TEACHER-TALK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CREATIVE THINKING IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS
Muchlas Suseno
Master Program of English Language Education Universitas Negeri Jakarta
Rawamangun Jakarta 13220
[email protected];[email protected]
Abstract
Language teachers inevitably talk more than their students in the classrooms but what kind of and how much talk is considerably appropriate seems to have got attention. This is more pronounced when student's creative thinking should be encouraged in the millennial age. Otherwise, the so-called active language classrooms will likely remain absurd and reside in the sphere of theory. This research was conducted to promote students’ creative thinking mediated by teacher talk which, in turn, was intended to create active atmosphere of English language classrooms. For this purpose, a class of English language in a Junior Secondary School was observed and the talk of the teacher was recorded and analyzed. The research reveals the following results (1) amount of teacher talk was more than twice as big as that of student talk, (2) code mixing was frequently practiced in the teacher talk, (3) amount of declarative sentences and interrogative sentences were found relatively similar,, (4) following adequate intervention, teacher significantly refined his talk, (5) the student’s creative thinking significantly differed before and after such intervention.
Keywords: teacher-talk, creative thinking, English class INTRODUCTION
Arguably, critical thinking is now becoming more important than ever. In a millennial life like nowadays, it is likely imperative that all subjects taught at schools promote this particular skill. It will give students the ability to distinguish reliable information from fake news, popularly called hoax. When such is not appropriately addressed, it may ruin students’ affection in the learning processes, such as for example lessening learning concentration and stimulating prejudices. In this regards, English language, one of the core subjects taught at secondary schools, can be an effective vehicle to accommodate such an essential demand.
There is certainly a profound reason why critical thinking skills (CTS) may be embedded in English language lesson. The most fundamental justification, relates to the growing attention given to critical literacy in the teaching of English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). As reported by Fajardo (2015) there is an increasing number of teachers in TESOL classes who are interested in examining the workings of power in texts, literacy and cultural practices. They are the core contents commonly delivered in language classes. This specifically, as cited by Fajardo (2015), is inspired by Bourke (2008) about what he called rule of text. In this line, texts presented in a reading class are authoritative which suppresses the reader’s license to challenge, question, deconstruct or rewrite the assumptions and belief within the perspective of the texts. These lead to justify that reading activities in a language class promote students’ creative thinking. However, it is pivotal to note that critical thinking should be looked at as a lens or frame for teaching throughout the day rather than as a topic to be covered or a unit to be studied (Vasquez, 2017). This means critical thinking skills should be embedded in day to day activities in the class interaction. In other words, teacher student interaction during the class time is the key component to make critical thinking happened. When such is the case, teacher talk likely plays an essential role as far as embedment is concerned.
Teacher talking from the very beginning of a class is considered natural and intuitive.It’s suggested that teachers ask questions, in their talk, between 300 and 400 times a day (Almeida, 2011). On the other hand, each student raises, in average, one question per week (Graesser, 1994). This paradox likely makes Brown cautious as he stated that teacher talk in English language classes should not occupy the major proportion of class hours; otherwise it probably would not give students enough opportunity to talk (Brown, 2001).
There is a more crucial point, arguably, to note in comparison to such a paradoxical calculation. It is the quality of the teacher talk, instead of the quantity, that needs careful and thorough consideration. This, in particular, is stated by Romero (2009) that research in recent years has proved that teacher
when properly exploited. Similarly, Lesaux, and Gamez as reported by the Council of the Great City Schools (Lesaux, 2012) clarified that the quality of teacher talk in the classroom played a significant role in language learning, particularly in the vocabulary and reading development, whereas quantity of talk did not. Thus, as noted, this article focuses on the positive effect of the quality teacher talk as this is pivotal to facilitate language learning and promote communicative interaction in the classroom, including certainly enhancing creative thinking.
Before going further, it is necessary to define what is meant by teacher talk, as certainly there are many definitions may be made when a particular term is viewed from different angles. In a broader and general context, teacher talk is a kind of language used by teachers for instruction in the classroom.
However, in a specific context, Ellis (1985) as cited by Ma (2006) formulated teacher talk to refer to the special language that teachers use when addressing L2 learners in the classroom. There are two generic properties in such a definition i.e. those that investigate the type of language that teachers use in language classrooms and those that investigate in the type of language they use in subject lessons. In this article, teacher talk limitedly focuses on the use of language in the subject lesson. It is all the utterances the teachers produce to interact with the students from the very beginning to the end of the class.
As noted, teacher talk quality is more crucial than teacher talk quantity, for it may bring about positive effects in learning. In this line the curriculum 2013 (hence, called K-13), the basic reference to develop and deliver material of instruction, has clearly stipulated three categorical activities as long as teaching is concerned, such is termed as kegiatan pendahuluan (opening), kegiatan inti(main activity), and kegiatan penutup(closing). In addition, K-13 also identifies five key techniques or methods of implementing constructive learning approach i.e., observing, questioning, data collecting, associating, and communicating (Kemendikbud, 2013). The teacher’s main activities, mediated by their talk, are to facilitate students to perform the five methods in day to day classroom interaction. When such pedagogical activities and
methods are implemented, as mentioned by K-13, it is expected that students learning activities will be autonomous and in turns creative thinking improved.
