CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

A. Teaching

1. Definition of Teaching

Teaching is a process of giving lessons or process of transforming knowledge

from the teachers to the students. In addition, teaching according to Munzaki et al.

(2016) is a responsibility for every human with basic aims such as to increase

knowledge, change human behavior, and change perspective toward the phenomenon.

Lesiak (2015) argued that teaching is the didactic process in which both the teacher

and student participate, and its main goal is to promote and support learning. Heri

(2018) stated that teaching is the process of attending to people needs, experiences,

and feelings and intervening so that they learn particular things, and go beyond the

given. It means, teaching is not just about transferring knowledge but also included

unlimited tasks that could influence the students in shaping their behavior in order to

prepare the students for their future life.

2. The Role of Teacher

In teaching learning process teachers have important role in students lives.

Teacher does not only teach and pay attention to students’ language skills, such as

reading, writing, listening, and speaking, but also help, facilitate, and encourage

students to have enthusiasm, good attitude, and motivation towards learning English.
Furthermore, teachers have to understand what students learn, how and why such

learning influences them, how lessons could be beneficial for them in the future

(Derakhshan, 2015). According to Heri (2018) “teachers are to help diverse learners

to become competent and skilled, understand what they are doing, and communicate

effectively”.

Sanjaya (2007) stated that there are several role of teacher, those are as

follows:

1. Teacher as learning source

In teaching process a teacher has a role to transfer their knowledge to

the students. In addition, a teacher also must have the ability and skill to teach

the students so that the teacher can explain and answer the question to the

students easily.

2. Teacher as Facilitator

Besides being as a learning source, a teacher also has a role as a

facilitator. To be a facilitator, a teacher needs to understand about utilization

of media and learning sources that is suitable for the students in order to

support their teaching process.

3. Teacher as Leadership

In the classroom, the teachers have important role as leader. It means

the teachers must have ability in managing the classroom activity. The

teacher duty as a leadership is influence the students through learning

development.
4. Teacher as Demonstrator

The role of teachers as demonstrator ought to undestand about lessons

informed to the students. As a demonstrator the teacher must develop their

knowledge about the lesson, the ability of the teacher will increase students’

achivement. Therefore, teachers must enrich their knowledge in order to be

able do their duty. As a demonstrator, teacher must indicate how the way that

every material can understand by the students.

5. Teacher as Guidance

Teacher as guidance means that the teacher must guide the students

based on their experince and their knowledge. The role of teacher as guidance

is to help the students in order to develop student’s ability with their

knowledge and experience that they have. Teacher guide the students to find

their potential in order the students can be a good individual.

6. Teacher as Motivator

Teacher also has role as a motivator, it is to make students more

enthusiastic in learning. As a motivator, the teacher must be able to build

students’ character through variety of activities that can improve the students’

skill. Therefore, teacher needs to build the students motivation in the learning

process to get optimal achievement.

7. Teacher as Evaluator

Teacher as evaluator means the teacher do the evaluation to the

students in order to see students learning achievement. By doing an

 evaluation, teacher can understand about the strength and weakness of the

strategy in teaching learning process and the student’s problem about the

material.

B. Challenge in Teaching

1. Definition of Challenge

Challenge is the situation of being faced with something that needs great

mental or physical effort in order to be done successfully and therefore test a person’s

ability (Cambridge Dictionary, n.d.). According to Collins Dictionary (n.d.) challenge

is something new and difficult which requires great effort and determination. Oxford

Learner’s Dictionary (n.d.) defined it as a task or situation that tests somebody’s

ability and skill.

Based on some definitions above, the researcher conclude that challenge is a

difficult situation that someone’s faced and test someone’s ability. To this point,

challenge in teaching means something face in teaching situation which needs certain

attempt so that it can be finished effectively.

2. Challenges in Teaching

A life in teaching is a stitched-together affair, a crazy quilt of odd pieces and

scrounged materials, equal parts invention and impostion (Ayers,2001:1). It is

because there are many challenges, resposibilities, and demands that faced by the

teachers. It means teaching process is an unlimited and extensive activity. This is

beacuase teacher has various roles that are very imprtant in the learning process.

