Putri Anggraeni, et al / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 79 ELT FORUM 10 (1) (2021) Journal of English Language Teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt Group work activity to enhance students’ courage in delivering questions during online learning: A classroom action research Retnaningsih SMA Negeri 9 Semarang Article Info ________________ Article History: Received in 10 July 2019 Approved in 30 March 2021 Published in 31 March 2021 ________________ Keywords: Group Work; Delivering Question; Online Learning ____________________ Abstract ___________________________________________________________________ The objective of this study is to find out the effectiveness of group work strategy in maximizing the students’ courage in delivering questions during the online classes. In particular, this study will examine theories on learning, online learning, group work, and courage in delivering questions as part of character building. The approach to be applied in this research is quantitative methods. The research design implemented in this study is classroom action research for 36 students of Class XII IPS 1 at SMAN 9 Semarang. The technique of collecting data uses observation techniques, interviews, and documentation studies. The results show that Learning with the group work can increase the courage of students to ask questions up to more than 75% which shows the effectivity of the strategy and the teacher’s strategy in determining the persons involving in a group work plays a significant role in the success of group work and the motivation to deliver questions during the online classes. © 2021 Universitas Negeri Semarang Correspondent Address: p-ISSN 2252-6706 | e-ISSN 2721-4532 SMA Negeri 9 Semarang Banyumanik, Semarang, 50267 E-mail: retnaningsihsma9@gmail.com http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&& Retnaningsih/ ELT Forum 10 (1) (2021) 80 INTRODUCTION One of the ways to improve education in Indonesia is by making changes and improvements in the learning process. It is necessary to make efforts to improve learning. The main objective of learning is that students can master the subject matter according to the set of objectives. To achieve this goal, an educator has to make efforts in preparing a lesson plan, and selecting the learning methods to the implementation of evaluation. But in reality, after learning activities are completed, there are still students who do not master the learning subjects or topics. In an effort to prevent the Covid-19 pandemic to spread wider, the government issued a policy for students to study at home. Starting March 16, 2020, schools conduct the teaching and learning online. Online learning is a learning system without face to face meeting between teachers and students but is carried out online using the internet network. Teachers must ensure teaching and learning activities continue, even though students are at home. Teachers are required to be able to do innovation and to design the learning media by utilizing online media. The success of teachers in conducting online learning in the Covid-19 pandemic situation is the ability of teachers to make some innovations in designing materials, learning methods, and what applications which are suitable with the materials and methods. Creativity is the key to success for a teacher to be able to motivate students to stay enthusiastic about learning online and not take the learning as a psychological burden. To increase students' courage to deliver questions on online teaching for English Class of class XII IPS1 at SMA N 9 Semarang, researchers formed group work. According to Suprijono (2011) stated that the advantages of group work include: enhancing student motivation to actively learn, creating a sense of togetherness and cooperation, instilling solidarity between friends in groups, and problem solving in doing assignments and projects. In addition to Suprijono (2011) said that the learning model of "group work" can increase enthusiasm and motivation to learn, especially for those who lack of ability and skills to deliver questions. Sutikno (2013), moreover, stated that group work may increase the students’ courage in delivering questions and at the same time as increasing courage, group work also able to increase learning outcomes. The main reason for this is that students who work in groups can get additional information from the group. Then, there will be an exchange of knowledge between group members, so that in solving a problem, the results can be more perfect when compared to independent work. Regarding to this, Piaget (in Slavin, 2011) emphasizes that children at a young age will judge a bad behavior as something that produces negative consequences or impacts even though the purpose of the action is good. According to Piaget, the second stage of morality is the stage of autonomous morality. Autonomous morality stage occurs in children over 6 years of age or in the middle and late childhood. By the ages of 10 to 12, children stop using and obeying the rules based on conscience. Thus, with this autonomous morality is also called the morality of cooperation. This morality arises when the child's social world begins to expand so that he has more peers in his environment. The interaction and cooperation with other children create new ideas for the child about the rules and because of that, their morality changes. Asking students to deliver questions in class requires the students’ courage, because without their courage, the activity of asking and answering questions in class will experience obstacles. The meaning of asking or delivering questions we define here is asking for information (explanation), asking to be told (about something), and asking for misunderstanding (Abdullah, 2000). Thus, it can be interpreted that asking is an activity to carry out questions for obtaining information and to get a clearer answer to a matter that has not been understood or not yet understood. Pradoto (2001) in his research results said that the use of questioning techniques accompanied by worksheets and teaching aids in the teaching and learning process can improve learning outcomes. Courage to ask or delivering questions is a condition