Friday 7 January 2011

Final Project vs. Final Test


Final Project vs. Final Test

Many students in paragraph writing class prefer working a final project to a final test. There are many reasons why they choose to make a final project, such as extended duration to work and easier credits. One example is Lukman Hidayat, a student in English Department in State University of Malang, said that working a final writing project will provide the writers more time to think and to find the mood to write something. This statement is backed up with some similar statements from some other students in the same department.  Actually, those eases in working final project are just stereotypes. The period given to do writing final project is a kind of demands for us to make it nearer to perfection. The harder the job, the more time needed to work.
            Even though many students would like to choose to do final project, the fact is this kind of final assignment has its own impact to them. An example taken is in Mr. Gunadi’s writing class 2010 whose students got this kind of project. In case of doing final project, many students are found stressed. Some of them look so pale because lack of sleep. Some other students look untidy, or at least more untidy than usual. Maybe we can take a bumpy conclusion from this situation that doing final project is much wearing up, but is it true? Will it be different if they chose the final test? To answer those questions, let us give some attention to discuss about this kind of final assignment from the problems to face, the effects given, and the solutions.
The problems to face
            As we know, final project has more time to deal with than final test which looks like an instant game. We can bring the final project home and do it at home. Everybody knows that home is the coziest place for every people. That is the reason many students like this order to do final project at home with the reason it will drive the mood up. Despite the more time given, doing final project needs time management because the students also have many other subjects and assignments to deal with. Usually, students do it in the night until late time, and that is clearly not a good habit. When you sleep late, your body unleashes a ton of destructive hormones like cortisol, into your bloodstream. Cortisol is a stress hormone; too much of it, and it can seriously affect your cell health. (http://www.sleepenough.com/). Besides, students, as they are still young and full of love, may have other plans such like dating. Those all are the impacts in positive and negative points according to time management in working a writing final project. Thus, we need to be stricter in time managing when we choose to do it than a final test which maybe only requires some time to memorize the writing rules to do the tests.
            As it is stated in last paragraph, an inappropriate management in time while working on a writing final project may lead into a stress. Actually, that is not the only way stress may come. The pressure in working such project is a piling up kind of stress. It looks easy in the start, but then the pressure keeps growing as the time until the deadline. In final test, the pressure can be said the same kind, but the difference is the period. Final test takes shorter period to do. Thus, the pressure in working final test would only feel like a big smack rather than like lifting up a jar which keep filled with water in working a final project. So, actually which kind of stress is more tolerable is various depends on the personalities.
The effects given
            Look back to the problems we have discussed above, in this part of essay we will discuss about the effects given. As the creator, the worker, students will be the first ones to get the impact. Working writing final project will decrease their free time. Decreased free time means decreased time for refreshing that may lead to another cause of stress. We can say that writing final project stores many risk, in this case, risk of getting stress. However, working such assignment is a kind of drill for the students. As we often hear from people, experience is the best teacher. The more often we do the training, the more experience we get, and the more expert we become. So as the students who are working the final project. Much training in the shape of working this assignment will increase their ability in writing.
            More to the point, as final project is giving some effects to the students; the teachers are also the other ones that should get the effect of having the final project as the final assignment. The teachers who give this assignment should examine the works of their students really thoroughly as the responsibility for giving the pressure to their students. The teachers must not only sit down behind the table and say “Anybody who do this assignment will get an A mark.” The teachers must also take part as the pressured ones to make it fair. Thus, like the students do, the teachers will learn to recognize and to correct the common mistakes also they will memorize the characteristics of good essays from the experiences they get from correcting their students essays.
            The other group that will get the effect is the readers which are not least important in role. They are the objects that the essays will be presented to. The effects the readers get would be different from the effects the writers and the editors, or in this case the students and the teachers, have. The effects the readers get cope with the mindset they get after reading the essays. Then, what is the link between the readers and the final project? The cable that connects them is the quality of the result essay. Without underestimating final test essays, final project essays are demanded to be perfect in addition to the extended time given. Thus, usually the final project essays are some steps closer to perfection than the final test essays. The information that readers get from final project essays is likely more accurate and clear.
            The solutions
            Considering that final project of writing has some troubles to face but in other case it also has some benefits, some solutions are needed to repress those problems. Thus, we can minimize the hard things, yet we get the benefits. The students seem to have the biggest problems as they are the ones to do it. Actually, the problems they face are just old schools, time and stress management. The condition that they look messed up in class is evidence that proves they have not applied the right time and stress management. To overcome it, those students should learn to manage both their time and stress. Final project is not a burden, it is an art instead. Arts need to be done in the best condition of ourselves. The suggestion is do not be burdened by this assignment. Take some time to refresh, but still be responsible with the tasks undone. Do the tasks little by little in spare time or take it step by step anytime the situation allows.
The long deadline given should be exploited. It is better to do such tasks pieces by pieces than to push yourselves to do it in a time. Final project is not alike as final test. In final test, students should finish their tasks in some period of time which usually is short. In addition to that, final test only has the short stressing period, so the stress it causes is not as big as the other one may cause.
In conclusion, from the problems to face, the effects given, and the solutions, we can say that final project is a kind of masterpiece that needs a hard work. However, the hard work worth it. The final project will outcome the better result in value because the time given. That’s why, final project is the best assignment to be used in writing.

