TEORI MUKA DAN KESANTUNAN

JURNAL LINGUA KOMUNIKA: Tahun II, Edisi 5, Mei 2012 Fakultas Bahasa dan Budaya, Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Semarang _______________________________________________________________________ __________

TEORI MUKA DAN KESANTUNAN Oleh: DR. JUMANTO1 Fakultas Bahasa dan Budaya Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Semarang Abstract This paper is about the pragmatic face theory and its relation as well as its influence to politeness. Accounts given in this paper are on face theory, types of hearer, and types of utterances; face theory and Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies (1987); politeness among Javanese people; face theory and irony, banter, and hedging; politeness and camaraderie; distant language and close language; and impoliteness in social interactions. Conclusions are given upon the discussions to close this opinion paper. Key Words:

pragmatics, face management, politeness, types of hearer, irony, banter, hedging, social distance, Javanese politeness

PENDAHULUAN Teori ‘muka’ (face) merupakan aspek penting dalam pragmatik. Istilah ‘muka’ mengacu ke pandangan Erving Goffman (1959, 1967) tentang segala keinginan yang ada pada manusia. Setiap diri orang memiliki dua muka, ‘muka positif’ dan ‘muka negatif’. Muka positif adalah keinginan untuk dihargai, dan muka negatif adalah keinginan untuk tidak direndahkan. Berkaitan dengan pengaturan muka ini, teori kesantunan mengarahkan agar dalam berinteraksi verbal, penutur senantiasa menjaga muka petutur dan juga muka penutur sendiri. Teori kesantunan yang terkait dengan pengaturan muka utamanya dikembangkan oleh Brown dan Levinson (1987) yang membagi strategi kesantunan menjadi strategi kesantunan positif dan strategi kesantunan negatif, yang masing-masing mengacu ke muka positif dan muka negatif dari teori Goffman. Setiap tuturan berpotensi mengancam atau bahkan merusak muka interpersonal, yaitu muka penutur dan muka petutur, yang disebut tuturan 1Jumanto,

born in Pati, Central Java, Indonesia, 1968. Drs. in English Language Teaching from IKIP Semarang, 1992, M.Ed. in English Language Teaching from IKIP Jakarta, 1997, and Ph.D. in Linguistics (Pragmatics) from University of Indonesia, 2006. A teacher of English Language and of Linguistics, graduate and postgraduate studies, since 1992. Residence in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia.

1|Page


pengancam muka (face-threatening acts atau FTA); sehingga dalam bertutur, penutur dapat menjaga muka petutur atau bahkan kadang-kadang perlu menyelamatkan muka petutur dengan tuturan penyelamat muka (face-saving acts atau FSA). Muka interpersonal yang terancam atau rusak dapat berkembang lebih jauh menjadi ‘muka sosial’ yang juga rusak. Dalam hal ini friksi interpersonal yang terjadi dapat berubah menjadi friksi sosial yang lebih berbahaya. Hal ini sangat penting, dan secara tidak langsung sudah banyak kita dengar tuturan di sekitar kita, yang juga bersifat pragmatis, terkait dengan teori muka ini, misalnya: ‘kehilangan muka’, ‘muka ditaruh di mana’, ‘bermuka dua’, ‘muka tembok’, ‘bertemu muka’, ‘buruk muka, cermin dibelah’, ‘mencoreng muka’, dsb, dsb. Bagaimana kaitan antara teori muka dan kesantunan dapat dilihat dalam pembahasan di bawah ini.

PEMBAHASAN 1. Teori Muka, Tipe Petutur, dan Bentuk Tuturan Bentuk tuturan atau tindak tutur yang disampaikan seorang penutur bergantung kepada siapa petutur yang mereka hadapi dalam interaksi verbal yang terjadi. Penutur yang merasa bebas tanpa beban bertutur seenaknya dengan sengaja kepada siapa saja, atau tanpa memperhatikan kepada siapa mereka bertutur adalah penutur yang edan (crazy); sementara yang tidak sengaja, adalah penutur yang tidak tahu atau belum tahu kesantunan berbahasa. Penutur yang dapat menggunakan bentuk tuturan yang tepat (formal/informal) dalam konteks situasi yang tepat (formal/informal) adalah penutur yang santun. Dalam pragmatik, bentuk tuturan dapat berupa: tuturan formal/informal, tuturan langsung/tidak langsung atau pun tuturan literal/non-literal Artikel Brown dan Gilman (1968) menjawab masalah ini. Tipe petutur sangat penting sebagai bagian dari konteks situasi dari suatu tuturan atau tindak tutur. Brown dan Gilman dalam artikelnya: ‘The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity’ (1968), mencermati fenomenon pronomina (pronouns) ‘TU/VOUS’ yang ada dalam dalam bahasa Prancis. Pronomina TU mengacu kepada petutur yang akrab, sementara pronomina VOUS mengacu ke petutur yang tidak akrab. Brown dan Gilman berasumsi bahwa fenomenon TU/VOUS ini secara potensial dapat diterapkan pada tipe petutur bahasa asing lainnya, dan mengusulkan dua aspek penting terkait adanya fenomenon TU/VOUS tersebut, yaitu aspek KUASA (Power) dan SOLIDARITAS (Solidarity). Dalam teorinya, Brown dan Gilman menyatakan:

2|Page


‘The dimension of solidarity is potentially applicable to all persons addressed. Power superiors may be solidary (parents, elder siblings) or not solidary (officials whom one seldom sees). Power inferiors, similarly, may be as solidary as the old family retainer and as remote as the waiter in a strange restaurant’ (Brown dan Gilman, 1968) Berdasarkan teori tersebut, Brown dan Gilman mengusulkan adanya 6 (enam) tipe petutur berdasarkan elaborasi aspek KUASA dan SOLIDARITAS tersebut dalam matriks di bawah ini: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

3|Page

Superior and Solidary Superior and Not Solidary Equal and Solidary Equal and Not Solidary Inferior and Solidary Inferior and Not Solidary

(+P (+P (±P (±P (–P (–P

+S) –S) +S) –S) +S) –S)


Secara umum dan gamblang, apabila kita terapkan dalam bahasa Indonesia, keenam tipe petutur tersebut sebagai berikut2: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Bos Akrab Bos Tidak Akrab Setara Akrab Setara Tidak Akrab Bawahan Akrab Bawahan Tidak Akrab

(+P (+P (±P (±P (–P (–P

+S) –S) +S) –S) +S) –S)

Mari kita cermati contoh aplikasi dari teori Brown dan Gilman (1968) di atas dalam bahasa Indonesia dan bahasa Jawa di bawah ini: Bahasa

Akrab (informal)

Tidak Akrab (formal)

Prancis

TU

VOUS

Indonesia

KAMU

ANDA

Jawa

KOWE

PANJENENGAN

Dan dalam tuturan di bawah ini: (1) Pronomina Vous dalam tuturan formal (tidak akrab) Vous etes ici avec moi. Anda berada di sini dengan saya. Panjenengan wonten mriki kaliyan dalem.

2

Penulis menggunakan istilah informal Bos (Boss) dan Bawahan (Subordinate) yang telah membumi di masyarakat luas di Indonesia. Secara denotatif, Bos adalah orang yang berwewenang mengatur kita dalam suatu organisasi atau departemen; Bawahan adalah orang yang memiliki posisi lebih rendah dari posisi kita dalam suatu organisasi.

4|Page


(2) Pronomina Tu dalam tuturan informal (akrab) Tu est ici avec moi. Kamu ada di sini denganku. Kowe ana kene karo aku. Tipe petutur Brown dan Gilman (1968) ini sangat penting terapannya dalam tuturan yang disampaikan penutur kepada petutur. Bentuk tuturan yang tidak tepat disampaikan kepada tipe petutur yang tidak tepat dapat mengancam atau bahkan merusak muka petutur dan juga muka penutur itu sendiri (muka interpersonal). Tuturan informal yang disampaikan kepada petutur yang tidak akrab (a) atau pun tuturan formal yang disampaikan kepada petutur yang akrab (b), dapat mengancam muka petutur, misalnya: (a)

Pak Rektor, apa kamu kemaren dateng ke pertemuan itu? [ pemarkah informalitas: Pak, apa, kamu, kemaren, dating ] lebih tepat: Bapak Rektor, apakah Anda datang ke pertemuan itu kemarin? [ pemarkah formalitas: Bapak, apakah, Anda, datang, kemarin ]

(b)

Bapak Antonius Siswanto, apakah Anda sudah menemui Ibu kita kemarin? [ pemarkah formalitas: Bapak, Antonius Siswanto, apakah, Anda, sudah menemui, kemarin ] lebih tepat: Anton, apa kemaren kamu ‘dah ketemu Ibu kita? [ pemarkah informalitas: Anton, apa, kemaren, kamu, ‘dah, ketemu ]

5|Page


Dengan demikian, dapat dikatakan di sini bahwa petutur yang tidak akrab dapat dianggap memiliki muka yang tidak akrab atau ‘muka santun’, sementara petutur yang akrab dapat dianggap memiliki ‘muka akrab’. Pertimbangan kepada petutur dengan ‘muka santun’ atau ‘muka akrab’ sangat penting dalam interaksi verbal karena hal tersebut akan sangat berpengaruh terhadap tipe bahasa yang digunakan penutur, yaitu ‘bahasa santun’ (distant language) atau ‘bahasa akrab’ (close language) (cf. Jumanto, 2011).

2. Teori Muka dan Kesantunan Brown dan Levinson (1987) Teori muka Goffman dielaborasi dengan detil oleh Penelope Brown dan Stephen C. Levinson (1987). Brown dan Levinson mengkaji kesantunan dalam kaitannya dengan pengaturan muka (face-management) dan bahwa tindak tutur terbagi menjadi dua: yang mengancam muka (facethreatening acts/FTA) dan yang menyelamatkan muka (face-saving acts/FSA). Istilah muka (face) ini mengacu ke pandangan Erving Goffman (1959, 1967) tentang keinginan yang ada pada setiap orang. Setiap orang dianggap memiliki dua muka, yaitu muka positif (positive face) dan muka negatif (negative face). Muka positif adalah keinginan setiap orang agar segala tindakannya dihargai oleh orang lain, sementara muka negatif adalah keinginan setiap orang agar segala tindakannya tidak dihalangi oleh orang lain (Brown dan Levinson, 1987). Kajian kesantunan oleh Brown dan Levinson mencakupi: (a) cara mengungkapkan jarak sosial (social distance) dan hubungan peran (role relationships) yang berbeda dalam komunikasi, dan (b) pengunaan muka (face) dalam komunikasi, yaitu upaya yang dilakukan untuk menunjukkan, memelihara, dan menyelamatkan muka dalam percakapan. Kesantunan diungkapkan secara berbeda-beda antarbahasa, yang oleh Brown dan Levinson dibagi menjadi dua: strategi kesantunan positif (yang mengacu ke muka positif) dan strategi kesantunan negatif (yang mengacu ke muka negatif). Strategi kesantunan positif (positive politeness strategies) digunakan untuk menunjukkan kedekatan, keintiman, dan hubungan baik antara penutur dan petutur, sementara strategi kesantunan negatif (negative politeness strategies) digunakan untuk menunjukkan adanya jarak sosial antara penutur dan petutur. Teori kesantunan Brown dan Levinson (1987) dapat diringkas menjadi lima strategi seperti terlihat dalam gambar berikut ini:

6|Page

JURNAL LINGUA KOMUNIKA: Tahun II, Edisi 5, Mei 2012 Fakultas Bahasa dan Budaya, Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Semarang _______________________________________________________________________ __________ 1. without redressive action, baldly 2. positive politeness on record Do the FTA

with redressive action 3. negative politeness 4. off record

5. Don’t do the FTA

Gambar: Lima strategi kesantunan menurut Brown dan Levinson (Brown dan Levinson, 1987: 69) (1) melakukan tindak tutur secara apa adanya, tanpa basa basi (bald on record) dengan mematuhi prinsip kerja sama Grice Strategi ini dilakukan penutur dengan mematuhi prinsip kerja sama dalam percakapan yang diajukan oleh Grice (1975). Prinsip kerja sama Grice (1975) terdiri atas empat bidal percakapan, yaitu bidal relasi, bidal kuantitas, bidal kualitas, dan bidal cara. Strategi ini digunakan pada saatsaat terjadinya situasi yang mendesak atau keadaan bahaya, sehingga bentuk yang dianggap santun tidak perlu lagi digunakan, misalnya: ‘Awas ada mobil!’ lebih sesuai daripada: ‘Kalau tidak keberatan, anda jangan menyeberang karena ada mobil dengan kecepatan tinggi.’ Beberapa contoh lainnya adalah sebagai berikut: ‘Tolong!’ ‘Coba dengar, aku punya ide.’ ‘Jangan lupa pada saya!’ ‘Selamat datang!’ ‘Jangan kawatir lantai kotor.’ (2)

melakukan tindak tutur dengan menggunakan kesantunan positif (mengacu ke muka positif) (positive politeness) untuk

7|Page


menunjukkan kedekatan, keintiman, dan hubungan baik antara penutur dan petutur Strategi ini dilakukan oleh penutur melalui limabelas cara sebagai berikut: (1) memperhatikan minat, keinginan, keperluan, atau segala sesuatu yang menjadi milik petutur, (2) membesar-besarkan minat, dukungan, dan simpati kepada petutur, (3) memperhatikan petutur dengan sungguh-sungguh, (4) menggunakan bentuk-bentuk identitas kelompok, (5) mencari kesepakatan, (6) menghindari ketidaksepakatan, (7) menyiratkan, menonjolkan, menyatakan kebersamaan, (8) berkelakar, (9) menyatakan atau menyiratkan pengetahuan dan perhatian terhadap keinginan petutur, (10) menawarkan atau menjanjikan sesuatu, (11) bersikap optimistik, (12) melibatkan petutur dalam suatu kegiatan, (13) memberikan atau meminta alasan, (14) menyiratkan atau menyatakan hal yang timbal balik, dan (15) memberi sesuatu (hadiah, simpati, pengertian, dan kerja sama) kepada petutur, seperti dicontohkan dalam ujaran-ujaran di bawah ini: (1) ‘Wah, rumahmu bagus, ya!’ (2) ‘Hebat sekali rencanamu. Pasti kamu akan berhasil!’ (3) ‘Apakah kamu yakin telah mengunci pintu dengan baik?’ (4) ‘Ah, kita ‘kan manusia. Wajar berbuat salah, dong.’ (5) ‘Oke, lah. Nanti kita bicarakan lagi hal ini.’ (6) ‘Ideku ‘kan hampir sama dengan idemu.’ (7) ‘Ah, nggak apa-apa. Kita kan sudah seperti saudara.’ (8) ‘Nah, kalau cemberut, makin cakep’aja kamu.’ (9) ‘Ya, aku tahu, kamu telah lama memikirkan hal itu.’ (10) ‘Oke. Besok aku bawakan lagi. Jangan kawatir!’ (11) ‘Jangan sedih dengan nilaimu sekarang. Nanti UAS kan bisa lebih baik!’ (12) ‘Jangan kawatir. Nanti kita periksa bersama, oke?’ (13) ‘Biar kututup pintunya. Anginnya kencang banget.’ (14) ‘Kutraktir kamu sekarang. Besok giliranmu, ya.’ (15) ‘Nih kubawakan kacang kesukaanmu.’

8|Page


(3)

melakukan tindak tutur dengan menggunakan kesantunan negatif (mengacu ke muka negatif) (negative politeness) untuk menunjukkan adanya jarak sosial antara penutur dan petutur

Strategi ini dilakukan oleh penutur melalui sepuluh cara sebagai berikut: (1) menggunakan tindak tutur tak langsung, (2) menggunakan pertanyaan, atau pagar (hedge), (3) bersikap pesimistik, (4) melakukan imposisi seminimal mungkin, (5) menggunakan bentuk penghormatan (deference), (6) meminta maaf, (7) menghindari penggunaan kata ‘saya’ dan ‘anda’, (8) menggunakan tindak tutur yang mengancam muka (FTA) yang sudah dianggap lazim, (9) menggunakan bentuk nominalisasi, dan (10) menyatakan seolah-olah berhutang budi atau hal yang membuat senang petutur, seperti dicontohkan dalam ujaran-ujaran di bawah ini: (1) ‘Anda bisa memainkan gitar ini?’ (2) ‘Jika anda ijinkan, saya akan pergi sekarang.’ (3) ‘Nanti siang kita ada rapat. Anda pasti tidak punya waktu, bukan?’ (4) ‘Saya akan bantu anda mengisi formulir ini.’ (5) ‘Tolong tutup mulut anda barang sebentar.’ (6) ‘Maaf saya mengganggu, tapi ada yang mencari anda.’ (7) ‘Ah, tidak apa-apa. Berbuat salah itu wajar.’ (8) ‘Maaf, anda harus antri.’ (9) ‘Terima kasih atas dukungan dan kerja sama yang anda berikan.’ (10) ‘Saya akan senang sekali jika anda berkenan datang.’