that exists in each individual which is indicated by the ability to show up with confidence and be able to overcome fear when asking for information and get clear answers to something that is not yet understood. In addition, asking questions in learning is seen as a teacher activity to encourage, guide and assess students' thinking abilities. There are several factors that make students reluctant or are afraid of asking or raising questions in the classroom during the teaching and learning process, including afraid of being considered stupid or being laughed at by friends; b) afraid of being asked to come forward to solve the questions or problem by the teacher; c) afraid of being asked to explain the material that has Retnaningsih/ ELT Forum 10 (1) (2021) 81 just been delivered by the teacher; d) afraid of considered unprepared as they were not reading the teaching materials or paying less attention to the teacher during lessons which make them less understand; e) afraid of expressing opinions because they are confused about how to convey them (cannot speak properly). Based on its functions, the objectives of teaching English subjects in the current curriculum include: (1) developing the ability to communicate in English both orally and in writing. These abilities include listening (listening), speaking (speaking), reading (reading), and writing (writing); (2) raising awareness of the nature and importance of English as a foreign language to become main language learning tool; (3) developing an understanding of the relationship between language and culture and expanding cultural horizons. Thus, students have cross-cultural insight and involve themselves in cultural diversity. Based on the researchers 'observations, the students' lack of courage to ask questions was caused by several factors, including, the number of students who are willing to ask questions were limited, if anyone was willing to ask questions, it was limited to students who were considered having higher abilities than other students, the limited number of students interested in asking questions were limited because they are ashamed to be considered not capable of mastering the lesson and the students' interest in reading textbooks is lacking, so that they do not master the learning material being discussed. Learning itself, in article 1 point 20 of Law No. 20 of 2003 concerning the National Education System is a process of interaction between students and educators, and learning resources in a learning environment. Meanwhile, according to Wingkel in Siregar and Nara (2010), learning is a set of actions designed to support the student learning process, by considering the extreme events that play a role in a series of internal events that occur and are experienced by students. To support this, learning according to Gagne in Siregar and Nara (2010) is instruction which is intended to promote education, an external situation needs to be arranged to activate, support and maintain the internal processing that constitutes each learning event. Meanwhile, according to Dimyati and Mudjiono (2009) learning is a process organized by the teacher to teach students how to learn, how to acquire and the process to obtain knowledge, skills, and attitudes. From the explanation above, it can be concluded that learning is a conscious effort made by educators, students and learning resources in the environment. Learning is an activity carried out by the teacher in such a way that student behavior changes for the better. Learning aims to help students gaining various experiences and with that experience, the behavior of students which includes knowledge, skills, and values or norms that function as controllers of students' attitudes and behavior increases, both in quantity and quality. With the covid-19 virus outbreak, the government obliges all schools to conduct online learning. The online learning system is a learning system without face-to-face learning between teachers and students but is done online using the internet network. Teachers must ensure learning activities continue, even though students are at home. Here, teachers are required to be able to design learning media as an innovation by utilizing online media. This is in accordance with the Minister of Education and Culture of the Republic of Indonesia’s Regulation Number 4 of 2020 concerning Implementation of Education Policies in the Emergency of the Spread of Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19). Online learning is conducted through a personal computer (PC) or laptop connected to an internet network connection. Teachers can maximize learning at the same time using groups on social media such as WhatsApp (WA), telegram, Instagram, zoom applications or other media as learning media. Thus, the teacher can ensure students take part in learning at the same time, even in different places. In the online learning process, it is important to add educational messages to parents and students about the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. Thus, the schools want to make sure that students find the online learning is doable and able to replace face to face learning. To overcome the risk during COVID-19 virus outbreak, the implementation of online learning is considered the best way, the program is right on target, and the learning outcomes are achieved. However, there is a lesson learned from the world of education in the midst of the Covid- 19 pandemic which says that face-to-face learning activities with teachers in a classroom have proven to be more effective than online. This was explained by an education expert of Universitas Brawijaya (UB), Aulia Luqman Aziz in accordance with National Education Day 2020. He mentioned, "Forever, the teaching profession will not be replaced by technology," said Luqman in Retnaningsih/ ELT Forum 10 (1) (2021) 82 his statement on UB's official website, Saturday (2/5/2020). According to him, full online learning has recently caused a lot of complaints from students and parents. Furthermore, in accordance with learning, teachers are also obliged to take care of students’ character building. One of the way in supporting the students’ character building is to motivate students to engage in