LEARNING COMMUNITY:
A WAY TO ENHANCE STUDENT PARTICIPATION
IN A LARGE CLASS
by :
Mirjam Anugerahwati
A paper presented at the
NUESP National Conference
August 4-5, 2003
Jember State University
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MALANG
LEARNING COMMUNITY AS
A WAY TO ENHANCE STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN A LARGE CLASS
Classes in Indonesia are almost always big, be they in the Elementary, Secondary, or Tertiary levels. English classes are no exception, especially in university classes where English is taught as a general subject in non-English departments. As such, the lecturers always find difficulty in managing the class and monitoring students’ participation. This paper offers an alternative way of conducting the English class in non-English Departments called “Learning Community”, this paper is divided into three parts: first, the definition of Learning Community, second, why Learning Community is appropriate for big classes, and third, how Learning Community should be conducted. It is the hope of the writer that the reader will find the ideas useful for their own classes.
In the field of education, including English education in Indonesia, the “in” word nowadays is “Competency – Based – Curriculum” (CBC). In this curriculum, the question that teachers should ask themselves from time to time is not “How much have I taught the students?” but “What are my students able to do after the lessons?” Thus students’ competence is the focus, and not so much the coverage of materials.
In this CBC for English/foreign language, the most suitable approach to teach English is the Contextual Teaching-Learning (CTL). According to the University of Washington, this approach comprises seven elements, one of which is the Learning Community (the other six are: Inquiry, Questioning, Constructivism, Modeling, Reflection, and Authentic Assessment). But what is actually Learning Community? Basically, it is an activity where the students are asked to work together to solve a problem.
However, forming Learning Community (LC) is not merely grouping students to work together. There has to be a problem for the teams to solve, and the team members should be willing and ready to share ideas/opinions, answers, and be willing to accept other members’ opinions and (possibly) criticism. As we shall see later, those characteristics are the things that make Learning Community good.
As stated in the beginning of this paper, one of the biggest problems faced by English teachers in Indonesia is that of large classes. The problems concern managing and monitoring the class, managing students’ work, and evaluating the work. Besides taking too munch time, conventional classes where Ss are evaluated on their individual work/achievement, put too much pressure in the teacher. Working with 40–50 Ss in a language class is considered nonsensical by many people. It is almost impossible to check Ss progress in the language skills, their mastery of grammar and vocabulary, and their participation in classroom activities. The best that teachers can do is usually give the class a reading text, followed by ten to fifteen comprehension questions and ten to fifteen multiple choice questions on vocabulary or grammar. Ss should read the text and answer the questions individually, and the teacher would then check their answer one by one. In this way one meeting would usually suffice to finish one reading text plus the questions. This is what happens in the English classes in non-English departments, where the status of English is that of General Course (MKU, or MPK as they are now called). Thus, to the large number of students is now added another problem, that of low motivated students, with-usually-low proficiency.
However, we may not despair over that situation. There are several things we can do to minimize the problems. One of the ways is conducting the Learning Community. Research has shown that LC has considerable benefit, some of which I will mention here: it promotes higher achievement, it contributes to deeper understanding, it makes learning enjoyable, it develops leadership skills, it promotes positive attitudes, and self-esteem (Hill & Hill, 1993). Other authors, Jacobs and Hall (2002), state similar benefits of this activity: it will improve learning, self-esteem, liking for school and interethnic relationship. These benefits can be seen especially in large classes, where students are of mixed characters, abilities and proficiencies.
Concerning each benefit, Hill and Hill (199) explain as follows: several studies have shown that higher cognitive achievement was obtained in classes using Learning Community compared to individualized or competitive exercises. Furthermore, working in a group, sharing, accepting or rejecting other people’s ideas will lead to deeper understanding, and students really enjoy doing it more than working alone. The third benefit is the development of leadership skills students who are used to working with other people have better skills in communicating with, and understanding, other. Higher self-esteem and positive attitudes will also grow from working with others cooperatively. Students are more open in a learning community, and they grow a positive attitude towards learning and school in general. Working with others also fosters higher self-esteem because they feel that their ideas are shared, appreciated, and discussed (even though not always accepted).
Regarding those benefits, I have proven, with my own classes, that the benefits do exist, and with an additional benefit as well, that is enhanced participation. This is probably a “side-effect” of higher achievement, deeper understanding, higher self-esteem and the other benefits mentioned earlier. Students who are usually reluctant and timid in the “conventional” class tend to speak and participate more in groups.