9|Page


(4) melakukan tindak tutur secara tidak langsung (off record). Strategi dengan tindak tutur secara tidak langsung ini dilakukan oleh penutur melalui limabelas cara sebagai berikut: (1) memberi isyarat, (2) memberi petunjuk asosiasi, (3) menggunakan prasuposisi, (4) menggunakan ungkapan yang lebih halus (understate), (5) menggunakan ungkapan yang berlebihan (overstate), (6) menggunakan tautologi, (7) menggunakan kontradiksi, (8) menggunakan ironi, (9) menggunakan metafor, (10) menggunakan pertanyaan retorik, (11) menggunakan ungkapan yang ambigu, (12) menggunakan ungkapan yang samar-samar (vague), (13) menggunakan generalisasi yang berlebihan (overgeneralize), (14) tidak mengacu ke petutur secara langsung, dan (15) menggunakan ungkapan yang tak lengkap atau elipsis, seperti dicontohkan dalam ujaran-ujaran di bawah ini: (1) ‘Wah, saya haus sekali.’ (= Berikan saya minum.) (2) ‘Kamu pulang lewat Pasar Johar, nggak?’ (= Kamu bawa mobil. Aku mau numpang sampai Pasar Johar.) (3) ‘Aku ‘nraktir lagi, nih.’ (= Sebelumnya sudah mentraktir temannya) (4) ‘Dia kurang pandai di sekolah’ (= Dia bodoh, tidak pandai.) (5) ‘Aku telepon kau ratusan kali, kok nggak jawab!’ (6) ‘Kamu kemarin kok nggak datang, sih. Janji tinggal janji.’ (7) ‘Ah, saya nggak apa-apa. Kecewa, tidak. Nggak kecewa, juga tidak.’ (8) ‘Kamu selalu datang tepat waktu, ya.’ (= Kamu selalu datang terlambat.) (9) ‘Wah, kamu ini kuda, ya.’ (= Kamu tidak kenal lelah.) (10) ‘Aku harus ngomong apa lagi?’ (= Sudah aku jelaskan panjang lebar, kamu tetap tidak mengerti.) (11) ‘Wah, ada yang baru menang lotere, nih!’

10 | P a g e


(tak jelas maknanya, tergantung konteks) (12) ‘Kamu tahu kan, aku pergi ke mana.’ (13) ‘Kamu itu gampang sekali nangis. Orang dewasa kan nggak begitu!’ (14) ‘Tito, bawakan kopor Ayah, ya.’ (Tito masih batita. Istrinya yang datang, membawakan kopor.) (15) ‘Aduh panasnya … .’ (= Aduh panasnya ruangan ini. Tolong, AC dinyalakan.) (4) tidak melakukan tindak tutur atau diam saja (Don’t do the FTA). Strategi tidak melakukan tindak tutur atau diam saja ini dilakukan oleh penutur untuk menanggapi tuturan lain yang kurang pantas jika dijawab, sehingga dengan diam saja penutur menunjukkan kesantunan daripada menjawab atau melakukan tindak tutur tertentu, misalnya dalam percakapan di bawah ini. Penutur B tidak melakukan tindak tutur atau diam saja (“…”) untuk menunjukkan kesantunan. A: “Bu Ijah itu orangnya bawel, ya Jeng. Dia tukang gosip, lagi. Menurut anda, ‘gimana, Jeng?” B: “…” (diam saja). Teori muka dalam teori kesantunan Brown dan Levinson (1987) ini lebih dikenal sebagai strategi kesantunan negatif dan strategi kesantunan positif. Strategi kesantunan negatif mengacu ke muka negatif atau muka santun, sementara strategi kesantunan positif mengacu ke muka positif atau muka akrab.

3. Kesantunan di Kalangan Masyarakat Jawa Bidal kesantunan di kalangan masyarakat Jawa, yaitu Jawa Tengah, Jawa Timur, dan DI Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Meski belum banyak yang meneliti, dapat dirasakan ada dan dianut serta dipraktikkan oleh masyarakat Jawa dalam kehidupan sehari-hari, dalam komunikasi verbal atau pun nonverbal. Asim Gunarwan (2001) telah meneliti kesantunan di kalangan masyarakat Jawa dan mengajukan beberapa bidal kesantunan 11 | P a g e


yang dianut dan dipraktikkan oleh masyarakat Jawa, yaitu: (1) Kurmat (hormat; respects for others), (2) Andhap Asor (rendah hati; low-profile), (3) Tepa Salira (jaga diri; good manners), (4) Empan Papan (lihat situasi; situations considered). Keempat bidal kesantunan Jawa tersebut memang dianut dan dipraktikkan di kalangan masyarakat Jawa, termasuk dalam hal bertutur atau berkomunikasi verbal. Tuturan verbal yang mengacu ke empat bidal kesantunan Jawa tersebut, misalnya di bawah ini: (1)

Monggo, panjenengan rumiyin. (Silahkan, Anda lebih dulu)

(2)

Ah, kawula tiyang ingkang mboten gadhah punapa-punapa. (Ah, saya biasa saja, tidak punya apa-apa)

(3)

Hinggih, Bapak3. (Baik, Bapak)

(4)

Manawi kersa, dalem sowan ing ndalem Bapak kemawon, nggih. (Jika Bapak berkenan, saya nanti yang datang ke rumah Bapak)

Namun sebagai penutur Jawa, penulis merasa empat bidal tersebut mungkin belum cukup. Masih banyak bidal kesantunan Jawa yang belum dielaborasi dalam penelitian pragmatik. Di antaranya lima bidal kesantunan di bawah ini yang mungkin bisa melengkapi atau mengembangkan empat bidal kesantunan Gunarwan (2001) tersebut di atas. Lima bidal kesantunan Jawa tersebut adalah sebagai berikut (Jumanto, 2011): (1) Mikul Dhuwur, Mendhem Jero (Junjung tinggi orangtua, maafkan kesalahan mereka; older people are always right and should be respected) Bidal kesantunan Jawa ini mengarahkan sikap dan perilaku penutur Jawa untuk selalu menghormati dan memaafkan orang yang lebih tua, utamanya orangtua sendiri serta saudara-saudara mereka. Usia atau umur di kalangan penutur Jawa adalah aspek kuasa (power) yang biasanya dijunjung tinggi oleh orang yang lebih muda. Di kalangan penutur Jawa, 3

Di kalangan penutur masyarakat Jawa, menyatakan persetujuan (meskipun kadangkadang mereka tidak setuju) dianggap sebagai elaborasi rasa aman dan dipandang lebih baik dan santun daripada menyatakan penolakan atau ketidaksetujuan.

12 | P a g e


orang yang lebih tua atau orangtua dianggap sebagai orang lebih berpengalaman (lebih banyak makan garam kehidupan; more experienced in life) dan pantas dihormati. Contoh tuturan: Badhe tindak pundi, Simbah? (Kakek hendak pergi ke mana?) Hinggih, Bapak. Mboten punapa-punapa. (Baik, Bapak. Tidak apa-apa) (2) Butuh, Pakewuh (Yang lebih perlu, haruslah lebih santun; Principle of the least interest, the least polite) Bidal kesantunan Jawa ini mengarahkan sikap dan perilaku penutur Jawa untuk selalu hati-hati dan menjaga kesantunan apabila berhubungan dengan orang lain, utamanya orang yang akan menolong mereka atau akan memberi sesuatu kepada mereka. Aspek usia atau umur dalam hal ini untuk sementara di kesampingkan atau dianggap tidak berperan lagi. Contoh tuturan: Inggih, Mas. Mangke kula siapke kwitansi4. (Baik, Mas. Nanti saya siapkan kwitansinya) Pak Joko, kula saget nyambut graji wesine, nggih? Matur nuwun5. (Pak Joko, saya boleh meminjam gergaji besinya, ya? Terima kasih) Kesembilan bidal kesantunan dalam bahasa Jawa tersebut pada dasarnya juga elaborasi dari teori muka santun dan muka akrab. Elaborasi muka santun tercermin pada tuturan penutur yang menggunakan bahasa Krama Inggil (ragam bahasa tinggi dalam bahasa Jawa), sementara elaborasi muka akrab tercermin pada tuturan penutur yang menggunakan bahasa Ngoko (ragam bahasa rendah dalam bahasa Jawa) (cf. Jumanto, 2011). Dalam hal penutur menggunakan bahasa Krama Madya (ragam bahasa campuran, atau campur-kode, Krama Inggil dan Ngoko), penutur mengelaborasi muka santun dan muka akrab sekaligus karena dalam diri 4

Petutur mungkin lebih muda usianya, tetapi sebagai pihak yang membayarkan sejumlah uang, misalnya. 5 Petutur mungkin lebih muda usianya, dan juga mungkin tidak kaya, tetapi mempunyai sesuatu (gergaji besi) yang sangat diperlukan oleh penutur.

13 | P a g e


petutur terdapat faktor kuasa dipertimbangkan oleh penutur.

14 | P a g e

dan

solidaritas

yang

keduanya


4. Teori Muka dan Ironi, Banter, Pagar Terlepas dari pelanggaran bidal percakapan Grice demi kesantunan, Leech (1983) mengajukan dua prinsip lain: ironi (irony) dan banter (banter), serta dua strategi: tuturan berpagar (hedged performatives) dan bidal fatis (phatic maxim) dalam kaitannya dengan aspek kesantunan dalam pragmatik. Prinsip ironi (mock-politeness) adalah tentang tuturan yang nampak santun, tapi sebenarnya tidak tulus dan kasar, misalnya: ‘Wah, bersih sekali rumahmu!’ atau ‘Wah, bersih sekali rumah Anda!’ (kenyataan: rumah kotor dan berantakan) Tuturan ironi dapat diterapkan kepada petutur yang akrab maupun petutur yang tidak akrab, dengan pertimbangan konteks tertentu. Sebaliknya, prinsip banter biasanya hanya kepada petutur yang akrab. Prinsip banter (mock-impoliteness) mengacu ke tuturan yang nampak tidak santun, tetapi sebenarnya menunjukkan kedekatan, keakraban, atau keintiman, misalnya: ‘Sialan, lu, baru muncul! Aku tunggu sampai lumutan, nih.’ (kenyataan: sambutan akrab dan ungkapan rasa senang karena kedatangan sahabatnya) Tuturan ironi adalah elaborasi dari muka santun atau akrab yang disesuaikan dengan tipe petutur, sementara tuturan banter adalah elaborasi dari muka akrab yang ada dalam diri petutur. Sementara itu, strategi tuturan berpagar (hedging) digunakan untuk menghindari tuturan yang langsung, dan karenanya dianggap lebih santun, misalnya dalam tuturan ‘Jika saya boleh tahu, apakah anda sudah siap?’ yang dianggap lebih santun daripada tuturan ‘Apakah anda sudah siap?’ Atau pun ‘Bapak, apakah sudah siap? Yang dianggap lebih santun daripada ‘Pak, sudah siap? Pagar (hedges) adalah bagian tuturan atau pun bentuknya yang digunakan untuk mengurangi tingkat ancaman dari tindak tutur atau memperlunak tuturan (Jumanto, 2011). Tuturan berpagar adalah elaborasi dari muka santun yang ada dalam diri petutur. Menarik di sini, adalah tuturan dalam bahasa Inggris yang menggunakan modal dalam bentuk past tense dianggap lebih santun daripada modal dalam bentuk present tense; dengan demikian, could, 15 | P a g e


would, dan should6 dalam tuturan dianggap lebih santun daripada can, will, dan shall. Misalnya terlihat dalam contoh di bawah ini: I could not do it. I cannot do it.

(= Saya7 tidak dapat melakukan itu) (= Aku tidak dapat melakukan itu)

Would you help me? Will you help me?

(= Maukah Anda membantu saya?) (= Kamu mau bantu aku?)

Bidal fatis digunakan dalam percakapan untuk menghindari terjadinya kesenyapan, sehingga tuturan dalam percakapan tentang sesuatu yang sudah diketahui antara penutur dan petutur ini penting untuk menjaga kesantunan, misalnya dalam tuturan ‘Gimana kabar hari ini?’, atau ‘Eh, mau pergi ke mana?’ Komunikasi fatis antara penutur dan petutur ini juga merupakan elaborasi muka santun dan atau muka akrab yang ada dalam diri petutur (Tentang komunikasi fatis ini, baca: Jumanto, 2008, Komunikasi Fatis di Kalangan Penutur Jati Bahasa Inggris). Sementara itu, lebih lanjut mengenai ironi dalam tataran mikropragmatik, makropragmatik, dan metapragmatik, Morino (1998) menjelaskan bahwa ada empat jenis ironi. Ironi tersebut adalah (1) ironi verbal, (2) ironi dramatis, (3) ironi ekstan, dan (4) ironi artifak. Ironi verbal adalah jenis ironi yang telah kita bicarakan di atas yang sering terjadi dalam percakapan kita sehari-hari, sementara ironi dramatis terjadi dan dielaborasi dalam pertunjukan drama atau sandiwara. Ironi ekstan berasal dari Sang Pencipta, yang menentukan sesuatu yang baik terjadi di sini, dan sesuatu yang buruk terjadi ditempat lain. Ironi artifak merupakan ironi yang terjadi di atas ironi sebenarnya (lebih lanjut tentang 4 jenis ironi ini, baca: Morino, 1998).

5. Kesantunan dan Keakraban Tidak terlepas dari berbagai teori kesantunan yang telah diajukan para ahli pragmatik (Leech, 1983; Brown dan Levinson, 1987; Fraser, 1990; Spencer-Oatey, 1992; Lakoff, 1990; Fraser and Nolen, 1981; Yueguo Gu. 1990; Ide 1989; Blum-Kulka, 1992; Arndt and Janney, 1985a; Watts, 1989a; Thomas, 1996: Hipotesis Pollyanna), Jumanto (2011) mencoba meberikan suatu definisi tentang ‘keantunan’. Jumanto 6

could, would, should dianggap lebih santun daripada can, will, shall adalah analogi penulis atas jarak waktu yang diasumsikan sebagai jarak sosial: past time (waktu lalu) lebih jauh daripada present time (waktu kini); namun hal ini perlu diteliti lebih lanjut. 7

Saya dan Anda (asumsi adanya jarak sosial) dianggap lebih santun daripada Aku dan Kamu (asumsi jarak sosial dekat atau adanya keakraban) dalam bahasa Indonesia.

16 | P a g e


(2011) mengajukan suatu teori kesantunan di kalangan penutur bahasa Jawa, yang mengembangkan teori Gunarwan (2001). Banyak teori kesantunan di atas yang didasarkan pada pelanggaran Prinsip Kerja Sama Grice (1967, 1975), meskipun ada yang mengajukan wawasan baru. Namun, tidak ada – menurut hemat penulis – yang mengajukan suatu definisi kerja tentang kesantunan. Jumanto (2011) mencoba mengisi celah ini dengan sebuah definisi tentang kesantunan, yaitu: kesantunan adalah segala sesuatu yang baik yang dituturkan dan atau dilakukan oleh penutur kepada petutur dalam konteks tertentu, untuk menjaga muka interpersonal dan juga muka sosial di antara mereka (2011: 134). Masih dalam kaitannya dengan teori manajemen muka, Jumanto (2011) berpendapat bahwa teori kesantunan dalam interaksi verbal dapat dikategorikan atau mengarah ke dua kutub kesantunan, yaitu: kesantunan yang diarahkan ke adanya jarak sosial (distancing politeness) dan kesantunan yang diarahkan ke keakraban (closeness politeness). Kesantunan jarak sosial mengacu ke muka negatif dalam teori Goffman (1959), strategi kesantunan negatif dalam teori Brown and Levinson (1987), kesantunan penghormatan (respect politeness) dalam teori Renkema (1993), dan kesantunan dalam teori Jumanto (2008; 2011). Sebaliknya, kesantunan keakraban mengacu ke muka positif dalam teori Goffman (1959), strategi kesantunan positif dalam teori Brown and Levinson (1987), kesantunan solidaritas (solidarity politeness) dalam teori Renkema (1993), dan persahabatan (friendship atau camaraderie) atau keakraban dalam teori Jumanto (2008; 2011). Kecenderungan ini telah diperkuat dengan temuan dan bahasannya dalam penelitian Jumanto tentang komunikasi fatis di kalangan penutur jati bahasa Inggris (2006; 2008).