satria akbar 109221426106

Monday 3 January 2011

Motivating Student in Learning


Motivation is really needed in our daily life. Activities that we have done, we do, and we are going to do, have a motivation as the foundation of our activities. Motivation in Latin is movere which means move. Everyone have motivation in work and study. Motivation is energy of moving, directing, and building attitude (Thomas L. Good and Jere B. Brophy, 1986). There is also similar description about motivation according to Wlodkowski, “motivation is condition that creates certain behavior and giving direction into that behavior”. There is a motivation when someone wanted to do an action. This motivation becomes a plan and makes people intend to do something to get their expectations. There is also a theory about motivation from Abraham Maslow, “Human beings have wants and desires which influence their behavior. Only unsatisfied needs influence behavior, satisfied needs do not”. According to that statement, someone is motivated to get something that he/she has not gotten yet. He/she has a strong desire to achieve his/her expectation in order to get satisfaction. For they who have not gotten their satisfaction, they will keep trying to get satisfaction by changing their plan or method. Motivation in work and study is a big deal to get the best result. In work, motivation should be had by workers or be given to the workers to get excellent result for the company and a better salary for the workers themselves. It is not different in study. Students need motivation from themselves (from their mind) that we usually call as intrinsic motivation and motivation from other things (family, neighborhood, school, and society) that usually we called as extrinsic motivation. In a teaching program, beside the students’ responsibility in motivating themselves, it is also the teacher’s responsibility to give motivation and support to the students in study. The case is, how the teacher can give motivation to the students by analyzing from the problems that students have, how to solve it, and the challenges in motivating students.
            Basically, motivation is divided into intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation can be described as a motivation that is driven by interest and enjoyment in the task itself, and it is relay on the personal attitude. In a simple word, it is motivation that comes from people mind to achieve his/her personal goal and expectation. In the learning process, students should have motivation to be able to understand the lesson. Professor Steven Reiss has proposed a theory about desires in the aspect of intrinsic motivation and one of them is curiosity. In the learning process, curiosity here means that the students have a strong desire in learning. The students need to learn in order to fulfill their purpose. As the curiosity is increasing, students will not feel satisfied in learning. They will keep learning because as the students who have a big curiosity, they will always want to learn and try a new thing. In learning process, sometimes there are unmotivated students who need extrinsic motivation from their family. In the learning process it is teacher’s responsibility to give motivation to the students.
            As the opposite of intrinsic motivation, it is extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is motivation that comes from outside of the individual. Sometimes people get extrinsic motivation when they are unmotivated. People also get extrinsic motivation in order to get prestige. Extrinsic motivation is also described as a will to get a goal that will give external rewards such as money, grades, coercion and threat of punishment. Teacher gives motivation to unmotivated students so that they get more effort in studying. External motivation also must be given to students by their family. In a simple illustration, the teacher gives a task to students and will give objective grade for the result. By doing this, students will be more motivated in doing the task well. There is also Self-Determination Theory which gives a fact that extrinsic motivation can be internalized by the individual if the task fits with their value and beliefs, so that it can be intrinsic motivation that helps people to fulfill their basic need. For example: when students are given motivation to study hard, they can get a good grade. During the learning process they will consider about another purpose in study. They will find that study is not only aiming to get a good grade, but also for their knowledge improvement.
            In the learning process, there are several cases that make students need to be given a motivation. That is not only the cases about unmotivated students, but also the cases about students who get negative motivation and need to be given the positive one. The basic problem is when students think that they study because of their parents force. This is a kind of negative motivation. Motivation in studying can be seen through the attitude of the students about their will, attention, and concentration in study (Anderson, C.R and Faust, G.W, 1979) Students who get this negative motivation will seem so lazy in class. They do not pay attention to the lesson that is presented by the teacher. They will lay their head in the table, sleep, keep chatting with other friends and hope that the lesson will be over soon. These students will not get the idea of the lesson and in particular ways, they will disturb the others who want to study quietly. The students who are forced to study will use school as a place for hang out, not a place for study. In some cases, students also use school to create a gang. If the group is used as a media to share experience and create a good relationship between the members. But it will be worse when the gang is growth with anarchy. It is like the fight that happened in some cities. The gang of one school becomes the enemy of the gang of other schools. They fight just because of a simple problem, like when one of them accidentally touches the gang member. Sometimes students who are not belonging to a gang of their school are attacked by another gang which is the rival of the gang in their school. This fight between school gang sometimes gives disadvantages to people around the fight. People around the fight feel afraid because the gangs who fight bring weapon with them. The gangs usually smash and break public facilities. Of course no one in society wants something like this is happened.
