632 Correspondence Address: Kampus Pascasarjana Unnes Jl Kelud Utara 3 Sampangan.Semarang E-mail: hannaistifadah@yahoo.com P-ISSN 2087-0108 E-ISSN 2502-4566 EEJ 10 (4) (2020) 632-642 English Education Journal http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/eej Teachers’ perception, plan, implementation and assessment of Letterland in teaching English vocabulary Hanna Istifadah, Dwi Anggani Linggar Bharati DOI : https:// DOI 10.15294/ eej.v10i4.38914 Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia Article Info ________________ Article History: Accepted 20 March 2020 Approved 14 October 2020 Published 23 December 2020 ________________ Keywords: Teachers’ perception, plan, implemantation, assessment, Letterland ____________________ Abstract ________________________________________________________________ Letterland is a child-friendly, multi-sensory system to teach English for children. It is highly a sophisticated teaching technique that combines stories with pictograms of letters. However, many teachers claimed to have difficulties in implementing it properly. This study aimed to investigate how teachers perceived, planned, implemented and assessed Letterland in teaching English vocabulary and analyzed the alignment and misalignment of teachers’ perception, plan, implementation and asessment of Letterland. A case study as a part of qualitative research design was employed in this study. By using purposeful sampling technique, two English teachers from Star Kiddy Preschool Semarang were involved. There were four instruments to collect the data, namely questionnaire, interview, document analysis and classroom observation. The findings of this study revealed that the English teachers had positive responses to questionnaire data and interview data dealing with Letterland and its implementation. In addition, Letterland designed well in lesson plan by teachers. Nevertheless, Letterland technique was conducted less succesfully in the classroom. This was due to several problems such as limited time, lack of preparation and teachers’ lack of creativity. Furthermore, as the implementation of teacher’s assessment, it has already met the standard of assessment on curriculum PAUD 2013. At last, the alignment of those teachers’ perception, plan and assessment toward Letterland were related to each other. Eventhough teacher’s positive perception did not align with their implementation in the classroom. That was because teachers missed some stages that should be added in the classroom. Hanna Istifadah, et al./ English Education Journal EEJ 10 (4) (2020) 632-642 633 INTRODUCTION Vocabulary is one of language aspects that learners have to learn before they learn the other skills in learning language because without knowing vocabulary, learners will face so many difficulties. According to the Nation (1994), a rich of vocabulary makes the skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing become easier to be performed. Teaching vocabulary to young learners such as kindergarten children is not easy. Our National Education Department through Direktorat Jenderal Manajemen Pendidikan Dasar dan Menengah (Directorat General of Primary and Secondary Education Management), Direktorat Pembinaan Taman Kanak-Kanak dan Sekolah Dasar (Directorat of Kindergarten and Elementary School Development) in UU RI No. 20 Tahun 2003 states that Kindergarten is the formal early year education aimed to help children to develop their physic and psychological aspects including morality and religiosity, social, emotion, independence, cognition, language and art as the base of the next educational level. In addition, developing children’s language skills as the topic being discussed in this article, included in the curriculum of Kindergarten. We found a phenomenon of teaching English to the early year’s students. Star Kiddy Preschool of Semarang has implemented a program called Letterland in introducing learning English to their students. We found that some of Star Kiddy Preschool students in the final level of class were able to read and speak even in English texts. In early age, 5 to 7 years old, they already have the ability to read and speak in English. It is known that speaking English is so difficult to learn as a foreign language with its many rules and even more exceptions, at a child level of interest it is quite challenging. It is a kind of big issue for Indonesian young learners. We regarded that this phenomenon is an important case to be studied. Therefore, we are interested in discussing further the case of teaching early English to the preschool students in this research. The sucess of teaching early English cannot be separated from the teaching learning program supported. The success of teaching and learning depends on good program curriculum. Letterland program has been chosen by Star Kiddy Preschool in teaching English. According to Wendon (2003), Letterland is a child-friendly, multi-sensory system for teaching children to read, write and spell. Letterland was created to teach phonics using a story-based approach. The story logic engages students leading to long term retention of concepts. Moreover, Letterland as a wonderful multi-sensory activates every learning channel through music, actions, alliteration, movement, song, art, games and role-play. Meanwhile, applying