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Intan Satriani
Emi Emilia
Muhammad Handi Gunawan
Indonesia University of Education
email: handi_gunawan@yahoo.co.id
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Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 2 No. 1, July 2012, pp. 10-22
In Indonesia, English language teaching and continually get filled with various kinds of
learning has been implemented in schools knowledge, which sometimes they do not
curriculum since 1954 with the old understand. Teachers should discover
curriculum. It has even received a more spe- creative strategies to enhance students
cial place in the current KTSP (Kurikulum interests to practice writing. Therefore, CTL
Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan or School-Based can be implemented in this present study.
Curriculum) (Emilia, 2011). In KTSP, the The CTL approach is considered to be
teacher does not have to describe objectives used in teaching English, especially in
and materials in detail for a teaching teaching writing. Regarding this, Nydam
learning process in the classroom. Hence, (2000, cited by Johnson, 2002, p. 279) and
the teacher is given freedom to use an Tribble (1996, p. 67) stated that writing with
approach that is relevant to the KTSP, for context can make students able to develop
example the CTL approach. analysis when they write a reasonable
One of the approaches that emphasizes paragraph and make the readers give their
the process and content of writing, which expectation easier. In other words, if the
was discovered by Dewey (1916), is a students know what to write, what the reader
contextual approach. The contextual expects from the text, and which parts of the
approach is a learning philosophy that em- language system that are relevant to the
phasizes students interests and experiences. particular task in a given context, then they
The contextual teaching and learning (CTL) will be able to develop their analysis in
was developed by the Washington State writing a reasonable paragraph and have a
Consortium, which involved 11 universities, good chance to write something.
20 schools and some education organizations In Indonesia, the CTL approach is rarely
in the United States (Hermana, 2010, p. 56). used as an approach to improve students
The contextual teaching and learning writing ability. Based on the background
(CTL) applied in this research was based on above, this study used the CTL to discover
Crawfords procedures: Relating, expe- the advantages and strategies used in the
riencing, applying, cooperating, and trans- contextual teaching and learning approach to
ferring (REACT) (Crawford, 2001). Contex- teaching writing. The significance of this
tual teaching and learning has been reported study is on how the CTL will help the
to be effective in developing students skills second graders of junior high school write a
in English. Some studies that used the CTL recount text and their improvement in
approach had been conducted in Indonesian writing will be observed.
students classroom settings (see Harjani, Contextual teaching and learning has
2005; Mulyadin, 2010; Minta, 2010; Wanda- been differently defined by many experts.
sari, 2011). From their studies, it was Some experts define contextual teaching and
revealed that CTL effectively improved learning as a concept that helps teachers and
students comprehension, interests, and com- students relate the meaning and real world
petence in writing and reading skills. situations with the subject matter in the right
The papers mentioned above state that a way (Johnson, 2002; Sears, 2002). In other
learning process today still uses a teacher- words, CTL motivates the learners to take
oriented approach. Teachers transfer their charge of their own learning and to relate
knowledge to their students actively, mean- between knowledge and its application to the
while, their students, like an empty bottle various contexts of their lives. Besides the
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Satriani, et al., Contextual teaching and learning approach
previous definition, Nurhadi (2000) has approach in the field of education, especially
argued that the constructivism philosophy is in teaching English as second language.
the reason why teachers choose CTL as an In line with the implementation of CTL
alternative teaching and learning approach. or contextual approach, there are some
In this case, the students are expected to strategies that teachers use in the classroom.
learn through experiencing not by memo- Some teachers in America had implemented
rizing the subject matter. the strategies. There are five strategies
CTL approach has some teaching proposed by Crawford (2001) as follows:
strategies, which include content as a critical
component. Those strategies engage students 1. Relating
in an active learning process. The strategies Relating is the most powerful element in
can be implemented individually or in group. contextual teaching strategy. It also suggests
There are some teaching strategies that students learning in the context of ones
associated with CTL approach as proposed life experiences or preexisting knowledge
by Berns & Erickson (2001) as follows: (Crawford, 2001). In relating, teachers link a
Problem based learning, cooperative new concept to something completely
learning, service learning, work based unknown to students. Caine & Caine (1993)
learning, project based learning, and react called this reaction felt meaning. That
strategies. reaction can be momentous, as when a
In addition, the Washington State student finds the solution to a problem that
Consortium for Contextual Teaching and he or she has spent significant time and
Learning spawned great efforts to construct effort in solving.