            The other problem is self-confidence. Actually this is not only a problem for students, but also people in the world. They sometimes think that they are not able to do something well. When this thing happened, it will affect people’s attitude. From their thought, they have gotten a negative motivation that they will not be able to do something well. Then it influences their work in achieving something. Considered to the fact in daily life, students who study to head for exam think that the exam must be hard and they think that they will not be able to do the exam well. It will affect their attitude in studying and working the exam. At the exam day, they will get nervous and this condition will make them unable to get concentration. As this nervous and less concentration, an easy question can be a hard question to answer and make the possibility of mistake and wrong answer is more than in regular situation. Furthermore, when students feel that they have failed in the exam, they will get depressed. Under depression, students feel that they will not be able to do the other exam better because they have studied but they still failed. It makes students do not have intention to study harder because their thought that they will not pass the final exam. They do not know that although they fail in an exam, they can still do another exam better by study harder. It is true what they say that fail in do something do not mean you are failure person.
            And for the most common problem is organizing the schedule between playing, studying, and resting. For youngsters, play time is the most important. When they have reached the teenager phase, it is their time to study and plan for their bright future. And in the elderly phase, it is time for them to rest and enjoy their achievement in life. Those three things are what everyone wants. In fact, life is not just as easy as that, especially when in teenager phase. It is the phase where teenagers as students have to maintain their schedule. It is good if students always study hard, but it will be not good if they forget about other works. In 24 hours, it can be divided into three. Eight hours is used for study, eight hours for resting and the rest is for playing. Keep study until midnight is not suggested because our body needs rest and our mind needs relaxation. For instance: students who keep studying till midnight will get sleepy in the next day because they do not have enough time to sleep. Studying all day without having time for relaxation can give headaches. Students need to find an activity after they study to relax their mind. Maintaining a schedule is not as easy as people thing, especially for students. Sometimes they need someone else to help them maintain the schedule. Some students who are unmotivated in study usually have more time to play and take a rest rather than having time to study. More often they play, lazier they are in study. Although there are smart students with high level of IQ (Intelligence Quotient), they still need study to improve their knowledge and sharpen their memory of lesson that they have gotten.
            The problems that happen in studying about the unmotivated students have made learning process being interrupted. That is why the teachers and students need to understand how to give motivation and be motivated by someone else. As the main thing, students have to motivate themselves first. They need to maintain their mindset that studying is not responsibility, but it is one of their needs. Education is needed by students as a path to reach their goals. Although sometimes there are people who uneducated in formal school can reach their prosperity, that is because they have skill and knowledge about their job. They learn from others who have succeeded. It makes an argument that formal and informal schools are different in way of reaching people’s goals. In fact, they are just a place to find knowledge and learning activity. So, it is not about students must study in formal school as their responsibility, but they have to study from everywhere, anytime, and from any source or by learning from others achievement because they need it to reach their goals.