Letterland to teach English vocabulary is not easy. Teachers must be creative. In Letterland, teachers must be able to teach English vocabulary besides teaching sounds. Because of that, this study described the teaching English vocabulary techniques through Letterland. Accordingly, this study will be useful to give insight and better understanding about teaching vocabulary through Letterland to help teachers in deciding the appropriate techniques for their classes especially for kindergarten teachers. One of the proves in which teaching of vocabulary through Letterland technique by the teacher at playgroup is not easy because the teacher needs a lot of time to reach the goal of teaching and learning process. So, in using Letterland technique in teaching English vocabulary in the playgroup class, teacher should be patient and more creative to flow ideas, songs, and games (Maisyarah, 2007). Therefore, Letterland is a way in teaching English vocabulary to the playgroup students. Using Letterland technique, it will give a contribution to the teacher in using and developing an appropriate right technique to optimize the students’ comprehension in learning English vocabulary at the playgroup, that can prepare them to the elementary level. The object of the present study of this thesis was Letterland. Thus we saw it is essential to review some studies previously conducted. Studies on Letterland have been conducted Hanna Istifadah, et al./ English Education Journal EEJ 10 (4) (2020) 632-642 634 (Dianne, 1999; Paeplov, 2003; Betca, 2010; Sitlar, 2010; Nuraeningsih, 2016; Sierra, 2009; Tomlinson, 2011; Haryono, 2010; Faqih, 2012; Badia, 2013; Antoni, 2013; Rohmah, 2015). These studies have similarities and differences. The similarities of these studies are the researchers focus on the implementation of Letterland. On the other hand, the differences of these studies is methods to analyze Letterland. Therefore, one of the results of those studies prominent to my study, it is the study from Rohmah (2015) which is titled The use of Letterland method in teaching reading at early year level to pre-school students in an informal education in Bandar Lampung. The aims of this study are to analyze the use of Letterland method in teaching reading, to identify kinds of materials used, to know the teaching and learning activity in Letterland class and to find out the outcomes of Letterland program in developing early reading skills of the students. This is a case study research. The data were collected through class observation, document gathering and assessment. Rohmah (2015) used a descriptive qualitative approach in analyzing the data. The presentation of the research is carried out in informal way to give the detail description and analysis. The findings of her research are as follows: (1) The school uses different curriculum from Lyn Wendon curriculum to adjust the Indonesian preschool student’s ability, (2) The materials used in that school Letterland class are varied and support all teaching and learning but not all of materials are the same as Lyn Wendon materials, (3) The teaching and learning activities in that school Letterland class are done in amusing way, through approaches and strategies that are in line with Halimi (2010) theory of children language learning; those are: storytelling, songs and rhymes, games, art and craft, role play, (4) Letterland program in the school gives good outcome for students: Playgroup (74%), Kindergarten-1 (72%), Kindergarten-2 (76%). It shows that Letterland program can be used for Indonesian preschool context in introducing English reading. Furthermore, the school has successfully implemented the two stages of Letterland program in Letterland class. From those explanations, it is discovered that there are many researchers who investigated teachers’ perception and teachers’ implementation of Letterland. Therefore, this research would like to fill the gap from previous studies by conducting teachers’ perception, plan, implementation and assessment of Letterland to teach English, as well as investigating the classroom practice and the relation is drawn by investigating the alignment and misalignment of those teachers’ perception, plan, implemantation and assessment of Letterland to teach English vocabulary. METHOD This study assumes the present study is intended to know the teachers’s perception and plan towards Letterland in teaching English vocabulary in Kindergarten. Furthermore, this study also attempts to discover how the teachers implement Letterland in teaching English vocabulary. The present study assumed that the teachers lack of information about Letterland as one of teaching techniques in teaching learning process. It is also assumed that teachers still found difficulties in designing and implementing Letterland. These assumptions are drawn based on the studies which were conducted by Trisanti (2014) and farooq (2017). The subject of the study were two English teachers. Both of them are from Star Kiddy Preschool and Learning Center Semarang in the academic year of 2018/2019. Those teachers have taught at Star Kiddy Preschool for almost 5 years. The teachers are also senior teachers who understood well about the Letterland technique. Moreover, the teachers had passed the Letterland training that had been held by Star Kiddy Preschool and they