Tuesday, 29 September 2020

How SBC is Implemented with the Specific Reference to the Evaluation System at a Vocational School (The Result of My Study)

 

CHAPTER IV

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

 

This chapter elaborates the findings of the study that have been gained from the result of the data analysis. The discussion of the findings is given in three different sections dealing with the research questions. To be discussed in the first section is the discussion  of data from the teachers’ interview, the class observation and the document analysis, as the answers to the first research question, that is ‘how is SBC implemented with the specific reference to the evaluation system in English teaching  for the students at a vocational school?’. The second section presents and discusses data from the teachers’ interview as the answers to the second research question, that is ‘what are the problems faced by the teachers in administering evaluation?’. The third section elaborates the presentation and the discussion of data from the students’ interview and questionnaire, as the answers to the third question, that is ‘what are the students’ responses toward the evaluation system?’. The overall discussion of the findings can be described in the section 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3, with a synthesis at the end of the chapter.

 

4.1   How SBC is Implemented with the Specific Reference to the Evaluation System at a Vocational School

4.1.1 Data Analysis on the Teachers’ Interview

The teachers’ responses in the interview can be seen in Table 4.14 in the Appendix 3. From the result on the teacher’s interview, it can be concluded some important points:

           Firstly, all the teachers have got some experiences in teaching as the fact that they have been teaching for many years. Additionally, all the teachers have got some trainings or workshops dealing with SBC.

           Secondly, SBC is used as the curriculum in the present teaching. Moreover, the teachers’ understanding on SBC is varied. A teacher relates SBC as the curriculum which applies evaluation with certain standards. The others say that SBC describes how the teacher should teach. The two respondents have similar opinion that SBC should be implemented based on the school situation, as well as the need of the society around.

           The result is in line with Zainurrahman study (2009) that shows that SBC  causes different perception of the teachers as the curriculum user of the SBC. Additionally, it is relevant to what Bolstad (2004:7) says that the teachers are responsible for developing the curricula besides the implementation of the curricula. It means that the teachers should be involved in decision making, relating to the curriculum development and implementation.

Along with this, the respondents’ opinion on the difference between SBC and the previous curriculum is mostly the same. They elaborate that there must be  differences between the curriculums. The differences are regarding the point of teaching, autonomy for the school, need and interest of the students and society. Only one respondent says it is the same. The response is in line with  Bolstad’s  idea (2004) that School based curriculum is adaptive in the sense that  the teachers can adapt the existing curricula to  meet the local needs.

Most of the English teachers agreed that the function or the objective of English at the vocational school is focused on communicative purpose, that enables the students  to communicate well both oral and written communication as the demand of work field.  There is another opinion that is to help the students to have certain characteristics  which make them differ from the others. The teachers’ responses are similar to Lewy(1991), Lynch (1996), Smith (1997) and BSNP (2006) among others.

 As  Lewy (1991) maintains each school is based in a small community and each community can have slightly different needs from other, even neighbouring communities. In addition, Lynch (1996) points out that the school-based learning component of the youth apprenticeship program should be designed to integrate academic disciplines, academic and vocational subjects, as well as the work-based learning component. BSNP (2006) maintains that the objectives of education in vocational school is to enhance intelligence, knowledge, personality, good morale, and skills to  live independently and or to continue further education according to their vocational skills. A study by Smith (Smith, 1997) indicates that as with occupational/ technical skills, the vocational educators perceived a need for a higher prior mastery skill level for employment.

Regarding the Syllabus, all teachers understand well the CS/BS (Competency Standard/Basic Competence) in the class where they taught, and can give an example of indicator and the relevant material. The role of CS/BC is viewed as the reference, the guideline, the direction to the right path and or the standard in teaching. It is in line  with BSNP’s description  (2006) about developing School Based Curriculum.

Regarding   the teachers’ concept of the evaluation, the responses are varied. According to   the teachers, the evaluation is conducted in many ways. The first respondent says that it is carried out whenever the students give any responses  during the  learning process. Therefore, the teacher should   not focus on the tests. Assessment is also conducted after the teaching process when the teacher gives an assignment.

      According to the second respondent, the evaluation focuses on the individual ability of each students. It is considered unfair to judge that all students are equal. Therefore the teacher  looks at the competency of each students whether they have passed the standard or not.