According to Sanjaya (2007),there are several role of teacher, those are ; teacher as

learning source, teacher as facilitator, teacher as leadership, teacher as demonstrator,

teacher as motivator, teacher as guidance, and teacher as evaluator. Based on it, the

teacher also find some challenges that inseparable in teaching-learning process.

According to Ayers (2001), there are nine teacher challenges in teaching process,

such as:

1) Teachers are badly paid

Teaching process is an activity that needs mastery of a knoledge by some one before

they teach it to another one. In teaching activities, not only the expertise of material

is needed. It also needs skill to do it. Therefore, the incompability of the salary that

given to teachers becomes challenges for the teachers. Then, it shows how the teacher

are valuated and rewarding in teaching process.

2) Teachers suffer low status in many communities, in part as legacy and sexism.

This is because teaching is lagerly womens’s work, and it is constantly being

deskilled, made into something to be performed mechanically, without thought or

care, covered over with layers of supervision and accountability and bureaucracy, and

held in low esteem. Low pay is part of dynamic. So is the paradox od holding

teachers up as paragons of virtue while constraining real choices and growth.

3) Teachers often work in difficult situations, under impossible conditions.

 4) The teaching process is compelled by law to attend school, many have no deep

motivation or desire to be there.

5) Teacher is possibly to face large number of students with lackof rooms and

professional teaching staff.

6) Each student comes with various backgrounds, desires, intentions, and needs.

7) A common experienced of teachers is to feel the pain of opportunities missed,

potential unrealized, students untouched.

8) Teachers are expected to cover everything without neglecting anything.

9) Constancy of change and the press of time, the lack of support, and the scarcity

of source.

3.

4. Challenges in Teaching English

According to Chien & Lin (2010), teaching Enclish can be devided into three

ways, such as; Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL), Teaching English as

a Second Language (TESL), and Teaching English as Other Language (TESOL).

a. Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL)

Teaching English as Foreing language is a tool of communication that used

as international language. Mitchel & Myles (2001) also explained that second

language is any languages that obtained through language development in

adults. The purposes of using the language for passing the examination, career

development, pursuin education, etc (Nurhayati et. Al, 2008). Nurhayati also said
 that English as foreign language is part of the educational curriculum,

particularly in state schools. As the example of the country that used English as

foreign language is Indonesia, Japan, Korea, etc.

b. Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL)

Teaching English as Second Language can be applied if the country used

English as their official instituions languages, societies language, and

communities language. As stated by Kisno & Napitupulu (2014), Teaching

English as Second Language usually use in the country which were colonized by

the English. Then, it also usally used in the country which has many immigrant

people who is stayed there. As the example of the coutry that used English as

second language is Malaysia, Singapore, Netherlands, Denmark, Swedish, and

Norwegia.

c. Teaching English as Other Language (TESOL)

The last term of teaching English is Teaching English as Other Language

(TESOL). TESOL is English for the methodologies of learning and professions

of teaching English. TESOL usually used in training intitions and instructor-

education program for English teacher, or language learning organization(Lin &

Chien, 2010).

By the different terms above, teaching English can be seen as educational

activity to make the studesnt able to speakin English as their international

communication tools. However, the general aim of reaching English is to make the

learners enable to speak the language itself.

 In English language teaching, there are also some challenges that has

ilustrated in Copland et. Al (3013), he said that English has spread as a lingua

franca and required the students to learn English communication skill rather than

learning other aspect of knowledge of English. It means the teachers need to focus

on the way how to teach English skills for students in order the students can

communicate in English. Therefore, the teacher should master the English skills

such as speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Then, Copland et.al (2013) also

stated that it has resulted to curriculum changes that leads to methodology changes

in learning. Several of them are such as; CLT (Communicative Language

Teaching), TBLT (Task-Based Learning and Teaching). Thus it may be

“challenges” for teachers to implement those approaches, especially toward young

learners. Since the methodology such as CLT is a pedagogical approach developed

in Western countries to teach adults in small groups, well-equipped classrooms.

