Assessing Young Learners Speaking Ability in the Fifth Grade of Three Elementary Schools in Padang Essay Example for Free

Assessing Young Learners Speaking Ability in the Fifth Grade of Three Elementary Schools in Padang Essay CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Problem Communicative view development in English learning makes the focus on English teaching changed. What once became structurally focused, it now moves toward meaningful language-focused. Students are not asked to memorize structure-based dialogues without knowing the meaning anymore. There are no more grammatically controlled sentences for students’ meaningless repetition. Dialogues, if used, center around communicative functions and are not normally memorized (Richards Rodgers, 1986). That makes the teaching of speaking becomes the core part of English teaching. Just like the adults, young learners today are also taught speaking meaningfully and communicatively. However, young learners have distinctive characteristics compared with adult learners. One of them is children are still developing cognitively, linguistically, socially, emotionally, and physically (Teaching Knowledge Test Young Learners: Handbook for Teachers, 2010). In other words, in teaching speaking to them, teachers need to consider children’s development of skills in the native language first. Young learners also enjoy rhythmic and repetitive language more than adults do. They are more likely to play with language than adults are, and they can be more effectively engaged through stories and games (Peck, 2009). The different techniques and approaches in teaching speaking to young learners lead to different ways in the speaking assessment. This is the problem faced by Indonesian young learners’ teachers nowadays. Most teachers do not know how they should assess their young learners’ speaking ability; some finally choose to skip the speaking assessment and focus on pencil-paper-tests. Thus, this research is conducted to discover and reveal ways of assessing young learners’ speaking ability. B. Identification of the Problem Based on the background above, the speaking assessment techniques used for young learners should be different from the adult. It should be suited with their cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical development. As we looked upon Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices by Brown (2010) and integrated it with curriculum standard in Indonesia, KTSP 2006, young learners will be better to be assessed in imitative and intensive speaking categories, such as imitating teachers’ saying, directed response tasks, read-aloud tasks, and dialogue completion tasks. Alternative assessments such as interviews and conferences can also be applied for them. C. Limitation of the Problem In this research, the problem will be focused on the speaking assessment techniques in the fifth grade of three selected elementary schools in Padang. D. Formulation of the Problem * What kind of speaking assessment technique used by elementary school English teachers? * Why do they use such techniques? E. Purpose of the Research The purpose of this research is to discover and reveal the technique used by English teachers to assess elementary school students’ speaking ability. F. Significance of the Research Theoretically, this research is aimed to give a description of how speaking assessment for young learners done in Indonesia. Practically, some techniques used by English teachers provided here can be a source of alternative speaking assessment. CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE A. The Nature of Assessment There has been various explanation of what assessment is. Brindley (as stated in Linse, 2005) refers assessment as â€Å"collecting information and making judgments on a learner’s knowledge†. It means that in assessing students, we need to find out what students know about the subject being taught and how far that understanding has reached the learning indicator. In the same line with Brindley but with an addition, Brown (2010) states assessment as â€Å"an ongoing process of collecting information about a given object of interest according to procedures that are systematic and substantively grounded.† In his statement above, Brown implies that the process of collecting and judging students’ understanding is not done orderly in one single time; it is done continuously. Harris and McCann (1994) also give an essential note that in doing assessment teachers have to measure the performance of their students and the progress they make, as well as diagnose the problems they have and provide useful feedback. In other words, collecting and judging students’ intelligence is not enough; finding out what becomes students’ problem and giving advice to them to overcome the problems is also important to create a more successful learning process. Based on the theories above, it can be seen that assessment involves collecting information about students’ knowledge and judging their understanding in order to diagnose the learning problems they have so that students can get useful feedback to be more-successful learners. B. The Nature of Speaking As stated in the previous chapter, today’s English teaching focuses more on communicative purpose of language learning than in the past. It leads to the more important consideration of speaking skills than in previous time. Just like assessment, there is also various definition of speaking. One of them is from Lingua Links (1998) that defines speaking as productive skill in the oral mode that involves more than just pronouncing words. Referring to today’s communicative view, of course speaking cannot be thought as just pronouncing words; it needs to be meaningful, and communicative. Furthermore, Noonan (2003) states that, if pronunciation included, speaking involves