have certificates for Letterland experts to teach English for students at that school. In collecting data there are four stages as suggested by Creswell (2014, p. 190). First, we identified the purposefully selected sites or individual to be object of study. The next step was deciding the number of participants. We took two Hanna Istifadah, et al./ English Education Journal EEJ 10 (4) (2020) 632-642 635 English teachers as the source of the data. Then, we collected the qualitative evaluative data from the results of interview, questionnaire and evaluation form. Next, the classroom practices of the teachers were recorded through an observation checklist. After that, we analyzed the video of the teaching learning process in the classrooms. In analyzing the video of observation, the recording of classroom practice as well as the interview were taken into account along with the transcriptions. Those data gathered were analyzed and interpreted to answer the research problems. At last, the perception, plan, implementation and assessment of Letterland were interpreted related to their alignment. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS This results and discussion section will describe and explain four issues: teachers’ perception on the use of Letterland, teachers’ plan on the use of Letterland, teachers’ implementation on the use of Letterland and teachers’ assessment on the use of Letterland. Teachers’ Positive Perceptions The following description is about the findings of the teachers’ perception on Letterland in teaching English vocabulary. findings were gained through questionnaire and interview. Findings through questionnaire firstly reported then followed by the findings through interview. This findings showed that the teachers explain their own opinion of how often should Letterland be used and how they see the benefits or barriers in using Letterland. There are five teachers who become respondents to this section. They have experinces in using Letterland to teach English vocabulary about 2-10 years. Based on the first teacher who filled out the questionnaire explained that Letterland should be used from early childhood learners (2-3 years old). Letterland has characters, songs and story that can attract the children and make want to learn more about Letterland. In addition, teacher should teach Letterland regularly to make the children recognize and identify the different characters of letterladers as well as possible and be able to write the alphabet properly. Furthermore, the first teacher explained about the benefits in using Letterland. They are children are easy to recognize the characters of Letterland while learning English vocabulary, children are able to mention English vocabulary related to the characters of Letterland. While the barriers of using Letterland in teaching English vocabulary is sometimes the children get confused between the characters and the real letters of alphabet. The second teacher explained that Letterland should be used very often in teaching English vocabulary for Kindergarten. It is because of Letterland makes the students happy during teaching learning process and make the teachers become more creative while teaching English vocabulary through this way. Next, the forth teacher who filled out the questionnaire stated that Letterland should be used for teaching English vocabulary when the children are able to speak. Since, in the early years, the children can repeat what were their teachers said easily. In addition, the benefit of using Letterland in teaching English vocabulary is children can recognize the letters and children can improve their vocabularies especially in English. Last, the barrier of using Letterland in teaching English vocabulary is teachers get confused to distinguish the languages. The last teacher who filled out the questionnaire about teachers’ own opinion on Letterland stated that Letterland should be used very often at least twice a week in teaching English vocabulary. it is because of children can learn vocabulary with Letterland characters through spelling the words that start with its letter. Next, children also be able to practice English vocabulary in real life such as making craft or life skill even drama in class. In last, this teacher also explained that the benefit of using Letterland in teaching English vocabulary is it could make children be more confident to learn and pronounce some words everyday. Thus, Letterland has been used in a special environment to aid early literacy development for children with a range of complex Hanna Istifadah, et al./ English Education Journal EEJ 10 (4) (2020) 632-642 636 condition such as dyclexia, autism, dyspravia, celebral palsy and down syndrome. While the barrier of using Letterland in teaching English vocabulary is teachers always get difficulty in making an active class depends on Letterland form. They have to match to the character that should be teach in class with an acitvity or a craft which related to the character of Letterland. Furthermore, the following description is about findings of teachers’ perception through interview. Through interview from teacher 1 and teacher 2 it is illustrated that the implementation of Letterland in teaching English vocabulary for Kindergarten has very good impact. Students will feel happy and excited during lesson. In addition, they will easy to undersatnd and remember all vocabularies that has been taught in class. Letterland Well-Planned From the results of document analysis it is proven that Letterland designed well by teachers in lesson plan. There are four lesson plans designed by teachers that are used to teach Letterland in class. They are as follows: 1. Lesson Plan 1 From lesson plan 1 made by teacher 1. Topic: Introducing Munching Mike and Talking Tess; goals of teaching students are able to know about some vocabularies start with “m” and “t” letter. 