Therefore, it may not be suitable for teaching large groups of young learners in

classrooms where resources are limited. In other case, these approaches also can

conflict with educational tradition or called “cultures of learning”. Moreover,

teacher may only qualified with basic training in the underpinning theory and

practical applications, they may find it struggling to implement it effectively.

Another possible challenge for teachers concerns the level of English they

require. Teachers’ low proficiency levels, or their lack of confidence in their ability

(Copland et. Al, 2013). It means there are some teachers who are teaching English
without adequate training about teaching English. Therefore, it is difficult for the

teachers to convey the subject well.

Coplend also stated that In certain region, large classes are also a common

challenge. It is leading teachers to think that it is somewhat complicated to introduce

learner-centred teaching because it is hard to monitor students’ language use or

present pairwork and groupwork. It can also be challenging to motivate learners. It is

because a large number students in a class can disrupt both teachers and students’

concentration in receiving learning information especially foreign language (English).

In short, a crowded class in learning a foreign language is considered ineffective.

Another challenge is increasing students’ interest in learning foregin

languages. In certain EFL contexts, particularly in rural areas, young learners may

strive to realize the important of learning English in their area as their contact with

the native speakers of the language is mostly minimum. In this case, the role of

teachers in giving understanding about the important of learning English is become a

challenge for the English teachers.

The last is the government policies and curricula that typically encourage

teaching communicatively are often incompatible with the demands of national

examinations which often focus on grammar and vocabulary (Copland et.al, 2013).

5. Challenges in teaching language

In teacheang language, there are many things that must be considered to create

an effective learning process. It needs a lot of appropriate various methods and

 strategies to make the students easier to absorb the learning process. Furtheremore,

the teacher must have the ability of making lesson plan to create an effective

learning situation. This is because teacher might face several obstacles in teaching a

foreign language.

According to Husna (2021) in her thesis, there are some challenges that

teacher faced in teaching language, those are:

a. Teachers’ ability and methods

The effeciency and competency of teacher is a vital in learning EFL

(Ansari,2012). To become an effective learning situation, teacher must apply an

appropriate teaching methods and techniques. This is because inappropriate teaching

methods and techniques can make the students hard to understand about the content

and the context of the language learning.

b. Mother tongue interference

The major factor that affecting the English Language Profeciency and

Competence is the first language interference (Malana, 2018). There is no

significant difference between mother tongue and first language. Mother tongue

refers to the language of one’s ethnic group, rather than one’s first language.

Usually mother tongue is as the first language for the children. The challenge in

learning language is when the students and teacher uncounciously perform in theri

own mother tongue fluently (Fatiloro, 2015). The problems in mother tongue

interference can be grammatical error, miss prounounciation, and semantickor

morphologigal error.
c. Students motivation and interest

According to Yulia (2013), The learning achievement can be good if the

students have a good motivation. Most of students think, another language,

especially, English language is difficult lesson. Sometimes they ignore the learning

process. Students only think how to pass the lesson. It shows from students activity

during the learning process. Most of students are playing or making noise. This is

because there is the tindication lack of student’s motivation and interest in learning

language.

d. Lack of vocabulary

Englis as foreign language means, English is not used as a tool of

communication in the daily life. Sometimes students do not understand with what the

teacher saying. It is because they do not familiar with the words. Then, there are

many similiar words but have different meaning than make some students confused

about it. As stated in Songbatumis (2017, 57), he said that students in English as

foreign language context are limited by their knowledge of grammar and vocabulary

of the target language and have to struggle to comprehend the context.

e. Facilities in learning

Facilities will influence the success of English teaching and learning process

(Husna,2021). This is because teaching-learning process will not achieve when there

is no the tools of learning to support it. As the example, if the teacher want to teach
about listening, they also need the speaker to display the audio. If the audio speaker

are not available that is too hard to teach the students about it. Based on Roinah

(2019), she said that teaching-learning process will not apply optimally and maximaly

as long as the facilities are available.

f. Not enough resources and materials

Limited resources and materials can influence the language learning activity.

