Kamis, 30 Agustus 2012

How to deal with troublemaker student

As teachers, I have much experience with troublemaker students. They always make my classroom in a mess, sometime make me angry, and loose my patience. However, I have to keep my classroom in good circumstance. In general, there are some types of troublemaker students. Here are the types. The students ………….


· Always make noise in a classroom.

· Always disturb others.

· Always talk to others while I am speaking in front of class.

· Don’t want to do anything.

· Never do homework.

· Are often late to school.

· Often argue to the teacher.

· Never follow my instruction.

· Are usually hyperactive.

· Always move around the classroom.

· Feel superior to others.

· Often bring toys to class.

There are many types of them.



To deal with those students, we need more patience and tricks. Some of them are smart but they cannot concentrate well. The others are slow learners. We can deal with them well even though they sometime hurt our mood. What should we do with the troublemaker students?

We .......

· Talk to them personally even though they are still young.

· Observe their learning style. Are they visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner?

· Present learning activities that suit to them.

· Always use icebreaking activities before class. It helps us to break the mental block in students’ mind.

· Never open a book at the first minutes of a class.

· Talk to their parents and get as much as information about their study habits, hobby, family life and friends.

· Separate them with similar students.

· Ask them to sit in front of the teacher’s desk.

· Make some classroom activities that satisfy their emotion.

· Try not to get angry with them.

· Never address them with bad labels.

· Drop to their playground and have little talk to them.

· Help them with the lesson personally.

· Stand up beside them ( don’t stand up in front of them while teaching)

· Make little joke with them.

Those are shorts tips. I hope we can practice with our students and make them better and nicer children.

Selasa, 28 Agustus 2012

How to teach student adjective and comparison

Students need to practice more to strengthen their skill in using comparative adjectives. This activity is very easy. It does not need special materials. It only needs students’ stuffs.

How to teach student comparison?

Preparation

· Ask students to hand in their stuffs. Each student may give more than an item. The items can be rulers, pencils, hair bands, rubbers, and many others.

· Put all items on a table or in a box in front of class.

· Call two students to come forward and pick up two items then make conversation using the target language

Ex: Student 1 : which is bigger the red bag or the yellow one?

Student 2 : I think the red beg is bigger than the yellow one.



Student 2 : which is longer the green ruler or the white one?

Student 1 : I think the white ruler is longer than the green one.



· Choose other two students to practice this target language.

· All students are expected to take a part in the dialogue.

· Use more various adjective like better, worse, smaller, taller, faster and others.

· Use more various items to trigger more adjectives.

How to teach student adjective

Teaching adjectives can be fun if we know the trick. Students will enjoy and get involved voluntarily in the activity. The more important thing is that all students can achieve the lesson objective.

Here are the steps

· Divide students into two teams.

· Ask each student to write a name of famous person on a small piece of paper.

· Roll in the paper an put it in a box.

· Choose a student from one of the teams to get to the front class.

· The student should pick a paper out of the box.

· Then he/ she must describe the person on the paper. ( don’t show the paper to others)

· He / she must give clues like

· He is an actor, he is tall, he is handsome, he is strong, and he often stars action movies, who is he?

· Students from his /her team should guess the name of the person.

· Limit the time to answer, if his / her team cannot answer the name, the opponent team have chance to guess.

· The team that can answer more questions gets more points.

· The team with more points wins the game.

Senin, 27 Agustus 2012

What is ppp technique?



PPP stands for presentation, practice, and production. It is one of the most popular methods in ESL classroom. In ESL classroom, ppp technique is a very effective teaching technique. I think this technique will be effective in other classrooms. We just need to modify it.

Here are the tree principles of PPP technique in ESL classroom.

1. Presentation

We present new vocabularies and tell the meaning of them. We also give example in meaningful context. The way of the presentation should be interesting. We can use some media like slides, flash cards or pictures. In presenting new vocabularies, we also need to let our students listen the pronunciation. It is suggested to present native speakers’ voice. We can use our tape recorders, CD players or computers. We must plan well the presentation stage so that our students will pay much attention and learn effectively.

2. Practice

All students practice those new vocabularies. They practice through questions and answers, and worksheets. We can give drills of controlled activities. This technique helps students remember all words in meaningful contexts. Why the activities are controlled? At this stage, students are not producing but they are acquiring language. They need to expose more intensively to the language target.

3. Production

Students have chance to produce their skill. They make sentence what they have learned. We have to create interesting activities to promote our students in active participation to produce words and sentences in context. We allow our students to produce their ideas. At this stage, we do not use controlled exercises but we sometimes use them to help our students think easily. These activities are suitable. They are role-play, questions and answers, and games.