I would now like to share my experience in using Learning Community (LC) in my General English (Bahasa Inggris Profesi) class in the department of Fashion Industry (Jurusan Teknik Industry, prodi Tata Busana), State University of Malang. In this department English is given in two semesters, the first being a general English course, while the second is more focused on the students’ future “professions”, i.e. more subject oriented. In this instance I am going to describe my second semester English class. Thus, the materials are more “fashion-oriented”.
As stated by Hill and Hill (1993), there are two key elements in letting students work in groups. There are goal similarity and positive interdependence. The students working in groups should all contribute something to reach a common goal, i.e. to solve a problem. In order to do that, all the members of the group should have a role, such as observer, recorder, timekeeper, speaker, and summarizer. In that way, the group members are dependent upon each other so that the group discussion can run smoothly and they can reach the solution as expected.
Another author, Stone (1990:30) states one kind of LC she called “Co-op Co-op”. she defines it as an activity where students “work in small teams in order to produce something to satisfy their own curiosity about themselves and the world, and then share the final product with the whole class so that other class members may also benefit”. This kind of LC is the one I used with my class in the Fashion Industry department for their final project. Along the semester LC was used in many activities, but Co-op Co-op was used for the “biggest” project/assignment. At the beginning of the semester I told the students that they would have to form permanent groups for all group work, and at the end of semester, as their final assessment, they would have to present a paper on one designer of their own choice.
As Stone (1990:130) explains in her book, Co-op Co-op should follow ten important steps as follows:
1. Student Centered Class discussion.
2. Selection of student study teams.
3. Teambuilding and skill development.
4. Team topic selection.
5. Mini topic selection.
6. Mini topic preparation.
7. Mini topic presentation.
8. Preparation of team presentations.
9. Team presentation.
10. Evaluation.
As the students have permanent groups throughout the semester, I omitted steps 2 and 3 where choose the group members and train their cooperative skills within the groups. Other steps were done, though not all of them in the classroom. Most of the preparation phase, such as the topic selection and preparation were done outside of class, where the groups meet and decide on the topic and duties of each group member. I checked their progress from time to time, during class sessions. While the theme was predetermined at the outset (“A famous designer”), the details were left to the students. Thus, who the designer was, and what aspects of his/her life and works would be included in the presentation, were entirely up to the groups to decide. After all, this project is, as stone puts it, “a process that flows out of the interests of the students”.
Besides determining the theme, I told the students to look for as many sources/references in English as they can, and to try to write the paper in English. The presentation itself may be done in Indonesian. It turned out that the students were eager to complete this project.
As there are 30 students in the class, I divided them into six groups of five. The presentation sessions were scheduled to be the last three meetings of the semester, with two groups presenting each time. The last two sessions before the first presentations were spent for steps 7. Mini topic presentations and 8 – Preparation of Team Presentation. It was during these sessions that I observed the improved student participation. Students who were usually reluctant to speak actually spoke in the discussions. It is true, I had to carefully listen and check to make sure they were speaking in English, and it was not easy. They seemed to drift continuously back to using Indonesian among their friends. However, I was quite happy to see everybody contributing something to the group according to the role assigned to him/her.
The actual oral presentations were done bilingually, with Bahasa Indonesia being used 75 % of the time, both by the presenters and the questioners. I did not put too much pressure on this matter, I just told the students that whoever spoke or asked a question in English would be given a “bonus” – for their participation and use of English. It was again my observation that the students participated actively during the question-answer session.
Using group work in large classes is perhaps quite a common practice among teachers; however the benefits of the activity are not explicitly noted. Learning Community, a kind of group work described in this paper, has shown considerable advantages for large classes, especially to build up students’ confidence in participating in discussion and presentation.
References:
- Hill, Susan and Hill, Tim. 1993. The Collaborative Classroom. Armadale: Eleanor Curtain Publishing.
- Jacobs, George M. and Hall, Stephen. 2002. Implementing Cooperative Learning. In Richards, Jack C. and Renandya, Willy A. 2003. Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice. Cambridge: CUP.
- Stone, Jeanne M. 1990. Cooperative Learning and Language Arts: A Multi-Structural Approach. San Juan Capistrano: Resources for Teachers.