Prosedure Text

Procedure is the set of steps which should be completed in the right sequence to get the goal. In our daily life, we often have to perform some steps to make or get something done. For example, early in the morning, you help your mother prepare cups of tea for all members of your family. In making cups of tea, you have to follow certain procedure in order to get a nice drink. Most of our daily activities are related with procedures. That is why, you should understand what a procedure text is, how to make and use it. The generic structure of procedure has three principal components namely (1) the goal, (2) materials and (3) steps.

A. Generic Structure of procedure

1. Goal : Title of the text (especially for a recipe)
2. Materials : Optional, not for all procedural texts
3. Steps : a series steps oriented to achieving the Goal

B. Generic Features
1. The use of Simple Present Tense, often in an imperative form e.g. Add some sugar, prepare it,.
2. The use mainly of temporal conjunction (or numbering to indicate sequence especially in written text)

a. As the sentence introducers (sequencers) especially in spoken text:
First … Firstly …
Second … Secondly …
Then … Thirdly …
After that … Afterwards …
Finally … Lastly …
e.g. Firstly, prepare some water!

b. As time introducers, especially in written text
… before …
After …
When …
While …
… until …
During …
e.g. While you are boiling the water, grind the chilies, onions and salt
Now read this text!

Goal:
How to activate a Handphone
Nowadays, we need a handphone to connect to our colleagues. We can get it easily in the shop. When we buy it we shall get a handphone, a SIM card, a battery and a charger

steps:
This is the way to activate the handphone:
· First, open the cover of the handphone
· Second, insert the SIM card after being installed
· Third, insert the battery inside
· Fourth, close the battery with a cover of handphone
· Fifth, connect the lead from the charger to the bottom of the phone.
· Sixth, connect the charger to an AC wall outlet. Charging the battery supplied with the phone may take four up to six hours.
Seventh, when the battery is fully charged, the bar stops scrolling. Disconnect the charger from the AC outlet and the phone. Then, we are ready to make a phone call.

Read this procedure text again!

Goal:
How to boil an egg
Do you know how to boil an egg? Well, this is the way!

steps
· First, heat a saucepan of water on the stove.
· Then put the egg in the boiling water.
· After that, heat it until it boils.
· Next, cook it for three minutes.
· Don’t leave the eggs until it gets burnt.
· Now, the egg is ready to serve.
Finally, serve it with pepper powder and salt
To make it clear, please remember the concept of procedure below:

Purpose:
Procedures help us do a task or make something. They can be a set of instruction or direction

Text Organization:

Title
Goal
Materials and equipment needed (optional)
Steps

Language Features:
The use of imperative
Include technical terms
Use words that tell the reader how, when and where to perform the task.

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How to Write an Essay: 10 Easy Steps

How to Write an Essay: 10 Easy Steps

To me the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make.
-- Truman Capote

Why is writing an essay so frustrating? Learning how to write an essay can be a maddening, exasperating process, but it doesn't have to be. If you know the steps and understand what to do, writing can be easy and even fun. This site, "How To Write an Essay: 10 Easy Steps," offers a ten-step process that teaches students how to write an essay. Links to the writing steps are found on the left, and additional writing resources are located across the top.

Learning how to write an essay doesn't have to involve so much trial and error.

Brief Overview of the 10 Essay Writing Steps

Below are brief summaries of each of the ten steps to writing an essay. Select the links for more info on any particular step, or use the blue navigation bar on the left to proceed through the writing steps. How To Write an Essay can be viewed sequentially, as if going through ten sequential steps in an essay writing process, or can be explored by individual topic.

1. Research: Begin the essay writing process by researching your topic, making yourself an expert. Utilize the internet, the academic databases, and the library. Take notes and immerse yourself in the words of great thinkers.

2. Analysis: Now that you have a good knowledge base, start analyzing the arguments of the essays you're reading. Clearly define the claims, write out the reasons, the evidence. Look for weaknesses of logic, and also strengths. Learning how to write an essay begins by learning how to analyze essays written by others.

3. Brainstorming: Your essay will require insight of your own, genuine essay-writing brilliance. Ask yourself a dozen questions and answer them. Meditate with a pen in your hand. Take walks and think and think until you come up with original insights to write about.

4. Thesis: Pick your best idea and pin it down in a clear assertion that you can write your entire essay around. Your thesis is your main point, summed up in a concise sentence that lets the reader know where you're going, and why. It's practically impossible to write a good essay without a clear thesis.

5. Outline: Sketch out your essay before straightway writing it out. Use one-line sentences to describe paragraphs, and bullet points to describe what each paragraph will contain. Play with the essay's order. Map out the structure of your argument, and make sure each paragraph is unified.