6. Bahasa Santun dan Bahasa Akrab Bahasa santun (distant language) dan bahasa akrab (close language) di sini mengacu ke dan penulis ambil dari nosi jarak sosial (social distance). Jarak sosial adalah jarak fisik dan juga psikologis antara penutur dan petutur (Jumanto, 2011). Jarak sosial tidak jauh dan juga tidak dekat. Jarak sosial adalah konsep fleksibel atas hubungan relatif yang terjadi di antara penutur dan petutur. Jarak sosial diasumsikan nol jika penutur berbicara kepada dirinya sendiri. Dengan dasar di atas, dengan ucapan terima kasih yang tinggi kepada para peletak dasar teori dan juga para peneliti, dapat kita lihat dengan jelas bahwa kesantunan jarak sosial dan kesantunan keakraban sejalan dengan bahasa santun dan bahasa akrab yang diajukan penulis. Dengan demikian, dapat dikatakan bahwa bahasa santun menghasilkan kesantunan, sementara bahasa akrab menghasilkan keakraban. 17 | P a g e


Dalam konteks ini, pragmatic memandang bahwa suatu situasi diglosia yang ada dalam masyarakat memiliki dua varian bahasa ini, yaitu bahasa santun dan bahasa akrab. Bahasa santun mengacu ke atau memiliki tuturan yang formal, taklangsung, dan non-literal, sementara bahasa akrab mengacu ke atau memiliki tuturan yang informal, langsung, dan literal (Jumanto, 2011). Karena mengacu ke tuturan yang formal, taklangsung, dan non-literal, bahasa santun biasanya secara hati-hati dituturkan, dan dengan menggunakan topic yang umum dan aman. Sementara itu, karena mengacu ke tuturan yang informal, langsung, dan literal, bahasa akrab biasanya mencakupi tuturan yang dipotong-potong, slang, dibalik-balik, diganti-ganti, tabu, sumpah serapah, kata-kata jorok, dan dengan menggunakan topic apa saja, yang pribadi atau pun yang rahasia (Jumanto, 2011). Penutur cenderung menggunakan bahasa santun kepada penutur dengan faktor kuasa (superiors), dan menggunakan bahasa akrab kepada penutur dengan factor solidaritas atau petutur akrab (close hearers).

7. Ketidaksantunan dalam Interaksi Sosial Melihat adanya kecenderungan dalam teori kesantunan yang terdiri dari dua varian di atas, ketidaksantunan dalam interaksi interpersonal maupun interaksi sosial dapat disikapi dalam dua varian, yaitu terjadinya varian ketidaksantunan dan terjadinya varian ketidakakraban. Ketidaksantunan terjadi karena adanya situasi kasar (rude situations) di antara penutur dan petutur, sementara ketidakakraban terjadi karena adanya situasi canggung (awkward situations) di antara penutur dan petutur. Baik situasi kasar maupun situasi canggung terjadi karena adanya kesalahan penggunaan bahasa santun maupun bahasa akrab dalam konteks yang salah. Ketidaksantunan atau situasi kasar mungkin terjadi karena adanya penggunaan bahasa akrab (close language) dalam situasi yang formal (adanya jarak sosial), atau sebaliknya, ketidakakraban atau situasi canggung juga akan mungkin terjadi karena adanya penggunaan bahasa santun (distant language) dalam situasi atau hubungan yang informal atau akrab (jarak sosial dekat) (Jumanto, 2011). Dengan demikian, ketidaksantunan (rude situations) atau pun ketidakakraban (awkward situations) terjadi karena penggunaan tuturan (atau teks) yang tidak sesuai dengan konteksnya. Kita amati contoh tuturan di bawah ini:

18 | P a g e


(1) Bapak Rektor, boleh aku nanti sore maen ke rumah Anda? (tuturan seorang mahasiswa kepada Rektornya dalam situasi formal; tidak santun (kasar) karena adanya tuturan informal aku dan maen) (2) Toni, bolehkah saya mengunjungi rumahmu besok hari Minggu? (tuturan seseorang kepada teman akrabnya dalam situasi informal; tidak akrab (canggung) dan aneh karena adanya tuturan formal bolehkah, saya, dan mengunjungi) PENUTUP Demikianlah pragmatik sangat berperan dalam kehidupan interaksi verbal antara penutur dan petutur. Memang pragmatik membagi petutur menjadi enam tipe, sementara tipe penutur diasumsikan sama, disesuaikan dengan atau mengacu kepada petutur yang dihadapi. Namun yang lebih penting adalah bagaimana interaksi verbal tersebut mengelaborasi ‘muka’ dalam interaksi antara penutur dan petutur. ‘Muka’ menjadi faktor penting yang harus diperhatikan dalam interaksi verbal, sehingga harus senantiasa dijaga, dipelihara, dan dikelola, agar ‘muka’ petutur tetap aman dan ‘muka’ penutur pun juga aman. Dalam pragmatik, ‘muka’ yang harus dijaga dalam interaksi verbal utamanya adalah ‘muka interpersonal’, yaitu ‘muka’ bersama antara penutur dan petutur. Dengan menjaga ‘muka interpersonal’, ‘muka’ lainnya yaitu ‘muka sosial’ juga turut terjaga, mengingat tidak ada seorang individu pun di masyarakat yang dapat hidup sendiri, sehingga mereka hidup dalam konteks sosial tertentu. ‘Kehilangan muka’ dalam interaksi verbal, dengan demikian, merupakan terjadinya situasi kasar atau situasi canggung dalam interaksi sosial. Teori ‘muka’ berlaku di sebagian besar masyarakat, termasuk masyarakat Jawa. Munculnya ‘bahasa santun’, ‘bahasa akrab’, serta adanya ‘ironi’, ‘banter’, dan ‘pagar’ dalam interaksi sosial merupakan perwujudan dari elaborasi teori muka dalam pragmatik. Demikian, semoga bermanfaat.

19 | P a g e


DAFTAR PUSTAKA Abercrombie, D. 1998. ‘Phatic Communion’, in Jacob L. Mey (ed) The Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Ltd., pp. 672-673. Allan, K. 1998. ‘Speech Act Hierarchy: Locutions, Illocutions, and Perlocutions’, In Jacob L. Mey (ed) The Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Ltd., pp. 944-946. Arndt, Horst dan R.W. Janney. 1985a. ‘Politeness Revisited: Cross-Modal Supportive Strategies’, International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 23/4: 281-300. Austin, J.L. 1962. How To Do Things With Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bach, K. and R.M. Harnish. 1977. Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press. Beaugrande, R.A. de. 1980. Text, Discourse, and Process: Toward a Multidisciplinary Science of Texts. London: Longman. Brown, Penelope and Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. New York: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Roger and Albert Gilman. 1968. The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity, dalam Joshua A. Fishman (ed) Readings in the Sociology of Language. The Hague: Mouton & Co. N.V. Publishers, pp. 252–275. Bühler, Karl. (1918) 1990. Theory of Language: The Representational Function of Language (translated by Donald Fraser Goodwin). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co. CALD (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008. Canale, Michael and Merrill Swain. 1980. ‘Approaches to communicative competence’, occasional papers no. 14, Seameo Regional Language Centre, Singapore. Carter, Ronald et al. 1997. Working with Texts: A core book for language analysis. London: Routledge. Chaika, Elaine. 1982. Language: The Social Mirror. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House Publishers, Inc. Cook, Guy. 1989. Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Coupland, Justine (ed.). 2000. Small Talk. Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited. Crystal, D. 1992. Introducing Linguistics. London: Penguin. de Saussure, Ferdinand. (1916) (1973) 1988. Pengantar linguistik Umum (translation by Rahayu S. Hidayat). Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press.

20 | P a g e


Eastman, Carol M. 1975. Aspects of Language and Culture. San Francisco: Chandler & Sharp Publishers, Inc. Eelen, Gino. 2001. A Critique of Politeness Theories. Manchester, U.K.: St. Jerome Publishing. Fairclough, Norman. 1989. Language and Power. London: Longman. Fisher, B. Aubrey and Katherine L. Adams. (1987) 1994. Interpersonal Communication: Pragmatics of Human Relationships (second edition). New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. Fraser, Bruce and William Nolen. 1981. ‘The Association of Deference with Linguistic Form’, International Journal of the Sociology of Language 27:93-109. Goffman, E. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books. Goffman, E. 1967. Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face to Face Behavior. New York: Anchor Books. Grice, H. Paul. (1967) 1975. Logic and Conversation, dalam Peter Cole and Jerry Morgan (eds), Syntax and Semantics, vol. 3: Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press. Gunarwan, Asim, 2001, ‘Implicatures of Linguistic Codes Selection in some dialogues of Ludruk’, in Bambang Kaswanti Purwo (ed), PELLBA 14, Jakarta: Kanisius. Gu, Yueguo. 1990. ‘Politeness Phenomena in Modern Chinese’, Journal of Pragmatics 14:237-257. Guendouzi, J. 1998. ‘Negotiating socialized gender identity in woman’s time-out talk’, Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Wales, Cardiff. Halliday, M. A. K. 1970. ‘Language structure and language function’, dalam J. Lyons (ed.), New Horizons in Linguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Halliday, M. A. K. 1978. Explorations in the Functions of Language. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K. 1978. Language as Sosial Semiotic. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday, M.A.K. and Ruqaiya Hasan. 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman Group Ltd. Haugen, E. 1972. The Ecology of Language. Stanford, CA.: Stanford University Press. Hicks, Wynword. 1993. English for Journalists. London: Routledge. Holmes, Janet. (1992) 2001. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics.London: Longman Group Ltd. Hornby, AS. 1974. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hudson, R.A. 1996. Sociolinguistics (second edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

21 | P a g e


Hinkel, Eli. 1999. Culture in Second Language Teaching and Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hymes, Dell. 1967. ‘Models of the interaction of language and social setting’, dalam J. Macnamara (ed.), Problems of Bilingualism, Journal of Social Issues 23, 8-28. Hymes, Dell. 1968. ‘The ethnography of speaking’, in J. Fishman (ed.), Readings in the sociology of langauge’. The Hague: Mouton. Hymes, Dell. 1972. ‘On communicative competence’, in J.B. Pride and J. Holmes (ed.), Sociolinguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Hymes, Dell. 1974. Foundations in Sociolinguistics. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Ide, Sachiko. 1989. ‘Formal Forms and Dicernment: Two Neglected Aspects of Universals of Linguistic Politeness’, Multilingua 8/2-3:223-248. Innis, Robert E (ed). 1985. Semiotics: An Introductory Anthology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Jakobson, Roman. (1960) 1964. ‘Concluding Statement: Linguistics and Poetics’, in T. Sebeok (ed.) Style in Language. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, pp. 350-377. Johnson, K and H. Johnson (ed.). 1999. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Jumanto. 2006. ‘An Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation: Phatic Communication among English Native Speakers’. Jakarta, Indonesia: University of Indonesia. Jumanto. 2008. Phatic Communication among English Native Speakers. Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia: WorldPro Publishing. Jumanto. 2010. ‘Language of Advertising: An Ideology Critic’ in Languages and Science (BIP). Semarang, Indonesia: the Academy of Languages 17 August 1945, Semarang, Indonesia. Jumanto. 2011. ‘Discourse Analysis and Ideology Critics’ in Lingua Komunika. Semarang, Indonesia: the Faculty of Languages and Culture, the University of 17 August 1945, Semarang, Indonesia. Jumanto. 2011. Pragmatics: Linguistic World is Broad. Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia: WorldPro Publishing. Jumanto. 2011. ‘Pragmatics and Character Language Building’ in the Int’l TEFLIN Seminar: the Proceedings. Semarang, Central Java: IKIP PGRI Semarang, November 3-5, 2011, pp. 329-340. Kramsch, Claire. 1998. Language and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kridalaksana, Harimurti. 2004. ‘Pengantar Ilmiah: Dari Fungsi Fatis ke Ungkapan Fatis’, in Hermina Sutami (ed.) Ungkapan Fatis dalam Pelbagai Bahasa. Depok: Pusat Leksikologi dan Leksikografi, FIB, Universitas Indonesia. Lacoste, M. 1998. ‘Doctor-Patient Language’, in Jacob L. Mey (ed) The Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Ltd., pp. 266269.

22 | P a g e


Lakoff, Robin Tolmach. 1990. Talking Power: The Politics of Language in our Lives. Glasgow: HarperCollins. Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. New York: Longman Group Limited. Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1923. ‘The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages’, in Ogden, C. K. and I. A. Richards (eds), The Meaning of Meaning. London: K. Paul, Trend, Trubner, pp. 296-336. Marino, M. 1998. ‘Irony’, in Jacob L. Mey (ed) The Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Ltd., pp. 409-412. Mey, Jacob L. 2001. Pragmatics: An Introduction, second edition. Oxford: Blackwell. Nunan, David. 1993. Introducing Discourse Analysis. London: The Penguin Group. Ogden, C. K. andI. A. Richards (eds). 1923. The Meaning of Meaning. London: K. Paul, Trend, Trubner, pp. 296-336. O’Sullivan, Tim et al. 1994. Key Concepts in Communication and Cultural Studies. London: Routledge. Recanati, F. 1988. Meaning and Force. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richards, J.C., John Platt, and Heidi Platt. (1985) 1992. Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (2nd edition). Essex: Longman. Richards, J.C. and Richard Schmidt. 2002. Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (3rd edition). London: Pearson Education Limited. Renkema, Jan. 1993. Discourse Studies: An Introductory Textbook. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Robinson, W.P. 1972. Language and Social Behaviour. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Samarin, William J. 1988. Ilmu Bahasa Lapangan (translation by J.S. Badudu). Yogyakarta: Penerbit Kanisius. Saville-Troike, Muriel. (1982) 2003. The Ethnography of Communication: An Introduction (third edition). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Schiffrin, Deborah. 1994. Approaches to Discourse. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers. Searle, J.R. 1969. Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Silverman, David. 2000. Doing Qualitative Research: A Practical Handbook. London: Sage Publications. Simpson, J.M.Y. 1998. ‘Ecology of Language’, in Jacob L. Mey (ed) The Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Ltd., p. 272. Spencer-Oatey, H.D.M. 1992. Cross-Cultural Politeness: British and Chinese Conceptions of the Tutor-Student Relationship (Unpublished PhD Thesis). Lancaster University. Stewart, John and Carole Logan. (1975) 1993. Together: Communicating

23 | P a g e


Interpersonally (fourth edition). New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. Sutami, Hermina (ed.). 2004. Ungkapan Fatis dalam Pelbagai Bahasa. Depok: Pusat Leksikologi dan Leksikografi, Fakultas Ilmu Pengetahuan Budaya, Universitas Indonesia. Thomas, Jenny. 1996. Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. London: Longman. Thompson, Linda. 1997. Children talking: the development of pragmatic competence. London: Multilingual Matters Publisher. Van Dijk, Teun A. 1977. Text and Context: Explorations in the Semantics and Pragmatics of Discourse. Essex: Longman Group Ltd. Vasconcelos, W.W. 1998. ‘Electronic Mail Communication’, in Jacob L. Mey (ed) The Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Ltd., pp. 278-280. Verschueren, Jef. 1999. Understanding Pragmatics. London: Arnold. Wardhaugh, Ronald. 2002. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (fourth edition). Malden, Massachusetts: Balckwell Publishers Inc. Watts, Richards. 1989a. ‘Relevance and Relational Work: Linguistic Politeness as Politic Behavior’, Multilingua 8/2-3:131-166. Widdowson, H.G. 1971. ‘The teaching of rhetoric to students of science and technology’, in Science and Technology in Second Language, Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research, London. Yule, George. 1998. Pragmatics. Singapore: National Institute of Education.

24 | P a g e


A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE USE OF ARTICLES IN ENGLISH AND GERMAN by R. Kumbino Ari Soedhono, S.S., M.Pd. Fakultas Bahasa dan Budaya Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Semarang

Abstract Article is one of the important things when someone studies a language. In general, articles both in English and German have the same meaning, but different forms and functions will be seen in the sentences. These differences are supposed to be understood. In English, the definite and indefinite articles do not change at all in the gender and the plural forms of the words which follow, as well as in nominative case (as subject), accusative case (as direct object), dative case (as indirect object), and genitive case (as possession). On the other hand, in German, the articles change in the cases mentioned above. After analyzing the articles of both languages, the writer concludes that there are similarities and differences as well in using articles in English and German. The similarities are when we use the articles before the only one subject, for mentioning the second time, before names of group of islands and before superlative adjectives. Meanwhile, in German when we use articles for genders, singular and plural nouns, and cases, it will differ extremely from English. Key words:

25 | P a g e

articles, use, similarities, differences, English, German,


I.

