LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature IV/2 April 2010 91 TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT THROUGH AN OBSERVATION IN IMMERSION CLASSES BASED ON THE DOCUMENTS AND TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESSES Dwi Anggani Linggar Bharati Semarang State University dwi_anggani@yahoo.com ABSTRACT Immersion program, the learning and teaching process conducted in English, has become a new trend in Indonesia nowadays in which almost every school is trying to conduct it. However, not many of the schools can do that program for it requires professional teachers, not only being able to teach in English well but also able to prepare the documents, making lesson plan, syllabus and media, needed for the program. Professional teachers are badly required for the immersion classes for they play an important role in succeeding the program. Therefore, it is worth investigating to see whether the real condition of the teachers is as it is expected or not and finally, conclusions and suggestions can be put forward for the betterment of the program. Based on the observation done by the writer, it was found out that mispronunciation, misspelled, grammar mistakes, wrong diction, and some other linguistic feature problems often happened in the classroom activities. Besides, other problems were also found in the development of teaching documents, syllabus, lesson plan, and media. The development of those documents was not in line with the school- based curriculum, ignoring the level of difficulty as stated in the Bloom Taxonomy revised by Anderson. The objectives, the indicators, the evaluation formulations were still on surface and incomplete. In this paper the writer tries to show the complete result of her observation dealing with the real condition of the teachers‟ competence in their teaching and learning process in English as well as their competence in developing the documents and finally give some suggestions for increasing their competence, especially in preparing their teaching documents. Key Words: immersion class teacher, professionalism, teaching documents, teaching and learning process INTRODUCTION In this part the writer will present the reasons for choosing the topic, statement of the problems, the objective of the observation, the significance of doing the observation, the method of doing the observation. Reasons for Choosing the Topic So far, there have been many programs carried out by the government in order to improve the quality of the Indonesian students‟ education. One of them is in improving the students‟ ability to communicate in the spoken and written English by conducting immersion classes which are popularly called RSBI (Rintisan Sekolah Berstandar Internasional) and SBI (Sekolah Berstandar Internasional). All subjects in this class are delivered in English except Indonesian and Javanese Subjects. All components and documents of teaching-learning activities should be prepared well including teachers, students and the ICT skill. It was first launched by Central Java government in 2005 which the pilot project was SMU 2 Semarang. 92 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature IV/2 April 2010 It was in line with the Act no. 20, 2003 chapter 50, verse 3, Government regulation no, 19, 2005, chapter 61, verse 1, and Strategic Plan of National Education Department 2005-2009 chapter 5, page 58. Those regulations suggest that the regional government and regional Department of Education and Culture establish at least one or more SBI or RSBI schools in each region in Indonesia, with the target of 112 international standard school units, from elementary to high schools spreading out in several districts and cities in Indonesia. Recently, there are many kinds of schools in Indonesia; they are RSBI, SBI, National Standard School, International school and some others. The formula of SBI program is National Standard School plus international standard; it means that SBI should conduct International standard after internalizing national standard. International school is a foreign education institution which is legalized to conduct their educational system including the teaching and learning process in Indonesia. RSBI and SBI belong to the Indonesian government but international school belongs to foreign country which is conducted in Indonesia. There are three main objectives which should be achieved by RSBI and SBI, those are (1) fulfilling eight standards stated in the government regulation 2005; (2) increasing the quality to become international standard by adapting and adopting international system; and (3) increasing the international competitive level with the hope that the students are able to continue their study in the international schools, get international certificates, be the winners in international championship competition, and get jobs in international institutions or companies. For the RSBI is still in the process to become SBI, not all requirements or rules can be applied directly to this kind of school. In this paper the writer wants to discuss whether this program carried out in Semarang Central Java runs well or not. Statement of the problems Actually many problems emerge while conducting the immersion classes but in this paper the writer will limit the scope of the problems as follows: (1) Are the teachers of RSBI and SBI classes able to develop the teaching-learning documents, such