            After students have reset their mindset about study, the next thing they need to do is manage their time between study, play, and take a rest. Considering to the statement before, that in 24 hours students have to divide it into three phase and they are: 8 hours to study, 8 hours to play in order to refresh their mind, and the last 8 hours to take a rest in order to refresh their body. These 8 hours can also be managed again. Playing in entire 8 hours seems little bit inappropriate for students. They can manage it into 4 hours to play games that have educative value and the rest for fully relaxing. Beside managing time in a day, students also need to arrange their plans. They have to decide which task that must be done first by considering which one is urgent and which one is important. Usually, something that people have been planed is not going like what they want. Not every plan that has been arranged well can reach their goals. When they fail to reach the goal, they get depressed. This kind of thing also happens in students’ life. Students will get depressed or at least shocked when they get a bad grade or do not pass the exam. If this depression keep happens for a long time, students’ confidence will be gone. In this situation, the existence of parents and teachers is needed. Teacher and parents must give motivation to students that students can make their grade better. Failure does not mean that the students have no ability in doing the exam, but they have not ready to get the better grade because of some reasons. Teachers then explain about the reasons which are the fact that they have not study hard enough, they have not understood the lesson and do not want to ask someone who know more. In other way, the students can also follow a course in order to get additional time for study.
            Other way that teacher can do to motivate students in school is giving tasks and fair grades. A task or homework will ask the students to study. Their need of getting a good grade makes them study to do the task or the homework well. For some students, they do not know that the teachers give them tasks because the teachers want them to have more study and evaluating what they have learn in school. So, they just copy their friends’ work then submit it. In this case, the teacher needs to give a fair grade for the students work. The teacher must analyze whether the student do the task by himself/herself or he/she just copy it from their friends’ work. After correcting the students’ work, then teacher gives scores on it and gives suggestions in that worksheet. The teacher must tell students what the mistake in their work is. So, the students know how to avoid that mistake again in the next task. For the students who cheat in working the task, it is allright if the teacher gives punishment to them. But this punishment must be refered to educational punishment. Teacher gives a similar task to the students who cheat is the case in point.
            Motivating students in the learning process is challenging. One of the challenge is the case in giving reward and punishment. Inappropriate punishment just gives students more unmotivated feeling. The more they feel enforced by the teacher, more they hate the teacher and it will influence the affection of the students in the lesson. The punishment that is given to the students must refer to educational punishment and it is not interrupting learning process in class. For example: the teacher can give additional homework to the student. Besides that, not all of motivation that is given by the teacher can be received by the students easily. Students also have their own thought about the motivation that is given. In an illustration, students who have been given motivation like getting reward when do the job well, not always really need the reward. The reward that is promised can be interesting for several students, but not all of them. In this case, the teachers should look for the kind of reward that their students need. It is easy to give rewards for elementary school students, but when teaching high school student, teachers have to think again about the reward that will be given for the students. The reward that is wanted by the students will motivate them, but the reward that is not wanted by the students will do nothing in motivating them. The other challenge in motivating students is support from the family. From the explanation before, motivating students is not only the responsibility of the teachers, but also the responsibility of the parents. Motivations which come from the teacher not always saved in students mind and it is easy to fade away. They use that motivation only when they are at school. That is why support from the parents is needed to remind them about the right motivation in study.
Giving the wrong motivation (negative motivation) to students will give them difficulties in understanding the lesson. Furthermore, it is not really important to get a good or bad grade. The important thing is how far and how the students can understand the point of the lesson. It is still a big challenge to change this mindset of students in study.
            In summary, motivating students is important to develop education in every nation. Although giving motivation is not easy because of the different needs, the way to motivate, and the challenge in motivating students. It still can be done by the cooperation between students, teachers, parents, and society. From several subjects that have been explained before, the purpose and function of motivating students can be understood. Several of them are developing education, changing the mindset of study, and helping to achieve students’ goals. To achieve these purposes, students must have motivated themselves to study hard and get motivation from teachers, parents, and society to study harder. For teachers, to be able to motivating their students, there are several steps to do. First, teachers should understand what problems that are headed by the students. Second, teachers solve those problems using educational methods. Third, teachers give motivation consider to what that students need and cooperative work with students, parents, and society. By doing these several steps, the students will be more motivated to study in a positive way.
Moehamat Hendrik Setiawan