three areas: mechanics (pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary), functions (transaction and interaction), and social cultural norms and rules (turn-taking, rate of speech, etc). All of them are connected to each other and prove that speaking is not only about what is uttered, but also the meaning and social purpose. C. The Nature of Young Learners Young learner is a child who is in their first six year of formal education, from age 6 to 12 (Teaching Knowledge Test Young Learners: Handbook for Teachers, 2010). Many experts argue that it is beneficial to teach the children English since young age. TKT Young Learners (2010) notes one of the advantages that those children will have positive self-esteem toward English and it will help them to learn English more once they are adult. That is why teaching English to young learners considered important today. However, young learners have characteristics that make them different from the adults (Teaching Knowledge Test Young Learners: Handbook for Teachers, 2010). First, they are still morally, cognitively, psychologically developed. Based on Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, children in age 6-12 years old are still in concrete operational thought stage, they already have the ability to do logical reasoning and understand reversibility with the help of concrete objects (Santrock, 1998). It means that explaining theory will not do for them, we need to make them move, do games, sing, etc. Second, young learners often have no obvious reason for learning English. Unlike adults who want to do it because of the career-related reasons or teenagers that do it to pass an exam, young learners do not have concrete reason why they must learn English. However, it does not mean they are not motivated to learn English; their goodwill, energy, and curiosity to learning overcome that. Third, they may not always have well-developed literacy skills to support their learning of English. Many children in the age of 6-12 years old are just getting to know their first language. It means that as a teacher we need to not have too-high expectation and do more. Fourth, young learners often learn slowly and forget quickly. It is related to the first characteristic that young learners are still developed morally, socially, and cognitively. Their still-ongoing developments in those basic things make them forget easily and learn slowly. This is why songs, agmes, and chants do best for them. D. Principles of Assessing Young Learners According to METU Open Course Ware (2006), principles of assessing children’s language learning are: 1. Assessment should be seen from a learning-centered perspective. It means that we cannot get a true assessment by testing kids what they can do alone. It has been stated by many experts that the goal of learning English is to be able to communicate meaningfully in English. Testing students, let alone young children, as a tool to get true assessment will not congruent with the real goal of English learning and it will just be wasting time. 2. Assessment should support learning and teaching. This is something that is not also becomes a problem with young learners, but also with the adult. Before performance-based assessment is introduced, teachers chose paper-and-pencil tests as their source of assessing (Puppin, 2006). It becomes a problematic then since students do not see the connection between the learning and the test they are doing, ; they see them as two different incongruent things. If the assessment done is congruent with the learning they did, children will feel that what they have learned is useful. 3. Children and parents should understand assessment issues. Their understanding will make the assessment process more meaningful since they can participate and supports greatly on behave of children’s English development. On the other hand, if they do not understand why the teacher does this and that, there will be no good communication between these three subjects to help children’s development. E. Techniques of Speaking Assessment Brown (2010) states some techniques of speaking assessment based on students’ language development level: Imitative Speaking This kind of assessment is intended to see whether students can imitate saying in English correctly. Eventhough it focuses on the accuracy of repeating words, it does not mean that it cannot be communicative and meaningful. Besides, in recent years many experts have discovered that an overemphasis on fluency can sometimes lead to the decline of accuracy in speech. Intensive Speaking There are four tasks in this kind of assessing: directed response task, oral questionnaire, and picture-cued task. In oral questionnaires, students are first given time to read the dialogue to get its main idea and to think about the appropriate lines to fill in. Then, as the tape, teacher produces one part orally; the students respond. In directed response task, students elicit a particular grammatical form of a transformation of a sentence. Such tasks are clearly mechanical and not communicative, but they do require minimal processing of meaning in order to produce the correct grammatical output. Picture-cued task requires a description from the students. Pictures may be very simple, designed to elicit a word or a phrase, or composed of a series that tells a story or incident. This task is meaningful since sometime a little sense of humor is injected. Responsive Speaking Assessment of responsive tasks involves brief interactions with an interlocutor, differing from intensive tasks in increased creativity given to the student and from interactive tasks by somewhat limited length of utterances. The kinds of this assessment are question and answer, giving instructions and directions, and paraphrasing. Questions and answers involve oral interaction with teacher.