as syllabus, lesson plan, material, media and ICT application? (2) Are the teachers RSBI and SBI able to conduct, communicate and manage the classes in the fluent spoken and written English? Objectives of the observation The objectives of this observation are to prove whether the RSBI and SBI teachers are able to : (1) develop the teaching-learning documents, such as syllabus, lesson plan, material, media and ICT application (2) conduct, communicate and manage the classes in the fluent spoken and written English. Significance of the Observation This observation may give some benefits as follows: (1) the school, the head master, and the teachers themselves will know the teachers‟ competence in preparing the teaching and learning documents and teaching learning process and trying to find the solution (2) the government will learn to know the application of RSBI and SBI program in the real classrooms. LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature IV/2 April 2010 93 Method of Observation This research belongs to descriptive one and the population of this research is the RSBI and SBI schools which the samples are the RSBI and SBI schools in Semarang, Central Java, they are SMU 1, SMU 2, SMU 3, SMP 2; the collected data are the written documents of teaching- learning, such as syllabus, lesson plan, material, the media and ICT application. The application of linguistic features in fluent spoken English in the classroom, will also be investigated through direct investigation or recorded classroom activities. The observation uses the instruments; those are the check list of ideal documents based on the guide line of KTSP from the BSNP. The data will be analyzed and finally the qualitative description solution or correction be recommended. REVIEW OF LITERATURE In this part of the paper, the writer will present the explanation of curriculum, syllabus, lesson plan, material, media, ICT application and the linguistic features used by teachers in the process of teaching and learning activities are discussed. Professional Teacher Many educationist discuss the area of education and all things related to the success of the education itself. It is stated that the success of education is affected by many aspects, one of them is teacher. Brown (2001) expresses the criteria of a good teacher in four aspects, they are: (1) technical knowledge, (2) pedagogical knowledge, (3) interpersonal skill, and (4) personal qualities. While Parris and Block (2007), state that there are eight domains of secondary literacy teaching expertise, such as: (1) approaches to teaching (pedagogy), (2) addressing diverse needs, (3) personal characteristics, (4) knowledge based, (5) approaches to teaching (activities), (6) professional development, (7) appropriate relationship with students and classroom management. In line with the above opinion, Gurney (2007) states that to differ teachers is also from their awareness of the effect of what they have done and their readiness to share this awareness with their students. Related to the previous statement, Harmer (2007) states that there are seven requirement points to be good teachers, those are (1) having personality in some way different and more teacher-like from normal self, (2) being both adaptable and able to perform different roles at different lesson stages, (3) creating good teacher-student rapport as a result of listening to students, (4) respecting students and being totally even-handed in treatment of individuals and groups, (5) having good preparation, reliable record keeping, having good skills of managing classes, (6) making tasks to different groups and circumstances, providing variety in lessons and offering students clear learning outcomes, (7) having knowledge of language system, available materials, resources, classroom equipment, and the latest developments in the field, doing teaching as both as a science and an art. The supporting idea about professional teacher is from Sudibyo, the Minister of National Education (2007). He states that good teachers are those who are able to enrich and enhance the students with four aspects: heart, intelligence, emotion and physique. Curriculum of RSBI and SBI What is meant by curriculum? The term curriculum comes from “run a race/course” and refers to a sequence of steps or stages in teaching and learning specific content (Martin and Kelly, 1998:98). If we think of curriculum as a sequence of learning experiences, we 94 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature IV/2 April 2010 immediately run into the difficulty that no one, teacher or others can consistently control the experiences of students individually. All that can be done is to provide students with opportunities to learn specific content. Thus, a good definition of curriculum is a sequence of learning opportunities provided to students in their study of specific content and also to achieve certain level of competence especially in Competence Based Curriculum (CBC) which is nowadays applied in Indonesia since 2004. CBC is a set of plan and regulation concerning the competency and the results of the study that should be achieved by the students, the assessment of teaching and learning activities and the empowerment of the educational resources in the development of school curriculum. Competency is a combination of knowledge, skill, abilities to be achieved, and basic values - those are reflected in the