Introduction In general, articles both in English and German have the same meaning, but different forms and functions will be seen in the sentences. These differences are supposed to be understood. Otherwise, the expressions in the sentence will create a big structural mistake. Richards (1990) in his book entitled Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics, stated that article is a word used with a noun, and which shows whether the noun refers to something definite or something indefinite. In English, the definite and indefinite articles do not change at all in the gender and the plural forms of the words which follow, as well as in nominative case (as subject), accusative case (as direct object), dative case (as indirect object), and genitive case (as possession). On the other hand, in German, the articles change in the cases mentioned above. And the comparison will be shown in the similarities and differences of using between the definite and indefinite articles in English and German.

II.

DISCUSSIONS 1. Articles in English and German a. The Definite and Indefinite Articles in English Article is one of the important things when someone studies a language. It is used to precede both countable nouns and uncountable nouns. In English, according to the book entitled A Practical English Grammar (1990: 1-6), there are two kinds of articles. 1) The definite article “the” 2) The indefinite article “a/an” and they are accurately described as follows:

1) The definite article “the” The forms and functions of the definite article “the” can be defined as follows: a. The definite article “the” followed by a singular noun has the same form as “the” followed by a plural noun. There are no changes for the definite article “the” in both cases. For examples: - The father is going to the office (singular) - The fathers are going to the office (plural)

26 | P a g e


b. The definite article “the” is the same for all genders. English does not see genders as influential to the structural components. For examples: - the man (masculine) - the woman (feminine) - the car (neuter) c. The use of the definite article “the” is the same for all cases (nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive). For examples: - Nominative Case (as subject) The boy is buying a book. - Accusative Case (as direct object) I have bought the book. - Dative Case (as indirect object) I gave a book to the boy. - Genitive Case (as possession) The brother of the father has come. d. The definite article “the” is used: - Before nouns of which there is only one, or which are considered as one. For examples: the earth, the sun, the moon - Before a noun which has become definite as a result of being mentioned a second time. For example: I bought a book; the book is red. - Before a noun which, by reason of locality, can represent only one particular thing. For example: The boys are playing in the yard. (it means the yard of this school) - Before superlatives, used as adjectives or pronouns. For example: Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in Europe. - Before names of seas, rivers, and plural names of countries. For examples: the Atlantic Ocean, the Colorado River, the Netherlands - Before a noun made definite by the addition of a phrase or clause. For example: The boy that I met is her nephew. - Before an adjective used to represent a class of persons. For example: The old and the young should be able to live together. 27 | P a g e


2) The indefinite article “a/an” The indefinite article “a/an” has the forms and functions that can be defined as follows: a. The form “a” is used before a word beginning with a consonant sound. For examples: a man, a university. b. The form “an” is used before a word beginning with a vowel sound (a/ e/ i/ o). For examples: an hour, an egg, an owl. c. The indefinite article “a/an” is the same for all genders. For examples: - a man (masculine) - an actress (feminine) - a car (neuter) d. The indefinite article “a/an” is used: - Before a singular noun which countable when it is mentioned for the first time and represents no particular person or thing. For example: I see a man behind the tree. - Before a singular countable noun which is used as an example of a class of things. For example: A palm tree is usually very tall. - With a noun complement. This includes names of professions. For example: He is a doctor. - In certain numerical expressions. For examples: a couple, a dozen, a lot of, a great deal of - In expressions of price, speed, and ratio. For examples: five dollars a dozen, sixty kilometers an hour e. The use of the indefinite article “a/an” is the same for all cases (nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive). For examples: - Nominative Case (as subject) A girl is carrying a book. - Accusative Case (as direct object) The girl saw a red car in the garden. - Dative Case (as indirect object) He showed the book to a man. - Genitive Case (as possession) The car of a man is stolen.

28 | P a g e


b.

The Definite and Indefinite Articles in German. In German, the definite and indefinite articles are adjectives that agree in number, gender, and case with the noun they modify. According to the books entitled Deutsch als Fremdsprache (1991: 144-150), Deutsche Sprachlehre für Ausländer (1988: 4-56), and Conversational German in 20 Lessons (1990: 197-205), there are two kinds of articles in German: 1) The definite articles “der/die/das” (Der bestimmte Artikel “der/die/das”) 2) The indefinite articles “ein/eine/ein” (Der unbestimmte Artikel “ein/eine/ein”) and they are then explained as follows: 1) The definite articles “der/die/das” (Der bestimmte Artikel “der/die/das”) The forms and functions of the definite articles “der/die/das” can be defined as follows: a. There are three definite articles which indicate the three different genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter, as seen below: MASCULINE der Vater (the father) der Stuhl (the chair)

FEMININE die Mutter (the mother) die Schule (the school)

NEUTER das Kind (the child) das Schiff (the ship)

Therefore, every noun must be learned with its proper article. b. In German, the noun has three genders. Each of them has four cases expressing the different relationships of the noun and the rest of the words in the sentence. As far as the noun is concerned, these case changes are indicated primarily by case changes in the articles. For examples: - Nominative Case (as subject) Der Junge kauft ein Buch. (The boy is buying a book) - Accusative Case (as direct object) Ich habe den Junge in seinem Haus gesehen. (I have seen the boy in his house) - Dative Case (as indirect object) Er gab dem Junge das Buch. 29 | P a g e


-

(He gave the book to the boy) Genitive Case (as possession) Die Mutter des Junges wohnt hier. (The mother of the boy lives here)

c.

Declension of the definite articles with nouns. - The declension of the definite articles with singular nouns is as follows: GENDER MASCULINE FEMININE NEUTER CASE NOMINATIVE der Vater die Mutter das Kind (the father) (the mother) (the child) ACCUSATIVE den Vater die Mutter das Kind (the father) (the mother) (the child) DATIVE dem Vater der Mutter dem Kind (to/for the father) (to/for the (to/for the mother) child) GENITIVE des Vaters der Mutter des Kindes (of the father) (of the mother) (of the child) -

GENDER CASE NOMINATIVE ACCUSATIVE DATIVE

GENITIVE

d.

30 | P a g e

All three genders have the same article declension in the plural. The declension of the definite articles with plural nouns is as follows: MASCULINE

FEMININE

NEUTER

die Väter (the fathers) die Väter (the fathers) den Vätern (to/for the fathers) der Väter (of the fathers)

die Mütter (the mothers) die Mütter (the mothers) den Müttern (to/for the mothers) der Mütter (of the mothers)

die Kinder (the children) die Kinder (the children) den Kindern (to/for the children) der Kinder (of the children)

The definite articles “der/die/das” are used: - With the seasons, the months, and the days of week. For example: In dem Januar ist moistens sehr kalt. (It is usually very cold in January)


-

-

-

-

-

-

-

In expressing the date. For example: Heute ist der 22. April. (Today is April 22nd) With abstract nouns. For example: Sie kampfen für die Freiheit. (They are fighting for liberty) With parts of the body or personal possessions when there is doubt as to the possessor. For example: Sie wusch sich die Hände. (She washed her hands) With proper names when they are preceded by an adjective. For example: die arme Marie (poor Mary) After the prepositions “in” (in, into), “nach” (after), “vor” (before), “zu” (to), in such expressions as follows: Sie gehen in die Schule. (They are going to school) Nach dem Abendessen. (After dinner) If the name of the country is always used in the plural, a plural form of the definite article must precede it. For example: die Vereinigten Staaten (the United States) With names of streets and squares. For example: Er wohnt in der Parkstraße an dem Potsdamer Platz. (He lives in Park Street on potsdamer Square)

2) The indefinite articles “ein/eine/ein” (Der unbestimmte Artikel “ein/eine/ein”) The indefinite articles “ein/eine/ein” have the forms and functions that can be defined as follows: a. There are three indefinite articles which indicate the three different genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. MASCULINE ein Vater (a father) ein Stuhl 31 | P a g e

FEMININE eine Mutter (a mother) eine Schule

NEUTER ein Kind (a child) ein Schiff


(a chair)

GENDER CASE NOMINATIVE ACCUSATIVE DATIVE GENITIVE

(a ship)

b.

The noun and pronoun have three genders. They are masculine, feminine, and neuter as mentioned above. Each of them has four cases (nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive expressing the different relationships of noun and pronoun and the rest of the words in the sentence. As far as the noun is concerned, these case changes are indicated primarily by case changes in the article: - Nominative Case (as subject) Ein Junge kauft ein Buch. (A boy is buying a book) - Accusative Case (as direct object) Ich sah einen Junge im Zimmer. (I saw a boy in the room) - Dative Case (as indirect object) Er gab einem Junge das Buch. (He gave the book to a boy) - Genitive Case (as possession) Ein Buch eines Junges liegt auf dem Tisch. (A book of a boy lies on the table)

c.

The declension of the articles with nouns is defined below: - The declension of the indefinite articles with singular nouns is as follows: MASCULINE FEMININE NEUTER ein Vater (a father) einen Vater (a father) einem Vater (to/for a father) eines Vaters (of a father) -

32 | P a g e

(a school)

eine Mutter (a mother) eine Mutter (a mother) einer Mutter (to/for a mother) einer Mutter (of a mother)

ein Kind (a child) ein Kind (the child) einem Kind (to/for a child) eines Kindes (of a child)

In the plural form, all three genders have the same articles declension. The declension of the indefinite articles with negative plural nouns is as follows:


GENDER CASE NOMINATIVE ACCUSATIVE DATIVE

GENITIVE

MASCULINE keine Väter (no fathers) keine Väter (no fathers) keinen Vätern (to/for no fathers) keiner Väter (of no fathers)

d.

FEMININE

NEUTER

keine Mütter (no mothers) keine Mütter (no mothers) keinen Müttern (to/for no mothers) keiner Mütter (of no mothers)

keine Kinder (no children) keine Kinder (no children) keinen Kindern (to/for no children) keiner Kinder (of no children)

The uses of the indefinite articles “ein/eine/ein” are as follows: - When a singular noun which is countable and mentioned for the first time and represents no particular person or thing, the indefinite article is used. For example: Ich sehe einen Mann in dem garten. (I see a man in the garden) - The indefinite article is also used before a singular countable noun used as an example of class of things. For example: Ein hund ist ein Tier (A dog is an animal)

However, there are some expressions which do not use the indefinite articles “ein/eine/ein” in the following conditions: - In referring to vocation, nationality, and occupation the indefinite articles are not used. For examples: Er ist Arzt. (He is a doctor) Mein Vater ist Amerikaner. (My father is an American) - The indefinite articles are not used in expressions of price, speed, and ratio. For examples: Zweimal die Woche (Twice a week) 33 | P a g e


-

2.

In certain phrases, the indefinite articles are not used. For example: Ich habe Kopfschmerzen. (I have a headache)

The Similarities and Differences of Using the Definite and Indefinite Articles in English and German a. The Similarities of Using the Definite and Indefinite Articles in English and German 1)

34 | P a g e

The Similarities of Using the Definite Articles in English and German - The definite article is used before nouns of which there is only one, or which are considered as one. For examples: English : the earth the moon German : die Erde der Mond - The definite article is used before a noun which has become definite as a result of being mentioned a second time. For examples: English : I bought a book; the book is red German : Ich kaufe ein Buch; das Buch ist rot. - The definite article is used before a noun which by reason or locality, can represent only one particular thing. For examples: English : They are playing in the garden. (= the garden of the house) German : Sie spielen in dem Garten. - The definite article is used before names of group of islands and plural names of countries. For examples: English : the United States German : die Vereinigten Staaten - The definite article is used before superlatives, used as adjectives or pronouns. For examples: English : Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in Europe. German : Mont Blanc ist der höchste Berg in Europa.


2)

b.

35 | P a g e

The Similarities of Using the Indefinite Articles in English and German. - The indefinite article is used before a singular noun which is countable when it is mentioned for the first time and represents no particular person or thing. For examples: English : I see a man behind the tree. German : Ich sehe einen Mann hinter dem Baum. - The indefinite article is used before a singular countable noun which is used as an example of a class of things. For examples: English : A dog is an animal. German : Ein Hund ist ein Tier. - The indefinite article is used in referring to vocation, nationality, and occupation which are preceded by adjectives. For examples: English : He is a good doctor. German : Er ist ein guter Arzt.

The Differences of Using the Definite and Indefinite Articles in English and German 1) The Differences of Using the Definite Articles in English and German The English definite article does not change in order to match the nouns they modify, while the German definite articles will change in accordance with the genders, the numbers, and the cases of the nouns they modify, as specified below: - The Genders In English there is only one definite article “the”, that is used for all genders, because there are no genders at all for the nouns. For examples: - the father (masculine) - the mother (feminine) - the car (neuter) In German, three definite articles are selected to indicate the three different genders: masculine (männlich), feminine (weiblich), and neuter (sächlich); - der Vater (the father) (masculine) - die Mutter (the mother) (feminine) - das Auto (the car) (neuter) - The Singular and Plural Forms


In English, the definite article “the” for singular nouns is the same as “the” for plural nouns. It does not change at all, as seen below: SINGULAR PLURAL the father the fathers the mother the mothers the car the cars In German, the definite articles “der/die/das” for singular nouns are different from those for plural nouns. They all change into “die”. SINGULAR der Vater (the father) die Mutter (the mother) das Kind (the child)

PLURAL die Väter (the fathers) die Mütter (the mothers) die Kinder (the children)

GENDERS MASCULINE FEMININE NEUTER

The Cases In English, the uses of definite article “the” are the same for all cases (nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive), so there are no changes for “the”. The form is constant in its various positions. For examples The boy is buying a book. (nominative) I saw the boy. (accusative) Mother gave a book to the boy. (dative) The uncle of the boy lives here. (genitive) In German, the definite articles are changed according to the cases or the position the nouns take, as seen in the table below: GENDER MASCULINE FEMININE NEUTER CASE NOMINATIVE der Vater die Mutter das Kind (SUBJECT) (the father) (the mother) (the child) ACCUSATIVE den Vater die Mutter das Kind (DIRECT (the father) (the mother) (the child) OBJECT) DATIVE dem Vater der Mutter dem Kind (INDIRECT (to/for the father) (to/for the (to/for the OBJECT) mother) child) -

36 | P a g e


GENITIVE (POSSESSION)

des Vaters (of the father)

der Mutter (of the mother)

des Kindes (of the child)

Der Vater wohnt in Deutschland. (The father lives in Germany) Peter rief den Vater. (Peter called the father) Herr Schmidt gab dem Vater eine Zigarette. (Mr. Schmidt gave a cigarette to the father.) Der Wagen des Vaters ist gestohlen. (The car of the father is stolen) -

The Other Uses In English, the definite article “the” is not used for the seasons, the months, and the days of the week, but it is used in German. For examples: English : It is usually cold in January. German : In dem Januar ist es meistens kalt. English : We are going to the country in Summer. German : Wir fahren in dem Sommer auf das Land In English, the definite article “the” is not used with proper names when preceded by an adjective, but it is used in German. For examples: English : little Maissie (=there is only one Maissie) German : die kleine Maissie In English, for some nouns, the definite article “the” is not used after the prepositions such as “in/into (in)”, “after (nach)”, “before (vor)”, “to (zu)”, but it is always used in German in the expressions as follows: English : They went to school. German : Sie gingen in die Schule. English : They are at school. German : Sie sind in der Schule. English : After dinner German : Nach dem Abendessen

2)

37 | P a g e

The Differences of Using the Indefinite Articles in English and German. The English indefinite article does not change in order to match the nouns they modify, but in German indefinite articles must be selected to agree with the


genders and the cases of the nouns they modify, as specified below: - The Genders In English, there is only one indefinite article “a/an”, that is used for all genders. Only the forms of “a” or “an” are used alternatively according to the sound of the first letter of the word which directly follows the article. For examples: a man, an orange, a university, an hour In German, the definite articles are used alternatively according to the genders; “ein”, “eine” and “ein” will respectively precede the masculine, feminine, and neuter genders, as seen below: MASCULINE FEMININE NEUTER ein Vater eine Mutter ein Kind (a father) (a mother) (a child) ein Stuhl eine Schule ein Schiff (a chair) (a school) (a ship) -

The Cases In English, the use of the indefinite article “a/an” is the same for all cases (nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive), so there are no changes for “a/an”. It is constant in all positions. For examples: A girl is buying a bag. (nominative) I saw a girl behind the door. (accusative) Father gave a doll to a girl. (dative) A book of a girl is torn. (genitive)

In German, the indefinite articles “ein/eine/ein” will change to conform to the cases of the noun, as seen in the table below: GENDER MASCULINE FEMININE NEUTER CASE NOMINATIVE ein Vater eine Mutter ein Kind (a father) (a mother) (a child) ACCUSATIVE einen Vater eine Mutter ein Kind (a father) (a mother) (the child) DATIVE einem Vater einer Mutter einem Kind (to/for a father) (to/for a mother) (to/for a child) GENITIVE eines Vaters einer Mutter eines Kindes (of a father) (of a mother) (of a child) 38 | P a g e


Ein alter Vater wohnt here allein. (An old father lives here alone) Dieser Hemd ist für einen Vater. (This shirt is for a father) Sie gab einem alten Vater das Geld. (She gave some money to an old father) Das Heft eines Vaters liegt auf dem Stuhl. (The note-book of a father lies on the chair) -

III.

