The Implementation of Competence Based ELT For S1 Graduates Candidates to Foster Professionalism *
Margaretha Dinar Sitinjak **
On the basis of teaching English teachers need to refer to the national curriculum in which the aims of teaching English, aspects and functions of English are stated briefly there. In 1994 curriculum, English is aimed at providing students with the four language skills, viz. listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, reading takes the first priority since the students are expected to read and understand English books. For this reason, the contents of English textbooks are still focused on structure, vocabulary and texts. They hardly use English in their daily lives.
Beside functioning as a science, technology, and an art, English can be a way of reaching the aims of economy & trade, relationships among countries, social, culture & education, and career development. Mastering English is an important requirement for individual, society and Indonesian nation to be successful in facing the global challenges.
In relation to this, the government now has introduced Competence Based Curriculum (henceforth CBC) to SLTP and SMU. Many seminars, workshops and trainings are conducted to socialize it both nationally and regionally, and even locally. Yet, it cannot completely reach remote areas where quite many schools are actually operated. Put in other words, not all teachers of English have been familiar with CBC.
What is Competence Based Curriculum?
Globalisation demands continuous changes that motivates people who are concerned with education to develop competence based curriculum. The decision made is expected to raise awareness that the thing recommended is useful. Fullan (1993:17), furthermore states there are two important questions to be considered in recommending changes in teaching approach, that is ‘…who benefits from the change (the values question), and how sound or feasible are the idea and approach (the capacity for implementation question)’. At the end, the government has decided to use CBC. CBC provides basic language competence, results of study, and achievement indicators that help teachers develop teaching and learning strategy, technique and evaluation. Also, CBC guarantees flexibility in achieving the competence. Furthermore, Suyanto (2003:2) mentions that CBC orientates on (1) the results and impacts coming out from the students themselves by experiencing meaningful learning; (2) varieties that can be manifested in accordance with the needs.
Regarding CBC, it is worth understanding to know the meaning of competence. In this context, competence refers to knowledge, skills and basic value reflected upon thinking and action habits. When this action is done consistently and continuously, someone is likely to be competent – meaning that s/he has the knowledge, skills, and basic value to do something. Put in other words, CBC is a statement of what the students are expected to know, to behave, or to do in every level of school which is in turn reflecting student’s progress gained regularly and continuously to become competent.
Kompetensi Dasar Mata Pelajaran Bahasa Inggris issued by Puskur, Balitbang Depdiknas (2002:6) states three objectives of studying English as follows:
What is Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL)?
Basically, CTL is a respond to Behaviorism Approach which emphasizes on the concept of stimulus respond with mechanical drills. To be able to use the language naturally as in real life and in various situation, critical thinking and meaningful learning are needed. When the students can relate the lessons they have got in school to their daily lives, they will be aware of the benefit of learning. Besides, they will realize the importance of going to school.
In order to understand what CTL is, let us see the definition defined by Johnson (2002:25). He defines,
The CTL system is an educational process that aims to help students see meaning in the academic material they are studying by connecting academic subjects with the context of their personal, social, and cultural circumstances. To achieve this aim, the system encompasses the following eight components: making meaningful connections, doing significant work, self-regulated learning, collaborating, critical and creative thinking, nurturing the individual, reaching high standards, using authentic assessment.
CTL does more than guides students to join academic subjects with the context of their own circumstances. It also engages students in exploring the meaning of ‘context’ itself. It encourages them to consider that human beings alone have the capacity and the responsibility, to influence and shape an array of context ranging from the family, classroom, club, workplace, community, and neighborhood to the ecosystem.
In teaching and learning English, CTL approach enables students to consolidate, develop, and apply the knowledge and language skills in various levels both in and outside schools. In addition, students learn to solve problems they encounter by using the language actively, like forming a discussion or doing simulation.
As future teachers of English, graduate students need to fully understand the principles of CTL before putting them into practice in class. There are 7 (seven) principles in CTL, viz. (1) constructivism, (2) inquiry, (3) questioning, (4) learning community, (5) modelling, (6) reflection, and (7) authentic assessment. I shall describe briefly how it is implemented in class.
Implementing CBC needs professional and creative teachers. In making lesson plans, teachers should state the teaching learning objectives clearly by noting down the competence students are supposed to achieve. To determine the competence, teachers need to consider several things such as how much, to what extent or how deep the competence is to be achieved. In other words, teachers should clearly say the language competence in form of what language skill, to what extent, for what level/program it is.