the process of teaching and learning and to think critically by the activity of delivering questions. Here, to refer to the activity of delivering questions, we label the activity as asking. Asking is an activity to get some information from someone you know or person in charge. The response given can be in the form of knowledge to matters which requires consideration. So, asking is an effective stimulus that encourages thinking skills. Questioning skills, for a student is a very important skill to master, because through these skills students can create a more meaningful learning atmosphere. Learning will become very boring, when the teacher explains the subject matter for hours without being punctuated by questions, either just provoking questions, or questions to get students to think. Therefore, in every learning process, whatever learning model is used, asking questions is an activity that always acts as an inseparable part. Experts believe that good questions have a positive impact on students, including increasing the full participation of students in the learning process, improving students' thinking skills, because thinking itself is asking questions, arising students' curiosity, and guiding students to determine answers, and helping students to focus on the problems discussed. The habit of asking questions of seeking for information and finding a better understanding will make us open-minded. To ask questions requires courage to lead students to the right path, avoiding things that are misleading. Courage to ask questions will not be born just like that but needs to be nurtured or trained by parents, teachers, or older siblings (Hasibuan and Moedjiono, 2012). In the process of teaching and learning activities, teaching cannot be separated from the problem of "asking" because the questions posed by students can be used to determine the extent of student involvement in teaching and learning activities. Students in asking questions need to pay attention to the objectives and level of questions, to know, recall and evaluate the level of experience of the concepts that have been studied. To provoke student questions, the teacher displays contradictory problems by providing student activity sheets (LKS) which contain a varied sequence of activities and questions and dividing groups of students heterogeneously. Based on the development of psychology (Piaget in Slavin, 2011), it can be briefly stated that from the age of twelve to adulthood, children begin to be able to consider several simultaneous views regarding their own objective actions. They can formulate theories and test hypotheses, filtered that they can think inductively and deductively, and can provide arguments with implications. Thus, the courage of students will be more visible in asking questions both with their own friends in one group and with another group. The level of questions itself can be grouped into three, namely low-level questions are questions that require a short answer and usually these questions begin with the words "what, where, who, and when". Medium level questions are questions that require a short answer but are not complex problems, they usually begin with the word "how". Meanwhile, high-level questions are questions that require a short answer and are complex problems, usually beginning with the word "why" (Bolla and Pah, 1983). In instilling the courage to deliver questions, researcher believes in strengthening the quality of the students’ group work to ensure cooperative learning. According to Suprijono (2009), cooperative learning is a broader concept covering all types of group work including forms that are more teacher-led or teacher-directed. The support of Vygotsky's social constructivism theory (in Suprijono, 2009) has placed the importance of the cooperative model. Vygotsky's social constructivism emphasizes that knowledge is built and constructed mutually. Vygotsky emphasized that students construct knowledge through social interactions with other people. Based on some of the definitions above, it can be concluded that cooperative learning is a learning strategy based on group collaboration carried out to achieve specific goals. According to Rusman (2013), cooperative learning is different from other learning strategies. The difference can be seen from the learning process which emphasizes the process of teamwork in groups. The goals to be achieved are not only academic ability in terms of mastery of subject matter, but also there is an element of cooperation for mastery of the material. This cooperation is the hallmark of Cooperative Learning. Group study between more accomplished and underachieving friends is useful for teaching knowledge, skills, and strengths to peers. This is in accordance with the theory of phenomenology that every lesson must be "meaningful" for Retnaningsih/ ELT Forum 10 (1) (2021) 83 humans and humanity, because humans are social beings as well as individual beings. Thus, the objective of this study is to find out the effectiveness of group work strategy in maximizing the students’ courage in delivering questions during the online classes. In particular, this study will examine theories on learning, online learning, group work, and courage in delivering questions as part of character building. METHODS This article employed a classroom action research to the 36 students of XII IPS 1 at SMAN 9 Semarang in the academic year 2020/2021 which was conducted through online learning. Besides classroom observation, data were also collected through literature review and theoretical studies from various library sources. The data used in the study were collected through observation by researchers and observers. The method used is that researchers and observers enter virtual discussion groups. The tool used is the observation sheet. The population of this study was students of class XII IPA1 SMA N 9 Semarang year 2020/2021. In total, there were 36 students. Students consist of 23 boys and 13 girls. Whereas, the research cycles consisted three cycles. The first cycle of meeting 1 was held for 3 days: Monday, November 2, 2020 at 08.30 up to 09.00; Tuesday, November 3, 2020 at 08.30 up to 09.00, Wednesday, November 4, 2020 at 11:15 a.m. up to 11.35 a.m. The first cycle of meeting 2 was held on Tuesday, November 10, 2020, at 07.30 up to 08.50. Cycle II meeting 1 was held on Saturday, November 14 2020 at 07.30 up to 08.30. The second cycle of meeting 2 was held on Wednesday, 18 November 2020 at 07.30 up to 08.30. Cycle III meeting 1 was held on Saturday, November 21, 2020 at 07.30 up to 08.10. Cycle III meeting 2 was held on Monday, November 23, 2020 at 08.30 up to 09.00. The research procedure consisted of three cycles. Each cycle was divided into 4 parts, namely: Planning, Implementation, Observation and Reflection. In addition, the analysis of research data applied qualitative descriptive analysis with percentage techniques. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Inter-Cycle Discussion After carrying out a series of actions in each cycle and based on the results of observations, there were several results that the researcher can convey. The first result was related to the level of courage of the students to ask questions in a discussion with a small number of members. The courage of students to ask questions was low, and vice versa, the more the number of members of the group, the higher the students' courage to ask questions in the discussion. With a group discussion, students who were not brave enough to ask questions were motivated by their friends in their group so that they had the courage to ask questions. Merging discussion groups between groups that were motivated to ask questions and groups that were less motivated to ask questions can be helpful to motivate other groups (those who are less motivated to ask questions). They started to be motivated to ask questions in group discussions. Overall Results After the researcher conducted the research accompanied by the observer in 3 cycles the results obtained were, there were 36 students of class XII IPS 1, consisting of 23 boys and 13 girls. In the online learning process, the students find difficulties throughout the learning process because the meeting is without a face to face meeting. In addition to providing learning material, researchers always provide motivation and inserting character education to shape students' personalities. There are various student responses, some are loyal to take part in learning, but there are also students who are less sensitive and are lazy to take part in learning. Even in the learning process, there was no response from the students. Researchers are concerned with the conditions of the learning process like this. The researcher then tries to create different learning methods by empowering students in the learning process, namely the group discussion method. Researchers think back to the current situation because students cannot meet each other, what can be done is a virtual discussion. Finally, the researcher conveyed the idea to the students and they could accept and understand. The facilities used are cellphones/ laptops devices with Google Classroom, Google meet, and WhatsApp (video call) applications. Researchers also convey these ideas to fellow teachers, fellow science teachers integrated to help the process of carrying out the discussion. Retnaningsih/ ELT Forum 10 (1) (2021) 84 The researcher then divided the students into 18 groups, each of which consisted of 2 students, by means of the students looking for their own discussion pairs. The time used for discussion uses learning hours, with a duration of time between 10 to 20 minutes. Next, the researcher made a schedule for group discussions with each one accompanied by a researcher or observer. In the first cycle, on average, 14% (5 students) asked questions from 36 students. The courage to ask occurred during the meeting 1, there were 1 student, and meeting 2 were 4 students, after students were given actions in the form of motivation in the form of motivation the importance of asking both individually and classically. The observation result in cycle II showed that the students' courage to ask an average of 45% (16 students) who were motivated to ask from 36 students, the courage to ask more questions was found at the second meeting, namely 10 students and 6 students at the first meeting. So that there was an increase of 4 students. In cycle II, the number of questions that arose was an increase of 31% from cycle I. This tendency if the increasing number of students delivering questions indicates the success of the teacher in cycle II, namely dividing the class into 9 groups with more group members. Researchers provide motivation and praise for students who dare to ask questions, with the hope that students' courage will increase. In the third cycle after the observation, the results obtained from students who asked there were an increase of 35% to 80% (30 students out of 36 students). At meeting 1 there were 12 students and at meeting 2 there were 18 students who asked questions. The teacher's actions by adding value, make students motivated and take the initiative to ask questions. From the results of observations made by the observer, it shows that there is a good change in students to take advantage of the opportunity to ask, which is 35% higher than in cycle II, so that it will affect the understanding of the concept just discussed. The level of active response of male students was higher than that of female students. Thus, from the researchers' observations from cycle I to cycle III, the group discussion learning model was able to encourage students to ask questions in completing assignments. In addition, the learning atmosphere can be fun, cheerful, not tense and feelings of shame, fear and lack of confidence can gradually disappear so that psychologically it can arouse individual interest in understanding the material presented and the burden they feel becomes relatively light, because all material is done in groups. Likewise, for teachers, the task load becomes relatively lighter in carrying out the learning process, because the learning process is more student- centered. Discussion From the study, it can be concluded that the study was succeed. The achievement of students was increased and it was shown by the confident that the students show while delivering questions in group. It is in line with the statement delivered