The Other Uses In English, in reference to vocation, nationality, and occupation, the indefinite article “a/an” is used, but in German, such will not occur. For examples: English : He is a doctor. German : Er ist Arzt. In English, the indefinite article “a/an” is used in certain phrases, but in German, such will not occur. For example: English : I have a headache. German : Ich habe Kopfschmerzen. In English, the indefinite article “a/an” is used to refer to price, speed, and ratio, but in German, such case will not happen. For examples: English : Twice a week he goes to the movie. German : Zweimal die Woche geht er ins Kino

CLOSING 1. Conclusions Based on the analysis above, the writer can draw some conclusions, as follows: a. The similarities of using the definite articles in English and German can be stated that the definite article is used before nouns of which there is only one; before a noun which has become definite as a result of being mentioned a second time; before a noun which by reason or locality can represent only one particular thing; before names of group of islands and plural names of countries; and it is also used before superlative adjectives.

39 | P a g e


b. About the similarities of using the indefinite articles for both languages, the writer concluded that the indefinite article is used before a singular noun which is countable when it is mentioned for the first time and represents no particular person or thing; before a singular countable noun which is used as an example of class of things; and also used in referring to vocation, nationality and occupation which are preceded by adjectives. c. There are some differences of using either the definite or the indefinite articles in English and German, i.e. in the genders (English nouns practically have no genders but German nouns do); in forming singular and plural (in German it deals with genders very much but English does not); the cases (in German cases hold very important roles and strictly in applying them in sentences, on the other hand, English does not) 2. Suggestions to the Readers There are some suggestions that may be taken into consideration: a. If the learners want to use definite or indefinite articles in sentences correctly, especially in German, they should take care of some steps. They have to consider (a) the gender of the noun, (b) the number of the noun, and (c) the case of the noun. At last they should also consider the other important uses of the language. b. Learners are recommended to read a lot of English and German books so that they may acquire the proper usage of the articles and consequently, they may also improve in producing the two languages, especially when their main problem is using the articles. 3. Benefit of the Study a. Theoretically The writer hopes that this research can contribute to the German class and it can be used by both the teachers and the learners. b. Practically This research can give additional input in improving the ability of German grammar. Further more it can be used as reference for similar research.

40 | P a g e


BIBLIOGRAPHY Allen, W. Stannard. 1987. Living English Structure. Longman Group (FE) Ltd. Braun, Korbinian, Lorenz Nieder, and Friedrich Schmoe. 1991. Deutsch als Fremdsprache – Neubearbeitung. Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag. Dixon, Robert J., M.A. 1986. Everyday English. Regents Publishing Company, Inc. Elsworth, E. Walker S. 1990. Grammar Practice for Intermediate Students. Binarupa Aksara. Griesbach, Heinz, and Dora Schulz. 1988. Deutsche Sprachlehre für Ausländer. München: Max Hueber Verlag. Hardjono, Tini, Eva Maria Marbun, and Sartati Nainggolan. 1999. Kontakte Deutsch I. PT Katalis. Lange, Eva C. 1990. Conversational German in 20 Lessons. New York: R.D. Cortina Co. INC. Murphy, Raymond. 1989. English Grammar in Use. Great Britain: Cambridge University Press. Richards, Jack et al. 1990. Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics. Harlow: Longman Group UK Limited. Thomson, A.J., and A.V. Martinet. 1990. A Practical English Grammar. London: the English Language Book Society and Oxford University Press.

41 | P a g e


Listening-First Approach and Listening Strategies Towards Successful EFL Listening Classroom By Gurendi Wiwoho Fakultas Bahasa dan Budaya Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Semarang ABSTRACT This paper highlights the importance of listening comprehension in learning English as a foreign language (EFL). The aim of this paper is two-fold: (1) to suggest use of listening-first approach towards successful listening comprehension teaching; and (2) to propose a challenge of teaching listening strategies to help students acquire good competence in listening comprehension. It cites significant research findings in second language acquisition and reviews the concept of listening comprehension and listening strategies and their relationship language teaching and learning. Research suggests that listening is prerequisite to other language skills, speaking, reading, and writing, and listening should be the primary skill to be acquired in learning a new language. There are major reasons for applying the listening-first approach. Listening comprehension sets a foundation for the future acquisition of speaking. Emphasis on aural comprehension training, and relaxation of the requirement for oral production in the initial phase of instruction, fosters development of linguistic competence, and produces better results than those obtained through intensive oral practice. Additionally, research also suggest that listening strategy is something teachable, so that it can be taught students in such a way that they will have opportunities to choose which suits their learning capability..

Keywords: EFL, Language Skills, Listening, Approach, Strategies, Methods

42 | P a g e

INTRODUCTION Learning a foreign language is commonly associated with speaking that language, and learners are enamored with speaking the language immediately. As for teachers, they are more than likely to plunge students right into speaking. Children have months of listening to their native language before they even utter their first word. But when a person is taught a foreign language, he is expected to speak the language from day one. Listening should be the first and foremost skill to be acquired in learning a new language. Understanding spoken words is prerequisite to speaking, reading, and writing; comprehension should precede reproduction. Research has shown strong evidence that listening comprehension and language acquisition are closely related. Further, listening skill transfers to other skills, and promoting listening skills before focusing on oral skills results in increased second language acquisition. The argument emphasizing listening comprehension in language learning is compelling in as much as there is sufficient evidence that acquisition of listening skills leads to acquisition of other language skills, i.e., speaking, reading, and writing. However, language teachers have not fully adopted the listening-first approach. This is probably due to the following: 1. Listening is considered a skill that will be acquired naturally by teaching speaking and reading. 2. Teaching listening comprehension is not a neatly laid-out method to use. 3. Listening may be viewed as passive and is only incidental to learning tospeak, which is viewed as active. 4. Language teachers themselves have had grammar classes, pronunciation classes, civilization classes, but not listening comprehension classes. Most EFL programs or English courses in Indonesia emphasize effective speaking, whereas listening is superficially treated in language classes. Further, there seem to be much fewer teaching materials for listening than for speaking or reading. This is because comprehension processes are still not well understood and because teachers often assume that students will somehow develop listening skills once they are taught speaking. Indonesian universities now seem to be aware of the importance of listening skill in their English programs, provided that not even an English department will certainly be proud if they have a language laboratory and it could be their weapon in promoting their faculty. and recruiting freshmen. Unfortunately, this awareness is not yet fully reflected in the implementation of foreign language teaching. Their possession of a language laboratory is merely a means of promotion and not yet followed by significant endeavors to improve the listening comprehension teaching methods. As a result, the listening comprehension competence on the part of the students is not yet satisfactory. This is a shame and, therefore, serious handling and efforts should be conducted at leat by the teachers who are involved in the foreign language teaching. An effort can be done by an English teacher, such applying a certain method to improve the students’

43 | P a g e

listening comprehension skill. This paper would try to suggest use of listening-first approach, an approach which emphasizes the importance of listening as the foundation before one acquires the ability of speaking. Some reasons for applying the listening-first approach are as follows. First, listening comprehension lays a foundation for the future acquisition of speaking. Second, emphasis on aural comprehension training and relaxation of the requirement for oral production in the initial phase of instruction foster development of linguistic competence and produce better results than those obtained through intensive oral practice. It frequently happens than teachers use the audio-lingual approach, plunge students directly into speaking even when students have little or no comprehension of the drills they are forced to undertake. This causes unnecessary anxiety on the part of the students and can further delay the acquisition of language skills. Such an approach is due to the general thinking that language learning is learning to talk. This ignores, perhaps unintentionally, the importance of listening and overlooks the fact that communication is a two-way process; a person must first understand what the other person is saying before he can make a response. However, in many EFL classes, the extent of aural training is only nominal and is limited to listening to the teacher’s reading of English texts. It is considered that many students got frustrated in listening so that English teachers should rethink about what they did in listening classes. Additionally, this paper also suggests a challenge of using listening strategies and exploring their possibilities to be teachable to the students, who then in return will take the advantage by applying which of the strategies they think most suitable for their learning activity and capability.. DISCUSSIONS A. Listening defined Listening is defined differently by different scholars. Chastain (1971) defined the goal of listening comprehension as being able to understand native speech at normal speed in an unstructured situation. Morley (1972) defined it as including not only basic auditory discrimination and aural grammar, but also reauditorizing, extracting vital information, remembering it, and relating it to everything that involves processing or mediating between sound and construction of meaning. Postovsky (1975, p.19) said, “Listening ranges in meaning from sound discrimination to aural comprehension (i.e., actual understanding of the spoken language).” Goss (1982) stated that listening is a process of taking what you hear and organizing it into verbal units to which you can apply meaning. Applied to speech processing, listening requires that you structure the sounds that you hear and organize them into words, phrases, sentences, or other linguistic units. Brown and Yule (1983) explained listening as follows:

44 | P a g e

Listening comprehension could mean that a person understands what he has heard. However, in EFL teaching, it often is taken to mean that the listener can repeat the text, even though the listener may reproduce the sound without real comprehension. “If he could actually learn the text as he heard it, he would probably be said to have understood it” (p. 58). Dirven and Oakeshott-Taylor (1984) described listening comprehension as follows: The term listening comprehension is a typical product of teaching methodology, and is matched in phonetic and psycholinguistic research by expressions such as speech understanding, spoken language understanding, speech recognition and speech perception (p. 326). Bowen, Madsen and Hilferty (1985) defined listening as: Listening is attending to and interpreting oral language. The student should be able to hear oral speech in English, segment the stream of sounds, group them into lexical and syntactic units (words, phrases, sentences), and understand the message they convey (p. 73). James (1984) explained listening as: … listening is tightly interwoven with other language skills. Let us begin by clarifying what is meant by listening. First of all, it is not a skill, but a set of skills all marked by the fact that they involve the aural perception of oral signals. Secondly, listening is not “passive.” A person can hear something but not be listening. His or her short-term memory may completely discard certain incoming sounds but concentrate on others. This involves a dynamic interaction between perception of sounds and concentration on content (p.129). Although these definitions were somewhat different from each other to a certain extent, they basically considered listening comprehension as an activity in which listeners employ a variety of mental processes in an effort to decode the meaning from oral texts. The means employed by the listener to comprehend, learn, or retain new information from utterances are referred to as listening comprehension strategies. James (1984) broke down listening into different components: 1. The sonic realization 2. The segmental/supra-segmental form. 3. The musical pitch and rhythm 4. The lexical phrasing 5. The purpose of the message intended by the speaker 6. The actualization of the message in the listener (p. 130) Importance of listening Research suggests that listening should be the primary skill in learning a new language. There is evidence that promoting listening comprehension results in increased acquisition of the other language skills and consequently leads to acquisition of the

45 | P a g e

target language. It is only logical that one cannot give an output (speak) correctly unless one comprehends the input (listening comprehension). Listening is the most frequently used language skill of the four language skills, (Scarcella & Oxford, 1992). Listening is the primary means by which incoming ideas and information are taken in (Devine, 1982). Adults spend in communication activities 45% listening, 30% speaking, 16% reading, and only 9% (Rivers & Temperly, 1978). Gilbert (1988) noted that students from kindergarten through high school spend 6590% of their communication time for listening. Wolvin and Coakley (1988) said that, in and out of the classroom, listening consumes more of daily communication time than other forms of verbal communication. Listening plays a critical role in the cognitive processes that shape output and produce improvement in oral proficiency. According to Rubin (1995), “For second language/foreign language learners, listening is the skill that makes the heaviest processing demands because learners must store information in short term memory at the same time as they are working to understand the information” (p. 8). Furthermore, she explained, “Whereas in reading learners can go over the text at leisure, they generally don’t have the opportunity to do so in listening” (p. 8). Rost (1991) summarized the importance of listening in second language learning as follows: 1. Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner. Without understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin. 2. Authentic spoken language presents a challenge for the learner to understand language as native speakers actually use it. 3. Listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing learners’ attention to new forms (vocabulary, grammar, new interactionpatterns) in the language (pp. 141-142). Thus, listening is essential not only as a receptive skill but also is pivotal in the development of spoken language proficiency. B. Listening-First Approach Learning a foreign language is commonly considered as speaking that language, and learners are enamored with speaking the language immediately. However, listening is prerequisite to developing other language skills; it should precede speaking, reading, and writing (Devine, 1982; Wolvin & Coakley, 1988). An examination of the realities of first and second language acquisition reveals that immediate oral practice is not recommended for developing both aural and oral competence in a second language. In fact, delaying oral production may be preferable until learners feel they are "ready" (Devine, 1982; Gilman & Moody, 1984; Krashen, 1981; Park, 2002; Ringbom, 1992; Rivers & Temperly, 1978; Wolvin & Coakley, 1988). The listening-first approach was pioneered by Postovsky (1974, 1975), who demonstrated advantages in delaying oral practice at the beginning of foreign language learning. Postovsky contended that intensive oral practice is not productive in the initial

46 | P a g e

phase of instruction and should be delayed until the student is better prepared for the task, until he has learned to understand the spoken language. Postovsky reasoned that in acquiring the ability to decode, the language learner must develop recognition knowledge. To encode, he must develop retrieval knowledge and that time is better spent on developing the student’s capacity to decode, especially in the initial phases of a language program. He proposed that the production of speech is an end result of complex and mostly covert processes which constitute linguistic competence and claimed that students’ producing error-ridden varieties of the target language create interference. He called the students’ hearing themselves more than the authentic language a “handicap” (Postovsky, 1975). In the audio-lingual class where each student is vocally active, students hear their own speech output more than they hear the teacher’s. The auditory input which they are processing, then, is not the authentic language they wish to learn, but the classroom dialect rich with all the distortions that are peculiar to the beginning students’ speech output. When this distorted system is internalized, it becomes a new source of interference in comprehension of the target language (Postovsky, 1975, p 20). It is not surprising, therefore, that after extensive study of a foreign language students still experience marked difficulty in understanding a native speaker, while displaying considerable fluency among themselves (Postovsky, 1974, p. 231) Other scholars have also advocated the listening-first approach to language instruction (Asher, Kusudo, & de la Torre, 1974; Omaggio Hadley, 1993; Winitz, 1981). Krashen argued that early emphasis on speaking is not only wasteful but also can be harmful since it takes up time that could be more productively spent on providing input. Forcing the learner to say things before he has internalized the necessary language rules creates anxiety and encourages errors, which might be difficult to eliminate later (Krashen, 1985). C. Listening as an Active Process Of the four language skills, listening and reading are considered by linguists as receptive while speaking and writing are said to be productive. However, this does not mean that the learner's task is to listen passively. On the contrary, the learner needs to keep mentally active in order to gain comprehension. Many scholars have argued that listening is not a passive but an active process of constructing meaning from a stream of sounds (McDonough, 1999; Murphy, 1991; O'Malley, Chamot, & Kupper, 1989; Purdy, 1997; Rivers & Temperly, 1978). Listeners do not passively absorb the words, but actively attempt to grasp the facts and feelings in what they hear by attending to what the speaker says, to how the speaker says it, and to the context in which the message is delivered (Purdy 1997). O’Malley, Chamot, and Kupper (1989) stated that listening comprehension is an active and conscious process in which the listener construes meaning by using cues from contextual information and from existing knowledge. “It is, of course, clear that

