The Teaching Police

The following synopsis of The Teaching Police by Jonathan Marks is rewritten by Mardiana. This synopsis is expected to widen our perspective in conducting lesson to students by pondering some aspects. This article is adopted from The Forum.


The Teaching Police
Jonathan Marks



Teacher’s law and teacher’s lore
Jonathan Marks really expresses his concerns toward the unwritten law and methodological traditions imposed on teaching techniques and approaches. In the article of The Teaching Police, he reconsiders aspects of teaching such as Teacher Talking Time (TTT), Teacher’s intervention, Being silent, Translating using mother tongue, Peer correction, Recording, Listening task, and Writing in class.
From his viewpoint, TTT is not always bad idea for teacher whereas it is absolutely forbidden according to the Teaching Police. He assumes that TTT would be significantly useful in terms of elaborating any idea to the students. He also agrees that students would also benefit from TTT since they assume the teacher is presumably the best speaker of English in the room. TTT is viewed as negative when teacher cannot control their time.
The other aspect observed is Teacher intervention in fluency activities. Teachers are recommended not to interfere during the ‘fluency’ activities since it will obstruct the students’ flow of thought. In an actual condition, teacher may get engaged with students’ activity and try to use this chance to model language for better performance in terms of accuracy but then again not to dominate the situation.
In contrast with the situation above, there will be time when students keep silent. Naturally, language class should be filled with conversations and interactions. However as Marks rightly points out, students also need time of their own to ponder and they need to process what they just learnt. Later on, teacher can expect students to better comprehend the lesson.
The next condition is when both students and teacher are not allowed to use L1 (first language) in the class. According to Marks, students need something to relate themselves to the new ideas. Particularly, for students who just learnt English in the early stage, they need the teacher to explain things in L1 (this condition is possible if teacher speaks students’ L1).
The other ‘unwritten law’ the Teaching Police recommend is that teachers let students correct each other. According to them this process can encourage as supportive, cooperative classroom environment but Marks suggests it may at the same time cause further confusion among them. Teachers’ correction is still expected.
Furthermore, Marks, also comments on the method of improving students’ repertoire in listening. According to the Teaching Police audio and video recording can help students develop their listening skill with the range of different voices, sexes, ages, accents, personal expression, dialogue as well as monologue. In reality, students cannot expect to have prearranged situation as in the video. Another negative point is that it is one way communication. In the real communication, we listen and respond. We also ask for confirmation on information that we are not sure about.
The last thing Marks discusses is on the topic of writing tasks for students in class. The Teaching Police thinks that writing activity is better done at home as homework rather than in class. On the other hand, Marks views it differently that this activity will show the process of individual learning of their linguistic accuracy. At this point, students may need teacher’s help, advice and feedback before they turn in the final writing task.
Even one can agree with Jonathan Marks’ efforts in restoring the value of the teaching material and approaches , we also need to be more aware about our own situations and try to modify the “law and lore “ of teaching to meet our goals and students’ need in general.

Bittersweet relations

Indonesia -Malaysia have built a quite unique bittersweet relationship. Currently, the relationship between Indonesia and the neigbouring country, Malaysia, has come to its peak again. With its unacceptable manner, Malaysia keeps trying to intrude the Indonesian waters which has been acknowledged by UNCLOS. Another type of case exacerbated the situation with something more political. Such a case of 'Manohara' seems completing some Indonesian people's anger toward Malaysia. Previously, a couple of problems emerged like the claim of Batik and Rasa Sayange song by Malaysia. How should we bare with this kind of relationship?

Developing Portfolio in EFL Class

Developing Portfolio in EFL Class

Introduction

Questions about forms of assessment are common amongst teachers and students alike in any training institution. Generally, students will get the scores from any test as a reflection of the progress they have make over a certain period of time. The assessment ‘test’ can be conducted in the middle or at the end of the course. Students complete the test in a timed exam. This kind of assessment seems to be a conventional type of evaluation and it is considered a reliable method. However, sometimes the result does not really reflect the continuous progress of the students. They depend too much on the scores on the final test in order to prove whether they are successful or not. In relation to this situation, the concept of portfolio assessment may become one of the alternatives to displace the former type of evaluation. The concept behind using portfolio is to promote students’ involvement during the course and to increase the awareness of their own capabilities in the learning process as well.

According to Trotman (2004) the portfolio assessment in the English Language Teaching began in the 1980s. He says there are some good points as well as some potential limitations from using this kind of assessment.

What is a Portfolio?