6. Introduction: Now sit down and write the essay. The introduction should grab the reader's attention, set up the issue, and lead in to your thesis. Your intro is merely a buildup of the issue, a stage of bringing your reader into the essay's argument.

(Note: The title and first paragraph are probably the most important elements in your essay. This is an essay-writing point that doesn't always sink in within the context of the classroom. In the first paragraph you either hook the reader's interest or lose it. Of course your teacher, who's getting paid to teach you how to write an essay, will read the essay you've written regardless, but in the real world, readers make up their minds about whether or not to read your essay by glancing at the title alone.)

7. Paragraphs: Each individual paragraph should be focused on a single idea that supports your thesis. Begin paragraphs with topic sentences, support assertions with evidence, and expound your ideas in the clearest, most sensible way you can. Speak to your reader as if he or she were sitting in front of you. In other words, instead of writing the essay, try talking the essay.

8. Conclusion: Gracefully exit your essay by making a quick wrap-up sentence, and then end on some memorable thought, perhaps a quotation, or an interesting twist of logic, or some call to action. Is there something you want the reader to walk away and do? Let him or her know exactly what.

9. MLA Style: Format your essay according to the correct guidelines for citation. All borrowed ideas and quotations should be correctly cited in the body of your text, followed up with a Works Cited (references) page listing the details of your sources.

10. Language: You're not done writing your essay until you've polished your language by correcting the grammar, making sentences flow, incoporating rhythm, emphasis, adjusting the formality, giving it a level-headed tone, and making other intuitive edits. Proofread until it reads just how you want it to sound. Writing an essay can be tedious, but you don't want to bungle the hours of conceptual work you've put into writing your essay by leaving a few slippy misppallings and pourly wordedd phrazies..

You're done. Great job. Now move over Ernest Hemingway — a new writer is coming of age! (Of course Hemingway was a fiction writer, not an essay writer, but he probably knew how to write an essay just as well.)

My Promise: The Rest of This Site Will Really Teach You How To Write an Essay

For half a dozen years I've read thousands of college essays and taught students how to write essays, do research, analyze arguments, and so on. I wrote this site in the most basic, practical way possible and made the instruction crystal clear for students and instructors to follow. If you carefully follow the ten steps for writing an essay as outlined on this site — honestly and carefully follow them — you'll learn how to write an essay that is more organized, insightful, and appealing. And you'll probably get an A.

Now it's time to really begin. C'mon, it will be fun. I promise to walk you through each step of your writing journey

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Teaching speaking skills 1

'I can understand my teacher's English, but when I speak to 'real people' I can't understand them'. This is a comment I'm sure many teachers have heard. While it is a bit of an exaggeration, students clearly feel that classroom-based speaking practice does not prepare them for the real world. Why do students so often highlight listening and speaking as their biggest problems? Partly because of the demands of listening and speaking and partly because of the way speaking is often taught. It usually consists of language practice activities (discussions, information-gap activities etc.) or is used to practise a specific grammar point. Neither teaches patterns of real interaction. So what can we do in the classroom to prepare students for real interaction?

• What do students need?

• Practical suggestions

• What language should I teach?

• How do I get students to use new language

• Further reading

What do students need?

• Practice at using L1 (mother tongue) strategies, which they don't automatically transfer.

• An awareness of formal / informal language and practice at choosing appropriate language for different situations.

• The awareness that informal spoken language is less complex than written language. It uses shorter sentences, is less organised and uses more 'vague' or non-specific language.

• Exposure to a variety of spoken text types.

• The ability to cope with different listening situations. Many listening exercises involve students as 'overhearers' even though most communication is face-to-face.

• To be competent at both 'message-oriented' or transactional language and interactional language, language for maintaining social relationships.

• To be taught patterns of real interaction.

• To have intelligible pronunciation and be able to cope with streams of speech.

• Rehearsal time. By giving students guided preparation / rehearsal time they are more likely to use a wider range of language in a spoken task.

Practical suggestions

• Transferring L1 strategies
  When preparing for a spoken task, make students aware of any relevant L1 strategies that might help them to perform the task successfully. For example, 'rephrasing' if someone does not understand what they mean.

• Formal / informal language
  Give students one or more short dialogues where one speaker is either too formal or informal. Students first identify the inappropriate language, then try to change it. Also show students how disorganised informal speech is.

• Vague language
  Using tapescripts of informal speech, focus on examples of vague language.

• Different spoken text types
  Draw up a list of spoken text types relevant to the level of your class. Teach the language appropriate for each text type.

• Interactive listening
  Develop interactive listening exercises. Face-to-face listening is the most common and the least practised by course books. Any form of 'Live listening' (the teacher speaking to the students) is suitable. (See Try article for a more detailed outline of this)

• Transactional and interactional language
  Raise students' awareness by using a dialogue that contains both. It could be two friends chatting to each other (interactional) and ordering a meal (transactional).

