English Language Teaching and Technology Observation Report

Shobikhan Ahmad

PBI-B 2019

This observation was conducted in the 3rd grade of SDIT SAMAWI. A private Islamic elementary
school located in Palbapang, Bantul, Yogyakarta. In this school, English is taught from the 1 st grade to 6th
grade. The classroom has been provided with LCD projector which enable the teacher to use laptop or
computer assisted for delivering the materials easily without too much time consuming for preparing
and setting up the equipment. The class was begun with greetings using English. The teacher said the
greeting of good morning and how are you, but only few students responded to her. She did not set the
students up in order to be able to respond to greeting correctly or correct them right away, instead she
just carry on the main lesson activity. She used Microsoft Power Point to show some pictures of
occupations or job professions. She asked the students using Bahasa and then translate the words in
English and asked the students repeat after her. Not all students seemed ready for the lessons. Some
students in the back rows did not join the teacher's activity because the teacher did not set the learning
environment at the beginning of the class. After few slides of Power Point, the teacher then divided the
class into two big groups of boys and girls. She put the female students on the right and the male
students on the left side. Then she asked them to read simple dialogue of asking and answering
someone's job based on the picture shown in the projector. Some students were passionately joining this
activity though some students are not joining the conversation. The teacher's voice cannot reach the
whole classroom corners, therefore she seemed to be focused on the students in the front rows only.
After the conversation activity, the teacher opened YouTube and searched for some kid song videos
related to occupations. Knowing the teacher opened up YouTube website, the students seemed very
interested as if they were already familiar with this website. Most of the students moved to the front
rows for the videos and some of them were even willing to stand up in front for the excitement. The
teacher then found some videos and play them one by one while searching which one is best and easier
for the students to sing along with. It seemed like she did not prepare specific videos from the beginning
because she also taught the students to use YouTube and how to search kid songs for various themes.
After few songs played and the students felt difficult on catching up on the lyrics, she finally found one
song from Bounce Patrol - Kind Song channel. This channel provides lots of songs and rhymes for kids
and had been subscribed by more than 11 million subscribers. The song she chose was a simple
alphabetical song which mentioned names of occupations started by letter A to Z. The students were so
enthusiastic that everyone enjoyed and joined the singing. However, the teacher only focused on the
song and she did not review the jobs' mentioned within the song and their meaning. After replaying and
singing the video song several times the class is over and then the teacher closed the class.

Strength weakness opportunity challenges

From this English language teaching observation, we can see that the teacher used Microsoft Power
Point, Pdf reader and YouTube video website in conducting the teaching learning activity. The
PowerPoint and Pdf reader have lots of advantages both for teacher and the students. First, they save
the teacher’s time on writing and erasing explanation on the board. By using power point, the teacher
does not have to write any explanation on the board. She just needs to type it or prepare it once and she
can use it for all classes with the same material. Secondly, they are able to show pictures, photos and
colorful materials to give more attractive media for the students. in traditional way, without using power
point slides, of course teacher must print any images or photos before they present them to the class. By
using power point the teacher just need to download from the unlimited sources in the internet and
then put it on the slides. However, using power point is not always the best way, expert says. Like all
learning technologies, PowerPoint has advantages and disadvantages and is not by itself a good or bad
thing (Weimer, 2012).

Another weakness of using PowerPoint in the classroom is that it takes the focus away from the lecturer
and the relevant content of the lecture as well as from the student, and places it entirely on the slides
themselves (Crang, 2003; DuFrene & Lehman, 2004; Tufte, 2003). Nunberg (1999) argues that
PowerPoint slides “have begun to take on a life of their own, as if they no longer needed talking heads to
speak for them”(p. 330).In fact, students often comment that they can study with just the PowerPoint
slides –that they don’t need to read the material or take their own notes or even hear the lecture to
learn the material (Jones, 2003; Williams, 2012). Hill, et al., (2012), is quoted as saying “Because the info
is already synthesized for them in PP slides, the students are less responsible for (and increasingly less
capable of) picking out the crucial elements of a lecture, as they always have the slides to fall back on”

From all these theories, we can conclude that the use of PowerPoint can give many benefits toward
teacher and students to make the learning activity more attractive and able to show more images.
However, using Power has also weaknesses that it reduces the interaction between teacher and
students. Besides, if the teacher is lack of creativity, the students will get bored easily and they tend to
get explanation from the PowerPoint only because the teacher has already summarized the points for
them. This will impact on students' passion in reading their text books. But there is also opportunity to
overcome this challenge by improvising the visualization of the slides using flash mx, short videos or
other software so the presentation slide will not be boring.