A Portfolio is a selection of work that documents a student’s educational performance and accomplishments over time. Typically, it includes a range of works (report, photographs, etc.) assigned by teachers and selected by the students (Washington University, Portfolio, glossary: 2004). Portfolios may be used for a variety of purposes including increasing students learning opportunities. A portfolio also helps students demonstrate a wide variety of skills as well as assist them in recognizing their own academic progress. In addition, it teaches them to take greater responsibility for their own learning and development.

Why a Portfolio ?

According to Rea (2001,2) students collect their best work in their portfolio which will document both their progress (as measured by their personal feelings and the amount of efforts they have put into the course) and achievement. He believes that students will gain more confidence and proficiency from the process of developing their best work.
Compared with Rea, Trotman (2004,62) states that because portfolio consists of collection, reflection and selection, students may include in their portfolio whatever they believe to be significant and useful for their learning process. Students are selective in terms of their importance not just being the best work. The collection could be essays, revisions, tests, worksheets, summaries, draft of assignment, individual tasks and group tasks. And also, it can include pictures, magazine and newspaper articles that have special meaning for the students. Nunes (2004, 327) acknowledges that using portfolio, teachers do not only diagnose the students’ skills and competencies but also become aware of their preferences, styles, dispositions and learning strategies. Then, with this situation teachers are able to adopt a more-centered practiced.

Having learned from this, the methodology of using portfolio to teach English as foreign language encourages students to be more independent and confident about their own progress. This approach tries to arouse students’ motivation to learn more not only from teachers but also from their own findings. Students are given responsibilities to seek what they want or need. They can experience success in learning through their own capacities. Furthermore, they become aware of what areas they need to improve. Relating to this condition, Nunes (2004, 334) cites:
“When the students accurately identify weaknesses in their learning, they can more promptly and accurately self-monitor their learning process and consider what action to take to overcome those shortcomings”

How do portfolios benefit students and teachers?

Using portfolio as a means to promote autonomous learning will be challenging for students. This approach will stimulate their motivation and involvement. However, some students may find this approach either challenging or demanding tasks. Students with high motivation will utilize the opportunity to exploit their capabilities and reflect this in to their collection with various selected materials. Similarly, teachers could find these portfolio collections as outstanding evidence of the students’ overall performance.

On the other hands, this sort of task may initiate frustration from “less motivated and innovative” students. Even though they are in the same level of proficiency “on paper”, they probably have different interests in the way they learn something. These students are used to depending on the course books or teacher to teach them.
Trotman (2004, 62) suggests that by portfolio teachers can get much clearer picture of students’ abilities. Students reflect their competency through real world writing in which they express their thoughts based on the real situation and try to write them in an essay or other types of writing. Together with this opinion, a portfolio assignment will be able to empower students to build better understanding and enhance their awareness of the process involved in writing, problem solving, research, or analysis. The output can be one aspects of evidence from students’ portfolios. Along with this, Crocket in Nunes (2004, 327) mentions five categories of portfolio: 1) found samples, which refer to pieces done to fulfill, the class assignments, 2) processed samples, students’ analysis and graded by the teacher, 3) revision, 4) reflection, showing strength and weaknesses and 5) portfolio project which reveals a specific interest or challenge to overcome.
So, instead of considering students’ writing as products, those can be extended into a process according to the context and design of its development. At the beginning, students might not be able to see the purpose of this task but they somehow learn from their active involvement in diagnosing their weaknesses and strength. The process of writing encourages students to look at their own writing critically (Rea 2001, 1). Students will be able to keep up their learning process and experience it. Besides, having known their strength and weaknesses, students will be much more prepared to take future action. It is expected that both students and teachers would gain more practical values from this approach.
In short, there would need more dedication from the teachers especially to have more workload to deal with this type of assessment. It will be necessary to have training among teachers in implementing portfolio assessment and the system of marking. After all, despite the standard marking of progress, it quite necessary to let students give more appreciation on their own learning process to see the achievement

Reference:
Rea, Simon. 2001. Portfolios and Process Writing: A Practical Approach. TESL Journal, Vol. VII. No. 6, June htt://teslj.org/ downloaded March,12 2005
Nunes, Alexandra. 2004. Portfolios in the EFL Classroom: Disclosing an Informed Practiced. ELT Journal, Vo. 58, No. 4, October. downloaded March 20,2005
Trotman, Wayne. 2004. Portfolio Assessment: Advantages, drawbacks and implementation. Modern English Teacher. Vol. 13, no. 4, October. downloaded March 20, 2005
http://catalyst.washington.edu/how-to/portfolio/about.html. downloaded April,13 2005

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