Teaching English through Fun Activities

FKIP Bahasa Inggris (English For Children)

Teaching English through Fun Activities, disusun oleh Sefi Ariyantika Unisla Lamongan

FOREWORD

First of all, grateful to God's love and mercy for us. Thanks to God to help me and give me a chance to resolve it in a timely assignment. And I want to thank Mr. Nuryadi., Pd as a lecturer who always taught us and gives a lot of knowledge of english for children.

This is a task uts Assignment English, entitled "Teaching English through Fun Activities". But I hope to be useful for us. Criticisms and suggestions are needed here to make this assignment better. Hopefully we as students in "UNISLA" can work more professionally by creating interesting and fun teaching.

  Thank you.

INTRODUCTION

A.     Background

English has played an important role in the world as a means of international communication. Crystal (in Lee McKey.2000: 7) says that English is rapidly assuming the role of a world language, and no other language has spread around the globe so extensively, making English a truly international language. Thus, the mastery of English is a requisite for a nation to communicate with other nations.

In Indonesia, English is the first foreign language that has to be taught in many levels of education, from the Primary School to the university. In recent years, most of the Primary Schools have begun to introduce English into their curriculum as a local content. It is clearly sated in the curriculum in primary education:

It is not easy to teach English in the primary school. Teaching English in the primary school is really different from teaching English in higher level. Primary school students, as the young learner or children, have certain characteristics and need certain treatment. Consequently, it is necessary to the teacher to know about the primary school students' characteristics as young learners and notice their needs in order to make the learning - teaching process effectively done.

A good teacher should ensure that his or her teaching methods are suited to the level of cognitive development reached by the children at their schooling stage, and thus avoid many behavior problems that occur when children become bored and unable to follow what is being taught. Routine activities in learning can make the students bored.

One of the causes of failure in teaching English at the primary school is that the teacher still teaches with the routine activities without considering that it will make the students bored and lost their attention to the learning - teaching process. As a result, the students will not be able to follow the lesson well because they loose their interest. Douglash (1987. p 48) stated "Routine activities in learning can make the students bored. As a result, their motivation and participation in learning will decrease". Here, interest becomes a crucial factor in deciding in teaching children on classroom practice. So, the teacher should apply the right teaching technique which can increase the students' interest to the learning process in the classroom. In other words, the technique used by the teacher in teaching English to the primary school students should be able to create an interesting atmosphere so that the students will be enthusiastic to the learning process.

At the primary school where the writer conducts the research, there is the same phenomenon in which the students face the problem in learning English. The students' motivation is still low. Most of the students are not interested in the learning - teaching process. It can be seen from their behaviors in the classroom when the learning - teaching process is in progress. They are still noisy all the time and do not pay attention to the teacher's explanation. However, when the teacher shows them some things interesting such as pictures, toys, flashcards, etc, they are little bit quiet to know what the teacher is going to do. They always want to have a joyful and interesting atmosphere in the learning - teaching process. They are really not interested in a monotonous or routine activity done by the teacher.

Here, the writer uses fun creating activities as the technique in teaching English. It is also aimed to change the atmosphere in the classroom, so that the students will feel more interested in having lesson and to be easier in learning English. The writer would like to study "Teaching English through Fun Activities" .

B.      Prosedure

       One of the most frequently asked questions teachers have is whether their learners should listen to them or the tapes first. When teachers focus on classroom interaction, teachers can use their talks to deliver the tasks and engage students to the designed activities. Teachers can present the new words and patterns in the form of puzzles. For example, teachers can ask What kind of food do you like?. When the students do not seem to understand what it means, we can encourage students to ask us the same questions then let them guess the meaning from our respond to the questions. If we answer by saying a certain food that they are familiar with, with a little smile or gesture to show that we like it, students can guess the meaning of the pattern from the context. Students can then start asking and answering the questions among themselves. By doing this, Paul (2003: 72), argues that students learn through sensing whole chunks of language, and through thinking and guessing. Listening activities can also be designed as an interactive activity in which students do what is stated in the recording. When listening to songs or chants, children can sing along or imitate what is played.