47 | P a g e

we cannot see and observe the cognitive process of listening” (p. 434). Transfer of listening to other skills In a language classroom, listening ability plays a significant role in the development of other language skills. Research has shown that promoting listening skills will result in positive transfer to other skills (Asher, 1986; Postovsky, 1981; Gary & Gary, 1981). Postovsky's studies (1975) supported his argument for the listening-first approach, which showed a high degree of transfer from listening to other language skills. His experiment showed that students scored lower in the four language skills when they were required to develop speaking and listening skills simultaneously than when they focused only on listening. Listening can also help learners build vocabulary, develop language proficiency, and improve language usage. Cayer, Green, and Baker (1971) found that students' proficiency in reading as well as speaking and written communication was directly related to students' proficiency in listening. Dunkel (1986) asserted that developing proficiency in listening comprehension is the key to achieving proficiency in speaking. Listening skill is not only the basis for the development of the other skills but also the means by which learners make initial contact with the target language and its culture (Curtain & Pesola, 1988). Bridgeman and Harvey (1998) cited several studies which correlated test scores of speaking and listening and reported a correlation of 0.5-0.6 while Messick (1996) reported a high correlation of 0.91. With respect to the transfer of listening to reading, there is strong evidence of a high transfer. Reeds, Winitz and Garcia (1977) demonstrated significant development of reading skill for learners to translate from written German to English after eight hours of listening and yet with no practice in reading German. Asher et al. found a high degree of transfer from listening to writing. After 90 hours of Spanish language training in listening, with almost no direct instruction in writing, students performed beyond the 50th percentile rank for listening, speaking, and writing on the Pimsleur Spanish Proficiency Test (Glisan, 1986). Consequently, a person who does well in listening comprehension is likely to do well in that language in terms of the overall performance. Neglect of listening comprehension Despite the importance of listening practice in language instruction, the teaching of listening comprehension is often neglected in EFL instruction without understanding its importance. It is the most neglected of all language skills as English language classes still emphasize mostly the skills of speaking and reading. Listening is mistakenly regarded as a skill that can be acquired automatically once the learner goes through the general process of studying the target language. Language instruction has been in existence for centuries and during the last few decades programs in English instruction have taken on many formats from private tuition to formal structured classroom setting. Richards (1990) made the following comments about conversation classes: The 'conversation class' is something of an enigma in language

48 | P a g e

teaching. In some language programs it's an opportunity for untrained native speakers to talk for the duration of a class period, using whatever resources and techniques the teacher can think of. In language programs where trained language teachers are available, they are often left to their own resources and encouraged to dip into whatever materials they choose in order to provide in both 'accuracy' and 'fluency' (p. 67). The audio-lingual approach has been a major culprit for the general neglect as it emphasizes a canned approach in the repetition and drill method without producing communicative competence. In the audio-lingual method, listening has been largely listening for speaking rather than listening for comprehension. In terms of the teaching strategy, too often, teachers, using the audio-lingual approach, force students to speak in a drill conversation even when students have little or no comprehension of the drills they are forced to undertake. This causes unnecessary anxiety on the part of the students and can further delay the acquisition of language skills. Such an approach is due to the general assumption that language learning is learning to talk. The audio-lingual emphasis on language learning as a habit formation, coupled with the active (production) versus passive (reception) dichotomy, allows little room for teaching listening comprehension. Traditionally, in the field of foreign language teaching, both teachers and learners have tended to underestimate the complexity of the learning task. This tendency can be traced directly to such common sense notion as "learning by doing" and "practice makes perfect" and to the position assumed by behavioristic psychology that language learning can be described by the imitationrepetition and analogy paradigm (Postovsky, 1981).

D. What Listening Skills to be Acquired. Listening comprehension is a series of processes that are dependent upon acquiring listening skills. In order to understand the second language utterances, the learner must draw from his knowledge of the phonology, syntax, lexicon, culture of the target language, and auditory memory and apply these fields of knowledge simultaneously while listening at a normal rate of speech. The necessity of teaching listening is illustrated in the following: Everyone recognizes the importance of the auditory approach to learning a foreign language, and yet this procedure is not as easy as it seems. The average person simply does not know where to begin listening. Everything floods in upon us in such confusion that we have no idea of exactly what we are hearing, and we are at a loss to be able to make any sense of the jumble of sounds (Nida, 1972, p. 145). Current understanding of the nature of listening comprehension draws on research in psycho-linguistics, semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, and cognitive science (Richards, 1987). Listening comprehension should be as highly developed as other skills if the learner wants to be an effective communicator. Listening skill should be the primary skill in its own right rather than a by-product of other practice, and it should

49 | P a g e

be given more emphasis in the classroom teaching. Listening skills can be separated into macro and micro skills. Rivers and Temperly (1978) said that the final goal in listening is macro-language use. They defined macrolanguage as "the learning of elements of language and their potential combinations" and further stated, "Micro-language learning is only a means to this end" (p. 92). Brown and Yule (1983) argued that the objective in listening comprehension should be arriving at reasonable interpretation of what the learner hears but not necessarily processing every word. Listening at micro-level may consist of a combination of micro-skills, each of which can perform a different function in different circumstances. Rivers (1980) outlined four components of listening comprehension: recognition, selection, anticipation, and memory. In addition, she enumerated a variety of skills necessary in comprehending speech. Valette (1977) listed three factors for the skill of listening that requires proficiency: discrimination of sounds, understanding of specific elements, and overall comprehension. Although the native speaker finds listening a natural simple operation, beginning EFL students have to develop proficiency in each of the three areas. Richards (1983) listed three levels of processing involved in listening: propositional identification, interpretation of illocutionary force, and activation of real world knowledge. The listening skills are not separate but are inter-dependent and integrated with each other. Rivers and Temperley (1978) described a variety of skills necessary in listening comprehension. 1. Ability to understand a large proposition of lexical items occurring in nonpecialized speech, coupled with the ability to guess the meaning of unfamiliar or distorted items from their contexts. 2. Ability to understand syntactic patterns and morphological forms characteristic of spoken language. 3. Ability to follow longer units of discourse with syntactic and semantic constraints beyond the single sentence (i.e., the understanding of one sentence depends on understanding one or more elements from previous sentences. 4. Ability to understand the flow of stressed and unstressed sounds, intonation cues, and other cues of oral punctuation. 5. Ability to draw correct conclusions and make valid inferences about the social situation, speaker's intent, or general context of the utterance. 6. Ability to recognize the speaker's attitudes toward the listener and toward the topic of the utterance. 7. Ability to identify the techniques and rhetorical devices by which the speaker conveys his message (pp. 92-95). In the 1980's EFL specialists dealt with micro-skills in listening comprehension. Richards enumerated in detail the taxonomies of the micro-skills involved in different types of listening. He divided listening into three areas: a component interaction (e.g.,

50 | P a g e

conversational listening); listening for information or lectures (academic listening); and listening for pleasure (e.g., radio, television, movies). Richards (1983) gave a more detailed breakdown of micro-skills than those of Rivers. They are similar to each other in that both require the listener's action. The following are some of the 33 micro-skills listed by Richards that are required for listening comprehension. 1. Ability to retain chunks of language of different lengths for short periods. 2. Ability to discriminate among the distinctive sounds of the target language. 3. Ability to recognize the stress patterns and intonation to signal the information structure of utterances. 4. Ability to recognize the rhythmic structure of English 5. Ability to recognize the functions of stress and intonation to signal the information structure of utterance. 6. Ability to identify words in stressed and unstressed positions. 7. Ability to recognized reduced forms of words. 8. Ability to distinguish word boundaries. 9. Ability to recognize typical word order patterns in the target language. 10. Ability to recognize vocabulary used in core conversational topics (pp. 219229). The goals of EFL learners should be consistent with the categories that Richards has listed. Most EFL students strive to gain sufficient proficiency in listening and speaking to be able to carry on conversations (conversational listening) and enjoy American movies, pop songs, and watch the CNN (listening for pleasure). Listening fluency will enable students to take notes (academic listening) on lecture information and will assist them in the process of learning and retaining the information. In teaching listening comprehension, Nida (1972) proposed selective listening, listening only to certain features at a time. Inasmuch as people do not try to listen to everything, they are selective in listening and consciously filter out those things that are not important or are inconsequential. Nida said while we can't possibly make rules for the order in which the learner should listen to various features in a sentence, "in general the order of features should be 1) phonetic features (sounds), 2) vocabulary, and 3) grammar, i.e., morphology and syntax" (pp. 146-147). E. What Processes are Involved in Listening Comprehension. Listening comprehension is the primary task in the acquisition of a second language and can be taught just like any other skills. Listening takes place at two steps in the communication process. First, the receiver must listen in order to decode and understand the original message. Then the sender becomes a listener when attempting to decode and understand subsequent feedback. The following are the processes involved in listening comprehension as provided by Richards (1983, pp. 220-221). 1. The listener takes in raw speech and holds an image of it in short-term memory.

51 | P a g e

2. An attempt is made to organize what was heard into constituents, identifying their content and function. 3. As constituents are identified, they are used to construct propositions, grouping the propositions together to form a coherent message. 4. Once the listener has identified and reconstructed the propositional meaning, these are held in long-term memory, and the form in which the message was originally received is deleted. Rivers (1980) gave listening comprehension its rightful prominence and attention and she dealt directly with teaching listening skills. She stated that listening comprehension has its peculiar problems, which arise from the fleeting, immaterial nature of spoken utterances. Rivers (1981) suggested four stages for teaching listening skills in the elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels of language learning: 1. Identification: perception of sounds and phrases, identifying these directly and holistically with their meaning 2. Identification and selection without retention: listening for the pleasure of comprehension, extracting sequential meanings, without being expected to demonstrate comprehension through active use of language. 3. Identification and guided selection with short-term retention: students are given some prior indication of what they are to listen for; they demonstrate their comprehension immediately in some active fashion. 4. Identification, selection, and long-term retention: students demonstrate their comprehension, or use the material they have comprehended, after the listening experience has been complete; or they engage in an activity which requires recall of material learned some time previously (p. 167). Teaching listening should be the optimal starting point in EFL instruction. When first confronted with a foreign language, the learner hears a barrage of meaningless noise. Gradually, after continued exposure to the language, he begins to recognize elements and patterns such as phonemes, intonation, words, and phrases. When he is able to recognize the phonological, syntactic, and semantic codes of the language automatically, he has reached the first level, that of recognition. Nord proposed three progressive phases in the development of listening fluency. Progressing through these stages produces a "rather better cognitive map" which has a beneficial effect on the development of speaking, reading, and writing skills (Nord, 1981, p. 134). 1. Semantic decoding 2. Listening ahead or anticipating the next word, phrase, or sentence 3. Discrepancy detention. F. Listening Strategies: What to be acquired and how to Taught. According to Rost strategies are conscious steps or actions by which learners can guide and evaluate their own comprehension and responses (Rost, 2002). Quite similarly, Wang (WANG Chu-ming & QI Lu-xia, 2003) defines that learner

52 | P a g e

strategies are the thinking activities consciously selected by learners in order to understand or grasp the language materials. And listening strategies are the strategies used by learners while listening to language materials. More detailed, White explains that “strategies are efforts to compensate for uncertainties in understanding, and could include making inferences, realizing where misunderstandings have occurred, and asking for clarification” (White, 1998). Listening strategies are some techniques used by listeners consciously while listening to help understanding. If the listeners need the strategies less and less or can use the strategies unconsciously, the strategies have become listening skills. The definitions of listening strategies and skills serve as the basis of the understanding of the following part—the major listening strategies in listening classes. Danish applied linguist Claus Færch divided listening strategies into two types: Psycholinguistic and behavioral. Psycholinguistic strategies are unseen actions that are “n the head”(Færch, & Kasper, 1983). They involve the listener’s conscious use of their personal “comprehension resources”: For example, the listener might exploit contextual clues and background knowledge, or to guess at meaning on the basis of a word’s structure. Lynch (1996) refers to these as internal strategies. Behavioural strategies, on the other hand, are visible actions “in the world”. They include negotiation with the speaker—making general requests (“I don’t understand”), specific requests (“What does X mean?”) and admitting ignorance (“I don’t know the word”) (Færch, & Kasper, 1983). Lynch (1996) call these interactive strategies, as they depend on collaboration with other person or people. Good listeners need different sub-skills according to different kinds of text they are listening to, and the reasons for listening to it. Of course, no one will not be very good at these skills to begin with, it is teachers who need to teach them strategies for coping with what they have missed or misunderstood (Euck. 2001). The teachability of listening strategies also has been proved by some researchers. They have come to realize that language learning will be facilitated if learners are more aware of the range of possible strategies that can select during language learning and language use, and the most efficient way to highlight this awareness is through strategy-based instruction. Extensive studies on instruction in LSs (learning strategies) have been carried out in a worldwide context in various areas of the curriculum, including speaking, reading comprehension, vocabulary learning, memory training, and solving (Cohen, 1998; Cohen & Aphek, 1980; Oxford, 1996); some other researchers hold that strategy training can improve learners’ performance, help them become more autonomous, motivated and confident in language learning (Cohen, 1998; Cohen, & Aphek, 1980; Oxford, 1990); other studies have proved that instruction can improve the listeners’ performance (Brown, & Palinscar, 1982), increase strategy awareness, help them develop a more structured approach to tasks (SU Yuan-lian, 2002). A recent research by SU Yuan-lian (2002) has arrived at the following conclusions:

53 | P a g e

(1) “Learner-based instruction in metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies can improve Chinese EFL (English as a foreign language) beginners’ performance in transactional listening” (SU Yuan-lian, 2002, p. 79) (2) “Learner-based instruction in metacognitive, cognitive and social/ affective strategies can enhance the Chinese EFL beginners’ awareness of strategy use to a large extent” (SU Yuan-lian, 2002, p. 79). (3) “The effect of instruction on the ineffective listeners is greater than that of the effective listeners and the ineffective listeners seem to need strategy training more than the effective listeners do”(SU Yuan-lian, 2002, p. 80). (4) “Integrated, long-term training is more effective than separate, one-time training” (SU Yuan-lian, 2002, p.80). Two main points could be concluded from the above researches. Firstly, listening strategies are teachable, especially to beginners. Secondly, the teaching of listening strategies is of great significance. H. The Roles of a Teacher in Listening Classrooms To solve my problem, it is necessary for me to reconsider the roles of a teacher in a listening class. According to Field’s opinion, first of all, the role of teachers in listening classes is a guide, who is to give their students some help, including skills, in the process. Then, the teacher should conduct a diagnosis, i.e. identifying listening problems and put them right. At this point, “wrong answers are more informative than right ones; it makes sense to spend time finding out where and how understanding broke down.”(Field, 2002) Thirdly, he should be a designer who is able to elect or design suitable texts and tasks for his students. It is commonly suggested that pieces of authentic listening be introduced at the early stage of listening, alongside scripted texts, to help the learners get familiar with the cadences of the target language (Field, 1998). Some possible modifications are given to the listening passage, if it is beyond the students’ level; such as to record a simplified version or to reduce the length of text by playing just one paragraph (Lynch, 1996). To design suitable task, teachers can adjust the complexity of the task to match the students’ level (Lynch, 1996). Sometimes one’s native language can be used to report the answer, or just ask the students to choose the answer from a list if the listening passage is too difficult (Lynch, 1996). Otherwise, if the listening passage is easier, we can ask the students to repeat the whole sentences. Lastly, a listening teacher should try his best to be a motivator who can get his students more involved in their listening classes and learn more listening skills. To enhance motivation, the following suggestions might be helpful to teachers: (1) Give a purpose of listening. (2) “Make sure there is sufficient variety of listening materials, of pace and intensity, and of activity to allow to work in their style and with their own strategies” (Hedge, 2002).