Suitable activities for PPP technique.

1. Presentation

- miming

- drawing

- using flashcards

- watching videos

- watching slide shows

- showing pictures

- listening audio

- touching the items

- bringing materials into classrooms

- observing indoor or outdoor

2. Practice

- Memory games

- Word hunt

- Crossword puzzles

- shopping lists

-writing drilling exercises

- Questions and answers

- playing games

-dialogue practice

- ticking items

- summarizing

- answering true or false questions

- filling in gaps.

-filling in charts.

- finding the mistakes

- matching words and pictures.



3.Production



- Dialogues

- Drama

- Role- play

- Making summary

- Gap filling exercises

- Using synonyms and antonyms

- Taking surveys

- Discussion

- Debates

- Story telling

- Questions and answer games

- Writing descriptions

- Writing letters

- Writing diary

- Writing essay

- Writing short stories

- Writing short biography of a family members or famous people

How to teach young student English drama


Playing in a drama is fun. This learning method is good for kinesthetic learners. Some students like acting and they are very talented as well. Teaching English drama is different from teaching English itself. Students need to act and practice dialogues in a drama. They play as characters that are not the same as their characters. Here are some preparations how to teach young students English drama.

1. Selecting characters

A drama trainer should choose the right students to take part in English drama. Some characteristics are good at playing in a drama. The students …………..

· Must be good in English oral or written.

· Have kinesthetic learning style.

· Be active.

· Enjoy performing in front of public.

· Be good listeners

· Have strong motivation.

· Get support from their parents.

2. Selecting or writing a drama script

The drama script ……………

· Must be suitable to students’ age.

· Consists three scenes maximally.

· Must be communicative.

· Has short dialogues so that students will memorize the dialogues easily.

· Uses familiar vocabularies or dictions.

· Be fun and entertaining not only the audience but also for the students who play in the drama.

· Had better have moral value like friendship, honest, respect and others.

3. Deciding characters

When a drama trainer decides who wants to be the star, he /she must choose the best and the most appropriate person. It is like a film audition, he / she needs to do audition too. The trainer also decides the number of students who want to play in the drama.

4. Finding or creating properties

Properties are very important. A drama becomes alive if the properties support all characters. Don’t forget to make the budget for the properties.

5. Training session

This is the hardest process. Training young students are quite difficult. Students must memorize the drama script and practice the dialogues and acting. These activities spend much energy. What should a trainer do? A trainer ……………..

· Must make regular schedule.

· Gives drama script to all students.

· Asks the students to practice the drama scene by scene. If the drama has three scenes, students must practice the first scene until they can perform it well. To continue the next scenes all students must have been good at performing the previous scene.

· Gives extra motivation. Some students will lose their motivation in the middle, or end of training session. Give them some chocolate if they can perform a scene well.

· Asks all students to practice all scenes and use properties at the end of the training session.



6. Drama performance day

Parents will be proud of their children playing an English drama in front of public. This is what we all expect. What should a trainer do?

A trainer …………….

· Requests all students to practice the drama with the properties a day before performance.

· Keeps students’ motivation on.

· Makes them proud.

· Asks their parents to support and come to the show.

· Prepares a small celebration after the drama performance.

· Asks a student to replace a student who is absent due to any reasons.

· Instructs all students to play the drama as perfectly as they can.

· Records all performance from start the play until the end.

· Takes the beautiful moments.

Those are tips for teachers who want to teach their students English drama.

Classroom activities for ESL student

Prepared and planed classroom activities for ESL students are very important. Students not only listen to our speech but also participate actively. Their involvement aims to strengthen the exposure to the language-learning target. Here are some activities that involve students’ tasks.

1. Doing interview

Students interview their classmates, other students from different classes or teachers and school members. They are allowed to work out. They can interview their other students in the sport field, canteen, or school office. Teachers had better divide the students into groups. Ask a student to be an interviewer and others records and write the dialogues. Here are some tips for teachers to arrange this activity.

· Prepare sort of questions to ask. The questions should have correlation with today’s topic.

· Divide students into groups. Two or three students of each group are good.

· Make the rules of the task because students will work out.

· Give students opening conversation of interview.

· Limit the time.

· Prepare worksheet or chart to fill in.

· Decide who wants to be the interviewees.

· Border the school area where all students can go.

· Give five or six minutes break after they finish the task.

· Hand in all students’ work to the teacher.