• Real interaction patterns
  Teach real interaction patterns. Introduce the following basic interactional pattern: Initiate, Respond, Follow-up. This is a simplification of Amy Tsui's work. See Tsui (1994)
  The following interaction could be analysed as follows:
  
  A: What did you do last night? (Initiate)
  B: Went to the cinema (Respond)
  A: Oh really? (Follow-up)
  What did you see? (Initiate)
  B: Lord of the Rings (Respond)
  Have you been yet? (Initiate)
  A: No it's difficult with the kids (Respond)
  B: Yeah of course (follow-up)

• Understanding spoken English
  After a listening exercise give students the tapescript. Using part of it, students mark the stressed words, and put them into groups (tone units). You can use phone numbers to introduce the concept of tone units. The length of a tone unit depends on the type of spoken text. Compare a speech with an informal conversation. In the same lesson or subsequent listening lessons you can focus on reductions in spoken speech, for example, linking, elision and assimilation.

• Preparation and rehearsal
  Before a spoken task, give students some preparation and rehearsal time. Students will need guidance on how to use it. A sheet with simple guidelines is effective.

• Real-life tasks
  Try to use real-life tasks as part of your teaching.

What language should I teach?
Spoken language is both interactional and transactional, but what should teachers focus on in class? Brown and Yule (1983) suggest the following:

• When teaching spoken language, focus on teaching longer transactional turns. This is because native speakers have difficulty with them and because students need to be able to communicate information efficiently whether in their country or in a native-speaker country.

• Teach interactional language by using an awareness-raising approach. For example, with monolingual classes by listening to a recorded L1conversation before a similar L2 recording.
  For recordings of native-speaker interactional and transactional conversations, have a look at 'Exploring Spoken English' by McCarthy and Carter (1997). It not only contains a variety of text types, but each recording comes with analysis.

How do I get students to use new language?
Research by Peter Skehan on Task-based Learning shows that giving students preparation time significantly increases the range of language used in the performance of the task, whereas the accuracy of the language is not as influenced. If this is so, then it seems sensible to give students preparation time when encouraging them to use new language.

• Imagine you have been working on the language that would be useful for the following task: 'Having a conversation with a stranger on public transport'. You have now reached the stage where you wish students to perform the task. Rather than just give students 10 minutes to prepare and rehearse the task, give students guided preparation time.
  
  A simple preparation guide for the task could be a few key questions like:
  How will you start the conversation?
  What topics are you going to talk about?
  How are you going to move from one topic to another?
  How are you going to end the conversation?
  
  After the preparation stage, students give a 'live performance'. This can be in front of the class or group to group in a large class. This increases motivation and adds an element of real-life stress.

• Another way of encouraging students to use new language in a communication activity is to make a game out of it. Give students a situation and several key phrases to include. They get points for using the language.
  
  Similarly, when working on the language of discussion, you can produce a set of cards with the key phrases/exponents on. The cards are laid out in front of each group of 2/3/4 students. If a student uses the language on a particular card appropriately during the discussion, he/she keeps the card. The student with the most cards wins. If he/she uses the language inappropriately, then he / she can be challenged and has to leave the card on the table.

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Teaching Speaking: Activities to Promote Speaking in a Second Language

Introduction

Speaking is "the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts" (Chaney, 1998, p. 13). Speaking is a crucial part of second language learning and teaching. Despite its importance, for many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and English language teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization of dialogues. However, today's world requires that the goal of teaching speaking should improve students' communicative skills, because, only in that way, students can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules appropriate in each communicative circumstance. In order to teach second language learners how to speak in the best way possible, some speaking activities are provided below, that can be applied to ESL and EFL classroom settings, together with suggestions for teachers who teach oral language.

What  Is "Teaching Speaking"?

What is meant by "teaching speaking" is to teach ESL learners to:

• Produce the English speech sounds and sound patterns
• Use word and sentence stress, intonation patterns and the rhythm of the second language.
• Select appropriate words and sentences according to the proper social setting, audience, situation and subject matter.
• Organize their thoughts in a meaningful and logical sequence.
• Use language as a means of expressing values and judgments.
• Use the language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses, which is called as fluency. (Nunan, 2003)

How To Teach Speaking

Now many linguistics and ESL teachers agree on that students learn to speak in the second language by "interacting". Communicative language teaching and collaborative learning serve best for this aim.  Communicative language teaching is based on real-life situations that require communication. By using this method in ESL classes, students will have the opportunity of communicating with each other in the target language.  In brief, ESL teachers should create a classroom environment where students have real-life communication, authentic activities, and meaningful tasks that promote oral language. This can occur when students collaborate in groups to achieve a goal or to complete a task.

