USING RESEARCH FINDINGS TO DESIGN

An in-service training programme which is one of of the many ways to improve or to increase the teacher quality can be well designed on the basis of research findings. By utilising the findings the programme developer will be able to define objectives and fulfil the needs of the teachers. The findings will be identified, selected, and analysed to obtain the real view of the weaknesses and critical events. After formulating the objectives of the training programme, some decisions concerning with the instructional activities, materials for demonstrations and drills are designed. Some common linguistic mistakes and expressions made by the primary school teachers teaching EYL are, among others, inappropriate pronunciation of some vowels- /a, ei, I, and e/, some selected consonants / z, ᶿ, ᶞ,ḉ/, structural items concerning plurality, pronouns, tenses and the use of “be”, and classroom language. Teaching techniques such as telling and reading stories, playing games, chants with action, and singing action songs are also trained.

Key words: research findings, in-service training, EYL teachers


Rationale
Historically speaking, as a matter of fact, the genesis of the inclusion of English as one of the school subjects in Indonesia was as early as 1945, the time when World War II and the Revolution against the Dutch ended. Since then, the Indonesian government has made a decision to adopt English as the first foreign language taught in high schools (Kasbolah, 1988:50). Further, since the issue of the Decree of the Minister of Education and Culture No. 096/1967, English has been incorporated into the secondary- school curriculum as a compulsory subject to be taken by secondary-school students. Thus, prior to the launch of the 1994 Curriculum, English was only introduced at the secondary schools. However, due to the globalisation impact on the English teaching strategies in ASEAN countries, Indonesia, as one of the member-states, has attempted to introduce English as early as the elementary-school age (Gunarwan in Ho and Ward, 2000:312-325). This policy has been legalised by the launch of the Decree of the Minister of Education and Culture No. 060/U/1993 dated 25th February 1993 and the Decree of the Provincial Department of Education and Culture, East Java, no. 1702/104/M/94 SK dated 30th March 1994 (the Basic Course Outlines for English at the Primary Education) postulating that Eng¬lish can be taught to elementa¬ry-school-aged learners.
However, due to the lack of unfavourable conditions in Indonesia, for instance, the unavailability of sufficiently good English teachers (Retmono, 1994:82-91) , the English instruction is determined as a local content subject at the elementary-school level provided that (1) the society in which the school is located requires it, and (2) the school meets certain qualifications, such as: the provi¬sion of English teachers with a sufficient breadth of knowledge of 'Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Young Learners' and facilities accommodating teaching-learning activities in English. The resolution into the implementation of the subject, thus, relies on the school principal and school’s conditions.
Some previous studies in relation to the implementation of English instruction for young learners have been conducted and yield the subsequent results. First, Huda (1994:82-91) and Astika (1996:118-129) discovered that although the government’s plan to introduce English at the elementary schools has received opposing responses, many elementary schools and private English courses have included English in their programmes beginning from the fourth year or even earlier. Second, another empirical evidence by Wahjanti (1978) discovered that prior to the legitimate launch of the minister’s decree on the English instruction for young learners in 1994, twenty-two (22) elementary schools in Pemerintah Kota (Pemkot) Malang had introduced English as an extra-curricular subject. Rachmajanti et al. (ibid) found out that out of 352 SDs in Pemkot Malang, 51% of which (181 elementary schools) have taught English as a local-content subject – 80% government schools and 20% private ones. Third, a three-year research conducted by Suyanto and Rachmajanti (2001—2003) has shown that most EYL teachers teaching in the primary schools are not qualified to teach English to young learners because of their education background. They are assigned to teach English by their principals because their schools have English programmes as a local content subject. In addition, it was identified a list of common mistakes on pronunciation & intonation, grammatical items and diction. Teacher participants often admitted that they did not feel confident to include games, stories and songs in their teaching, but they have high motivation and are willing to learn how to carry them out in the classroom. Fourth, a trace study carried out by Rachmajanti (2005) showed that the most effective grade to start teaching English in the primary school is in the 4th grade, not earlier since the young learners are still focusing on learning basic knowledge like Indonesian and Mathematics.
Thus, the classroom teachers of this level are the ones who really require the English for Young Learners (EYL) training. The main purpose of this paper is to inform the in-service training developers that they might benefit relevant research findings to develop some innovations for EYL teachers in-service training programmes.