teaching and learning approach, especially
contextual teaching and learning approach 2. Experiencing
(Hermana, 2010). There were many subjects In contextual approach, one strategy
involved in the construction of the approach, relates to another. The previous statement
namely eleven universities, twenty schools, appears to indicate that relating connects
and some organizations in the field of new information to life experiences or prior
education in United States. knowledge that students bring to the
Regarding this, the implementation of classroom. Teachers are able to overcome
CTL approach in the classroom activities this obstacle and help students construct new
becomes common place throughout United knowledge with hand-on experiences that
States because this approach is believed to occur inside the classroom. This strategy is
significantly relate the meaning to the called experiencing. In experiencing, stu-
students real world situations. The dents are learning by doing through explo-
implementation of CTL, especially REACT ration, discovery, and invention (Crawford,
(relating, experiencing, applying, coo- 2001).
perating, and transferring) strategies in
America, a constructivism method, is used to 3. Applying
make students establish their sense of Applying strategy can be defined as
interest, confidence, and a need for under- learning by putting the concepts to use
standing. REACT strategies in CTL (Crawford, 2001). Clearly, students can
approach can help students improve their implement the concepts when they are
learning (Crawford, 2001). Indonesia has engaged in hands on problem solving
implemented CTL approach. In Indonesia, activities. Teachers can also motivate a need
the CTL approach is implemented in various for understanding the concepts by assigning
fields, such as mathematics, sciences, social realistic and relevant exercises. Relating and
sciences, and languages (Saud, 2009). Some experiencing are strategies for developing
people have researched the use of CTL insight, felt meaning, and understanding.
Applying is a contextual teaching and
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Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 2 No. 1, July 2012, pp. 10-22
5. Transferring
In traditional classroom, students roles RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
are to memorize the facts and practice the
procedures by working skill drill exercises The advantages of contextual teaching
and word problems. In contrast, in a and learning approach in a writing class
contextual or constructivist classroom, the
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Satriani, et al., Contextual teaching and learning approach
Data and discussion from observation has stated that the advantages of questioning
Based on the data gained from the activity are to check students under-
observation sheets and teacher field notes, standing, encourage students response, mo-
which are conducted in seven meetings, the tivate students to ask more questions, and
use of contextual teaching and learning refresh students knowledge.
approach in the writing activity provided six In line with the statement above, the
benefits. The benefits were engaging data revealed that in the writing process,
students in the writing activity, increasing students asked some questions that they did
students motivation to participate actively not understand and answered teachers
in the writing class, helping students to questions pertaining to the material. The
construct their writing, helping students to above statement appears to indicate that they
solve their problems, providing ways for participated actively in the writing class.
students to discuss or interact with their Another activity which can show the
friends, and helping the students to increase of students motivation was the fact
summarize and reflect the lesson. Those that the students can ask some questions to
benefits were similar to the statement their pairs about their holiday using some
proposed by Crawford (2001); Depdiknas guideline questions, such as What did you
(2002); Johnson (2002). Further explanation do on your holiday?, Where did you go?,
of each benefit is presented below. When did you do your holiday?, and With
whom did you go there?
Engaging students in the writing activity The students motivations also appear
Most students felt enthusiastic to follow when the teacher showed and administered
teacher instructions and were willing to two kinds of cards (green and red card) to
participate in the learning activity. From the know students understanding in the lesson;
observation sheets and teacher field notes, it they were eagerly interested to be shown
is discernible that in the beginning of the those cards. In addition, the student told the
lesson, students were able to review the definition of recount text (in L1), We retell
previous lesson before the lesson began. For about what happened in the past.
example, one of the students said (in L1), I This principle can be implemented in
learned about the elements of recount text, contextual teaching and learning class,
like lexicogrammatical features. The especially in writing class. Questioning
students engagement was also shown by the activity was also discovered when the
ability of the students to share their students discussed in pairs or group work in
expressions in the beginning of the lesson. the writing class. Questioning in the learning
The contextual teaching and learning process is seen as a teachers activity to
approach can engage students in the writing encourage, guide, and evaluate students
activity. In doing that activity, the students thinking ability. For the students,
were motivated to follow teacher instruc- questioning activity is defined as the
tions. That is supported by Johnson (2002, p. important part in conducting learning based
83) who stated that CTL engages students in on inquiry (Depdiknas, 2002).
independent action, which is designed to
connect academic knowledge with the Helping students to construct their writing
context of students daily lives in ways that Students have to construct knowledge in
achieve a meaningful purpose, including in their mind. The data from observation show
one of CTL characteristics. that in the classroom, the students could
implement past verb correctly in the text and
Increasing students motivation to construct a neat recount text about their
participate actively in the writing class. holiday easily. Besides, in the second
One of the contextual teaching and learning meeting students were able to organize their
principles is questioning. Depdiknas (2002) diagram events and create diagram events
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Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 2 No. 1, July 2012, pp. 10-22
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Satriani, et al., Contextual teaching and learning approach
enthusiastically. It can be seen from the themselves about the material they had
observation conducted by the researcher that learned.