      According to the third respondent, in English there are  some aspects  to be evaluated. English evaluation  is already  SBC based according to him, for  example, in speaking, the teacher evaluates the pronunciation, spelling, the sentence mastery, so on.  Also, in English, any kinds of teaching materials can cover writing, reading, or speaking. The evaluation depends on the teacher. The teacher admitted that he has not conducted the evaluation well.

Based on the fourth respondent’s view, the teacher focuses on process oriented evaluation. Whenever the teacher meets the students, the teacher conducts an evaluation. The evaluation is dealing with what the students have done and what their responses toward the teacher’s assignment. According to the respondent, if they respond well,  the evaluation will be good, as well.

The functions of assessment or evaluation based on the teachers are varied.  The responses are as follows: firstly, the function is to make the students know their standard  competence  after having the learning process, they will know whether  they have  mastered the material  or not. Secondly, it is functioned as a barometer of the students’ achievement. Thirdly, the general function of evaluation is to measure the students’ and the teacher’s achievement in terms of  how successful  of what the teacher has  taught. Thus, the evaluation is conducted to know  the success of  the teacher and the students after the teaching learning process completes. One of the indicators is by looking at  how the students master CS/BS. At last, the evaluation is made in any chance the teacher  meets the students. It will determine the students’ final score.

The teachers’ responses on the concept and the function of the evaluation are in line with some basic theories on the previous section, especially as BSNP (2006) and Gronlund (1985). They maintain that evaluation is a whole range of activities to find, analyze, and interpret the process and  learning outcome data which is  conducted systematically and continually in order to get meaningful information in making decision. It can be undertaken during and after the class session. However, the result is in the opposite side to the previous study, Hasbullah (2007) which indicates that evaluation is conducted at the end of session.

The teachers’ understanding on MMC are  basically the same. It stands for Minimum Mastery Criteria (Kriteria Ketuntasan Minimum in Indonesian Language), which is made at the beginning of the academic year. It is a minimal standard value  to be reached by the students to pass the grade. The factors influencing the MMC are namely intake, facility, complexity, essential. The responses are in line with what BSNP (2006) has maintained.

In term of the time of evaluation based on the teachers’ view is also various. The evaluation is conducted  when:

a.       the students give  responses during the process or after the end of the class.

b.      the teacher meets the students, but the focus is on the process.

c.       the teaching learning process takes place and after the process

d.      the students conduct an active turn. The  evaluation is  at the beginning, during and at the end   of the learning process.

The result is similar to some points of Gronlund (1985), Rudiana (2006) and Heaton (1995)  that intended learning outcomes are established by the instructional objectives; the desired changes in pupils are brought  about  by the planned learning objectives; and the pupils’ changes in learning progress is periodically evaluated by tests and other evaluation devices (Gronlund:1985, Rudiana:2006).

The aspects of the evaluation cover cognitive (dealing with knowledge), psychomotor (dealing with the movement/skill), and affective (attitude or the students’ effort) as suggested by BSNP (2006) and Herrick (1996). The evaluation system  among the grades are similar; but the result of the evaluation will be different depending on the development growth in each grade according to the teacher.

The technique of evaluation covers oral and written evaluation in the forms of  essay- free and structured essays,  multiple choice, oral test or performance. The choice whether it is oral and written evaluation depends on the content of the material, but, the result is contrary to the students’ questionnaire that most of the evaluation techniques is written test. The techniques also did not fulfill some categories of the techniques and the instrument form which had been outlined by BSNP (2006) as discussed in the previous section. Therefore, the techniques of evaluation should be improved and completed.

The procedure of evaluation dealing with four skills in English which is conducted by the teachers covers some points: in speaking, the assessment deals with the correct intonation, pronunciation, the expression that the students used in  a dialogue with their friends, so on.  In reading, it relates to the way the students read the text and their understanding on the content of the text or their answer on the text comprehension questions or reading aloud. In writing, the students write an application letter for example  or   make a report, so on. In listening  for example, the teacher speaks, and then asks the students  to respond the question based on the oral text she is  made.

Dealing with the assessment of speaking, listening, writing and reading, the teachers designed  the assessment aspects  at first to make it easier to determine the evaluation points for  every  student. For listening, in the first grade, the evaluation tends to assess  how the students  understand what the teacher  has said, for example, in the dictation, it deals with to what extent that the students can catch the words or sentences pronounced by the teacher. In conversation, it focuses on performance. How they can respond correctly, and how they can practice the dialogue with their friends well. Therefore, it is more on the forming of habit.