2. Lesson Plan 2 From lesson plan 2 made by teacher 1. Topic: Introducing Sammy Snack, Impy Ink and Noisy Nick; goals of teaching students are able to know about some vocabularies start with “s”, “i” and “n” letter. 3. Lesson Plan 3 From lesson plan 1 made by teacher 2. Topic: Introducing Clever Cat and Annie Aplle; goals of teaching students are able to know about some vocabularies start with “c” and “a” letter. 4. Lesson Plan 4 From lesson plan 2 made by teacher 1. Topic: Introducing Dippy Duck and Harry Hatman; goals of teaching students are able to know about some vocabularies start with “d” and “h” letter. In lesson plans made by teacher 1 and teacher 2, both of teachers have put explanation of tools and materials of lesson well right. They both wrote explanation about the material was taken from syllabus, the materials was in line with the objectives written on lesson plan, the activities determined depend on the management of the model the approach used in school etc. In addition, teachers wrote opening activity, core activity and activity in details and most of them already based on curriculum 2013 standard. In addition, Letterland applied more than one meeting, this research tried to identified teachers’ teaching activities for the whole meeting when Letterland was done. From overall learning activities, it can be concluded that Mrs. Vika and Ms. Krisnita planned to show the previous pictures of Letterland character as a stage of observing. Then, she planned to have a review of the previous materials and do a character-building by giving students motivations which still related to the materials at that day. This activities would be in the stage of qustioning in which there would be a questions and answer session between teacher and students related to the picture of Letterland character or teachers’ explanation before. Meanwhile, in the main activities, teachers planned to introduce Letterlanders (“Clever Cat”, “Annie Apple”, “Munching Mike”, “talking Tess”, “Sammy Snake”, “Impy Ink”, “Noisy Nick”, “Dippy Duck”, and “Harry Hat Man”) as the material of the lesson. At the closing part, teachers planned to have reflection with students. It would be about that day’s activities. After that, a conclusion would be drawn. From those explanations, it can be seen that both teachers planned learning activities well in lesson plan and have been in line with scientific approach stages. Unfortunately teacher 1 and teacher 2 insufficient designing lesson plan based on Curriculum PAUD 2013. In lesson plans made by teacher 1 and teacher 2, they did not enclose the Identity of Kindergarten Unit completely, standard of competence (Standar Kompetensi), basic competence (Kompetensi Dasar), method of teaching and assessment rubric. Based on those problems, it needs a policy Hanna Istifadah, et al./ English Education Journal EEJ 10 (4) (2020) 632-642 637 from the school to review the way how to write a lesson plan that apply Letterland technique based on curriculum 2013 as a reference. Teachers’ Less Successful Implementation In order to examine the implementation of Letterland technique done by teacher 1, the researchers observed her classroom activity in class Kindergarten 2 of Star Kiddy Preschool Semarang. It was expected that the impementation of Letterland is based on lesson plan that has been made by teacher 1. The observation was illustrated as follows: a. Kindergarten 2 classroom observation There are ten students in Kindergarten 2 class. The class started at 08.30 a.m after they had a circle time at the yard of school together with all of students from other classes. In teaching English vocabulary through Letterland, teacher 1 used a lesson plan that has been revised by the headmaster of this school. A lesson plan designed not entirely based on Curriculum PAUD 2013. The teaching activity was conducted through several steps. First, teacher opened the class by giving greeting to students. Then teacher asked one of her students to tell an activity or a story about what something they do at home before go to school. This activity done by teacher to train her students ability of speaking and to train the courage of speaking in front of the class. After they had a story telling time, they have an activity called doing a milestone. Doing a milestone here aimed to develop students fine motor skills. Teacher gave an activity for students about tearing and crumpling paper for their milestone’s time. Second, as the main activity, she told about Letterland materials. It was about the introduction of clever cat and annie apple. In this case, before teacher introduce clever cat and annie apple she asked students to sing Letterland song together in class. After singing Letterland song, students started to learn about Clever Cat and