54 | P a g e

(3) Acknowledge that listening is quite difficult to non-native speakers, and be sure to give reassurance (Hedge, 2002). Obviously, the role of a listening teacher is quite different from what I thought he should be. I have a lot of things to do besides teaching words and grammar. Now I can safely conclude that I should teach more listening strategies in my future listening classes. The roles of a listening teacher above reveal that teachers should not only focus on correct answers, they should focus on the listening itself. “a diagnostic approach to listening involves revising the conventional lesson format” (Field, 1998, p.112). Its main point is that “there would be an extended post-listening session (possibly in a subsequent lesson) in which gaps in learners’ listening skills could be examined and redressed through short micro-listening exercises” (Field, 1998, p.112). It also includes a shorter pre-listening period, of as little as five minutes, which is to create motivation and establish context, and a lengthy listening session, with several replays for learners to re-listen and check their answer (Field, 1998). “From a process perspective, wrong answers can be seen to be of more significance than correct ones” (Field, 1998, p.112). Teachers use the incorrect answers to determine where understanding broke down and how to put things right. Misunderstandings may occur because of the knowledge of phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics and discourse structure, which have something to do with the bottom-up view, or because of the unfamiliarity of the topic, unclear context or poor motivation, etc. Once the reason has been found out, a lot of remedial micro-listening practice will follow. After a lot of micro-listening practice, students may have improved their listening ability in this certain part. Teachers can continue to test comprehension to find out the difficult points their students have and to provide some micro-listening practice accordingly. CLOSING This paper discusses the importance of acquiring listening skills first, before speaking, reading, and writing. There are major reasons for applying the listening-first approach. First, listening comprehension designs the blueprint for future acquisition of speaking. Second, emphasis on aural comprehension training and relaxation of the requirement for oral production in the initial phase of instruction fosters development of linguistic competence and produces better results than those obtained through intensive oral practice. It is also important to point out that the traditional approaches such as GrammarTranslation method and Audio-Lingual method may no longer be the best methods of instruction. EFL textbooks should be revised to teach listening a great deal more in EFL education. Teaching materials should be designed so that more time is allowed for

55 | P a g e

actual listening activities. Educators should consider increasing the percentage of listening in EFL teaching in this country from elementary schools to universities. Those classroom materials that contain pattern drills of audio-lingual method that are widely used are better replaced with materials for the teaching of listening comprehension. Though listening ability is decided by many factors, such as the enough exposure to the target language, intelligence, feeling and some other unexpected elements, some implication can be drown in the following part from the angle of a teacher/what a teacher can do. a. Listening strategies are important for students Good listening effect needs not only linguistic knowledge but also non-linguistic knowledge. To utilize the knowledge of these two aspects, I need some listening strategies. If enough input has been given to students, some diagnostic strategies training will promote listening learning, shape their self-control learning habit and improve independent learning ability. Since my students are college students and they have learned a lot of words, phrases and grammar, what they need most is listening strategies. b. Listening strategies are teachable to students Listening strategies as well as linguistic knowledge are necessary to successful listening comprehension, but some listening strategies are not acquired automatically. They could be learned more effectively with the help of the teacher. c. It is listening teachers who should teach students listening strategies d. Listening strategies are important and teachable. Who teaches the listening strategies? The role of the teacher discussed above shows that listening teachers should do it. e. Not to teach too many strategies at a time Selected strategies should be taught gradually to the students. In addition, review the strategies learned before from time to time is of great importance for students to internalize the strategies, f. Finally, Students’ poor listening ability is a big problem. To solve the problem, it is argued that teachers should teach their students more listening strategies in EFL college listening classroom.

56 | P a g e

REFERENCES Asher, J. J. (1986). Learning Another Language Through Actions: The Complete Teacher’s Guidebook (3rd ed.). Los Gatos, CA: Sky Oaks Productions. Asher, J. J., Kusudo, J., & Torre, R. (1974). Learning A Second Language through Commands: The Second Field Test. Modern Language Journal, 58(1-2), 24-32. Bowen, J. D., Madsen, H., & Hilferty A. (1985). TESOL Techniques and Procedures.Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle Publishers. Bridgeman, B. & Harvey, A. (1998). Validity of the Language Proficiency Test. (ERIC No.ED 423242). Brown G. & Yule, G. (1983). Teaching the Spoken Language. New York, NY. Cambridge University Press Cayer, R. L., Green, J., & Baker, E. E., Jr. (1971). Listening and speaking in the English classroom: A collection of readings. New York, NY: Macmillan. Chastain, K. (1971). The Development of Modern Language Skills: Theory to Practice, 14, Language and Teacher - A Series in Applied Linguistics. Philadelphia, PACCD. Curtain, H. A. & Pesola, C. A. (1988). Language and children - making the match: Foreign language instruction in the elementary school. Reading,MA: AddisonWesley. Devine, T. G. (1982). Teaching study skills. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Dirven, R. & Oakeshott-Taylor, J. (1984). Listening Comprehension (Part I). Language Teaching: The International Abstracting Journal for Language teachers and Applied Linguistics, 17(4), 326-343. Dunkel, P. (1986). Developing listening fluency in L2: Theoretical principles and pedagogical consideration. Modern Language Journal, 70, 99-106. Gary, J. O. & Gary, N. (1981). Caution: Talking May be Dangerous to Your Linguistic Health. IRAL, 19(1), 1-14. Gilbert, M. B. (1988). Listening in school: I know you can hear me - But are you listening? Journal of the International Listening Association, 2, 121-132. Gilman, R. A. & Moody, L. M. (1984). Language learning background factors and ESL proficiency. Foreign Language Annals, 17, 331-334. Glisan, E. W. (1986). Total Physical Response: A Technique for Teaching All Skills in Spanish. Foreign Language Annals, 19(5), 419-427. Goss, B. (1982). Listening as information processing. Communication Quarterly, 30(4), 304. James, C. J. (1984). Are You Listening? - The Practical Components of Listening Comprehension. Foreign Language Annals, 17(2), 129-133. Krashen, S. (1981). Second language acquisition and second language learning. New York, NY: Pergamon. Krashen, S. (1985). The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications. New York, NY: Longman. McDonough, S. H. (1999). Learner strategies. Language Teaching, 32, 1-18. Messick, S. (1996). Validity and washback in language testing. (ETS RR-96-17).

57 | P a g e

Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. Morley, J. (1972). Improving aural comprehension. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Murphy, J. M. (1991). Oral communication in TESOL: Integrating speaking, listening and pronunciation. TESOL Quarterly, 25, 51-75. Nida, E. A. (1972). Selective Listening, In H. Allen and R. Campbell (Eds.), Teaching English as a Second Language. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill International Book Company. Nord, J. (1981). Three Steps Leading to Listening Fluency: A Beginning. In Harris Winitz (Ed.), The Comprehension Approach to Foreign Language Instruction. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Omaggio Hadley, A. C. (1993). Teaching language in context: Proficiency-oriented instruction. 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. O'Malley, J. M., Chamot, A. U., & Kupper, L. (1989). Listening comprehension strategies in second language acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 10(4), 418-437. Park, S. (2002). Using multimedia to improve listening comprehension in the EFL classroom. English Language & Literature Teaching, 8(2), 105-115. Postovsky, V. A. (1974). Effects of Delay in Oral Practice at the Beginning of Second Language Learning. Modern Language Journal, 58(5-6), 229-238. Postovsky, V.A. (1975). On Paradoxes in Foreign Language Teaching. Modern Language Journal, 59(1), 18-21. Postovsky, V. A. (1981). The Priority of Aural Comprehension in the Language Acquisition Process. In H. Winitz (Ed.), The Comprehension Approach to Foreign Language Instruction. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Purdy, M. (1997). Listening comprehension strategies in second language acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 10, 418-437. Reeds, J. A., Winitz, H., & Garcia, P. A. (1977). A test of reading following comprehension training. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 15, 307-319. Richards, J. C.(1983). Listening Comprehension: Approach, Design, Procedures. TESOL Quarterly, 17(2), 219-240. Richards, J. C. (1987). Listening comprehension: Approach, Design, Procedures. TESOL Quarterly, 17(2), 219-240. Richards, J. C. (1990). The language teaching matrix. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. Ringbom, H. (1992). On L1 transfer in L2 comprehension and L2 production. Language Learning, 42, 85-112. Rivers, W. M. (1980). Listening Comprehension. In K. Croft (Ed.), Readings on English as a Second Language for Teachers and Teachers Trainees. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop Publishers Inc. Rivers, W. M. (1981). Teaching Foreign Language Skills. (2nd ed.), Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

58 | P a g e

Rivers, W. M. & Temperley, M. S. (1978). A Practical Guide to the Teaching of English as a Second or Foreign Language. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Rost, M. (1991). Listening in action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Rubin, J. (1995). An overview to a guide for the teaching of second language listening. In D. J. Mendelsohn & J. Rubin (Eds.), A guide for the teaching of second language listening. San Diego, CA: Dominie Press, Inc. Scarcella, R. C. & Oxford, R. L. (1992). The tapestry of language learning: The individual in the communicative classroom. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Valette, R. (1977). Modern Language Testing. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Winitz, H.(1981). The comprehension approach to foreign language instruction. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Wolvin, A. D. & Coakley, D. G. (1988). Listening 3rd ed. Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown.

59 | P a g e

APPENDIX A sample teaching plan The students are asked to listen to a piece of news like this: Now the news is Special English. This is Al Ross reporting. At least thirty persons have been killed and more than 100 others injured in a strong earthquake in eastern China. The Chinese agency Xinhua said many houses were destroyed. The earthquake measured about 6 on the Richter scale. Its center was reported in Shangdong Province, about 600 kilometers south of Beijing The teaching procedure will be as follows: (1) Pre-listening tasks

Now you are going to listen to a piece of news about an

earthquake. Please predict what will happen if an earthquake happens. Compare and discuss your answers with your partners. (2) Listening tasks

Listen to the news on the tape to see whether your predictions

are right or not according to the report of this earthquake. Listen to it once again and focus on the numbers in the news and identify where the earthquake took place. (3) Post listening tasks

Check the answers to questions, interview the students

who have not got the correct answers in or after class.

In the pre-listening stage, try to let your students connect the knowledge they have acquired with listening information, and ask them to predict what will happen in this earthquake. By comparing their answers with others, they will have more clues while listening and find it easier for them to listen. These correspond with the connecting, predicting and social/affective strategies mentioned in 2.1.3. It also creates motivation and reason for students to listen. While doing the two listening tasks, the students have a clear purpose for listening every time. The purpose will lead the students to focusing on the meaning

60 | P a g e

of the news but not breaking down when they meet an unknown word. During the first listening, the students are encouraged to confirm the prediction they made. It emphasizes the using of meaning strategies too. During the second listening, the students are asked to listen for detailed, which is important to a piece of news like this. In the post-listening task, check their answers and diagnose their strengths and weakness and get ready for the next remedial micro-listening strategies training. For example, if some students can not have the meaning of the word “destroyed” in the news, that means they still are not able to guess the meaning of a word according to a context. Then the teacher should give them some micro-listening strategies training afterwards.

61 | P a g e

USING POETRY TO ENHANCE CREATIVITY IN EFL WRITING CLASSROOM By: Susetyowati Ratih, M.M. Fakultas Bahasa dan Budaya Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Semarang Abstract The purpose of this paper is to address the approaches and models of using literature as a language teaching tool and to suggest English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers practical ideas about how to integrate the experience of writing poetry as a tool of teaching English especially to young learners and beginners. Poetry writing gives students an opportunity to transform their feelings into communicative force. As a literary genre poetry is not different from any other linguistic performance. It is the productive use of linguistic structures in order to achieve communication. In recent years language teaching methodology has been heavily influenced by the Communicative Approach. This paper also focuses on the possibilities of poetry writing in an interactive way through task-based learning activities in EFL classes. The aim of these activities is to maximize learners’ understanding of poetry by first allowing them to try writing their own poetry in an interactive task-based language learning environment and secondly to provide teachers opportunities to use poetry as a language teaching device by adapting or adopting these activities. Issues related to classroom implications are given at the end of this paper. Key words: Communicative Approach, Task-based Activities, Creative Writing, Poetry Writing

INTRODUCTION In this paper the models and approaches namely, language-based approach, literature as content and literature for personal enrichment and cultural, language and personal growth models of using literature as language teaching tools are presented. The Cultural Model enables students to understand and appreciate different cultures and ideologies within the natural context of tradition, thought, feeling and artistic form of the literature. The Language Model can be a tool for the teaching of specific language skills,

62 | P a g e

vocabulary or structures. It would also stimulate creative and critical thinking, assist to raise an awareness of use of different modes of language, create an opportunity for team work, co-operation and experiential learning. The Personal Growth Model assists students to achieve an engagement with the reading of literary texts for an enjoyment and love for literature. Similarly, Language-based approach, like the Language Model, draws the attention on grammatical, lexical or discourse categories of the text.

DISCUSSIONS A. Why Literature in Foreign Language Teaching? Literature is not very different from any other linguistic performance targeting communication. It is only when we consider the second level, stylistic variety that the differences appear. Literature is a tool for learning the differences between language varieties such as a dialogue, a narrative, and a poetic style with the figurative speech. In more advanced levels, it could provide access to a local dialect, accent or specific vocabulary (Littlewood, 1986; Lazar, 1993). A major problem of language teaching in the classroom is the creation of an authentic situation and context for language. A language classroom, especially one outside the community of native speakers, is isolated from the authentic context of events and natural language. In the case of literature, language creates its own context and agenda to compensate these disadvantages by depicting the natural events and situations. The world created in the work of literature is the foreign world, and the knowledge about this foreign world in communication. In this respect, literature is an effective access to the foreign culture in the widest sense. It is quite difficult to appreciate the created world of literature unless the everyday cultural background has already become familiar for the students so the world created by the literary work need to have interest and relevance for the students, and also that they need to have adequate knowledge and awareness of the

63 | P a g e

cultural background to appreciate it (Littlewood, 1986; Carter and Long, 1991; Little, Devitt and Singleton,).

B. The Changing Place of Literature in Language Classes Until relatively recent times the teaching of literature was considered necessary for the truly educated person. More recently the emphasis on the study of languages was for specific technical, practical purposes and on the spoken more than on the written language. There was little about the teaching or use of literature in the foreign language class writings in the seventies or early eighties. There was very limited discussion about the relationship between language, literature and language teaching (Demirel, 1992). During the 1980s the situation has changed significantly by the emerging ‘Communicative Approach’ (Larsen-Freeman, 2000). Literature is now undergoing an extensive reconsideration within the language teaching and related curricular reviews (Carter and Long, 1991; Richards and Rodgers, 2001). The primary function of language is communication and communication is a must for not only transferring knowledge but also getting information. It is difficult to make a linguistic distinction between literature and other kinds of language. Thus, there is no reason for separating literature from the foreign language curriculum. Lazar (1993: 1415) lists the reasons for using literature in the language classroom:

o ‘It is very motivating o It is authentic material o It has general educational value o It is found in many syllabuses o It helps students to understand another culture o It is a stimulus for language acquisition o It develops students’ interpretive abilities

64 | P a g e

o Students enjoy it and it is fun o It is highly valued and has a high status o It expands students’ language awareness o It encourages students to talk about their opinions and feelings’

Therefore, literature as a means for expressing one’s self is concerned with all current issues in language education, especially

‘Communicative Approach’ to foreign

language classes in relation to use of authentic materials, appreciation of different cultures, contextual and meaningful learning (Larsen-Freeman,

2000; Richards and

Rodgers, 2001). Although language and literature seem to be distinct, they are not in their essence, since literature is also language. In this context it is possible to use language and literature to mutually reinforce each other in the language classes (Benton and Fox, 1985; Littlewood, 1986). Regarding using literature in teaching language, Carter and Long (1991) identify three main models (cultural, language and personal growth) each representing different tendencies in methodology and in classroom practice. The Cultural Model enables students to understand and appreciate different cultures and ideologies within the natural context of tradition, thought, feeling and artistic form of the literature. The Language Model can be a tool for the teaching of specific language skills, vocabulary or structures. It would also stimulate creative and critical thinking, assist to raise an awareness of use of different modes of language, create an opportunity for team work, cooperation and experiential learning. The Personal Growth Model assists students to achieve an engagement with the reading of literary texts for an enjoyment and love for literature. Similarly, Lazar

(1993) suggests

three

approaches

in

teaching

literature (language-based approach, literature as content and literature for personal enrichment) each offering methodological assumptions, selection and organisation of teaching materials.

65 | P a g e

Language-based approach, like the Language Model, draws the attention on grammatical, lexical or discoursal categories of the text. Literature as the content of the course, similar to the Cultural Model, concentrates on the historical, social, political background to a text and characteristics of literary movements. The Personal Enrichment Approach shares common characteristics with the Personal Growth Model. In this approach, literature helps students to become more actively involved both intellectually and emotionally in learning the target language through focusing

on

personal experiences, feelings and opinions. Thus, engaging in literature would also make students more democratic, open-minded and open to change and improvement (see also Heathcote and Bolton, 1998; Fleming, 2003; Sarıçoban, 2004). Regarding these models and approaches, there needs to be a distinction made between studying literature and the use of literature as a resource such as, using literature in communicative learning tasks.

