individual self.
It can be used to predict the behavior or actions of people in daily life. Attention will give color and pattern even the direction of a person's behavior.
With attention, someone will get an overview of the possibilities of stimulation that will arise as a response to a problem or situation that confronted him.
Then, Bhattacharya (2006:8) states that attention is name of that condition within a person which enables him to be clearly aware of a certain object or activity. It means that attention is closely related to mental awareness of students toward an objects. The level of consciousness of students toward a particular object is not fixed, sometimes consciousness increases, and sometimes decreased.
Level of one's awareness will increase if the student’s soul increase it. If level of the power of consciousness increase or be viable for some reason, student is at the beginning of attention. It can arise with consciousness concentration of students toward something.
In the teaching and learning process, attention is a large to influence factor. Students must have considerable concern about what is learned, so that they can receive and choose the relevant stimuli for further processing of the many stimulus that exist or come from outside. Attention can make students to steer themselves to the tasks that will be given, see the problems that will be provided, pick and provide a focus on the problem that must be resolved, and ignore the other things that are not relevant. Schwed (2008:10) states that factors that affect students' attention are:
a. Humor
Students consider humor one of the most important teacher traits. A teacher who has the nature of humor will be preferred by students.
Besides that this behavior will make learning atmosphere be fun. Indirectly it has an influence in the students' attention on learning.
b. Emotion
Create positive emotions is important.
Teachers’ passion for what they are teaching will draw students to love what they are learning. This is a an excellent start for learning success. The positive emotions atmosphere in students help them to have the ability to give meaning the object being studied. Learning becomes unbiased and meaningful. All students feel involved with what is learned, they are trying to associate themselves with the learning process, feel ownership, and is active in every activities.
Developing positive emotions in student self are an important effort to help students connect their personal experiences with the experience from the outside.
Based on explanation above, teacher is required to have attitude in maintaining students attenttion during learning process. It is used as models by students and imitate the attitude or behavior of teacher, likes good or bad attitude. Teachers' attitude in leading a classroom also affect class atmosphere and students' learning activities. If the teacher presents a good attitude, it can guide students to always pay attention to learning in the classroom.
Therefore, learning objectives can be achieved well and make the learning process become qualified.
Students who pay attenttion are focus when learning takes place or when the teacher is explaining the learning materials. In this case, the teachers are required to have an attitude in maintaining students attenttion to always focus and understanding of learning materials.
According to Ryan et all (2013:115), some suggestions for helping students maintain their focus are:
1. Move around the classroom.
Teacher movement around the classroom can help attract the attention of students, it can improve the personality of the teacher. Attention position can be done from the front to the back, from the left side to the right side, or between students from the back to the side of students. It can also be done in a standing position and then turned into a sitting position. The important thing in the change of the position is should be has purpose, and not just pacing.
2. Make eye contact
When teachers talk or interact with students in the learning process, they should turn their views to the rest of the class, make eye contact for each students can establish positive relationships and avoid the loss of personality. Teachers can help students by using their eyes to convey information, and can attract students' attention.
3. Use signal
Teachers can eliminate bad behavior in the classroom by giving signal. Examples of giving signal from teachers are; looked at the students when they are talking and near them who behave badly when the lesson is ongoing. On the other hand, The advantage of giving signal is learning is not interrupted.
4. Manipulate your voice
Voice manipulation or voice variation is a changes of voice from loud to weak, and high to low, from fast to be low. A teacher when explains the learning materials should be varied in intonation, volume, tone and speed. If the teacher's voice is always loud continued or too hard, it will be difficult to accept, because students consider a cruel teacher, and the students are overwhelmed by anxiety, fears during the learning. Problems like this should be avoided even abolished. But if the teacher's voice is too weak (usually female teachers) will sound is not clearly by the student and cannot reach all students in a class, let alone a seat in the back
row. In the result the student will underestimate the teacher, the students' attention for the material given will be less. Therefore the teacher has to uses sound variations that are tailored to situations and conditions. So the teacher's voice is always changing, sometimes rising, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes low (slow).
5. Wait
In managing the classroom, patience is essential.
The teacher should give a time to students to answer a question. Teacher waits and gives the opportunity for students to think. Without that wait time, the necessary thought processes may fail to be fully engaged, and student learning is compromised.
6. Make use of physical proximity
Teacher walked around the students during the teaching and during the students sitting do tasks.
Students will be less commit minor offenses, such as speaking, if their teacher actively in monitoring academic work and their behavior.
7. Plan seating carefully
Seating is a facility or stuff is required by the student in the learning process. Seating can affect students' learning process, when the seat is nice, not too low, not too big, round, rectangular length, according to the state of the student body.
Then the students will feel comfortable and be able to study in peace. Placement students must consider on biological aspects such as student body posture, which puts students who have high or low body. And how to place students who have an impairment in psychological sense, for example, students who are hyper active, dreamy, etc.
8. Give appropriate and specific verbal feedback All ofteachers’activities expressed with words or sentences in the form of praise, approval, advice to give encouragement for students in learning activities, resulting in a positive change on students' learning activities.
From the explanation above, it can be concluded thatteacher’s attitude can lead a classroom in learning process, for example in maintaining students’ attention. Teachers who have an attitude to handle it can develop and maintain positive students’
behavior in the classroom. Students will focus in learning process and understand about learning material. For the result, it will help teachers in getting the goal of learning.
Research Method
In this research, the researcher used descriptive research because the researcher wanted to analyze teachers’ attitude in maintaining students’
attention in learning process. According to Gay and Airisian (2000:11), descriptive research involves collecting the data in order to concern the status of the study. It means that descriptive research is a research started by collecting, analyzing and interpreting the data to find the answer question in research question
Participant
In this research, there were some English teacher of SMPN 25 Padang as participant. Dick (2000:20) states that “participant are group of people that participate in this research project”. In this research, the researcher took 4 teachers who teach English in SMPN 25 Padang as participant. In choosing the participant, the researcher used total sampling because there were 4 English teachers in this school, and all of them would be the participant.