Annie Apple character by reading a book of those two characters together with teacher. Teacher introduced those two characters in front of class through reading a story about them. After read a story about Clever Cat and Annie Apple, teacher taught some vocabularies which start with “c” and “a” letter. Then teacher asked students to imitate her. After imitating the teacher, students was asked to memorize those two character of Letterland, the story about them and some vocabularies which start “c” and “a” letter by teacher. This activity took about 30 minutes. Furthermore, the next actvity before students have a snak time is making a craft time. Teacher asked students to make a mosaic of apple. This craft related to the character of Annie Apple which has /k/ sound. In addition, teacher also told students that apple is a word start with “a” letter. As the closing stage, teacher gave explanation and additional information dealing with material that has been learned. Basically the additional information was about what material they will learn tomorrow. Teacher asked students to pray and sing goodbye before leaving the class. At last, teacher asked students to queue to go to the door and carrying their bags. Based on the observation in Kindergarten 2 class it can be expressed that in implementing Letterland in teaching English vocabulary makes students feel happy and excited. This observation was a proof in strengtheing teacher’s perceptions regarding the implementation of Letterland. The result showed that students be more active, and the implementation of Letterland gives teacher as facilitator and motivator for students. However, there is no well preparation for additional tools or media used by teacher while teaching English vocabulary throgh Letterland in class. b. Kindergarten 1 classroom observation The observation was conducted kindergarten 1 class in Star Kiddy Preschool Semarang. There are ten students in Kindergarten 1 class. The class started at 08.30 a.m after they had a circle time at the yard of school together with all of students from all other classes. In teaching English vocabulary through Letterland, teacher 2 used Hanna Istifadah, et al./ English Education Journal EEJ 10 (4) (2020) 632-642 638 a lesson plan that has been revised by the headmaster of this school. A lesson plan was designed by teacher not entirely based on Curriculum PAUD 2013. The activity done by teacher 2, almost same with teacher 1 as the following: First, teacher greeted students and checking the presence, after check the presence, she asked students to take a pray together before class begin. Then teacher asked one of her students to tell an activity or a story about what something they do at home before go to school. This activity done by teacher to train her students ability of speaking and to train the courage of speaking in front of the class. After they had a story telling time, they have an activity called doing a milestone. Doing a milestone here aimed to develop students fine motor skills. Teacher gave an activity for students about tearing paper for their milestone’s time. Second, the main activity is preceeded by students sing a Letterland song. Teacher asked students to sing a Letterland song together in class and playing an audio of Letterland song on laptop. Then, after they done singing a song of Letterland together, teacher began to introduce two characters from Letterland that they will meet. They were Munncing Mike and Talking Tess. In this case, teacher introduced those two characters in front of class through reading a story about them. After read a story about Munching Mike and Talking Tess, teacher taught some vocabularies which start with “m” and “n” letter. Then teacher asked students to imitate her. After imitating the teacher, students was asked to memorize those two character of Letterland, the story about them and some vocabularies which start “m” and “n” letter by teacher. At last, teacher gave a worksheet to students related to the material that has been taught. This main activity took about 30 minutes. Furthermore, the next actvity before students had a snak time was making a craft. Teacher asked students to make a T-Train. This craft related to the character of Talking Tess which has /t/ sound. In addition, teacher also told students that train is a word start with “t” letter. As the closing stage, teacher gave explanation and additional information dealing with material that has been learned. Basically the additional information was about what material they will learn tomorrow. Teacher asked students to pray and sing goodbye before leaving the class. At last, teacher asked students to queue to go to the door and carrying their bags. Actually, this closing activity had the same activity done by teacher 1. Based on the illustration it is clearly that the implementation of Letterland in teaching English vocabulary gives more chance to learners to enhance their skills and makes students to be more active in class because the teaching learning environment is fun and enjoyable. However, teacher had lack of time while applying Letterland in class during teaching learning activities. Teachers’ Assessment From the results of document analysis it is proven that Letterland assessed well by teachers in assessment report. Teacher 1 gave one example of assessment