The 1962 Salem Conspiracy Essay -- essays research papers

During the year of 1692, the small town of Salem seems to have been in a state of panic and confusion. The book Witchcraft at Salem, by Chadwick Hansen, is about the witchcraft conspiracies the town has experienced. Hansen goes on to explore the truthfulness of the "possessed" young girls. The reason why Hansen wrote the book is to try to set straight the record of the witchcraft phenomena at Salem, Massachusetts, in the year 1692, about which much has been written and much misunderstood. Hansen has a very respectable education. He graduated and obtained a Bachelors degree from the much respected Yale University. He went on to continue his education and obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Hansen has had many teaching jobs throughout his life. From 1955-60 Hansen was an assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University. From 1965-70 he was a Professor of English and American studies at the University of Minnesota. His most accomplished teaching job was whe n he was a professor and Director of American Civilization at the University of Iowa. To help with his teaching he was in many history groups. He was a member of the Modern Language Association, American Studies Association, and American Historical Association. Hansen has written numerous books including, The American Renaissance: The History and Literature of an Era, and Modern Fiction: Form and Idea in the Contemporary Novel and Short Story. Hansen has many qualifications to write a historical piece during the American Revolution time period. In the summer of 1692, many strange and out of the ordinary events were taking place in Salem. Several young girls and young women began to have strange fits. They were eventually examined by doctors. "Dr. William Griggs examined Elizabeth Paris and Abigail Williams and came to the conclusion that the evil hand is upon them." With this analysis he was informing the patients that they were the victims of witchcraft. Before the girls were examined many members of the Salem community came to the conclusion that witchcraft was the reason the girls were having the strange fits. Following this was a series of hearings and trials, which resulted in the death of 20 people. This was not an uncommon practice used during that time. â€Å"Approximately nine hundred witches were burned in the single city of Bamberg, a... ...I believe it provided the reader with a better understanding of the different reasons the girls were acting in the nature they did. Overall I enjoyed reading Witchcraft at Salem. Hansen brought new ideas while challenging the old ones in a very enthusiastic manner. Many scholars have differing views on what happened at Salem. Some believe that girls were lying, while some believe that a physical ailment was the cause. This book was great for a reader who wanted to find several opinions on what took place in Salem. If the reader wanted to know just the basic facts of the Salem Witch Trials then I would not recommend this book. Witchcraft at Salem requires a general knowledge of what happened during the witch trials because it goes very in depth. This book might be confusing to someone who slept in high school history or english and knows nothing of what happened at Salem during 1962. Erikson, Kai T. â€Å"Were some of those witches real?† The New York Times. 6 July 1969, BR5. Hansen, Chadwick. Witchcraft at Salem. New York: George Braziller, 1969. Marion A. Knight, ed. â€Å"Chadwick Hansen.† Book Review Digest. New York: The H. W. Wilson Company, 1927, 273.

