Classroom Interaction in the Teaching and Learning of English at the Twelfth Grade of MAN 3 Malang

ABSTRACT Widyaningsih, Tri. 2008. Classroom Interaction in the Teaching and Learning of English at the Twelfth Grade of MAN 3 Malang. Thesis, English Department. Faculty of Letters. Sarjana Program. State University of Malang. Advisor: Dr. Suharmanto, M.Pd Key Words: classroom interaction, teacher talk, student talk, patterns of interaction The present study is conducted to describe the English classroom interaction that takes place in the teaching and learning process, especially in the teaching and learning of listening. The general research problem of this study is "How is the classroom interaction in the teaching and learning of English in MAN 3 Malang?" Particularly, this study is aimed to answer three questions: (1)What categories of teacher-talk occur during the teaching and learning process? (2)What categories of student-talk occur during the teaching and learning process? and (3) What are the patterns of interaction that occur during the teaching and learning process? The subjects of the study are two English teachers teaching in the twelfth grade from two different classes. In the study, the researcher is the key instrument in the sense that she takes the data directly in the classroom. The data of the study are the utterances produced by the teacher and the students during the teaching and learning process. The data are collected through recording, observation, and field notes. The procedure of data analysis comprises four steps, namely: data collection, data reduction, data display, and conclusion. The finding shows that in the English classroom, the teacher and the students interact well. It means that they interact well in which they understand to each other's meaning. However, the teacher speech dominates more in the interaction. There are seven categories of teacher talk namely (1) dealing with feelings; (2) praising and encouraging; (3) using ideas of students; (4) asking questions; (5) giving information; (6) giving directions; and (7) criticizing students' behavior. Among those categories, the fourth category occurs frequently due to the listening materials which emphasize practicing and drilling of exercises. In responding to the teacher, students use some categories of student talk that includes; (1) students' specific response, (2) students' open ended response, (3) silence, (4) confusion (work-oriented), (5) laughter, and (6) uses of the native language. Meanwhile, in the teaching-learning process three patterns of interaction occur, namely (1) teacher-whole class interaction, (2) teacher-student interaction, (3) student-teacher interaction. The first pattern of interaction occurs frequently among the other patterns since the class activities are focus on whole class activity in which the teacher becomes the initiator in the class. On the basis of the above findings, some suggestions are proposed. First, it is recommended that in the classroom activities, the teacher need to give more changes and stimulation to the students to talk. Second, the teacher is suggested not to only ask questions to the whole class, but also to an individual student. By doing so, a silent student will also be involved in the interaction, not just the active students. Third, the teacher also needs to apply pairs or group work activity so that students can interact with their friends and do not feel shy to practice the language