Developing training programmes

Developing training programmes is one of the most persuasive yet most understood activities to be found in the human resource development. As the development of human
resource is concerned with learning, particularly in education setting, the task of developing is crucial. After having conducted some studies on EYL, we realised that we can make use of those findings to design a training programme to assist teachers in improving and increasing their teaching skills.
Designing a training programme takes time, energy, and patience.Thus, we have to be realistic considering the situation and teacher condition as well. The focus of our programme is to equip the teachers with some practical skills so that they are able to practise them in their EYL class. The main idea of our training programme is an open model which is flexible and may be changed to meet the teachers’ need. This open model is more beneficial particularly with those under the local condition.

This in-service training is designed for one-to-two day programme or eight-to-sixteen hour activity. Why that short? There are some reasons as follows. First, teachers need not leave their students for long time. Second, the main focus of the programme will be on practical training and it facilitates teachers to reduce their drawbacks as appropriate solution to the identified problems and findings. The following is the procedure of developing an in-service training programme employing the research findings.
 Identifying teachers’ need from the research findings
 Defining training objectives
 Designing training programme
 Selecting strategies and materials
 Developing a form of assessment/feedback
 Conducting the training
It should be noted that most of the activities are in the forms of doing something, for instance, drills (listen, identify, repeat), simulation, demonstration, and presentation. To make it clear, have a look at the subsequent flow diagram.






























On the basis of the research findings, it was discovered that the primary school teachers teaching EYL have some common linguistic mistakes in pronunciation of some vowels- /au, ei, I, and e/, and some selected consonants / z, ᶿ, ᶞ,ḉ, ᶨ/; structural items concerning plurality, pronouns, tenses and the use of “be”, and some expressions dealing with classroom language.

Pronunciation (Phonological Aspects)
We are witnessing a number of phonological mistakes which are communication-based. These mistakes are made by the teachers who join a number of workshops and trainings related to the studies on the EYL instruction. There are several studies conducted to obtain the facts about the implementation of EYL programme which has been officially carried out since 1999 in Indonesia.
Some try-out activities in the forms of workshops and teacher trainings are the right places to notice the teachers’ weaknesses in pronouncing the English utterances. As what we found in the past (Suyanto and Chotijah, 2000) that most primary teachers teaching English (80%) do not hold English education diploma, it could be accepted that they make a lot of mispronounced words. In this case we only focus on particular speech sounds which tend to make changes in meaning of the context or utterances, shown by the minimal pairs as follows.

Vowels /u/ : /u:/ ---> foot : food
/I/ : /ei/ ---> kick : cake
/I/ : /i:/ ---> ship : sheep
/ei/ :/ᵆ/ ---> snake: snack

Initial consonants / ᶿ/ : /t/ : /s/ ---> thank : tank : sank
/ ᶿ/ : /t/ ---> three : tree

Final consonants /ḉ/ : /ᵌ/ ---> church : George
touch : judge
much

In brief, contrasting sounds which are very similar and frequently cause confusion is a popular way of getting the participants to concentrate on specific aspects of pronunciation. Having been trained the minimal pairs, they are encountered by practising the focused sounds separately, for example:
“It’s very cheap”
“The ship is grey”
“Thank you”
“It’s a tank”


Structural Pattern
In addition to mispronunciation of particular English sounds, the teachers also come across some troublesome structural patterns as observed during the training, as follows.

The –s ending ---> to show plurality : many book
to show 3rd person singular: he read


Overgeneralisation --->the use of “am”for “I”: Do you like … ? Yes, I am (not I do)
What do you like? I am like ( not I like)





Classroom Language
Classroom situations are quite concrete and most classroom phrases have a very clear situational link. The majority of classroom phrases are given in the imperative form although later teachers are recommended to make the use of the wide range of variations (Hughes, 1990:13-20).
It was evident that teachers tend to employ wordy instructions when teaching young learners which may confuse the children. Instead of using “imperatives”, complete statements are expressed. For instance, “Please listen and repeat” is replaced by the sentence “Children, you listen the word and you repeat after me”. Or the teacher will express “Students, I’m going to read the text on page …, you open your book” instead of saying “Open your book on page …”.
During the training activities, teachers are also trained (and drilled) to use simple English the so-called “teacher talk”. Classroom phrases or teacher talk can be covered in the training and ensure the teachers that they may use them at the beginning, the middle and the end of their EYL class (Suyanto, 2007:31-32). Here are some examples:
“Now, listen!”
“ Let’s begin!”
“Work in pairs”
“Try again”
“Close your book”


Implementation of such a Short Training
Many people believe that it takes long time to conduct a training- even the longer the better. However, a one-day training is recommended here on the basis of a number of reasons such as findings, finance, time and distance.

