Establishing Rich Language Learning Environment to support Young Learners Literacy Skills in Bali

Establishing Rich Language Learning Environment to support Young Learners Literacy Skills in Bali

L.P. Artini

Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha, BALI

e-mail: lpartini_undiksha@yahoo.com

Abstract: This study aims at developing and examining how ‘rich language environment’ helps primary school students progress with their literacy skills in English. The language environment comprises various texts from which learners are expected to work independently on reading and writing. The materials are graded in terms of complexity:  words, sentence and text levels. The study employs the development model proposed by Dick and Carey. The material development was preceded by a need analysis and then was piloted in five primary schools in Bali.  The impact of intensive exposure to the rich language learning environment was found to have positive impact on student literacy skills. The findings also reveal that the more difficult the materials, the least progress in literacy skills occur.

           

Keywords: literacy skills, rich language learning environment

1. Introduction

Primary English Language Teaching (PELT) has become a popular trend in non English speaking countries all over the world in the last two decades. As a matter of fact, English has recently been considered as a global commodity that many countries allocated major funds and massive effort to improve the quality of EFL teaching and learning in their schools (Whitehead, 2007). English is no longer viewed as a school subject but rather an important component in basic education (Hayes, 2007).

The government policy about English in primary schools in Indonesia began in 1994. The Department of education in the provincial level decided wether or not the primary schools in certain areas needed to include English as the local content of the curriculum. Only a small number of public schools (in urban areas) in Bali that ran English classes in the  first few years of the implementation of the policy. It was due to limited human resources in Teaching English for Young Learners (TEYL) and the absence of learning tools and facilities that support young learners to progress effectively with their English.

The growth of enthusiasm of the community for their children to attend schools that offered English subjects inspired the Department of National Education to run a pilot project on English in Primary Schools in 2008.  Ten master trainers from each of the five provinces involved in the project were sent for Training of Trainers  in the Indonesian capital city in the first year of the project implementation and the same number of other prospective trainers in the second year. The impact of this project was overwhelming. Young learners in Balinese primary schools involved in the project were enthusiastic and motivated to learn English. The master trainers dissiminated new and innovative strategies for teaching English for young learners to English teachers in their districts. As the results, teachers seemd to have a change of the mindset from teaching about the language  to teaching how to use the language. Teachers facilitated the young learners to experience with the language use through songs, stories, and games.

Children enthusiasm was unfortunately not supported by language learning environment. English was allocated only for 2 x 35 minutes  per week during the project implementation.  This condition hardly maintain learners’ enthusiasm in learning English. They had to wait for a week to have another English lesson, and based on informal interview with some young learners, it took them a long time to wait for the next English lesson. Meanwhile, learning materials that support English  language learning outside of the classroom was not available.

Scott & Ytreberg (2004) point out that enthusiasm and motivation for learning should be mantained and improved through time. In the context of TEYL in Bali, the effort to maintain learners’ enthusiasm to learn English has not probably been taken as a serious issue. Teachers who were ’trained’ to teach English for young learners usually have double or triple roles in the school. Firstly, as the class teacher, who have to be responsible to carry out the daily routines with all school subjects at school. Secondly as an English teacher who have had a quick training for English language (because they mostly did not have adequate English and also experience in teaching English), they might feel that their responsibility was only during the 35 minute lesson. The rest of their time was for teaching other subjects. Thus, maintaining enthusiasm to learn English did not seem to be of anyone concern in Indonesian public schools in Indonesia in general, or in Balinese primary schools in particular.  This real situation inspired the researcher to develop a language learning environment which is rich (easily accessed, readily available, various in forms and eyecatching outlook) to attract young learners’ attention as well as to help them learn  independently, especially in reading and writing in English.

This  article aims at describing how the rich language learning environment (hereafter, RLLE) was developed, exposed to learners and affected their literacy skills in English.

2. Literature Review

Studies on TEYL in Indonesia in general, or Bali in particular, commonly focus on strategies to improve classroom instructions that include in-service training for teachers, curriculum development, implementation of new strategies for teaching or development of teaching materials (see for example Padmadewi, et al.,2009).  In other words, most efforts have been concerned with intellectual quality pedagogical dimension (i.e. efforts for improving quality of formal instructions in a classical classroom). These types of studies usually ended up with recommendations for methods and strategies for teaching.

What seemed to be ignored was the fact that learners only have limited formal exposure to English inside the classroom. Classroom observation in English classes conducted by the writer found that teachers became the only source of learning in the classroom, and a textbook was the only learning material.Yelland (2006), points out that learning a language (especially a foreign language) should ideally be supported by a ’rich language learning environment’ so that children can learn through real contexts. In line with this, Watanabe (2009) emphasizes that learning should not only occur inside the class only, but also outside of the class in the learners’ convenient time.