at the end of the lesson, the students raised At the end of the learning process, the
their hands enthusiasticly to read aloud their teacher gave time for the students to reflect
texts in front of the class. Then, they were what they had learned. The realizations in
enthusiastic to help their friends and share the form of journal and direct statements
their papers, although the students should about what they have learned in that day,
accomplish the task with their pairs. It also discussion, and paper or text.
happened when students worked in group,
they shared their texts with their friends. Data and discussion from interview
Each student felt enthusiastic to share their Based on the interviews results, it was
writing as (in L1), This is my text. It is discovered that there were some advantages
good, right? of implementing contextual teaching and
learning approach to teaching writing: (1)
Helping the students to summarize and engaging students in the activity; (2)
reflect the lesson increasing students motivation to participate
Reflection is a way to think about what have actively in the writing class; (3) helping
been learned by the students or what they students to construct their writing, especially
had done in the previous lesson. Reflection recount text; (4) helping students to solve
was beneficial for students in writing their problem; (5) providing ways for
process. It was shown that the students were students to discuss or interact with their
able to remember the lesson on that day and friends; (6) helping the students to
CTL could check students comprehension, summarize and reflect the lesson (Depdik-
whether they understood the lesson or not. nas, 2002; Johnson, 2002).
From the data obtained from obser- In the interview session, students felt
vation sheet and teacher field notes, in the REACT strategies could increase their
end of the lesson, students were shown to knowledge in how to write a good text.
reflect what they had learned. One of the Besides that, the second advantage was that
students said (in L1), I learn how to make CTL could increase students motivation to
diagram event. When the teacher reviewed participate actively in the writing class. It
the materials, the students responded well. can be seen by how the students responded;
After that, when they were asked What they could understand more when the
have you learned today? they answered the teacher gave the text as an example. They
activities in the class. The students also also said it was effective because they
mentioned some expressions in recount text understood the grammatical roles, and they
and what they had learned in the class. did a lot of practices.
The CTL approach helped the students In learning to write, students enjoyed
to infer and reflect the lesson as shown by and could solve their problem, when they
how the representative of each group came worked in group. That statement can be
forward to read aloud their friends texts, proved from what student said in the
and then revised them. At the end of the interview session (in L1), I feel enjoy and
lesson, one of the students told (in L1), can solve the problem when I work in
Today I checked my friends text. That group.
statement is similar to Depdiknas (2002), The next advantage from the use of CTL
which states that from reflection teacher can approach to teaching writing was providing
help the students to make relations between ways for students to discuss or interact with
knowledge that they have before with the their friends. Students felt that cooperative
new knowledge. In addition, students felt strategy was an interesting learning style.
they gained something beneficial for Through cooperative learning, the students
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Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 2 No. 1, July 2012, pp. 10-22
could discuss with their friends and obtain applying, cooperating, and transferring (see
knowledge from the discussion. Chapter 2). The further explanation about
In addition, reflection was beneficial for teaching strategies used were explained
students in writing process. The students below.
said they could remember the lesson on that
day and CTL could check students Relating
comprehension, whether they understood the Relating is the most powerful element in
lesson or not. As students statements in contextual teaching strategy. In relating
interview session show (in L1), Reflection strategy, teacher links a new concept to
gives advantage for me because I can something completely unknown to students
remember the previous lesson; It can and the students learning in the context of
check students comprehension in the end of ones life experiences or preexisting
the lesson; and It is very beneficial for me knowledge (Crawford, 2001). Based on the
because I was once taught grammar by my observation, the students were able to link
teacher, then I got 100, but the next day their new knowledge and understand easily
when I learned the new materials and the what they should do in the lesson. It was
teacher did not review the previous shown by the students who said Miss, I
materials, I got a bad score in my exa- write my holiday on the book. According to
mination. So, a teacher and students should the previous data, the students discover the
review the materials. solution to a problem that he or she has spent
significant time and effort in solving (Caine
Data and discussion from documentation of & Caine, 1993). Similar to Caine & Caines
students text (1993) statement above, the students can
From assessment sheets, it is discernible that solve the problem through the written
the students showed a good progress in their document. It can be seen in the first time
writing. The progress of their writing has students write a recount text, they can learn
been assessed from the first to the end of from their mistakes in grammatical roles,
their writing products. Based on Roses punctuation, and spelling.
assessment, (2007 cited by Emilia 2011:
151) grammatical aspects were considered to Experiencing
assess students ability in writing. Moreover, In contextual approach one strategy relates
in this research the students increased their to another. It is discernible that relating
writing ability and they could construct a connects new information to life experiences
neat recount text, which shows the or prior knowledge that students bring them
grammatical improvement from students in to the classroom. Teachers can overcome
the writing class. this obstacle and help students to construct
new knowledge with hands-on experiences
Teaching strategies used that occur inside the classroom. This strategy
is called experiencing.