B.1.  Materials

·         Preposition of place

·         Audio visual

B.2. Opening Demonstration

·         Dictation

       Dictation exercise is always an important technique of teaching listening because it trains students’ comprehension in differing English sounds. Dictation doesn’t have to be dull and boring in which teachers simply state the words and students write the words in their notebooks, it can be so much fun and interesting if we apply it in language games.

Picture dictation

Students describe a picture they have to their partner, who tries to draw what they hear. This can either be done with the person describing being able to see the picture as it is being drawn (easier) or not (more communication and question formation). This is good for prepositions, and shapes and dimensions for Technical English classes.

·        Stories

       It is a wonderful technique to teach, English through stories. Paul, (2003: 74) argues that stories can be a supplementary material when teaching English to young learners particularly when the stories can be integrated to the course. Teachers can read it to children from storybooks, memorize the stories then tell it to children, or play it on a tape.                                

Teachers tend to interact more with students when retelling a story after memorizing it from a storybook. However, when reading stories from storybooks, teachers can also interact with the students by varying the intonation or by changing the voice for each different characters of the story.

There are some activities that teachers can involve when they are telling stores. These activities are designed to engage students in the story telling time and to avoid a teacher-dominated classroom activity. The activities are:

1.    The children draw characters or scenes from the story.

2.    Teachers tell the story with puppets, children then retell the story with their own puppets.

3.    Children arrange pictures from the scene of the story, or touch/jump on the correct pictures as       teachers tell the story. This activity can also be modified by asking students to guess what the          story will be by arranging pictures from the scene before teachers tell them the story.

4.    Each child has a word card. When her word is mentioned in the story, she has to do something     about it, like raising her card, make funny noise, or put up her hand.

5.    The teacher stops sometimes during the story to ask students what they think is going to happen next. 

·        Songs

       Paul, (2003: 58), states that children love songs. Children keep songs in their heads, sing them after class, hum them on the way home, and sing them at home. They like the singing activity and songs provide many opportunities to get new words and to acquire the model pronunciation. Paul, (2008: 58-59), suggests the following ways of how teachers can use songs (and chants) in class:

1.    Singing

       The children sing songs that have catchy melodies and useful language content

2.    Activities

       The children combine actions with songs. This is usually the most effective way to use songs,       especially with younger children. Any songs can be combined with actions.

C.      Discution

Listen and do’ activities

1. Put up your hand

When the pupils are learning the sound system, the teacher might ask them to put up their hands when they hear a certain word.

2. Mime Stories

In mime story, the teacher tells the story and the pupils and the teacher do the action It again provides physical movement and gives the teacher a chance to play along with the pupil. Mime is when the children use only physical movement, gesture and actions to express a dramatic idea or to dramatise a scene in the story. Percussion, sound or music may accompany the movements.

3. Drawing

Listen and draw is a favorite type of listening activity in almost classes. In listen and draw activities, the teacher, or one of the pupils tells the other pupil what to draw. This activity is particularly useful for checking object vocabulary, preposition etc.

Listen and repeat’ activities

1.        Song

Song are also a form of 'listen and repeat activities. It may be a drill, it may be word with special sound.

Listening to stories

1.        Reading stories

Instead of telling stories, the teacher can read aloud from a book. In this activities the techer should not change the story at all.

D. Conclution

the importance of applying a method of determining the interest in learning the English language children, with no repeat ngulang same way will lead to boredom in children. attract the attention of children, making children feel fun it is in need of the methods of teaching children at primary school level. Of the four skills in English, young learners make the most of learning through listening. They learn to understand the material through listening, get instructions and explanations through listening, learning to pronounce words through listening, and practicing better through listening to praise and teacher feedback. Therefore, listening skills become very important emphasis in teaching English to young learners.

Reference

Gattegno, G. (1972). Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools: The Silent Way.

Goldberg, E. (2009). The New Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes in a Complex World.

 Goldstein, S., Ellison, A. T. (2002). Clinicians' Guide to Adult ADHD: Assessment

and Intervention, 136-137.

 Greathead, P. Language Disorders and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Retrieved from http://www.addiss.co.uk/languagedisorders.htm.

Jensen, E. (2008). Brain-Based Learning: The New Paradigm in Teaching, 105.

Krashen, S. (2002). Second Language Acquisition and Second Language learning.

Retrieved from http://sdkrashen.com/SL_Acquisition_and_Learning/index.html.