There are many things a teacher needs to put into account in designing teaching-learning program, among others s/he should be able to explain and has the same perception of several basic concepts of 1) teacher’s role, 2) the nature of teaching and learning, and 3) school mission in the society. The teachers should agree that those three basic concepts are based on contextual teaching and learning approach which in turn leads to the success of teaching-learning process.
Besides, to reach the competence teachers should consider the appropriate techniques, and suitable materials so the activities are meaningful, useful and interesting to the students. The teachers should also plan the media needed for certain activities. As an illustration, teachers may consider ‘Is audio visual needed for listening and speaking skills?’, or ‘Is it better that students directly observe things surrounding them?’ ‘Does a teacher need to use authentic materials or teacher-made materials for reading and writing skills?, or the teacher lets students themselves find out the materials that suit their needs. Almost all of CTL principles fit English teaching-learning process. Let us see how each principle is applied.
Constructivism is the philosophy of CTL approach mentioning that knowledge is constructed gradually and the result will be expanded through limited context and is eventually developed. It is out of the question that a teacher can transfer all knowledge to the students. Therefore, students should construct what they have in mind by finding out complicated information to other situation of their own. During classroom activities, students can refer to their experiences in lives. One thing the teacher should keep in mind is that s/he can take students to learning atmosphere which relates the lessons in class to what is available in their real lives.
Additionally, Latief (2002:2) describes the characteristic of constructivism as students’ activities and involvement in teaching-learning process in which the materials are suitable to their knowledge, prior knowledge and individual learning style. In this case, the teacher functions as a facilitator helping students solve their problems in learning.
Relating to constructivism, the teacher could help the students improve their reading skill from just reading a simple text to a complicated one in accordance with the structure and vocabulary mastery. As another example, the students’ writing skill could also be improved by writing their own experiences.
On the basis of teaching, inquiry is the core of CTL process. While designing the tasks or activities in class, teachers should refer to an inquiry activity both in reading and in speaking. Inquiry activity enables students to “scientists”. To be able to become scientists, students should learn to think creatively and critically. Every subject contains phenomena that can be observed, and questioned, hypotheses can be formulated, the data are collected, then the conclusion is drawn. It means that teaching and learning English could apply inquiry. For example in forming Past Tense. Most of the time the teacher presented the formula and asked the students to memorize it, then they should do the exercises. In inquiry framework, Past Tense is considered to be a phenomenon where the students can formulate the formula themselves by doing inquiry cycle.
In observation stage, students observe a sentence in the Present Tense (they have already studied) and a sentence in Past Tense. Then, in question stage, they may ask the following questions:
The students continue the stage to hypotheses in which they could assume that the verbs in -ed ending are used for the past events or past actions. To ensure them, they then collect the data by classifying the verbs with -ed ending and those without -ed. Finally, they come to the conclusion stage where they conclude that a verb with -ed ending is the signal for the Past Tense.
If the students can conclude that Past Tense is formed by adding -ed to the end of the verbs, they have formulated the formula for Past Tense. By so doing, teachers have created suitable class atmosphere that ease students to get the knowledge. In addition, Oka (2002:5) illustrates several skills the teacher can get using inquiry, among others are that the teacher knows when s/he motivates students, what instruction is to give to certain student, the answers cannot be informed directly, how to se students’ attitude toward challenges and how to design meaningful situation considering the attitude.
Questioning is not a new strategy of teaching. In teaching and learning process, teachers have already applied this strategy. What is new is that questioning is not only monopolized by the teacher but also is asked by the students. It is natural to say that curiosity means questioning. If someone is curious about something, s/he will ask questions concerning the thing s/he is observing. Good questions can raise students’ interest, motivate them, and lead to attract their attention to the phenomena observed.
Beside asking for factual questions, teacher’s questions can guide and judge the students. Furthermore Oka (2002; 2) mentions the reasons why the teacher asks questions;
Teacher’s questions are asked more frequently during the discussion than another activity in class.
Learning community suggests that the result of teaching and learning is resulted from doing tasks with other students in group. In other words sharing is needed among friends, groups and among those who have known to those who haven’t. Sitinjak (2000:121) further says ‘… this activity is aimed at getting both expert and novice to be aware of which information is clear and which needs clarification and/or elaboration on the part of the expert”. In CTL classes, it is suggested that the teacher activates the students to work in groups in which the members are from mixed ability. Put in other words, the clever teach the weak, the known teach the unknown, the fast teach the slow, the smart immediately give ideas and so on.
In accordance with its name, Learning Community (LC) is a group of students having relatively the same needs so that they can communicate and have the same objective to solve the problem, set the concept together, answer questions in various ideas to reach the same concept or any other relevant activities.
