Puppets as alternative media for teaching speaking to young learners : exploring class interaction in fourth grade of SDN Dukuh Menanggal II, Surabaya

Some children are explorative, brave and curious while the rests are shy and intimidated but with those varied characters, they just love to play. Knowing their enthusiasm, it seems that puppets are suitable for both types of children since puppets are generally likeable. Thus, puppets are brought into English class to help students speak their mind and share their ideas in target language, English. Then, the use of puppets as media is to help students learn English in a fun atmosphere. Here, puppet can be the bridge to build an interaction in a writing based English class. So, through this study, the writer tries to find the kinds of interaction and the strengths & weaknesses in making use of puppets specifically in teaching speaking to young learners. Since this study is descriptive qualitative, the research was done based on observer’s observations. The writer was the observer. The research was conducted in one meeting of pre-observation and two meetings of observation. The pre-observation was done on Monday, September 11th 2006 and the observations were done two times, on Tuesday, September 12th and on Tuesday, September 19th 2006. The participants of this research were one teacher and 24 students of grade 4 of SDN Dukuh Menanggal II, Surabaya. The writer obtained the data from the video-recording, interview, observation lists and teacher’s self-reflection sheet. From the data obtained, the writer concludes that students made six out of eight kinds of interactions with the teacher. The kinds of interactions were; 1.Teacher Initiates- Students Respond; 2.Teacher evaluates students’ responses; 3.Teacher’s positive non-verbal clues; 4.Students’ positive non-verbal clues; 5.Teacher’s negative non-verbal clues; and 6.Students’ negative non-verbal clues. Based on the analysis of the observation data, the strengths were students had the puppet as another model except the teacher, students had a new experience with a puppet in their class, they made a better speaking practice, puppet helped them aware of the use of a language, in this case, of English. Meanwhile, the weaknesses were the teaching-learning process used only 50% English, students overused their mother tongue, and students did not use target language as hoped. Another weakness found based on the interview was only 9 out of 24 students had a better understanding about the lesson. From the findings of the research, it is found that class interaction can be conditioned through puppet with an optimum teaching design. It implies that an optimum teaching design administered with puppet as a media can give rooms for the students to interact specifically in making initiations and evaluations. Intrinsically, puppet as a media could help facilitate interaction. But however, teacher must be able to make an optimum teaching design. Based on the findings, it implies that teacher should be able to create a teaching design as such that can promote optimum interaction in speaking class. By doing so, the students’ speaking ability can be fostered. Thus, it is assumed that teaching design is central to the effectiveness of interaction rather than the puppet as a teaching media per se