report that has been used to assess her student’s ability in learning English vocabulary using Letterland. In addition, teacher 2 also gave one example of assessment report that has been used to assess her student’s ability in learning English vocabulary using Letterland. They are as follows: 1. Assessment report 1 This assessment report made by teacher 1. The level of grade is kindergarten 2. Letterland Characters assessed by teacher were Munching Mike, Talking Tess, Sammy Snake, Impy Ink and Noisy Nick. 2. Assessment report 2 This assessment report made by teacher 2. The level of grade is kindergarten 1. Letterland Characters assessed by teacher were Clever Cat, Annie Apple, Dippy Duck and Harry Hatman. Hanna Istifadah, et al./ English Education Journal EEJ 10 (4) (2020) 632-642 639 In assessment report made by teacher 1 and teacher 2, they enclosed the criteria in assessing student’s ability explicitly. The assessment criteria were about student’s religiosity and moral values, student’s motoric skills, cognitive development, student’s manners and art or craft. In the way of assessing student’s ability, teacher 1 and teacher 1 used oral assessment instead of written form. In addition, the time of assessment is made by the teachers at the end of the lesson. Teacher 1 and teacher 2 made some notes in the student’s book called daily report. Later, this book will become a reference to the teachers in reporting student learning outcomes to an assessment report. In making assessment report teachers already included some criteria based on rules for making the assessment rubric in Attachment of Minister of Education and Culture Number 146 of 2014 concerning about Curriculum PAUD 2013. However, teachers did not enclose the grading system and grading values in their lesson plan. The findings in assessment report made by teacher 1 showed that students assessed by teacher 1 orally especially for using Letterland in learning English vocabulary. This criteria of assessment called pre-reading and writing section. They are students could say the letterland character’s name and letter sound in response to plain letter (m), students could say the letterland character’s name and letter sound in response to plain letter (t), students could say the letterland character’s name and letter sound in response to plain letter (s), students could say the letterland character’s name and letter sound in response to plain letter (i), students could say the letterland character’s name and letter sound in response to plain letter (n), students be able to identify images starts with letter “m”, students be able to identify images starts with letter “t”, students be able to identify images starts with letter “s”, students be able to identify images starts with letter “i” and students be able to identify images starts with letter “n”. In addition, teacher 1 also assessed student’s ability in learning English vocabulary using Letterland by not only looking for how much vocabularies they knew but also trying to know that students are able to trace and copy letter “M” and “m”, students are able to trace and copy letter “T” and “t”, students are able to trace and copy letter “S” and “s”, students are able to trace and copy letter “I” and “i”, and students are able to trace and copy letter “N” and “n”. Moreover, teacher 1 assessed students to write the letter according to writing direction and write the words in the book from left to the right. Furthermore, the findings in assessment report made by teacher 2 showed that students assessed by teacher 2 also orally after Letterland used in learning English vocabulary. This criteria of assessment called pre-reading and writing section. They are students could say the Letterland character’s name and letter sound in response to plain letter (c), students could say the Letterland character’s name and letter sound in response to plain letter (a), students could say the letterland character’s name and letter sound in response to plain letter (d), students could say the Letterland character’s name and letter sound in response to plain letter (h), students be able to identify images starts with letter “c”, students be able to identify images starts with letter “a”, students be able to identify images starts with letter “d”, and students be able to identify images starts with letter “h”. Next, same with teacher 1 has done to students in assessing their ability teacher 2 also assessed student’s ability in learning English vocabulary using Letterland by not only looking for how much vocabularies they knew but also trying to know that students are able to trace and copy letter “C” and “c”, students are able to trace and copy letter “A” and “a”, students are able to trace and copy letter “D” and “d” and last students are able to trace and copy letter “H” and “h. The Alignment between Teachers’ Perception and Implementation The alignment between the teachers’ perception and the nature of evidence in implementing Letterland to teach English vocabulary has influence toward the types of evidence in teaching English vocabulary through Hanna Istifadah, et al./ English Education Journal EEJ 10 (4) (2020) 632-642 640 Letterland. The teachers ask students to imitate and say the words start with the Letterland character that has been taught to them in class and teachers also ask