C. Changing the Nature and Focus of Writing in Communicative Classrooms One of the most misleading assumptions is that communication means only oral communication (see Little, Devitt and Singleton, 1994). A predictable result of this assumption is that the emphasis has been taken away from writing and replaced on to speaking and listening. However, as Baturay and Akar (2007) state practising language skills in isolation does not support authentic communication. Therefore, skill integration would potentially stimulate more genuine and life-like communication. In order to facilitate communication and interaction in English classes, poetry writing can be used because it is universal, it aids language acquisition, and it also allows the use of a variety of linguistic devices in an authentic context (Lazar, 1993). The other function would be the shifting the heavy emphasis on extensive grammar and reading comprehension to writing poetry which could potentially give a more creative, less guided context and agenda to teaching English. Regarding written discourse, students can be given some freedom to write what

66 | P a g e

they want to write so writing could be an enjoyable experience and a communicative activity. Poetry writing requires the learner to invest something of him or herself in the activity which requires using the language in a less directed way than a drill or textbook exercise. Poetry writing task might require the learner to write something that could be used in or out of the classroom, such as a letter to a pen-friend, a recipe or a part of a diary (Swarbrick, 1994). Creating the conditions necessary for creativity is vitally important in writing poetry. Teachers need to avoid some destructive influences in the classroom regarding poetry writing which can be teacher indifference, negative criticism, an unruly environment and unfamiliarity with the type of task. Instead, constructive influences such as teacher’s appraisal, encouraging atmosphere, mutual respect for creative ideas, cooperation and a true stimulus which provides a need and a reason to write can govern the classroom which might give the student an opportunity to transform his/her feelings into communication (see Carter and Long,1991;Swarbrick, 1994). Changing the emphasis from accuracy and textual analysis to fluency and purpose can also stimulate genuine communication. In the accuracy approach the assumption is students make mistakes because they are allowed to write what they want, therefore the importance of control in order to eliminate mistakes from written work needs to be stressed. Students are taught how to write and combine various sentence types through guided or semi guided activities and drills which allow little opportunities for self-expression. This approach was a product of the audio-lingual period, with its emphasis on correct structure and step by step learning (Larsen-Freeman, 2000; Richards and Rodgers, 2001). Textual analysis, in parallel with the accuracy approach, emphasises the importance of the paragraph as the basic unit of written expression and is therefore mainly concerned with teaching how to construct and organise paragraphs such as, forming paragraphs from scrambled sentences and developing paragraphs from topic sentences. (Hedge, 2000). This approach aims to get students to express themselves effectively in a context. In contrast, focus on fluency, encourages students

67 | P a g e

to write as much as possible and as quickly as possible without the emphasis on mistakes and correct order. In this way students would feel that they are actually writing, not merely doing exercises. Although this approach is not the solution to the problems of language learning; it might potentially overcome the negative influence of inhibition. In real life, there is normally a reason for writing. Real purpose and reason are often neglected in teaching and practising writing in a foreign language. Teachers need to allow students to write purposefully with a reason such as writing in role-play situations, problem-solving activities, dramatisations, scenarios and writing poetry for expressing themselves on various topics such as, home and family, dreams and plans (Carter and Long, 1991; Miccoli, 2003; Ertürk and Üstündağ, 2007). This would motivate students to write as a form of communication. D. Some Ideas for Stimulating Poetry Writing Swarbrick (1994) examines some useful ideas for stimulating poetry writing in communicative language classrooms which can be adapted or adopted by the language teachers depending on the topic of the course, age, level, needs and expectations of the students. These are given below with the sample pieces of poetry:

Pattern Work: Lines need to answer the questions below. The questions or the sequence of the questions might be changed according the conditions given above. This exercise can be used in teaching -wh questions as an information gap activity since asking and answering

questions

would

provide

a

context

for

genuine exchange of

communication (Larsen-Freeman, 2000; Richards and Rodgers, 2001). ‘A Marriage of Convenience’ Line 1 Who?

: My friend Joan

Line 2 What?

: Married an Italian

Line 3 Where?

: In Rome

68 | P a g e

Line 4 When?

: Last year

Line 5 Why?

: She likes spaghetti

Perhaps that’s why! (p: 148)

Concrete poetry: Poem is written in the shape of the subject of the poem; if it is about a flower, then it will look like a picture of a flower on the page. This type of writing would be enjoyable particularly for young learners as they can experience drawing and painting as well.

Acrostic: This is where a word is written vertically on the page and a poem is created by using the letters for the first word of each line. This type of writing would be useful in teaching vocabulary and spelling to young learners.

SUN Shining brightly Under the sky Nothing can escape (adapted from Swarbrick, 1994: 149) Riddles: This is where the learner describes one thing in terms of another, leaving the reader or conversational partner to guess the title of the poem. This type of writing can stimulate guessing and problem solving skills of young learners. I have two windows I open them in day time Close them during night (answer: eyes) (adapted from Swarbrick, 1994: 149) Recipe Poems: The poem takes the form of a recipe but it describes something, maybe abstract or concrete. This activity gives a context and content for writing poetry as it serves to express feelings, ideas and experiences of students.

69 | P a g e

Butter, milk and sugar Put onto the biscuit base Spread the strawberry topping Do not forget the cheese Here is strawberry cheesecake! (adapted from Swarbrick, 1994: 149) Literature, especially studying poetry offers an aesthetic and unique experience about language, form, observation and feeling. So, the following questions can be asked to students after the poetry writing session presented above for the complete cycle of the activity. On Language: What words, phrases or lines stood out when you are writing, reading or listening to the poetry? On Form: Can you say anything about the shape of the poem, how the words are laid out on the page? On Observation: What is the writer really looking at, either outside or inside himself/herself? On Feeling: What feelings are conveyed during the poem at different points? Do they change? Do you share them?’ (Benton and Fox, 1985: 24).

E. Activities for Stimulating Poetry In these activities, it is intended to illustrate the possibilities of poetry writing to students in an enjoyable and non-stressful way. These activities are adapted from David Horner’s two poetry collections, ‘So There!’ (1993) and ‘Talking With Your Mouth Full’ (1995) which were very enthusiastic and helpful on the construction of this study.

1. Aims of the activities: • Desire to tackle possible questions in the mind of English teachers about use of literature

70 | P a g e

and/or literary task-based activities. • Attempt to give clues to prospective English teachers on the nature of literature and poetry as a specified literary genre. • Shift the attention of future English teachers to use of poetry in task-based language learning activities in communicative language classes.

2. Theme: Utilising personal memory banks on first day at school. Step 1: Evoking

individual

memories:

The

teacher

projects

an overhead

transparency onto the screen which he/she uncovers in stages. After each new stimulus the learners have time to filter out from their memories the images which are being evoked. It is very important that nobody talks during this phase and that their attention is directed after each stimulus sentence.

First day at school • Try and remember your first day at school • Take your time and let the memories emerge. Explore them • Remember the morning before you went to school • Did you go alone? • What did you wear? • How did you feel? • Do you remember the school building? • Your classroom? • Your classmates? • Your first teacher?

71 | P a g e

• Other

Step 2: Note making: Teacher arranges learners in groups of four to six. Next the learners write down individually what they remember, e.g. key words, parts of sentences, images and associations.

Step 3: Sharing experiences: At this point pairs in the group share their experiences with each other. This phase is particularly useful because it helps learners to clarify their recollections. After this discussion the notes are expanded.

Step 4: Public sharing: Each member of the group offers two particular memories as working material to the group. They are written on the board or an overhead projector transparency.

Step 5: Listening/imagining: The recollections are read out loud; the group listens to the rhythm of the words and the sentences and the fragments of sentences and try to see what the words suggest.

Step 6: Poetry writing: Using the personal notes and what was written on the board as raw material each learner then write an individual text (prose, poetical prose or poetry) on the theme ‘first day at school’.

Step 7: Presentation: It should be made clear that nobody would be forced to publish his/her text. Those who wanted to publish their text handed it in. They are shuffled, distributed and read out. Students could be asked to present on a more voluntary basis. Another possibility is to pin up the poems on the classroom wall.

72 | P a g e

They can then be read and commented on at any time. It is important to note that the teacher is also a participant in the activity and should also contribute a poem if possible. The class has about thirty minutes to write the texts in their draft form. Here is an example written by the author while practising this activity in a microteaching session:

I was frightened Holding my mum’s hand I passed a long corridor Mum left It was a big class My teacher smiled I sat down there And Cried. 3. Theme: Antique Shop Step 1: Introduction: The class is arranged in a circle and the words Antique Shop is introduced, and class reactions and associations are elicited.

Step 2: Guided fantasy: The learners are asked to imagine an antique shop: • Stimulus tasks/questions: • What can you see? • Explore the shop • What kind of objects can you identify? • What is on the walls? • Are there any boxes with small items in them?

73 | P a g e

• What does the shop smell like? A few minutes are allowed for learners to explore and regenerate their memories.

Step 3: Elicitation: Their responses are elicited in the form of a brain-storming activity and gathered on the board. During this phase the students are encouraged to make extended contributions by means of questions which stimulated them to probe their thoughts. Often what one student said is built upon by another so that fragmented details are displayed on the board.

Step 4: Processing the data: Teacher arrange learners in groups of two or three sub-groups of three students are formed and then asked to select up to six items from the board and together to brain-storm the life histories of the objects and to make notes. At this point they are asked to rearrange their notes in a poetic form, i.e. to try and shape a poem from the material they assembled. They are able to add or subtract words in order to develop their ideas. They are not bound by any rules that the poem should be rhymed or unrhymed, in a fixed or varying form. They are given the general guideline that poetry is suggestive rather than explanatory.

Step 5: Exhibition: The learners make large displays of their work and display the finished poems on the classroom wall. They are asked to identify as many poems which are different in form and content as possible. Step 6: Preliminary feedback: Individual students are asked to read out any poem which they find interesting and enjoyable. Step 7: Opinion Exchange: Feelings and viewpoints are explored by means of stimulus tasks/questions: What kind of mood did you create? Identify the atmosphere in the poems on the wall.

74 | P a g e

Other. The aim of this activity is to maximise learners’ enjoyment of reading poetry by first allowing them the opportunity to try writing their own poetry. Here is an example written by the author while practising this activity in a micro-teaching session: Whose are they? I see a silver ring With a square yellow gem Suits me Strange to wear Somebody else’s ring

F. Issues on Classroom Implications The context and the content of the activities above can be changed as recognising and meeting the needs of the students are essentially important in terms of conducting communicative classrooms apart from writing with purpose in a communicative manner. Poetry writing is rather a complex way of communication so it requires special teaching. Poetry writing needs to be preceded and accompanied by wide exposure to appropriate models of written language. If the learners have only seen dialogues in their course books they cannot be expected to produce other forms of the written language such as poems and reports. Therefore, the learners also need to be aware of how the conversational partners communicate through the written language and how this differs from oral communication. They need to understand how the written language is used to fulfil communicative purpose by establishing contact with the reader to get message across. As Grabe and Stoller (2002) argue, reading is the process of combining textual information with the information the reader brings to a text. Therefore, an interactive model stressing both what is on the written page and what a reader brings to it can be adopted since it views reading as the interaction between reader and text requiring

75 | P a g e

both processing and interpreting the text. Thus, shifting the focus on accuracy and language-based approach to fluency and personal enrichment approach would also provide space and freedom to students for true exchange of communication in writing and appreciating poetry (Carter and Long, 1991; Lazar, 1993). Teachers need to identify writing tasks relevant to the learners’ needs and to establish learning environment for practising and experiencing them, such as poetry writing. Writing is somehow isolated from the other three skills of speaking, listening and reading. It is often related to the end of the teaching unit and used mainly for homework. Teachers need to relate writing activities with other skills, so that the learners appreciate writing as a real activity. Writing tasks are generally imposed and that the learners may not have either the relevant ideas or format to experience writing. The use of techniques and procedures which are used for oral work, such as pair and group work need to be examined within the context of the writing tasks. Teachers need to focus not so much at what the learners have failed to achieve but rather at what they have actually succeeded in doing, except when writing is being tested or examined. Writing needs to be a more rewarding activity in terms of achievement (Carter and Long, 1991; Hedge, 2000; Harmer, 2001). In terms of implications for the classroom issues below must be addressed by the teacher: 1. Teacher knowledge and experience about writing poetry 2. Students’ prior knowledge and experience of writing poetry 3. Time and effort which will be devoted to poetry or activity based on poetry 4. Students’ needs and responses 5.

Preparing students emotionally, mentally, linguistically and even physically to writing poetry

6. There is a difference between knowledge about literature and knowledge of literature. 7. Reading literature requires different approaches and raises some complex

76 | P a g e

questions of curriculum and syllabus design. 8. Literary competence is complex to define, but it is connected with different levels of communicative and linguistic competence. 9. Communicative

task-based

approaches

provide

an

authentic

context

for

interpreting or creating a literary text. Such approaches enable students to access to literary texts. 10. Reading literature can be a source of pleasure, a stimulus to personal development and a tool for developing communicative competence (Benton and Fox, 1985).

77 | P a g e

CLOSING Literature as the content of the course, similar to the Cultural Model, concentrates on the historical, social, political background to a text and characteristics

of

literary

movements.

The

Personal

Enrichment

Approach shares common characteristics with the Personal Growth Model. In this approach, literature helps students to become more actively involved both intellectually and emotionally in learning the target language through focusing on personal experiences, feelings and opinions. It is argued that as a literary genre poetry is not different from any other linguistic performance. It is the productive use of linguistic structures in order to achieve communication. In recent years language teaching methodology has been heavily influenced by the Communicative Approach so changing the emphasis from accuracy and textual analysis to fluency and purpose can also stimulate genuine communication

through

poetry.

In order to facilitate communication and interaction in English classes, poetry writing can be used because it is universal, it aids language acquisition, and it also allows the use of a variety of linguistic devices in an authentic context. The other function would be the shifting the heavy emphasis on extensive grammar and reading comprehension to writing poetry which could potentially give a more creative, less guided context and agenda

to

teaching

English. Therefore, creating the conditions necessary for creativity is vitally important in writing poetry. Teachers need to allow students to write purposefully with a reason such as writing in role-play situations, problem-solving activities, dramatisations, scenarios and writing poetry for expressing themselves on various topics such as, home and family, dreams and plans.

78 | P a g e

Bearing in mind these issues, the possibilities of poetry writing in an interactive way through task-based learning activities in language classes are suggested with the aim of maximising learners’ understanding of poetry by first allowing them to try writing their own poetry in an interactive task-based language learning environment and secondly to provide teachers opportunities to use poetry as a language teaching device by adapting or adopting these activities. These activities aim at tackling possible questions in the mind of English teachers about use of literature and/or literary task-based activities, attempting to give clues to prospective English teachers on the nature of literature and poetry as a specified literary genre and finally, shifting the attention of future English as a Foreign Language teachers to use of poetry in task-based language learning activities in communicative language classes.

REFERENCES Baturay, M.H. and N. Akar. (2007). A new Perspective for the Integration of Skills to Reading. Language Journal, 136, 16-26. Benton, M. and G. Fox. (1985). Teaching Literature: Nine to Fourteen. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carter, R. and M. N. Long. (1991). Teaching Literature. Essex: Longman. Demirel, Ö. (1992). ELT Methodology. Ankara: Pegem A Publishers. Ertürk, H., T. Üstündağ. (2007). The Effects of Written-Visual Teaching Materials on Acquiring Speaking Skills in English Language Teaching upon Students’ Achievement. Language Journal, 136, 27-40. Fleming, M. (2003). Starting Drama Teaching. London: David Fulton Publishers. Grabe, W. and L. F. Stoller. (2002). Teaching and Researching Reading. Harlow: Pearson Education. Harmer, J. (2001). The Practice of English Language Teaching. Essex: Pearson Education Limited.

79 | P a g e

Heathcote, D. and G. Bolton. (1998). Teaching Culture through Drama. In M. Byram and M. Fleming (eds.) Language Learning in Intercultural Perspective: Approaches through Drama and Ethnography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hedge, T. (2000). Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Horner, D. (1993). So There!. London: Apple Pie Publications. Horner, D. (1995). Talking With Your Mouth Full. London: Apple Pie Publications. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000). Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lazar, G. (1993). Literature and Language Teaching: A guide for teachers and trainers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Little, D., S. Devitt and D. Singleton. (1994). The communicative approach and authentic texts. In A. Swarbrick (Ed.) Teaching Modern Languages. London: The Open University. Littlewood, W.T. (1986). Literature in the School Foreign-Language Course. In C. J. Brumfit and R. A. Carter (Eds.) Literature and Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miccoli, L. (2003). English through drama for oral skills development. ELT Journal. 57(2), 122-129. Richards, J.C. and T. S. Rodgers. (2001). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sarıçoban, A. (2004). Using Drama in Teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, 14, 13-32. Swarbrick, A. (1994). A la recherché du stylo perdu. In A. Swarbrick (Ed.) Teaching Modern Languages. London: The Open University.

80 | P a g e

TEORI MUKA DAN KESANTUNAN

Recommend Documents