habit of thinking and doing. As a sequence of learning opportunities to achieve certain competencies, curriculum has several aspects. It exists as plans and intentions, the sequence of learning opportunities that one wishes the students to experience. It exists as patterns of classroom activities that are meant to implement those plans and provide the desired of learning opportunities. It exists in textbooks as pages intended to support or present those classroom learning opportunities. It leaves marks on how much time is devoted to specific contents and competencies by teachers or textbook writer. It impacts what students obtain as a result of opportunities to learn. Curriculum has these many aspects and indications. RSBI and SBI which have immersion classes use English Language Teaching across Curriculum, it means that all the documents such as syllabus, Lesson plans should be written in English and all subjects should be taught in English. In those schools the English teachers act as English consultants. The intake of the students of these schools is higher than those from normal school; the vision and mission are also different so the quality of the teachers should be in accordance with the high intake of students and high rank of students‟ achievement. Syllabus Learners cannot learn everything about a subject at once nor can they learn effectively from a random collection of unrelated items. Therefore, the teacher needs to develop a systematic plan for course content which will lead to the desired learning outcomes. In designing a course of study the teacher will be involved in three main areas of decision-making: analyzing learner needs and monitoring learner progress, selecting what needs to be learnt and sequencing the element of the course to make learning as effective as possible (Feez and Joyce, 1998). In doing so, the teachers need to undertake a syllabus and implement through methodology. A syllabus is an explicit and coherent plan for a course of study. The syllabus is a guide or map for the teacher and the learners which may need to be alerted once the course commences. A syllabus is constructed by selecting and sequencing content, based on explicit objectives. It is a public document, usually prepared by teachers and negotiated with learners. It specifies what is to be taught in any particular course of study. Lesson Plan Teachers may ask themselves why they should bother writing plan for every lesson. Some writers write down elaborated daily plans, others do the planning inside their heads. Pre-service training teachers say that they write daily lesson plans only because of the supervisor, cooperating teacher, or school administrator LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature IV/2 April 2010 95 requires them to do so. Many teachers enter the classroom without some kinds of plan. Lesson plans are systematic record of a teacher‟s thought about what will be covered during a lesson. Richard and Renandya (1998:103) suggest that lesson plan help the teacher think about the lesson in advance to resolve the problems and difficulties, to provide a map for the teacher to follow, and to provide a record of what has been taught. There are also internal and external reasons for planning lesson (Cutcheon, 1980). Teachers plan for internal reason in order to feel more confident, to learn the subject matter better, to enable lessons to run more smoothly, and to anticipate problems before they happen. Teachers plan for external reasons in order to satisfy the expectations of the principal or supervisor and to guide a substitute teacher in case the class needs one. According to Shrum and Glisan (1994) generic components of a lesson Plan are as follows. Lesson Phase Role of teacher Role of students I Perspective (opening) Asks what students have learned in previous lesson, preview new lesson Tell what they‟ve learned previously Respond to preview II Stimulation Prepares students for new activity Present attention grabber Relate activity to their lives Respond to attention grabber III Instruction/participation Presents activity Checks for understanding Encourages involvement Do activity Show understanding Interact with others IV Closure Asks what students have learned Preview future lessons Tell what they have learned Give input on future lessons V Follow up Presents other activities to reinforce same concepts Presents opportunities for interaction Do new activities Interact with others School-Based Curriculum (KTSP) School-based curriculum is an operational curriculum to conduct education in Indonesia, it is based on the curriculum published by the government called KTSP (Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan) It is built and done by each subject as the operational guideline in conducting education. KTSP is developed under the following principles: (1) focusing on the potency, development, needs and wants of the students as well as the environment, (2) varied and integrated, (3) perceptive to the development of science, technology, and art, (4) relevant to the life needs, (5) comprehensive and sustainable, (6) life long learning, (7) balanced between the national needs and regional needs. It is assumed that students are in central position which means that all learning activities should be centralized to the students‟ competencies development. Therefore, in order to support their competence, 96 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature IV/2 April 2010 potency, development, and needs, curriculum set up must be in accordance with the environment needs. Besides, it must also develop the varieties of students‟ characteristics, the condition of the region, level and kinds of the education, to be more tolerable to others. In short, it not only develops the science, technology and art but also be relevant to the life needs, sustainable, and balanced. KTSP is actually rooted from CBC in which it also develops competencies. Only that if in CBC teachers had to follow everything stated in the curriculum while in KTSP teachers have the authority to develop their own curriculum by developing the potencies of the region. It entails the expectation that teachers would be able to develop their creativity. Besides, by developing the potencies of the region, students will be able to learn things easier for they have been familiar with them in their own environment. However, since the teachers have been accustomed to following the ready used curriculum, they feel incompetent to set up KTSP as their own curriculum. KTSP requires teachers to work hard, to be creative in developing the competencies of the students, especially in implementing them into syllabus. The steps in constructing the syllabus are as follows: (1) Observing that the competence standard should be in line with the basic competence; they should be in a good hierarchy, and then just copy paste, (2) constructing the potential main material, 3) arranging the learning activities, (4) deciding the indicators, (5) evaluating the plan, (6) deciding the time allotment, (7) mentioning the source. The format of the syllabus is as follows. SYLLABUS School : ………………………………………………………. Subject : ………………………………………………………. Class/Semester : …………… / ………………………………………. Competence Standard : ………………………………………..................... Basic Competence Main Material Learning Activities Indicator Evaluation Time allotment Source After developing the syllabus, the teacher should continue with constructing the lesson plan. Lesson plan is one of the significant documents in preparing the teaching-learning process. It is the detail description of the lesson. A lesson plan should consist of: (1) the identity of the school, (2) identity of the lesson, (3) grade/semester, (4) time allotment, (5) Competence standard, (6) Basic competence, (7) Objectives, (8) material, (9) method, (10) learning activities, (11) source, (12) homework, (13) indicators, (14) a set of evaluation, and (15) rubrics of evaluation; the format is as follows: LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature IV/2 April 2010 97 Lesson Plan School : ................................... Subject : ................................... Class/Semester : ..................................... Time allotment : ................................... Topic : ................................... Skill : ................................... i. Competence Standard :................................................................................................................................................ : ............................................................................................................................................... ii. Basic competence : ................................................................................................................................................ : ............................................................................................................................................... iii. Objectives D. Material : ...................................................................................................... E. Method of teaching : ...................................................................................................... F. Learning Activities : ...................................................................................................... Meeting 1 : ...................................................................................................... : ...................................................................................................... Meeting 2 : ..................................................................................................... : ..................................................................................................... etc. G. Source : ................................................................................... ………….. : ..................................................................................................... H. Evaluation Indicator Technique Types of Instrument Example of Instrument Instrument : ................................................................................................................. .............. Rubrics of Evaluation : .............................................................................................................................. : .............................................................................................................................. Approval from the Principal Method of Collecting the Data In order to analyze the documents and teaching learning process of immersion classes in Chemistry class of SMU 1, Biology class of SMU 2, Economic class of SMU 3, Geography class of SMP 2 in Semarang and SMU 2, the writer conducted a qualitative descriptive observation on the