· Discuss the result of the interview

· Call for students to retell of the interview ( they still work in groups)

· Give score to students’ work.

2. Observation or simple research.

This task is good for working in-group. Students with visual learning style will enjoy this activity. The observation or research objects can be varied. When today’s topic is about food, students can make research traditional food from around the world. Internet, magazines, and newspapers are great sources of information. Here are some preparations to do observation or make research.

· Decide a topic to observe.

· Divide students into groups.

· Prepare worksheet to fill in.

· Use internet connection.

· Find sources of information from magazines or newspapers.

· Ask students to put picture of the food they observe on the worksheet.

· Ask students to gather information about the topic. ( for example : food: where is it from?, how does it taste?, what ingredients to make it?, when best time to serve?, what nutrition in it?, and many others)

· Ask students to write all information in good paragraph.

· Type on computers.

· Publish on blogs, school webs, school bulletin, and wall magazines.

· Put the members’ name on the published works.

· Don’t forget to score all the students work.

Selasa, 14 Agustus 2012

Characteristic of kinesthetic learner student

Characteristic of kinesthetic learner student
Kinesthetic learners learn through experiencing. They like learning by doing. They will get bored soon to sit down in class, listen to their teacher’s speech, and read texts. They will be fun to work out or play a game. They will learn easily when they have a chance to participate in moving activities.  These are characteristics of kinesthetic learners. They …….
-          Are good at role playing.
-          Do not have good writing notes.
-          Love adventures reading materials.
-          Cannot sit for long.
-          Love martial arts, or dance.
-          Are good at sport.
-          Always move around during lectures.
-          Enjoy science labs.
-          Turn the music aloud on.
-          Are not good at spelling.
-          Stop when studying.
Here are some classrooms’ setting that you can practice to deal with kinesthetic learners.  Almost all kinesthetic learners like a class that …….
-          Practices in science labs.
-          Does role playing.
-          Uses games.
-          Receives lesson simply.
-          Uses flashcards to memorize.
-          Has outing class.
-          Works in group.
-          Takes a trip.
-          Uses physical activities more.
Almost all kinesthetic learner students like short tests, fill – in, and multiple choices tests. They are not good  at long tests, writing tests.

How to deal with auditory learner students


How to deal with auditory learner students
Auditory learner students are those who learn via listening well. Students with this learning style have certain characteristics. We as teachers can observe our students. Students with auditory learning style usually …………..
-          Are brave enough to speak in class.
-          Enjoy verbal reports.
-          Are fine at explaining.
-          Like to read aloud.
-          Notice sound effect.
-          Love music.
-          Are good at working in a group.
-          Are talkative.
-          Cannot calm for long period of time.
-          Read carefully.
-          trail spoken instruction well.

Students with auditory learning style are good at classroom setting that fits to their habits\. They enjoy learning in a classroom that ……
-          records lectures.
-          Uses video presentation.
-          Learn a lot through their ears.
-          Gives a chance to participate in group working.
-          Uses audio tapes.
-          Records memos.
-          Uses words correlation to keep in their mind.

Auditory learners are good at writing responses, and spoken report tests but they are poor at writing and reading tests.

How to deal with auditory learner? That is the question. After knowing some characteristics of auditory learners, we can take conclusion that we must set classroom that fits to their learning habits. We need to make lesson plan that represents all learning styles. We have to observe and make a map of our students’ learning style. Then we can arrange classroom setting that meets all learners. Auditory learners are essentially similar to other learners. They are all good learners. The biggest job for teachers makes them enjoy our lectures and achieve the lesson objective entirely.

how to teach visual learner student


There are many types of learning style. Students will gain better achievement on test result when they learn as properly as their learning habits. Some students are difficult to remember a lesson because they are visual learners. When they use videos, colorful images, displays, they will keep almost all information that they receive from their lecture.
As a teacher, we must recognize our students learning styles. There can be various styles but in general, there are only three. They are visual learning, auditory learning, and kinesthetic learning style. All those styles need different learning suggestions and activities that meet their content.
1.      Visual learner
Visual learners are those who learn through their sight. They remember better, when they watch videos, or displays. They usually have these characteristics in their learning habits. They ……………….
-          Are good at spelling.
-          Like colorful images.
-          Think before understanding.
-          Often forget names.
-          Understand charts easily.
-          Like coloring activity.
-          Good at using signs.
-          Understand map better.
All these characteristics do not represent visual learner’s personality completely but we can manage the best learning suggestions. Here are some suggestions for visual learner students. We can ….
-          Draw chart .
-          Draw a map or mind mapping.
-          Make outlines.
-          Use diagram.
-          Build a list.
-          Use flashcards or slide show.
-          Use highlighters like italic, bold, and underline.
-          Watch videos
-           Use displays.
-          Study out in the related subject.  
Students with visual learning style prefer to have diagram, reading maps, Essay and showing a process in their tests. They are not good at listening and responding tests.