by Suprijono (2011) stated that the advantages of group work including enhancing student motivation to actively learn, creating a sense of togetherness and cooperation, instilling solidarity between friends in groups, and problem solving in doing assignments and projects. From the classroom action research that has been done, it shows that the existence of students in one group can help to push students to show their ability in delivering questions. Although the activity is student-centered, it does not mean that the teacher has no responsibility to teach the students. The teacher here acts as facilitator which can intrigue the process of asking and answering to happen. Moreover, the ability of the teacher in designing the group task also play a significant role to ensure the group work happens. As mentioned by Hasibuan & Moedjiono (2012) courage to ask questions will not be born without a reason but needs to be trained by parents, teachers, or older siblings (Hasibuan & Moedjiono, 2012). In other words, it is a habit that needs to be cultivated. Teacher plays his own role by providing a task which requires group work so the process of discussion involving group question and answer can happen. Besides, teacher also has the role to choose a correct partner for each student in one group. The choice of member of each group will take part in the process of asking and answering questions. To underline all of this, teacher takes part in choosing task and team partner to invite student’s participation to ask questions. The ability of making question itself will ignite students’ critical thinking and confidence. Students’ performance, especially their performance in questions production during group works was mostly influenced by their own motivation. Students who had positive attitude toward class activities spoke more and performed better than students who had negative attitude toward Retnaningsih/ ELT Forum 10 (1) (2021) 85 teaching and learning process (Szpotowicz, 2012). Motivation also played roles in creating an effective learning. Besides, the amount of experience, the students took for doing group works affect how they performed during the process, the more experience they had, the better they did the group works as well as questions production (Szpotowicz, 2012). Moreover, performing group work during speaking class could give the students more opportunity to use subject language communicatively. It also meant, they could improve their speaking ability, and indeed their questions production. In addition, such kind of environment reduced stress and provided students with more intakes related to their performance (Hung & Mai, 2020). Yet, the teachers needed to keep encouraging students to actively use the subject language while discussing their works in group (Hung & Mai, 2020). Thus, it is hoped that the students could develop their speaking skills, critical skills and their questions production. Group work and questions production could not be separated from the notion of social interaction (Nipp & Palengue, 2017). The ability to communicate well, particularly being able to excel the skills of question production, needed intensive social interaction. Interaction between students and students was the core element of effective cooperative group work. However, every group works certainly triggered some challenges. The challenges that occurred during group works were related to the contribution of group participants, group management and how to embrace diverse opinions and ideas. To ensure successful group works during teaching and learning process, the teachers could apply some policies to reduce problems that might occurred (Nipp & Palengue, 2017). The policies should accommodate the nature of group work, especially for questions production. Communication and transparency were also required to promote effective learning experience during group as well as during questions production. This study suggested that teachers needed to make careful consideration regarding the implementation of group work. The teacher must be careful in determining the members of each study group, before implementing the learning using the "Group Work" strategy. The teacher must make detailed plans, compile brief work instructions, which contain the substance of the material, and work steps. The teacher must consider the situation and conditions of the classroom environment and its composition, because to implement the group work strategy requires adequate preparation, especially the readiness of students in receiving lessons. Moreover, the teacher must always monitor and provide motivation in the implementation of group work activities. By considering those elements, the teaching learning process, especially for group work activities, in fostering question production can be done successfully. CONCLUSION The conclusion is not only about restating the data or findings, but also synthesizing the purpose of the study which at the end yields the findings and discussion which should be compatible with the objectives of the research. Moreover, based on the results of the research and discussion above, it can be concluded that learning with the group work method, can increase the courage of students to ask questions up to more than 75%. Teachers can gradually come up with various learning strategies and techniques, and empower students to overcome their own learning difficulties. The determination of the number of study group members and the selection of members of each group greatly determines the activeness/ courage of students to ask questions. The readiness of the teacher in preparing learning material, the readiness of students in learning and the monitoring of the teacher in the group work process affect their success. The future research related to group works and question production can investigate the opportunity to study the group work as well as question production for higher education students. The study can explore in what extent question production and critical thinking skills can be promoted thoroughly. REFERENCES Aji, A.L. (2021, February 20). Akademisi UB: Profesi guru tak bisa diganti teknologi di masa Covid-19. 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