Findings. This training is a problem-finding-based programme. Out of the research findings particular weaknesses could be identified and selected based on the frequency of occurrence. It was discovered that the teacher variable is the source of weakness, of which this is selected for the training.

Finance. This is an independent training, not managed by the government or the Ministry of National Education and Culture. The trainees will spend their own money for the registration, training kit and lunch. Many times this training is financially supported by the local National Education Office and the English Education Department of a particular School of Education and publishers.

Time and Distance. Teachers are willing to attend a short training programme since they only leave school just for a day (about 8 hours). Yet, they will be able to apply what they have obtained in such a training. Attending meaningful training requires a significant amount of time and reasonable cost. The distance to the training venue is within the participants’ reach.



Hence, in order to carry out the programmes, there are some alternative ways to adapt, among others:
• Primary school teachers' association (KKG for instance) may cooperate with
the regional office of national education (Kandiknas).
• The teachers' association and the Kandiknas may invite sponsors available
in a particular region to support the in-service training programme.
• A particular outstanding primary school might request a foundation on education development by writing a proposal for such an activity and finance
the activity.
• Conducting community services provides good opportunities for primary school teachers to apply new strategies.

Here are two models of one-day training programme adopting the following activities and schedule.

Model 1 One-day Training on EYL Practical Teaching Techniques

Background
Children like stories, songs and games. Unfortunately not all teachers are able to do them appropriately. Many teachers make mistakes in linguistic components like pronunciation, intonation, and using structural items and lack in vocabulary. They also have problems in using classroom language.

Objectives
1. To equip teachers with practical skills to tell stories using media.
2. To help teachers to use classroom language correctly.
3. To train teachers how to select and assist them in teaching children employing games and songs.

Schedule (Time and Activities)

07:00 – 07:30 Registration
07:30 – 08:00 Opening and Information
08:00 – 09:00 Telling and Reading Stories
09:00 - 09:30 Classroom language
09:30 – 11:00 Playing games
11:00 – 12:00 Singing action songs
12:00 - 13:00 Lunch Break and Prayer
13:00 – 14:30 Group Discussion and Demonstration
14:30 – 15:30 Presentation and Reflection
15:30 – 16:00 Feedback and Closing






Model 2 One-day Training on Authentic Assessment

Background
Many teachers realized that they do not familiarise much with the breadth of knowledge of authentic assessment and never assess students’ oral English performances.

Objectives
1. To equip teachers with practical knowledge of authentic assessment.
2. To train teachers how to develop instruments to assess the students’ performances.

Schedule (Time and Activities)

07:00 – 07:30 Registration
07:30 – 08:00 Opening and Information
08:00 – 09:30 What is “Authentic Assessment”
09:30 – 11:00 Various Kinds of Authentic Assessment
11:00 – 12:00 Oral and Written Language of Young Learners
12:00 - 13:00 Lunch Break and Prayer
13:00 – 14:30 Developing Assessment Items in Groups
14:30 – 15:30 Group Presentation and Reflection
15:30 – 16:00 Feedback and Closing


Concluding Remarks
In brief, we would like to reemphasise how important research findings are for the development of an education, training programme and EYL teacher training. Four things have been pointed up in this paper as follows.
1. Research findings are not only the solutions of education problems but they could also be the basis of designing a training programme. Short in- service courses may offer useful learning and social as well academic contact with other teachers. These programmes can very often be more beneficial and relevant to their own needs, because they are locally organized in provincial area, town, or even in-house training. Exciting meetings/conferences and short trainings may enable teachers to update and innovate themselves on the latest published materials, learn new techniques and meet other professionals to share teaching experiences.
2. One-day training could be meaningful and helpful for the primary school teachers if they are actively involved in the activities. Learning by doing implementing simulations, demonstrations, and presentations will be the most appropriate activities.
3. So far 25 (twenty-five) trainings involving 3112 teachers have been conducted
in some provinces in Indonesia-East Java, North and West Sumatra, East Kalimantan, Gorontalo and some other parts of this country. The training activities have been attended by hundreds of primary school teachers who mostly do not have any English education background. They have provided positive feedback and suggest that such activities help them cope with their problems.
4. In order to stimulate the teachers’ creativity, trainers have selected the most frequently occurred findings. This training is a weakness-based and problem-based- programme.

It can be seen from the above discussion that succesful training programmes based on research findings depend on many factors incorporating the teachers’ motivation as well as the trainers’.