The Aspects of Learning; Students, Teachers and Motivations

Good morning! Hope you all are not mourning.
I was awake with such a great mood so that I would like to share what my fellow pre-service teachers (Iqbal, Juli, Tenat, and Jebe) and I have thought of becoming a teacher. Hope it can enlighten whoever reading this.

The Aspects of Learning; Students, Teachers and Motivations

In today’s Belajar Pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris (Teaching Strategy) lecture, we discussed more topics related to teaching. We were adjusted by guiding questions which elicited our knowledge about what aspects of teaching we must be concerned with. Below are the summary of our discussion.

All of the members have jumped to a conclusion that knowing the students is what is prior to conduct of the teaching itself. Teaching requires the teachers to identify the characteristics of their target students. Teaching is synonymous with other profession—it has to consider the presence of the clients; what their needs are (considering their goals of learning), what proper things to be served to them (considering their age), and what appropriate service we can give to them (considering their preferable likes). Teaching employs these aspects in order to enhance the possibility to reach the goal of every learning activity; to help the students succeed in mastering the lessons. All of the members strongly believe that teaching must function every single importance the students are supposed to be acquianted, including both the knowledge and their character-building. Nonetheless, this is found problematic due to the fact that students vary in terms of suitable process of learning. Some students might learn more successfully when they are given more exposures on verbal communication, some might get hindered for they are shy. Thus, it is believed that the solvency of this obstacle is only attainable if the teachers know their students’ characteristics.

The aspects that must be covered to be known by teachers are underlying their students’ intents of learning. We believe all things that matter must be specifically identified in particular since teachers must be fair. The age of the students is perceived as essential factor to be taken into account because when it is known, teachers can adapt their learning into most effective one which is in line with the theory of language acquisition. One of the examples supporting our stance is in the case when the teachers know that their students are young learners. Teachers can justify the learning of infants by trying to accomodate appropriate approaches to young learners’ language learning (to reflect it to Piaget, Vygotsky or Brown’s theory). This way, teachers can successfully manage the classroom by scaffolding the steps which practicality and effectiveness have already been certified by experts.

Not only does age matter in finding out students’ whereabout, but their social background is also important to be reckoned. A good teacher must be familiar with what the students have obtained and what things which are relevant to them. The relevance has to meet the objectives of the learning (including its development of materials and techniques) because this is how teachers can contextualize the elements of the learning with the students’ prior knowledge.

We all have the same agreement on what Griffith has said in his statement saying motivation is important in students’ learning. Motivation is on which the students depend. The stronger their motivation is, the more successful the efforts they can put on achieving the objectives of the learning. Motivation is essential in making independent learning. It is believed that when the students have prominant motivation, the feasibility of succession of the learning will also be positively higher, as they will be likely to learn by themselves. Experential learning will be met at the end of the lesson in which the students will learn based on their own motivation.