teachers‟ preparation of the syllabus, 98 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature IV/2 April 2010 lesson plan, the material, media and the teaching learning processes and interview. They were analyzed whether they match with the ideal syllabus, lesson plan, material and media they have to make based on the requirements stated for RSBI or SBI. The data were taken through (1) the video recording of the teaching learning process, (2) syllabus, (3) Lesson plan, (4) materials, (5) soft copy of power point (media). The observation was done by sitting in the classroom following the activities in 2x45 minutes. For supporting the data, audio visual recording was employed. The data were analyzed and compared with the requirements to find whether or not there was coherency among the documents and the activities as well. THE RESULTS OF THE OBSERVATION Based on the observation on the teaching- learning documents and teaching-learning process, it can be reported in different components as follows: (1) Curriculum Observation, (2) Syllabus Observation, (3) Lesson Plan Observation, (4) Teachers‟ Competency Observation, (5) Teaching-Learning Process. Table 2 The results of the observation Curriculum Syllabus Lesson Plan Teacher‟s competence Teaching-learning process SMU 1 Chemistry Not appropriate Not appropriate Not appropriate Almost 75% use English Various strategies SMU 2 Biology Not appropriate Not appropriate Not appropriate 50% use English Monotonous teaching learning process SMU 3 Economic Not appropriate Not appropriate Not appropriate Almost 100% use English Various strategies SMP 2 Geography Not appropriate Not appropriate Not appropriate 75% use English BKOF, Modeling, JCOT, ICOT, various strategies Curriculum Observation Some of the Competences Standards and Basic Competences are too specific; so it is very difficult for the teacher to break them down into some indicators; for example the verb in Basic Competence is to identify. The verb identify does not match with the hierarchy of taxonomy proposed by Bloom revised by Krathwoll (2001). The right operational verb should have larger scope for example to make. Syllabus Observation The syllabus needs some correction in the case of Competence Standard, Basic Competence, Indicators, the use of Bloom revised by Anderson in indicators and evaluation, the format of syllabus still uses the old one. There is no concordance between the operational verb in competence standard and indicators; for example: The competence standard states to describe an interaction as the result of social process; the indicator: to explain the essence and the significant of socialization process. The operational verb in indicator should be at the LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature IV/2 April 2010 99 same level as the competence standard that is to describe. The other example is between the competence standard and the test. The competence standard: to describe various earth surface, earth surface forming process, and the impact for living being. Test: Create an earthquake lane map in Indonesia on A2 size paper. The operational verb in the test does not match with the operational verb in the competence standard; the test should have at least the same operational verb, that is to describe. Lesson Plan Observation From the observation, it was found out that some lesson plans construction was not in line with the syllabus. KTSP requires teachers to work hard, to be creative in developing the competencies of the students, especially in implementing them into lesson plan. The incompetence of doing so is due to varied reasons. Among others are teachers of immersion classes in High School, in particular have different educational background Teachers’ Competence Observation One of the characteristics of RSBI and SBI is the use of English as a medium of teaching. From the observation, it can be reported that the teacher in Biology class of SMU 2 Semarang did not employ English as a medium of instruction during the class hours (only 50%). The rest of the time, the teachers used Indonesian; however they still made some mistakes related to vocabulary/diction, grammar, pronunciation, intonation, punctuation, spelling. The teachers often switched codes from English to Indonesian or vise versa; sometimes the teacher pronounced biology (English) sometimes biologi (Indonesian). It was quite confusing for students to switch their thinking process. The other example of choosing the wrong diction is the teacher‟s statement skin of earth rather than the surface of earth. Teacher‟s question: „You have a problem?‟ Which should be „Do you have problem?