Naturally, LC has two characteristics as Mukminatien (2002:2) classifies into:
a) Speak and Share Ideas
Since speaking in group means sharing, LC is actually the implementation of cooperative learning. Cooperative learning activity can be a teamwork doing tasks, survey or other activities.
b) Collaborate with others to create learning that is greater than if we work alone
Collaborating with others may result in achieving greater and more satisfying result than working alone. In LC writing activity can be done in group writing, peer editing and/or dialog journal.
Another main principle that is applicable is modelling. Other terms for modelling are action, exemplification, or demonstration (Oka, 2002:1). Teaching and learning English has quite many chances of applying modelling, begun with phonology to passages or texts. In assigning students to write a paragraph in form of narrative, the teacher does not only define what narrative is but s/he also gives examples. By so doing, the students know and can identify the narrative then at the end, they can apply it in their piece of writing.
Reflection plays an important role in contextual teaching and learning. In reflection, the teacher thinks of what s/he has seen and heard. S/he pays more attention to her/his teaching and is open to ideas or suggestions from other people. The teacher needs to consider several aspects such as learning constraints, students’ motivation, interesting and challenging tasks, and ways to help students learn.
Reflection prevents teacher from impulsive behaviour or just listens to inner heart and does daily routines. Also, it can anticipate teacher’s activity in making a better plan to reach the objectives. In addition, reflection directs a teacher to act on purpose: what and when s/he does something. It changes blind, impulsive behaviour into smart one.
Furthermore, teachers can motivate the students to reflect about their lesson. Students’ reflection can be responses to events, activities or knowledge they have just gained. A teacher may ask questions about the lesson just presented, s/he asks students to give impression and suggestion about the lesson, s/he can exhibit students’ work on the wall in the classroom or s/he asks students to write on their diaries or journals.
Assessment is the ongoing process of gathering and analysing evidence of what a student can do. The term “Authentic Assessment” is used to describe the multiple forms of assessment that reflect students learning achievement, motivation, and attitudes on instructionally-relevant classroom activities (O Malley and Pierce, 1996 cited in Suyanto, 2003:2).
In CTL class, authentic assessment is one of the principles that should be considered, particularly by a teacher of English. There are some conditions to be considered, among others:
Authentic assessment has special characteristics, namely:
Ø involving real experiences,
Ø making use of the existing human resource and equipments,
Ø there is a chance to get information,
Ø students are engaged in relevant activities,
Ø there is an effort and an exercise,
Ø including self-assessment and reflection,
Ø identifying student’s strength and weaknesses,
Ø clear assessment criteria,
Ø constructive answer,
Ø students think more deeply,
Ø meaningful and challenging tasks
Ø related tasks between language skill and knowledge,
Ø it needs collaboration and cooperative learning,
Ø focusing on objectives,
Ø etc.
Those authentic assessment characteristics can tell about the students. Besides, the students are trained to know more about their environment.
Authentic assessment can be in form of:
In short, authentic assessment focuses on teaching and learning objectives, related and contextual materials and collaborative learning that enable students to think the most. It also shows students to understand objectives and comprehend deeply in which at the same time they can improve their knowledge and find the way to improve themselves. Above all, they can apply the knowledge they got in class to the real world.
In fact, a professional teacher is able to understand the concept and content of competence based curriculum, and contextual teaching and learning. Having understood this, candidates or future teachers of English can apply the principles in class. To be able to do this, the teacher with broad knowledge and language skills as well as with high creativity is badly needed.
In addition, when in implementing CBC the teaching and learning activity is conducted based on the objectives, needs and conditions that enable various, meaningful and interesting strategy is used, it means that CTL principles have been applied in integrated way. All elements in CTL principles are naturally happening in the lesson plan and are based on the results or standardized competence. Moreover, CTL application is the practical ways to reach the expected competence.
At last, the writer hopes that this writing can help S1 Graduate Candidates understand the related aspects of CTL in connection to the application of teaching and learning activities based on competence based curriculum.
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Brief bio-data
Dra. Margaretha Dinar Sitinjak, MA is a lecturer at English Study Program Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, University of Sriwijaya Palembang. At present, she is in charge of coordinating English courses for public at Sriwijaya Language Institute. She got her S1 degree from Faculty of Teacher Training and Education UNSRI in 1984 and her master degree in English Language Teaching from Thames Valley University, London, England in 1994. In 1991, she took a three-month short course in University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore Maryland USA. The course was concerning Language Laboratory Operation and Maintenance.