students to say some vocabularies which related to their daily life activities for example milk with the word starts with “m” and related to the character of Munching Mike, noodle with the word starts with “n” and related to the character of Noisy Nick, ink with the word starts with “i” and related to the character of Impy Ink etc. From this statement, it can be summarized that teacher’s perception im implementing Letterland to teach English vocabulary influences their implementation in teaching learning activity in classroom. Yin (2010) found that teachers’ strategic cognitions such as their beliefs about language learning as well as interactive cognitions like their conceptions about students’ performance, affect the way they plan and implement teaching learning practices. Nisbett and Ross (1980) conceptualized teachers’ beliefs stating that teachers theories and beliefs represent the rich store of general knowledge of object, people, events, and their characteristic relationships that teachers have that affect their planning and their interactive thought and decision, as well as their classroom behavior. The Alignment between Teachers’ Perception, Plan, Implementation and Assessment In addition, the compatibility between teacher’s perception, plan, implementation and assessment of Letterland in teaching English vocabulary are related to each other. It clearly gives their perception and knowledge about teaching Englsih vocabulary using Letterland for kindergarten level. Their perception is supported by tehir knowledge. The perception highly brings a multiple perpective for them to organize their plan of implementing Letterland in teaching English vocabulary. Then, the implementation is completely a mirror whether the plan in reliable to be implemented or not. Thus, the implementation of assessment report is also a mirror whether the ability of students really has been measured based on appropriate criteria to measure student’s abilities, especially how much vocabularies they have mastered while learning English vocabulary using Letterland. Based on the findings, the teacher’s perceptions and knowledge are eligible to organize the plan, to implement and to assess in English vocabularies for young learners. Misalignment between Teachers’ Perception, Plan and Implementation Moreover, the reality there is a big factor to be concluded, the ability of the teachers. Lack of knowledge in planning and implementing Letterland in class for junior teachers is also an obstacle. This causes the material to be delivered less than the maximum. This mostly decreases the successful probability of teachers’ perceptions, plans, implementations and assessments is how teachers’s perceptions give assisstant to teachers’ to develop plan and bring positive action in daily implementation of Letterland to teach English vocabulary and to achieve a comprehensive output in teaching English vocabulary using Letterland for young learners. CONCLUSION Based on the data interpretation and discussion, the conclusions could be finally drawn that English teachers of Star Kiddy Preschool Semarang positively perceived Letterland technique to teach English vocabulary. in addition, teachers have sufficient prior knowledge and experience dealing with Letterland technique. Secondly, teachers designed lesson plan using Letterland technique as a way to teach English vocabularies for kindergarten in class. Nevertheless, lesson plan based on the design from school not based on rules in Attachment of Minister of Education and Culture Number 146 of 2014 concerning about Curriculum PAUD 2013. It did not conclude some aspects in lesson plan as stated in Curriculum PAUD 2013. Thirdly, even though teachers have insufficient knowledge and skill in designing lesson plan, they succeed in implementing all Hanna Istifadah, et al./ English Education Journal EEJ 10 (4) (2020) 632-642 641 aspects in lesson plan. This can be seen from their implementation of Letterland in teaching English vocabulary learning process in the classroom. Finally, the problem encountered by teachers are they have difficulty in implementing Letterland lesson plan and sometimes in teaching learning process. They also have difficulty, especially for technical strategy in giving explanation to students which have different level of lesson. Yet, Letterland technique is basically to increase teachers’ knowledge and motivation in designing lesson plan are rarely held. Furthermore, dealing with the problem in implementing Letterland, the researcher suggest the teachers to improve their creativity in applying Letterland in class. They can utilize many types of stages or activities that they consider the most effective and efficient in accordance with the material and the time provided. In addition, the study investigated a teaching learning process of Letterland which is done in a limited time. Therefore, the study could not gain a collection of students’ ability in learning English in many skills. The study focused on investigating teachers’ real implementation of Letterland in teaching English vocabulary and analyzed the alignment and misalignment between teachers’ perception, plan, implementation and assessment of Letterland in teaching English vocabulary without proposing a role model for teachers. 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