When formal English language teaching for young learners is properly practiced, there is a potency for pertaining competitive human resources in the future  (Mitchell & Myles, 2004 in Hayes, 2007). There are at least two arguments of why it is important to begin the teaching of English in primary schools. First, reserach in the past found that young learners (i.e. children) possess flexible language acquisition devices that make them learn a new language relatively faster than the adults (Long, 1990).  Second, Bali is an international tourist destination, therefore there is a real need for proficiency in English. Balinese people have positive attitudes towards the language and the native speakers of the language.  They generally demonstrated strong motivation to learn the language (Lamb, 2003; Artini, 2006 & 2009b). Thus, Balinese parents have an expectation that their children can speak English in the future. This may have an impact on children motivation to learn English.

Unfortunately, after the pilot project on English in Primary School was terminated in 2010, there was demotivating policy in the regional level about PELT in Bali. Time allocated was reduced to only 35 minutes per week. Teacher became overburdened for they have to teach 24 hours (of different subjects)  a week as the results of the certification program they were undertaken. In the 35 minutes of in-class English teaching and learning, learners mainly work on the worksheet followed up with teachers’ checking if what they have done right or wrong. Considering the expectations of the community about the provision of quality English program in the schools, something is obviously need to be done.

The rich language learning environment (RLLE) in the context of the present research is developed by  adapting the theory of multiple literacy experiences (Winch, et al., 2006). RLLE comprises different types of texts that take into consideration learners’ language needs, children learning characteristics and real children life contexts. The materials should be eye catching for the children with interesting illustrations or pictures. RLLE  is considered to be a promising way to provide primary school students with opportunities to learn English (in addition to the in-class learning) as it provides different types of texts that can be expected to attract learners’ attention to observe, pay attention to, and do independent work in the provided RLLE journals. The independent work here includes the writing or copying topical vocabularies, everyday expressions and stories, that contextually support their literacy skills in English. The materials are exposed to the learners everyday in a specially designed display board that is easily seen and interestingly organized.

3. Research Questions and Hypotheses

This study attempts to seek the answer of the following research questions; (1) How should RLLE be developed? (2) How do primary school students react to the exposure of the RLLE in their school? And (3) How does RLLE influence the students’ literacy skills in English?  The working hypotheses of this study can be formulated following the background of the study as follows: (1) RLLE should be develop to suit young learners’ language development and needs, their learning characteristics and real life context, (2) Primary school students in Bali react positively toward the provision of RLLE in their schools, and (3) The exposure to RLLE materials intensively and continuously influence their literacy skills in English.

 Methods

This study follows Dick dan Carey’s (1990)  model of research and Development that comprises eight stages: need analysis, instructional analysis, learners and context analysis, setting up goals, assessment instrument development, instructional strategy development, instructional material development and selection, summative evaluation development and implementation. The subjects of the study were grade 4,5, and 6 of five schools previously involved in the pilot project of English in primary School in 2008 and in 2009. Purposive sampling technique was employed to select five out of 20 schools formerly involved in the project in the final step of the study. The five schools were located in three different regencies. The reasons for selecting these schools because the English teachers had the experiences to be trained by the master trainers on teaching English in primary schools.

The RLLE materials were developed in the forms of various texts with illustrative pictures. The materials were graded and every week one set of materials were exposed in the display board in front of each classroom. As mentioned previously, the materials adapt Winch et al. (2006), for whom students should be provided with experiences with various texts. The students can be expected to learn independently and consequently improve their literacy skills when they were systematically learn independently through various types of texts .  In this study multiple literacy experiences is interpreted as providing learners with different types of texts through systematic exposure will help them improve their independent learning skills as well as literacy in English. The materials were developed on the seventh step of Dick and Carey’s research and development procedures as mentioned above. The developed materials closely follow the existed curriculum so that what they read outside the classroom has a connection or related to what they have learned within the 35 minutes per week lesson in the classroom. The types of texts were decided based on the characteristics of EYL learners, who like learning through real contexts and enjoy fun activities such as by using games and stories. There were five types of texts which were developed: a) topical vocabulary, b). everyday expressions, c). grammar focus, d) language games and  e). times for stories as described briefly below.

a). Topical Vocabulary

This includes presentation of words relevant to the topics in the curriculum. For example,  for the topic of ‘family’, the students were exposed to the words (and supplemented with appropriate pictures) such as father, mother, older sister, younger brother, and so forth. These words were displayed in the publication board and students were expected to come and see, read, remember or copy them down in their journals.

b). Everyday Expressions

These include everyday expressions that are also relevant to the topics in the curriculum. For example, for the topic of Parts of Body, students were exposed to the expressions like: I have a headache, She has short hair, and so forth. In the journal that they voluntarily filled in the provided speech bubbles with appropriate expressions from the display.

