THE REPORT OF TEFL OBSERVATION

TEACHING WRITING FOR FIRST SEMESTER STUDENTS

ON DEPARTEMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

Febriana Dian Yusniati

A320120178

PROGRAM STUDI BAHASA INGGRIS

FAKULTAS KEGURUAN DAN ILMU PENDIDIKAN

UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH SURAKARTA

2014

TEACHING WRITING FOR FIRST SEMESTER STUDENTS

ON DEPARTEMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

1. Observation

a. Observation 1

First observation in writing class of first semester lectured by Mr. Muslimin on Friday 21st November 2014.

In this class, teaching learning process starting with greeting, reviewing the last materials, and then some students submitting the assignment that give in the last meeting. The students submitting paper about the writing assignment, on the paper student write about procedure and explanation text. After submitting assignment to lecturer, the students giving out the copied paper assignment to other students in the class. So, all students have the text that written by their friend. After that, the lecturer asking the students to read the text and then give comments about text. In 10-15 minutes the lecturer asks the students about the mistakes that found in the text, the mistakes maybe about the grammar, spelling, and punctuation error. Then the lecturer and students discuss about the text, and then revising the grammar, spelling, and punctuation error. For instance: delicious food (in students text) it is wrong and at that time the lecturer revising and the correct is a delicious food it must give article a before the phrase, etc. During the discussion between lecturer and students is interactive, the lecturer ask to mention the mistake of the text, then the student mention what the mistakes found in the text, or the students ask about the grammar rules and the lecturer tell about the rules. And after finishing discuss about the text, the lecturer check the attendance and then giving assignment recount text for next week.

During teaching-learning process, the lecturer good enough in manage the class, although the lecturers voice not loud enough, and only some students that doing other activities like talking with the friends, or busy with their cell phone.

b. Observation 2

The second observation in writing class of first semester lectured by Mr. Muslimin on Friday 5th December 2014.

Similar to the first observation, the teaching learning process starting with greeting, reviewing the last materials, and then some students submitting the assignment that give in the last meeting. The students submitting paper about the writing assignment, on the paper student write about recount text. After submitting assignment to lecturer, the students giving out the copied paper assignment to other students in the class. So, all students have the text that written by their friend. After that, the lecturer asking the students to read the text and then give comments about text. In 10-15 minutes the lecturer asks the students about the mistakes that found in the text, the mistakes maybe about the grammar, spelling, and punctuation error. Then the lecturer and students discuss about the text, and then revising the grammar, spelling, and punctuation error. For the first, the lecture give the generic structure of recount text, the orientation, events, and reorientation, and then the lecturer ask the students to analyze the text based on the generic structure, then the students give comments about the text. The students not only analyze about the generic structure, but also the content of the recount text. From analyzing the content, the lecturer and students find many mistakes about the grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Then the lecturer revises the mistakes. During the discussion between lecturer and students more interactive than last week, the lecturer ask to mention the mistake of the text, then the student mention what the mistakes found in the text, or the students ask about the grammar and the lecturer tell about the rules and the students give feedback. And after finishing discuss about the text, the lecturer check the attendance and then giving assignment text for next week.

In second observation, the lecturer can manage class, all the students seriously focus on teaching learning process, not doing the other activity.

2. Analysis

The result of my observation is related with the one of three paradigms of teaching writing, the product approach.

The Product Approach

The writing class that was observed used the product approach paradigm of teaching writing. The product approach is a traditional approach of teaching writing in which students typically are provided with a model and encouraged to imitate it in order to produce similar product. The main procedure of the product approach involve imitating, copying, and transforming models provided by the teacher and emphasizing the error free final product (Nunan, 1999). The main purpose of the learners writing activity is to catch grammar, spelling, and punctuation error (Leki, 1996:173). In elementary or intermediate level, following this theory, students activity is to write out grammar exercise. These activities are disguised as composition writing; those are called guided writing. here the students are given a short text and instructed to change all singular nouns to plural nouns or to form present tense to past tense etc. the students are assumed to be not ready yet to create the text themselves; they are only ready to manipulate forms. In other more advanced classes students are assigned composition or other kinds of text to write based on certain topics. The poor teacher, then, takes home the piled students paper to grade or give marks especially based on the grammatical errors. The students works are finally returned to the students with some comments and corrections.

The focus of these types of writing exercise is primarily on grammar, students will get good marks if the texts are free from errors or have only just very few errors. Consequently, then, students write very cautiously in their second language. Therefore, they often avoid writing what they cannot control.

Classroom Activities

Typical examples of writing exercise based on the product approach are exemplified in Long and Richards (1990: 262-263) as follows:

a. Students use notes to write complete sentences, following a given model:

Model: the gun he carries is never loaded.

lorry/ drive/ usually/ overload

piano/ play/ often/ hire

b. Read this description of the port of Calcutta, and then write similar descriptions of the ports of Southampton, Marseilles, and New York. The necessary information is given below:

Calcutta is a port in India. It is situated ion the northeast coast, on the estuary of the River Hoogly, which flows into the Bay of Bengal. The population of the city is six million. The distance from New Delhi, the capital of the country is about one thousand miles.

(a) Southampton- Britain- south coast- River Itchen- English Channel- three hundred thousand- London- eighty miles.

(b) Marseilles- France- South coast- River Rhone- Mediterranean Sea- seven hundred thousand- Paris- four hundred miles.

(c) New York- the USA- East Coast - River Hudson- Atlantic Ocean- eight million- Washington- two hundred and fifty miles.

Seen from the examples above, the traditional way of teaching writing mostly concerns with the final product of writing and what the product should look like. Brown (2000:35) has mentioned some traditional criteria of good writing. Compositions, he states, are supposed to (1) meet certain standards of prescribed English rhetorical style, (2) reflect accurate grammar, and (3) be organized in conformity with what the audience would consider to be conventional. A great deal of attention, then, is placed on model composition, that students would imitate and how well a students final product measured against a list of criteria which include content, organization, vocabulary use, and mechanical considerations such as spelling and punctuation.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with the attention to any of above mentioned criteria. They are still really the concerns of writing teachers. However, there are more advantages for learners when they are seen as creators of language and are allowed to focus on content and message.

3. Conclusion

From the result and theory that related, the writer can conclude that the teaching writing for first semester is suitable with the theory of product approach. As written in the academic book, the Writing I is guided writing. The teaching-learning process is suitable with this theory because the teaching writing focuses on grammar, students will get good marks if the texts are free from errors or have only just very few errors.

Reference:

Fauziati, Endang. 2010. Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Surakarta: Era Pustaka Utama