Buy a Funeral House. Management Case scenario

When one wants to buy a house, several investigations are done in order to ensure that the right type of house has been selected. The same thing is done when looking to purchase a funeral home. LaMarco comments that one must choose between building a funeral home from the start or a desire to purchase an existing funeral home. This paper aims at establishing why listing the elements one should evaluate before making a funeral home purchase is vital to the decision making process. LaMarco provides various instructions one should follow when one wants to start a funeral home:†¢ A choice should be made on whether to build one from the start or buy an existing one. Purchasing a new one is clearly the easier choice though one should his own if he prefers custom made attributes. †¢ One should also be educated on the fundamentals of conducting a funeral home such as embalming, transportation of bodies and the coordination of a funeral service. †¢ Certification is necessary an d therefore the Funeral Service National Board Examination (NBE) must be taken in order for one to become a licensed funeral director.†¢ Development of a business plan should be a priority since one requires a detailed and complete plan that is designed to get money from investors and enable the individual to establish the business. †¢ A lawyer with experience in the business of funeral homes should be enlisted for the purpose of obtaining the appropriate legal papers such as legal contracts that the future clients will need to sign. However, the selection of the lawyers should be conducted through interviews to determine their competence. Nichole offers several steps required in order to buy a house.They are stated as follows: †¢ One needs to check if he is able to afford the house. Among the factors to be considered, one needs to evaluate how much he can manage to pay for the house, the amount to be paid monthly, how much money will be needed up front and if one is ready to purchase the house. The best way proposed to learn the conditions of buying a house that is getting a pre-approved loan. †¢ Investing in property with growing value is a proposed choice. Some examples are provided whereby a potential buyer who is looking for a house that does not require any repairs or maintenance.†¢ One also needs to check on the amount of credit one has since this is more important than money that has been saved up for a first installment. The emergence of funeral homes all over the world has led to the creation of a social space that facilitates the preparation, display, and communication with the departed in a new way. When it comes purchasing a funeral home, one has to consider several factors based on research of already operating funeral homes. (Kiplinger's Personal Finance 70). For instance: 1. Find out by conducting research what buying a funeral home involves: This is not so difficult to do.One can easily look for information in pamphlet s or books which are readily available on both outdoor and indoor project. One can also check for more information in the libraries, building supplies, or bookstores. In addition to getting information from reading sources like books, one can also go ahead and talk to people already experienced in the business of funeral homes. Here one is guaranteed of first hand information. 2. Invest in a plan: What kind o f a home do you want to buy in terms of size, location, and price?One may opt to build his or her plan from a plan that is already published, but turns out to be what one wants, or one can alternatively borrow ideas from plans that have already been published. 3. Compare different the prices: There can be variation of prices depending on the location of the place and at the same time prices can vary at different seasons. If there happens to be emerge a difference between you and the seller, consider first whether the risk of putting up that particular funeral home in that locat ion is worth the risk, the make the final decision of whether or not you are to go ahead with the purchase or not.

Gender Stereotypes And Expectations In Literature

Everyone knows that boys only want one thing, and girls, above all else, must protect their virtue. Society, through such means as literature, popular culture, and tradition, has perpetuated these gender stereotypes and expectations for much of history. Unconscious and conscious assumptions about gender shape how readers perceive sex in literature; men are typically considered lustful, whereas women are considered loving. However, the subjects of sex, love, and lust in literature, as demonstrated in poems written by Robert Burns and Andrew Marvell, become increasingly nuanced when gender stereotypes and expectations are questioned and removed. Gender roles, expectations, and stereotypes have shifted and become less clearly defined†¦show more content†¦He says that â€Å"the youthful hue / sits on [her] skin like morning dew,† but that this fresh beauty will soon fade (Marvell 584; 33-34). The description of this woman supports stereotypes of both genders. The man is lustful, and his tactic is to appeal to the woman’s shallow vanity. He appeals to her desire for love by almost offhandedly tacking on how he would like to know her heart (Marvell 583; 18). Additionally, he says that, should they act upon his lustful desires, they would be â€Å"like amorous birds of prey† (Marvell 584; 38). The contradictory image of loving raptors enforces the stereotype of a predatory man spouting any lovely lie to get a woman in his bed. â€Å"A Red, Red Rose† by Robert Burns is not as overtly sexual as â€Å"To His Coy Mistress.† However, Burns was notoriously promiscuous, and his subject matter was often of a sexual nature. It is safe to say that his purpose in this poem was a sexual purpose. He says his â€Å"luve’s like a red, red rose / that’s newly sprung in June† (Burns 935; 1-2). He also describes his love as a beautiful song being â€Å"sweetly played in tune† (Burns 935; 1-2). 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