c) Grammar Focus

Here students are exposed to sentences that emphasized the grammar of English. The sentences were repeated in the hope that students could judge the patterns on their own. For the topic of transportation, for example, the expression of meaning and interesting pictures are  illustrated in the sentences like: Lily goes to school by bicycle. Mr. Jaya goes to work by car. Students were expected to copy or rewrite the sentences in the journals.

d)Language Games

This text type comprises language learning games such as Spider Web that must be filled in by the students with vocabulary from the display; or hidden message, in which students should find a message by using some clues. This kind of game activity does not need the learners to work in groups. The individual language learning game will help students recognize words and their meaning as well as the spelling.

e) Time for Stories

This is the longest text in comparison to other texts. This story was written in loose pages. Every week, only two pages were displayed so that students were curious to know how the story goes. The stories are specially designed to meet the topic of the lessons. Every week, Students could copy the story and answer the questions in their journals and they were also motivated to create their own questions to be answered by their peers.

To meet the characteristics of EYL as mentioned above, all materials were supported with interesting illustrations in the form of pictures or photos. They were specially made /created or were downloaded from on line resources which were properly referenced.  

Research Procedures

This article basically reports the implementation of the RLLE in grade 4, 5 and 6. As mentioned previously, this research involved five schools with approximately 400 students involved in the implementation. In addition to observation (to see how students react to the materials), the data were also collected from interview with students and teachers (to know their responses toward the provision of RLLE in the school premises. Finally, a test was conducted to know the impact of the material exposure to students on students’ literacy skills. To know the impact, a comparison between the results of the literacy pre test and post test was done. The distance of the two test was approximately six months because it took quite a long time to develop the draft of the RLLE materials. The experiments were lasted for the range of three to five weeks only as the time was very limited.

Results and Discussions

Text variations which were displayed in the display board in front of grade 4, 5, and 6 classroom attracted attentions of the students. As soon as they left their classroom for recess, they flocked together to see attentively every part of the material set. On the first two days, every student only looked at the materials, and on the third day, some students stated doing some work on their journals. There were more and more students who worked on their journal every day. They either copied words into their journals,  filled in the speech bubbles with everyday expressions or answered questions about  the story. They either did it individually, in pairs or in groups of 3s or 4s. Every time they finished one set of work, they showed their work to their teacher who then stamped their work with a ‘smiley face’.

Students obviously seemed to be happy to see the materials and reacted positively about the display of the materials as indicated in the following interview excerpt:

#S12/B4: Materinya bagus, saya suka…

               [The materials are good, I like them …]

#S21/S5: Gambarnya lucu-lucu, ada yang seperti adik saya.

               [The pictures are funny, one looks like my younger sibling]

The excerpts indicate that the children were firstly more interested in the pictures and illustrations. This is positive since the pictures were made eye-catching and capable of attracting students’ attention. The following are the examples of the picture for vocabulary

related to the topic of ‘family’

 

                                                              Illustration 01: Pictures to introduce the topical

                                                              Vocabulary about family in the RLLE.

The strengths of the pictures or illustrations were on their closeness to the everyday life of the children who were dominantly Balinese. In addition, the variations as well as the authenticity of the pictures were also the added values of the materials.

Students’ Literacy Skills in English prior to the treatment

            As mentioned before, prior to the experimentation of the developed materials, students’ ability to read and write in English was assessed. The instrument for assessment was graded from (1) vocabulary (unscrambling, selecting appropriate words, filling in blanks), (2) sentence and expressions (reordering words to make sentences, to complete sentences), and (3) writing up simple descriptive texts. The grading was not only based on the types but also based on students’ grades.

            In general, primary school students were found to have very low literacy skills English). For example, in grade 4, most of them were incapable of spelling the words ‘Friday’ properly. They instead wrote:  Fritdy, Fride, or Frydy. This is probably due to the limited time for English in the classroom, or the focus of learning was unclear. However, when asked to mention names of the days in the week, they did not seem to have a serious problem.

An ability to spell names of the day appropriately may not actually be the focus of the teaching of English in primary schools. However when there are strategies that could help students learn spelling effectively and independently, it should be taken into a consideration. After the three months of intensive exposure to the materials of RLLE, the findings were satisfactory. For the same test items as in the pre test, learners improve their ability to rewrite sentences or expressions with more confidence. The following is the table about students’ literacy scores before and after the experiment.