Data and discussion from observation In experiencing strategy, students learn
The sources of data from observation were by doing through exploration, discovery, and
observation sheets and teacher field notes. invention (Crawford, 2001). It can be seen
The observation sheets and field notes by looking at students were able to create
consist of the activities conducted by the diagram events independently and organize
teacher during the pre activities, whilst the drafting of the recount text from their
activities, and post activities session. Based diagram events. In this strategy, students
on the data gained from seven meetings in were also able to work in pairs to analyze the
the writing class, there were some teaching text in terms of linguistic features and
strategies which are proposed by Crawford generic structure. In the class hands-on
(2001) such as relating, experiencing, experiences can include the use of
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Satriani, et al., Contextual teaching and learning approach
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Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 2 No. 1, July 2012, pp. 10-22
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Satriani, et al., Contextual teaching and learning approach
experiences that occured inside the class- Data and discussion from written
room. The students stated that this strategy documents
could improve their knowledge through the
teacher who gave the text model to the The written documents that were used in this
students. As they stated (in L1), I can im- research were students texts. From the
prove my writing skill when the teacher students texts, the teacher could observe
asked me to write about my experience, then students improvement in writing. In some
teacher gave the example. stages of the CTL approach, which were
Applying stage increased students used to teach writing, the students showed
interest in writing. The students agreed that their progress. In relating strategy, as it was
the effective way to teach writing was to do the first time the students wrote a recount
many practices in writing, especially writing text, they made a few mistakes in gramma-
about their experiences. Similar to that tical roles, punctuation, and spelling. But, in
evidence, in applying strategy students could this stage the teacher could measure
apply the concepts when they were engaged students ability in writing.
on problem solving activity (Crawford, The next strategy is applying strategy.
2001). In this strategy, the students were able to
Cooperating can help teacher avoid apply the new concepts, which they gained
some negative conditions and create envi- in the previous stages, into a recount text.
ronments, in which students may be expec- Cooperating strategy is the fourth stage in
ted to learn concepts at a deeper level of REACT method. This strategy emphasizes
understanding (Johnson & Johnson, 1990). more to learn in the context of sharing,
Most of the students agreed that cooperating responding, and communicating with other
stage was the most effective strategy to learn learners (Crawford, 2001). In this strategy,
writing. In realizing that statement, students when the students check their friends text in
argued that working in group can help them group, they can mark the incorrect parts in
know the new vocabularies that were used the text.
by their friends and they felt enjoyable to The last strategy is transferring. In this
study in group. step, the students were able to write a neat
Transferring strategy was implemented recount text by minimizing mistakes and
when the students wrote their neat recount improving their writing. Besides the five
text by looking at the previous text. In this strategies above, the use of authentic
stage, the students said that the benefit from assessment is one of the important elements.
using transferring strategy was that they Authentic assessment emphasizes on the
were able to know which parts were learning process. It means the data that are
incorrect. Five teaching strategies had been collected should be obtained from the real
implemented and discovered in this research. activity which is done by the students when
Besides that, the assessment should also be they do the learning process.
considered to know students improvement The characteristics of authentic
in writing. One of the characteristics of CTL assessment are it is conducted during and
approach is the use of authentic assessment. after the learning process, and it can be used
The students from the interview session as feedback for the students. Besides
argued that portfolio as the authentic assess- characteristics, there are some important
ment could be effective since they were able aspects to evaluate students achievement,
to combine their ideas, better their writing, such as students report, homework, quiz,
and use past tense correctly. students presentation or performance,
demonstration, journal, and portfolio.
Teachers who want to know their
students English learning improvement,
should collect the data from the real activity
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Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 2 No. 1, July 2012, pp. 10-22
when students use English. The data should In addition, the use of contextual
gained from the students when they do the teaching and learning approach in a writing
English activity inside or outside the class, class was responded to positively by the
and that is called authentic data (Depdiknas, students. This contention is proved by the
2002). students writing improvement through three
In line with the statement above, kinds of instrument.
portfolio is one of the authentic assessments
that was used in this research. The REFERENCES
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