Minggu, 12 Agustus 2012

how to help poor listener student

What do poor listener students mean? They mean students who are not able to listen and pay attention well to the teacher who is delivering a lesson. They sometime sit quietly but they do not listen well. They pretend to listen whereas their mind is anywhere else. Other types of poor listener students are doing some activities in a class. Some of them are talking to their mates while their teacher is explaining a lesson.

This situation can take place in young or adult classes. Some factors might cause some students become poor listener students. They are internal and external aspects. Internal aspects are from the students themselves. External aspects may come from teacher’s performance, topic of the subject, classroom setting, and lack of teaching aids and student’s activities.


The first factors are from internal reasons from the students themselves. This problem often occurs to students who suffer from learning disability or learning deficiency due to physical or psychological reasons. As a teacher, we should recognize all our students’ physical and psychological health. We can take immediate action if we find those problems. We should talk to our students’ parent to find a solution.

The first external factor is the teacher performance. As a teacher, we must have a warehouse of ideas to attract our students’ attention. Students who do not suffer from learning deficiency have good opportunity to learn well in every meeting in our class. They are all good listeners but why sometime they tune in their attention while we are delivering our lesson. A teacher’s roles are very important in a classroom. We must prepare what we are going to teach everyday so, a lesson plan is very important. Besides a lesson plan, there are some tricks to attract students’ attention. We can put our tricks in our lesson plan. One of the tricks is doing ice-breaking activities. This activity really helps our students change their attention and focus. You can read my articles why icebreaker games here.

Students like current information because they have curiosity. They are able to retell about a story of a new film. Let us think about it. Our students do not take a note while their watching a new film but they sometime talk the story and the characters of the film in detail. Try to compare with a short story that we present in our language class. When we ask our students to retell the story, they do not have anything in their mind to tell. Who is wrong our students or we as a teacher. The answer is we as a teacher. We sometime need to deliver our lesson in attractive and puzzled presentation. This will help students remember easily. When we talk about our national heroes by reading a text or listening our speech, our students may get to sleep because they got bored to listen our voice. Instead of reading a text or listening our speech, we can watch a documentary film of our national heroes. We can also ask our students to find one of our national heroes on newspapers, magazines or internet. Then, ask them to cut or print the article and discuss the article in our class. The point of the topic of the subject as the cause of poor listener students, we should make the best presentation at every topic that want to bring in our class.

A classroom setting is also important to make our students feel comfortable staying in our class. It helps students enjoy studying. When our class is clean and nice, no student will be interrupted by the noise of the air conditioner, dirt, miserable smell. We can change our classroom sitting position every week. Ask our students to decorate the classroom with their work. Make a good display of their projects.



The last factors that make poor listener students are lack of teaching aids and activities. To supply teaching aids we must be creative as a teacher. Ask your students to bring unused stuffs in their house to school, and then change those stuffs into teaching aids. We also should prepare some activities that help students reach our lesson objectives. We must know our students learning styles. We arrange an activity that meets our students’ learning style. These are some learning styles. They are visual learner styles, auditory learner styles, and kinesthetic learner styles. All those styles need different treatment.

Sabtu, 11 Agustus 2012

Kamis, 09 Agustus 2012

what is icebreaker games

What is icebreaker games for student? All students come to class to get lesson from their teachers. In fact, not all students are ready to receive lesson. They need something to stop their mind. They sometimes still think about their problem or bring their current activities to the classroom. In this occasion, teachers need to stop them and make class quiet and ready to deliver lesson. What they need to do is ice breaking. They need to break the ice of current mental block that all students have. Icebreaker games are short fun activities that can entertain audiences to lead them start a lesson in class. Icebreaker game is good for all ages. It is also help new students to know each other.

The best time to do icebreaker games is when you as a teacher start a lesson. You can also practice icebreaker games in the middle of the class to re energize your students. Icebreakers games only need little time but they are very powerful strategy to get students attention. Most students will turn their attention to what their teacher is going to do. They will feel curious. When you have a crowded classroom, you need to ice – break. I am an elementary school teacher I have much experience in using icebreaker games to make my class quiet and ready to receive my lesson. When you can practice icebreaker games at the right time, you will see the result and the effect of the game.