Instrumentation
Some instruments are needed to facilitate the researcher in data collection. Gay and Airasian (2000:145) explain that instrument is a tool or something that is used to collect the data. In this research, the researcher will used observation.
According to Yusuf (2007:292), “observation is a technique of data collection which investigates both verbal and non-verbal activities”. The researcher does observation to observe English teachers during teaching and learning process, the observation is expected to figure out teachers’ attitude in maintaining students’ attention in English learning process. In doing observation, the researcher used observation tools that could help the researcher to collect the data accurately. Yusuf (2000:298) says that “some tools than can be used in doing observation are checklist, rating scale, and recording tool”.
In this research, the researcher used checklist to help her during observation process. And also, the researcher used field note during the observation. According to Gay and Airasian (2000:256), field note is record of observer’s perception toward what she or he has seen, heard, thought, and experienced during the observation.
Checklist and field note were used to make sure the researcher get all of information during the samples teaching in the classroom.
Technique of Data Collection
The data were collected observation checklist and field note. Firstly, the researcher prepared observation checklist and field note.
Secondly, the researcher asked for permission to enter the classroom. As the nonparticipant observer, the researcher took behind position to observe teacher’s action during learning process. Thirdly, during observation process the researcher did checklist process and field note for all learning activities. It was done to make sure the researcher get all of information that related with teachers’ attitude in maintaining students’ attention.
Technique of Data Analysis
After collecting the data, the researcher analyzed the data based on the instrumentation given.
According to Gay and Airasian (2000:239), there are four step of analyzing the data; reading/memoing, describing, classifying, and interpreting.
Finding
In this part, the researcher found the finding of this research based on analysis of observation.
This observation consist 8 indicators that contain 26 activities. The researcher found that almost of English teachers implemented all activities of indicator. There are 7 attitudes that often used by participant during learning process. They are move around the classroom, make eye contact, use signal, manipulate the voice, wait, make use of physical proximity, and give appropriate and specific verbal feedback. The attitude that seldom used by the English teacher is plan seating carefully. It has 2 activities, there are English teacher considers the sitting based on physical appereance of students and move the students who behave badly. During observation process, there is only the second participant that implemented the first activity of plan seating carefully. Meanwhile, other participants did not implement it during learning process. Therefore, it can be conclude that all of English teacher at SMPN 25 have implemented attitudes in maintaining students’ attention in English learning process and students could follow
Conclusion and Suggestion
The researcher conducted the descriptive research in SMPN 25 Padang with the purpose to know about teachers’ attitude in maintaining students’ attention in English learning process. In getting the data the researcher used instrument, it is observation. There were 26 items of observation.
This instrument was done for the teachers only as the participants.
Based on the research finding, the researcher formulated the conclusion into the result of observation show that the implementation of teachers’ attitude in maintaining students’ attention implemented by the English teachers in teaching and learning process at SMPN 25 Padang was good. The observation checklist and field note show that the four participants implemented almost all teachers’
attitude in maintaining students’ attention although there were a few activities were not implemented but these activities did not affect the learning process significantly. In short, because the teachers implemented teachers’ attitude in maintaining students’ attention in learning process, it encouraged students’ attention in English subject. Therefore, the processes of learning run well.
After doing the research, the researcher states insightful suggestion at his point. Firstly, all teachers have to understand that maintain students’
attention is the key of learning process and it is part of their important role in teaching. By understanding it, the English teachers will realize that their task as a teacher is not easy. Secondly, teacher s must create attitude that make students can attract in following learning process. Thirdly, the teacher must build a good atmosphere in teaching that increase students’
focus to learn the lesson. Overall, this research informs us that the implementing teachers’ attitude in
maintaining students’ attention are important to know by the teachers.
Interpretation
Based on the finding above, it can be generally interpreted that teachers’ attitude weregood to apply in English learning process for maintaining students’ attention. The attitude that used by the teachers includes; move around the classroom, make eye contact, use signal, manipulate the voice, wait, make use of physical proximity, plan seating carefully and give appropriate and specific verbal feedback. All of those attitudes can help them in maintaining students’ attention. As a result, they can get their goal in learning. Moreover, involving the teachers’ attitude in maintaining students’ attention actually was a good way, beecause could create motivation of students. Besides, it can help students to be more concentration in following the learning material during learning process and make the teachers are easy in controlling the classroom.
The researcher assumed the purpose of this research was to analyze teachers’ attitude in maintaining students’ attention in English learning process. at SMPN 25 Padang and the result is the participants have implemented of teachers’ attitude in maintaining students’ attention in learning process. It is shown by the result of observation that the implementation of teachers’ attitude in maintaining students’ attention in learning process is well implemented. There were 18 activities that was implemented by the first partcipant. Then, the second partipant applied 26 activities during learning process. Next, 25 activities was implemented by third participant. The last, there were 22 activities that was implemented by the fourth participant. It is supported by some expert who explained about teachers’
attitude in maintaining students’ attention; Entwistle (2012), Newsome (2012) , and Ryan et all (2013).
According to them, if a teacher has implemented attitudes in maintaining students’ attention in learning process, it can increase students focus in following learning material and the teacher can get the goal of learning easily.
References
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Breakwel, Glynis M. 2004. Doing Social Psychology Research. Victoria: Blackwell
Dick, B. 2000. Action research: Action and research.
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New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc
Ryan, Kevin, et all. 2013. Teaching for Student Learning. New York: Cengage Learning Schwed, Amy. 2008. Brain-Friendly Study
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