METHODS
Data of teacher talk were derived from a class interaction which was observed and audio-recording was made and further transcribed to be analyzed. In the analysis, the teacher talk were categorized in 6 groups of pedagogic function, such as (1) animating, (2) translating, (3) explaining, (4) creating, (5) prompting, and (5) dialoging (Forman, 2012). The six categories may be summarized as follows, such as (1) animating refers the teacher’s talk rendering of written English to present an opportunity for students to hear how written English actually sounds, (2) translating occurs when the teacher translates words or phrases from the second language learned (L2) into the first or mother tongue language (L1), (3) explaining can occur in L1 or L2:
principally when the teacher provides metalinguistic information concerning the grammar, meaning, usage or culture of the L2 – explaining what is; but also when s/he gives instructions in the classroom – explainingwhat to do, (4) prompting and dialoguing, both, refer to the teacher’s initiative to engage students in whole-class response, and here the classic distinction between two types of teacher-student interaction were used. The first is medium oriented, focusing on language itself, here termed Prompting; and the second is message-oriented, concerned with the exchange of meaning, here termed Dialoguing. For simplicity, the the last two categories is blended in this article.but the names are kept and used to refer to the blended term. In addition, the three categorical teaching activities and the five methods of constructivism, as noted above, were also included in the analysis. Table 1 is presented to exemplify how data were categorized.
The observation and recording were conducted three times in a Junior Secondary School (SMP) in Jakarta within three months. In between this span of time, interviews were made to triangulate the data of the teacher talk. This was particularly to clarify the unclear utterances in the teacher talk. In addition,
following the interviews a one-time feedback was made. It was conducted prior to the last observation in the last month.
Table 1. Data category (simplified sample)
No K-13 Pedagogical Pedagogic Function Sample of teacher talk Category
1 Opening Translating How many students are
absent today?
Prompting OK. Damar. Who else?Siapa lagi?
Dialoguing Well. Now are you ready for the class?
2 Main Activity Now, tell me about Narrative
Texts.
Observing, Do you know Narrative?
Prompting Ya betul. Narrative Text!
Questioning Dialoguing Narrative, for example Legenda
Please mention what you know.
Associating Do you know the generic
structure of?
Narrative Text?Apa Sih?
Do you know the orientation?
The setting of the ...?
What is the moral in the story?
3 Closing How do you feel now?
Translating Happy?Mengapahappy?
OK. Moral value,apa itu? Source: Original
FINDINGS & CONCLUSION 1. Research Findings:
The research reveals the following findings, such as;
1. Amount of teacher talk was more than twice as big as that of student talk.
2. Code mixing was frequently practiced in the teacher talk. Surprisingly, the amount of such code-mix was big enough.
3. Amount of declarative sentences and interrogative sentences were found relatively similar, but open-ended interrogative was dominant in the teacher talk.
4. Following adequate intervention / feedback, teacher significantly refined his talk,
5. The student’s creative thinking significantly differed before and after such intervention. This was indicated by class climate which was more active and interactive.
2. Conclusion:
The key issue posed in this article was about quality teacher talk and its positive effect on the enhancement of creative thinking. However, the finding as noted above likely does not necessarily cope with the issue. As such, it is proved by the empirical data in which code mixing was dominantly present in the whole teacher talk. Only after intervention by which feedback was prompted, the teacher being observed refined his talk and this gave positive impact to student’s enthusiasm in the classroom interaction. This presumably may facilitate to the enhancement of students’
creative thinking.
References
Abhakorn, Jirapa. 2013. Classroom Interaction and Thinking Skills Development through Teacher-Talks. Retrieved on June 22, 2018 from
http://kasetsartjournal.ku.ac.th/kuj_files/2013/A1305071459369338.pdf Almeida, P. A. (2011). Can I ask a question? the importance of classroom
questioning.Procedia, Social Behavioral Science, 634 - 638.
Brown, H. D. (2001).Teaching by Principles - An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy (second edition).London: Longman, Pearson Education.
Forman, R. (2012). Six Functions of EFL Teacher Talk.RELC Journal, 43 (2), 239 -
Graesser, A. &. (1994). Question asking during tutoring.American Educational Research Journal, 104 - 137.
Kemendikbud. (2013). Kurikulum 2013. Jakarta, DKI Jakarta, Indonesia.
Lesaux, N. K. (2012).Examining Classroom Talk in the San Diego Unified School District.Washington D.C.: The Council of the Great City Schools.
Vasquez, V. M. (2017).Critical Literacy Across the K-6 Curriculum.New York:
Routledge.