‟ etc. The use of comma and dot in English is quite different from Indonesian especially in expressing numbers, for example, 1.5 better than 1,5. The use of tenses was sometimes confusing; the sentence should use past tense but the teacher used present tense. They sometimes make mistakes in using falling intonation and rising intonation. In writing words sometimes they make misspelling. The teacher thinks that if he speaks English all the time, the students may not catch the lesson. It proved that he taught slower in immersion class and sometimes he had to repeat the lesson in Indonesian to make sure that the students understood it. The textbook was difficult to find. The books provided by the government are not good for there are mistakes related to the terminology. Harmer (2009) states that when a teacher is teaching in the classroom it means that he is performing the functions of language, such as giving instruction, giving directions, persuading, describing objects, apologizing, inviting, giving agreement/disagreement, refusing etc. In this case, the teacher training materials can be focused on presenting facts and figures, describing objects, closing the class session etc; so, hopefully all teachers can fulfill the requirements of being professional teachers. Teaching-Learning Process The teachers usually sit in front of the class most of the time. This seems to be monotonous, that the teachers‟ supervision and control of the class/students did not run well and effectively; the teacher still dominated the activities in the 100 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature IV/2 April 2010 class, as a result, the percentage of teacher talk is quite high. Sometimes what is stated in the syllabus and the lesson plan were not all the same as in reality; the teacher did such improvisation with intention to enlighten part of the material, but unfortunately the teacher went too far with other topics which had no close relationship with the main topic. In the process of teaching and learning, the teacher rarely checked the students‟ understanding and competence; it seemed that he enjoyed very much in explaining things. The teachers usually read the materials from laptop projected by LCD, sometimes too fast and monotonously. The distribution of questions cannot cover all students, lack of demonstration, role play, and team work. This seems to run well and smoothly, not many problems arise, because the students‟ awareness to study is good. But anyway, the class needs being varied to create conducive atmosphere. This is also to avoid the teacher- centered activities, and replaced by student- centered activities. In general, the evaluation was done well; there were mid-test, final test, and formative test. Besides, there are some exercises or test for either classical or individual students, take home assignment for small/big groups or individual which did not match with the requirements, for example the concordance between the competencies stated in basic competence and the level of difficulties of the test. CONCLUSION Conducting immersion class is not an easy project for schools. It really needs good preparation. Wibowo in Suryalibrata (2009) states that in preparing immersion classes is not enough to be done just in a year but at least in 3 years, one year for socialization, and the rest of the time is for preparing and training the teachers. In general, the teachers‟ performances, knowledge and skills in those immersion classes in RSBI and SBI in Semarang are fair. However, it is better to make some improvements related to the teaching documents, teaching method, classroom language and management, motivating the students, doing assessment, assignments, and varying the classroom activities. The language competency is also something that can not be forgotten or denied and therefore, there should be an intensive English Course and training so that they will be able to communicate in English well and the teaching and learning processes will be running well. The variety of classroom activities is also important to create conducive classes, to make the classes have fun, to learn by doing, to have good collaboration among students, and to create cooperative and competitive classes. REFERENCES Brown, H.D. 2001. Teaching by Principles- An Alternative Approach to Language Pedagogy, San Fransisco State University: Addison Wesley Longman Inc. Cutcheon Mc. G. 1980. How do Elementary School Teachers Plan? The Nature of Planning and Influences on It. Elementary School Journal, 81 (1), 4-23. Feez, Susan and Helen Joyce. 1998. Text Based Syllabus Design. Sydney. Ames Gurney, Philip. 2007. Five factors for Effective Teaching. New Zealand Journal of Teachers’ Work, vol. 4, issue 2, 89-98. Harmer, Jeremy .2007. How to Teach English, An Introduction to the Practice of English LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature IV/2 April 2010 101 Language Teaching. England, Pearson Education Ltd. …………Immersion class on line at http//www. answers.com/topic/immersion [accessed on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009]. Krathwoll, Anderson. 2001. Taxonomy: a Revision of Bloom Taxonomy Martin, O. Michael and Kelly L. Dana. 1998. How does Curriculum Affect Learning? Online available at http://times.bc.edu. [accessed 11/29/2008] Parris, Sheri R. and Block, Cathy Collins (2007). The Expertise of Adollecent Literacy Teachers, Journal of Adolescent& Adult Literacy. http://wwwreading.org/publications/journals/j aal/v 50/i7/abstract/JAAL-50-7-Parris.html. Peraturan Pemerintah no 19, 2005 tentang Standar Nasional Pndidikan Richards, Jack C. and Renandya, Willy A 1998. Methodology in Language Teaching. New South West. Cambridge University Press. Shrum J.L and Glisan E. 1994. Teacher’s Handbook: Contextualized Language Instructions. Boston, M.A. Heinle& Heinle. Sudibyo, Bambang 2007. Taman Pintar Bisa Jadi Contoh Daerah Lain. Suara Merdeka, Semarang, Suara Merdeka Press.Selasa 12 Juni hal. O. Suryalibrata, Rian. Tergagap di kelas Istimewa. On line at http://www.sampoernafoundation. org/content/view/235/48/lang.id. [accessed on Monday, June 29th, 2009. Undang-Undang No 20, 2003 tentang Sistem Pendidikan Nasional http://times.bc.edu/