Book, worksheet, and module are include as the main resource. It helps the students

to cultivate what they already have learned.

g. Overcrowded class

Over crowded class is happen when the number of students exceeds the class

capacity. Over crowded class also will make some difficulties in teaching-learning

process such as the noisy class, lack of attention, hard to movement,and etc. It is also

mentioned in Emery (2021), she said that the condition of teaching-learning process

will affect the goals of learning activity. It means that the good environment will

make the students easy to receive the knowledge and it also easy for the teacher to

transfer the knowledge.

The challenges are also found in English Language teaching. As a language

learning, some teaceher faced some challenges in implementing English language

teaching. As stated in Lynch (2008), there are three critical problems or obstacles in

English language teaching-learning process, such as:

a. Over Crowded English Class

as mentioned above, over crowded clas is the students over

capasity in the classroom. The large number of students may make

teacher hard to give attention for the students individually. Smaller

classes are often perceived teacher to focus more on the needs of

students and reducing the amount of class time needed to deal with

distruption (OECD,2021).

b. The lack of student’s motivation

Student’s motivation is one of keys to successful in teaching

languages, especially, English Language teaching. Without

student’s motivation, the students will be hard to receive the

knowledge of the language learning.

c. Insufficient time, resouces and materials

The insufficiency of learning time is one the challenges faced in

English language teaching as language learning. As foreign

language, teacher and students need more time in providing an

understanding theory and practical activities. Beside that, the

availability of recources and materials are crusial. It is difficult for

teacher to develop learning activity without resources and

materials. Then, the students also hard to understand the theories

without both of them.

C. Teaching English in Indonesia

As one of the larger country in the world, Indonesia has many

languages and culture. The first language used in Indonesia is Indonesian

language. Then, the second language used is the language based on their

mother tongue (Local Language or vernacular). In Indonesia, English is

as a forign language that teach in all levels of education. It is different

conditions with the neighbor country such as Malaysia and Singapore.

Both country used English as a second language. This is because based on

historical country that was liberated by England.

In Indonesia teaching English still face some obstacles. It shows in

the previouse research about teaching and learning English in Indonesia.

Based on some reaserch showed that most of students in Indonesia learn

the English language is only in the classroom. They have lack of

motivation in learning other langauge. As stated in Akbar (2015), students

hasve different motivations in learning English. Some of them only think

to pass the subject and ignore the function of learning English as

International tools in communication. Therefore, many students have a

weekness in the vocabulary that is unfamiliar word. Based on the

problem, the good teacher is important to create learning process become

interesting to engage the students in learning English and overcomeing

the challenges.
 D. Previous Study

Some studies have been conducted to explore the challenges faced by EFL

teachers in many countries. Songbatumis (2017) investigated the challenge faced by

English teacher at MTsN Taliwang, Indonesia. The findings were reported that the

teachers are challenged by their shortage of training, lack of language proficiency,

limited mastery of teaching methods, unfamiliarity to IT, lack of professional

development, inadequate facilities and resources, and time constraint.

On the other hand, the other challenges come from students’ side including

lack of vocabulary mastery, low concentration, low motivation, lack of discipline,

students’ boredom, and speaking problem.

Research that investigates another challenges in teaching English belongs to

Pale (2017). Based on the result of his research, the challenges in teaching English

come from the teacher. The teachers consider the challenges in teaching English

come from them self because their knowledge and ability about English is less

perfect. They also can not pay attention well to the students one by one during the

teaching process. It is because half of the students just noisy and just playing and

another half students pay attention to teacher explanation eventhough sometimes the

students did not answer the question from the teacher. As well as students, teachers

sometimes do not answer the question from the students.

 The next study comes from Madalinska-Michalak & Bavli (2018). The study

attempted to investigate the challenges in teaching English as foreign language at

schools in Poland and Turkey. The result of their findings show that teachers are

challenged partly by localized conditions connected mainly with classroom level

issues of students’ motivation to learn, students’ emotional inhibitions, teaching large

classes, and differentiation. In addition, challenges around the school level context

include not enough high quality training, and the perceived need for more hours for

teaching English.

With the descriptions of previous studies, these will be references for the researcher

in this study to be more detailed about what is teachers’ challenges in teaching

English and how they overcome the challenges in teaching English.

Source: OECD: Education at a Glance 2021: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, 2021