The result of the teacher responses indicate some points reflected in the previous theories (Heaton:1995, Nunan:1998, Hughes:2003 among others) which define some points of  evaluation on the four skills of English, however there should be a lot of improvement in term of a wide variety of the evaluation techniques dealing with English language skills.

Enrichment teaching is aimed for the third grade only as the preparation of having National Exam, whereas for the remedial teaching and learning is conducted when the students have not reached the determined standard or the gained score is below the MMC. Moreover, the feedback is given in every session in the form of a big applause or a compliment, discussion-question and answer,. The result of the teacher’ responses on MMC is in line to BSNP (2006) on the stages in evaluation. Also, it is as suggested by Brown (2001) that the teacher should give optimal feedback to students.

The teachers take into account the daily test score, the assignments, the midterm and final test score, and the behavior including the motivation of the students in determining whether a student  pass the grade or fail. The final decision is usually taken in a meeting board consists of the teachers, the school officers and homeroom teacher. It is in line with the internal and external evaluation as suggested by Heaton (1995).

In designing the test items, all  the teachers made the test by themselves and or took the existing test source  with some adaptation. They also made kisi-kisi or the direction standard  and the assessment rubric before designing the test item.

According to most of the teachers, the mastery of four skills among the students   are average. The focus in teaching is speaking as  demanded by work force. A teacher said that the students’ ability in writing is good but  less in speaking and listening.

There are a lot of strategies in increasing the students’ motivation based on the teachers’ opinion such as:

a.       Creating interesting activities or assignments such as watching film and making summary about it in order to make speaking English as a habit.

b.      Elaborating the benefit of mastering English as an international language for  communication for the future work.

c.       Finding out the source of the problem because the low motivation is often influenced not only by the classroom situation but also by the environment where the students live and by their friends with whom they socialize. After the problem has been traced, the solution can be selected.

The teachers should take into account to what the China paper (2011) has  elaborated about  the problem of lack of motivation in English learning in China. Task based learning is expected to be implemented to solve the problem in the site of study.

SBC were viewed beneficial for most of the teachers, but one respondent gave a negative response toward SBC. The teacher viewed  that the benefits of SBC are  a lot, it gives the students a freedom as well as the teachers  to explore English  deeply beyond the curriculum. In terms of the evaluation, there is an MMC which is made and given by the teachers. Other teachers considered SBC as an educational school unit curriculum. It is designed based on the school’s strength and weaknesses. The other thinks that SBC curriculum in a school will be different from the others because the facility is different. Therefore, in designing SBC, the school takes into consideration the school character, the school committee, and the community around. The graduates of the school should fulfill the demand of the work field  around. One of the teachers has a different opinion on SBC. Instead of benefit, it has also a weakness, it is rather difficult to apply. In SBC, the students   have to reach the MMC. Meanwhile, the teacher cannot force that all students can fulfill the requirement well because all students have different characteristics. It will work well if  the school uses a university system which allow the students to pass the grade but still have to take again the course.

                The result on the benefit of SBC above indicates that most of the teachers gave a positive attitude on SBC, though one respondent viewed in the opposite side. It is consistent with Zainurrahman (2009) study that as autonomous curriculum, SBC demands teacher and school to be skilled and trained. This demand then causes different perception of the teachers as the curriculum user of the SBC.

               At last, the teachers give some suggestion on the implementation of SBC in general, the evaluation in detail, such as:

a.       In SBC, national exam or anything relates to school should be given to the school authority. For the graduation criteria  for the third grade in particular, the government should not interfere. There is a case when a student who  was always absent can pass the UN, he was considered to pass the grade, whereas  there was a student who was diligent, always came everyday to school, did  all assignments,  unfortunately  did not pass the national exam, so he was judged not to pass the grade, based on the first respondent’s view.

b.      A teacher had no comment on SBC, especially in the evaluation aspect. It is because that the evaluation  is depending on  the  teacher’s readiness. In  SBC, the evaluation is varied. It depends on the teachers’ creativity.

c.       The teacher is required to widen their vision, increase their knowledge, open their English vision to be more innovative. The teachers have to change  their strategies to fill the demand of the changing  era according to the respondent.

             It is also similar to Zainurrahman (2009) who argues that SBC causes different perception of the teachers as the curriculum user of the SBC. In addition, as Lewy (1991) maintains that the diversification of curricula used in schools may jeopardize the content validity or the curriculum-fairness of nationally produced examinations.

 

 

 

 

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