The next ICT media the teacher used was online assisted media by accessing YouTube to provide the
students with attractive song videos. YouTube as one of the most accessed social media websites
containing huge number of videos for everyone for free. YouTube provides thousands of films, videos
and songs for English language education as well. Dowse (2009) expresses that the YouTube website
provides a wide variety of content suitable for English teaching and it should be effectively implemented
by the teachers in the language classroom. He states that using successful techniques and attractive tools
especially songs to teach new vocabulary items make students find words easier to remember and
become more excited in the class. By engaging in an amusing experience, they are relaxed and their
boredom, stiffness, and anxiety about acquiring a second language are lessened. Those who are taught
in a fun and creative way, love attending the lessons and this in turn becomes a great way for teachers to
achieve success with their students. The use of internet technologies like the YouTube website to teach
vocabulary is one of these experiences. Though of course the teacher must guide the students to use
YouTube appropriately since YouTube contain both educating and bad videos which can give negative
impact to the students.
The use of song in teaching language has been effectively implemented for centuries. Lynch (2005)
points out in his article that language teachers should use songs as part of their English language
teaching. Among the reasons given are that songs contain natural language, are easily obtainable, and
are natural and fun. He also states that a variety of new vocabulary can be introduced as well as cultural
aspects and even different types of English accents. Songs can be selected to suit the needs and interests
of students. The lyrics of songs can be used in relating to situations of the world around the students, in
this case the teacher use specific song to teach occupations to the students. In addition, Orlova (2003)
notes that for the last two decades, the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) methodology
has been actively considering the possibility of using music and songs in class. Based on her 10-year
experience of incorporating songs in the language teaching, she claims the use of songs in language
classes puts students at ease, makes them more attentive and can increase their desire to learn a
language. It has been proven by the observed activity that after the teacher played the song, all students
suddenly got excited and even they stood up and moved to the front class to join the activity.

However, this method should be implemented along with the creativity of the teacher. When the
teacher is passionate and sing along with the students energetically, the students will follow the teacher
enthusiastically as well. However, for some teachers, singing in front of the class is not something they
can easily conduct. Besides, the teacher must have enough song collection so they can give various song
and overcome students' boredom easily. And this must also mean that teacher must spare enough time
to prepare the song, either in the form of audio or audio-visual media.

In conclusion, the observer conclude that the use of Power Point slides can be effective and
helpful for the teacher. Since power point slides can save more time and enable the teacher to show
more images, photos, charts, and even short videos through the learning process. However, it is very
important that the teacher must creatively modify his presentation slides into attractive ones so the
students will not get bored by seeing bunch of sentences all time. Teacher could learn how to design the
slide using specific designing software or they can just download from websites which provide numbers
of images for free. Besides, the teacher must also be interactive to keep the class alive by conducting
practice, dialogue, role play, or simple English games. Furthermore, for the use of song and video songs,
it is also one of the most exciting techniques to conduct on young learners. However, it is better for the
teacher to prepare the videos or songs before the class to prevent technical problems such as internet
connection or other computer issues. The teacher should give guidance to the students to be selective
when they accessing internet especially YouTube, since it contains lots of good and bad videos. Then, for
singing activity, the teacher must make sure that they have mastered the song first. It includes the lyric,
tone, music, etc. So that when the teacher conducts this technique, she can enthusiastically bring the
song and students would passionately join her. Because it is obvious that the students will not sing
without the teacher give the example first. In addition, the teacher can also improvise and create her
own lyric from the students’ favorite song. For example, by translating Indonesian popular songs or
rearrange the lyric of any song into materials related to her syllabus. By recording it and show it to the
students, they can get motivated and create their own songs. Above all, the teacher must also conduct
good classroom management. Before conducting all teaching learning activities, it is better for the
teacher to firstly conduct ice breaker or warming up activity to steal the students’ attention. There is a
saying that if we could get students’ attention before the class begin, we have won half of the battle. But
if we do not get any attention, we have lost before the battle begins. After we make sure that all students
have been ready for the lesson, that is the right time for the teacher to start the teaching activity.

Image 1. The Teacher used the Power Point for her teaching. Image 2. The Teacher accessed YouTube and
Students in the back row did not pay attention Play some song videos.

Image 3. When the teacher found appropriate song and started Image 4. The students in the back row were
Singing, the students got excited and join her. Excited and moved to the front.
References
Abidin, M J (2011). The Effectiveness of Using Songs in YouTube to Improve Vocabulary Competence
among Upper Secondary School Studies. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 1.
Academy Publisher.
Wanner, Thomas (2015) Enhancing Student Engagement and Active Learning through Just-in-Time
Teaching and the use of PowerPoint. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher
Education.
Angelos. (2017). The Impact of Powerpoint Use on Teacher Sense of Efficacy. International Journal of
Education and Practice