Table 01: Comparison of Literacy Skill Scores before and after the Experiment

Schools	Literacy skill scores
	WORDS Before After			SENTENCES/EXPRESSIONS Before After			SIMPLE TEXT Before After
	Grade 4	Grade 5	Grade 6	Grade4	Grade5	Grade 6	Grade 4	Grade5	Grade 6
SD No 1 Sulahan	33.6 57.2	43.7 59.4	23 50.2	22.4 30.7	38.1 45.3	26 40.2	9.3 22.1	39 47.1	25.8 40.3
SD No 2 Cempaga	6.9 37.1	20.2 40.7	12.3 32.4	17.6 27.2	30.4 34.4	36.3 38.1	20 28.2	32.8 40.2	29.5 36.4
SD No 7 Pedungan	26.8 40.5	22.8 39.4	32.8 44.4	12.4 22.1	21.6 27.6	14.4 20.2	20.2 30.1	24.2 41.3	28.2 41.1
SD No 1 Kayubihi	26.2 46.2	28.8 45.1	22.2 40.7	20.4 30.5	22.6 34.1	24.6 25.6	28.4 29.9	29.1 39.2	28.2 35.6
SD 2 Muhammadyah	12.2 31.1	20.1 40.4	10.2 33.1	18.4 20.6	20.2 24.9	19.2 27.1	16.8 22.2	18.2 24.2	5.2 16.7
AVERAGE Before After Improvement	21.1 42.4 100%	27.1 45.0 66%	20.1 40.2 100%	18.2 26.2 44%	26.6 33.3 25.2%	18.9 30.2 59.8%	18.9 26.5 40.2%	28.7 38.4 33.8%	23.4 34.0 45.3%

The table reveals that the most obvious improvement occurred in the level of vocabulary (88.7%). Intensive exposure to printed words brings the impact on students’ awareness of words, meaning and spelling. The least improvement was on writing a short text (39.8%), while in  sentence level the improvement. This is explainable since writing for primary school students is complex as it involves vocabulary, grammar, sentence formation and mechanic of writing.  Ability to remember words obviously easier that combining words into sentences. The exposure to words supplemented with interesting illustrative pictures seemed to be effective for young learners to remember. This is in line with Artini (2009a) who maintains that every individual has a dynamic quality to learn a new language. The use of appropriate media helps young learners to activate their dynamic quality to learn more effectively.

The more difficult the materials are the less likely improvement can be achieved.  This is not unusual since complex materials need longer time to attain. This can be seen in the grading of development occurred as the impact of RLLE exposure. From the easiest to the most difficult, young learners found it easier to remember words, meaning and their spelling; followed with sentence level and finally text writing. This has an implication that in primary school levels, English needs to be introduced in a carefully ordered of complexity so that learning progress could be expected to occur optimally.

It is undeniable that there is a potential bias in this research. The improvement in young learners’ literacy skills may not merely the results of RLLE exposure. There was a three-month period of time before the improvement was assessed. During this period, learners might have gone through a process of in-class learning that influence their literacy skills. The conclusion should be treated with caution. Intensive and continuous RLLE exposure and regular in-class English lesson may interactively affect young learners’ literacy skills in English. The provision of supplementary material such as RLLE is important as Scott & Ytreberg  (2004) point out that formal learning of a foreign language is not enough and supplementary materials are needed to optimalize learners’ achievement.

Limited time for formal/regular learning in the classroom might not leave learners with opportunity to build their reading and writing skills in the foreign language. RLLE in this research provides students with opportunity to read and write at their convenient time. This positively support in-class activities which managed to cope mostly with spoken language due to the limited time allocation for English subject. When working on RLLE, students read words, sentences or stories, and copy, write and create sentences according to the requirement of the independent tasks. As stated in the document of the Department of National Education (2009), English in primary schools is focused on spoken language, that is, learners are trained to listen, repeat, follow instructions and respond to simple questions or elicitations. This is revealed in the following citation from the document that one of the goals of English subject in primary schools is to develop communication competence in the form of  language accompanying action in the context of school”. The provision of RLLE materials in school premises can be expected to fulfill the gap for young learners to learn English naturally.

6. Conclusion

This research so far has found the positive impact of RLLE on young learners’ literacy skills in English. However, as has been pointed out earlier, there might be a potential bias in the interpretation of the findings. The duration of three to five weeks for experimentation of the exposure to RLLE may not be the only cause of literacy skills improvement because at the same time learners also got regular treatment of learning in the classroom. However, there are reasons to believe that primary schools students in Bali are enthusiastic EFL learners and the discouraging policy to reduce the time allocation from 2x35 minutes to 1x35 minutes in a week need urgent attention. The provision of RLLE in the school might be a promising solution. In the second year of the research, the experimentation will be conducted more intensively and longer so that the impact of RLLE materials on young learners’ literacy could be better explained.

Acknowledgement

The writer would like to express her gratitude to the Department of Higher Education for granting me a research grant to conduct a national strategic research scheme from which this article is written.

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