The basic principle in practicing icebreaker games is simple. You need to be enthusiast. Your enthusiasm will pass on your students. Your students will be entertained and feel fun. All mental blocks will be opened. Another principle to practice icebreaker games, you must prepare what to do. Therefore, you must have many icebreaking ideas. Here you can find 40 icebreaking activities ideas free. Most all the icebreakers, I have practiced in my class.

Good teachers can manage their classroom well. They can lead their students to learning objectives satisfactorily. A teacher needs a tool to make all students focus. At the first minutes, most students usually have mental block that prohibits from getting lesson from their teacher. How to break the mental block becomes very important for a teacher to be accepted in the classroom. A teacher’s instructions at the first minutes to open book or make them quiet are considered as an intimidation for students. You might have this experience. I used to face this kind of problem. Icebreaker games are solution to get students’ attention without bothering students’ comfort.

Icebreaker games are very important. These little activities sometimes have no correlation with the lesson. In fact, they can make students quiet and focus. As a teacher you must be creative to make icebreaking ideas. You can also search on the internet to find ice breaking activities ideas. The more you have icebreaker games the more weapons you have in the classroom. There are no ideas to attract students’ attention besides to ice - break. Giving instruction or strong imperatives will only leave a teacher stressed out and students gone wild.

Let’s practice one of the icebreaking activities collections, you will see the result. The more practice the better you are. You as a good teacher can also develop or make variation from icebreaker games and activities from my collections. I think you can be more creative than I am. I also make some variation from some icebreaking articles on the internet. As a teacher, I feel very happy to share experience with other teachers around the world. I hope you can be my new friend. You can follow me on my twitter @ahmadfz1, I follow you then.

Selasa, 07 Agustus 2012

education system in indonesia

This is education system in Indonesia. Indonesia is a large country. It has thousand islands from Sabang to Merauke. There are hundreds of tribes and languages. Indonesia is a developing country. It has many natural resources. The population is about 250,000,000 people. It is a large number of human resources. To educate those people Indonesia is applying educational system organization, which is slightly different from other countries.
                  In Indonesia, children attend kindergarten at the age 4 to 6 years old. They usually spend their first education at kindergarten for two years. Kindergarten schools are not public state supported schools. Parents must pay the fee. All children who graduate from kindergarten must enroll the elementary school.
                  The elementary school is a public state supported school. The fee is free but there are some private schools that run in Indonesia. Since the government issued regulation of nine years compulsory education, the public elementary schools and the public junior schools have been full of students. The length of primary education is 6 years old, beginning late in July and ending in early June. The period of the study is divided into two semesters. The first semester starts from late July and ends in December.  The age of the children is from 5 to 12 years old.
                  The junior high school is not different from the elementary school. The difference is only the material of the study. The period of the study is three years. Children who attend the junior school are about 11 to 15 years old. There are two semesters too.
                  The senior high school is nearly the same as the junior school. There are no considerable differences. Children who attend the senior school is from 14 to 19 years old. They spend three years in senior school.
                  After students, pass the junior school they have two choices. They can enroll the senior high school or the vocational school. The vocational school prepares the students to enter job markets. The students will have life skill to get a job. There are some life skills taught in the vocational schools. They are engineering, automotive, printing, hospitality and many other skills that most industries need. The graduates can continue to academy or university too but they will find it difficult to enroll to State Universities because they have to compete with the senior school graduates. Most graduates prefer getting a job to continuing their study. The length of the study is three years.
                  The academy is a higher education. The length of the study is about 2 or 3 years. The graduates get Diploma degree ( D III). They can continue to universities. Most graduates like to get a job better than continue their study. The academy has many majors of study. They are languages, engineering, chemistry, hospitality, pedagogy, and many others.
                  The university is a higher education which gives Strata I ( S I) degree or undergraduate degree to it’s graduates. The majors are wide. They are law, politic, economy accounting, psychology, chemistry, medical study and many others. S I degree graduates are prepared to be professionals and they are set to enter as skilled position in their job market. The senior school graduates usually enroll higher education in July to September. The school year starts from early September and ends in July.
                  Nine-year compulsory school from the elementary school to the junior school is free or charge. Parents must not pay monthly fee but they must pay for the books, uniforms, and school activities or outing class projects. Starting from the senior school parents must pay the school fee. Indonesian government has tried to free the school fee but practically some schools still charge their students.
                  Here is the picture educational system organization in Indonesia.

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