English in the Elementary School


In response to the needs of developing human resources, the teaching of English as foreign language has been extended to reach the elementary school level. This means that students learn English much earlier as they are young learner. The hope is that the students will get more exposure to English and as a consequence, the expectation to get a better learning is more open. It has been mentioned in the rule that has been mentioned by the Minister of Education No. 22, elementary school students must have ability in English. The government, especially the Minister of Education think that English which is given for elementary school students can be used to keep up with other nations, especially developed nations. Unfortunately, the government has not well prepared for English language teaching in elementary school yet. There are several things that must be prepared before teaching English as foreign language in elementary school can reach its expectation.
            First, we should prepare the teacher. Most teachers in elementary school were graduated from non-English language teaching program. It does not matter if they want to teach English. For example: teachers who teach English are given English course. The headmaster of elementary school held English course for the teacher and it must be no fee. So the teacher will be more motivated.
            Second, the materials of the lesson must be based on the level of the students. It means that the teachers must know whether the materials are suitable for the students or not. As example: teacher should not give grammar/tenses lesson to the students of elementary school. As the exchange, teachers give lesson about time, verb, adjective and example of conversation in daily life. The lesson should be given with fun and joy. By a good presentation, the students will be more motivated to study English because they think that English is fun.
            Third, keeping the trust of students’ parents and society also important, especially in the thing like school payment. Today, the government has given subsidy for education I our nation. And sometimes for state elementary school, it is free from monthly fee. The truth is, there are some elementary schools which get the subsidy still take payment from students’ parents. In an illustration, the staffs in school use the subsidy from the government for their daily life and their fun. So, they ask for payment to the parents to fulfill what they should do for the school activities. They use many kinds of way to get money from students’ parents include lies. For students and parents who are rich, sometimes they do not take it seriously. But for the students and parents in the middle and middle-lower economical level, it will be a serious problem because they have to work harder to pay for school.
            In summary, the ministry of education and also the headmaster of the elementary school must well prepare everything to support teaching English as foreign language program in elementary school, such as: the teachers, materials, and keep up the trust of society in education. There are other things that must be prepared before teaching English as foreign language can reach its expectation. At least several points that have been mentioned before were done to get teaching English as foreign language well prepared. So, English education in our country can be better.
Moehamat Hendrik S