Activities To Promote Speaking

Discussions

After a content-based lesson, a discussion can be held for various reasons. The students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups. Before the discussion, it is essential that the purpose of the discussion activity is set by the teacher. In this way, the discussion points are relevant to this purpose, so that students do not spend their time chatting with each other about irrelevant things. For example, students can become involved in agree/disagree discussions. In this type of discussions, the teacher can form groups of students, preferably 4 or 5 in each group, and provide controversial sentences like “people learn best when they read vs. people learn best when they travel”. Then each group works on their topic for a given time period, and presents their opinions to the class. It is essential that the speaking should be equally divided among group members. At the end, the class decides on the winning group who defended the idea in the best way. This activity fosters critical thinking and quick decision making, and students learn how to express and justify themselves in polite ways while disagreeing with the others. For efficient group discussions, it is always better not to form large groups, because quiet students may avoid contributing in large groups. The group members can be either assigned by the teacher or the students may determine it by themselves, but groups should be rearranged in every discussion activity so that students can work with various people and learn to be open to different ideas. Lastly, in class or group discussions, whatever the aim is, the students should always be encouraged to ask questions, paraphrase ideas, express support, check for clarification, and so on.

Role Play

One other way of getting students to speak is role-playing. Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles. In role-play activities, the teacher gives information to the learners such as who they are and what they think or feel. Thus, the teacher can tell the student that "You are David, you go to the doctor and tell him what happened last night, and…" (Harmer, 1984)

Simulations

Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulations different than role plays is that they are more elaborate. In simulations, students can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment. For instance, if a student is acting as a singer, she brings a microphone to sing and so on. Role plays and simulations have many advantages. First, since they are entertaining, they motivate the students. Second, as Harmer (1984) suggests, they increase the self-confidence of hesitant students, because in role play and simulation activities, they will have a different role and do not have to speak for themselves, which means they do not have to take the same responsibility.

Information Gap

In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs. One student will have the information that other partner does not have and the partners will share their information. Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem or collecting information.  Also, each partner plays an important role because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not provide the information the others need. These activities are effective because everybody has the opportunity to talk extensively in the target language.

Brainstorming

On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time. Depending on the context, either individual or group brainstorming is effective and learners generate ideas quickly and freely. The good characteristics of brainstorming is that the students are not criticized for their ideas so students will be open to sharing new ideas.

Storytelling

Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates. Story telling fosters creative thinking. It also helps students express ideas in the format of beginning, development, and ending, including the characters and setting a story has to have. Students also can tell riddles or jokes. For instance, at the very beginning of each class session, the teacher may call a few students to tell short riddles or jokes as an opening. In this way, not only will the teacher address students’ speaking ability, but also get the attention of the class.

Interviews

Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people. It is a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what type of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare their own interview questions. Conducting interviews with people gives students a chance to practice their speaking ability not only in class but also outside and helps them becoming socialized. After interviews, each student can present his or her study to the class. Moreover, students can interview each other and "introduce" his or her partner to the class.

Story Completion

This is a very enjoyable, whole-class, free-speaking activity for which students sit in a circle. For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a few sentences he or she stops narrating. Then, each student starts to narrate from the point where the previous one stopped. Each student is supposed to add from four to ten sentences. Students can add new characters, events, descriptions and so on.

Reporting

Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or magazine and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most interesting news. Students can also talk about whether they have experienced anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class.

Playing Cards

In this game, students should form groups of four. Each suit will represent a topic. For instance:

• Diamonds: Earning money
• Hearts: Love and relationships
• Spades: An unforgettable memory
• Clubs: Best teacher

Each student in a group will choose a card. Then, each student will write 4-5 questions about that topic to ask the other people in the group. For example:

If the topic "Diamonds: Earning Money" is selected, here are some possible questions:

• Is money important in your life? Why?
• What is the easiest way of earning money?
• What do you think about lottery? Etc.

However, the teacher should state at the very beginning of the activity that students are not allowed to prepare yes-no questions, because by saying yes or no students get little practice in spoken language production.  Rather, students ask open-ended questions to each other so that they reply in complete sentences.

Picture Narrating

This activity is based on several sequential pictures. Students are asked to tell the story taking place in the sequential pictures by paying attention to the criteria provided by the teacher as a rubric. Rubrics can include the vocabulary or structures they need to use while narrating.

Picture Describing

Another way to make use of pictures in a speaking activity is to give students just one picture and having them describe what it is in the picture. For this activity students can form groups and each group is given a different picture. Students discuss the picture with their groups, then a spokesperson for each group describes the picture to the whole class. This activity fosters the creativity and imagination of the learners as well as their public speaking skills.

Find the Difference

For this activity students can work in pairs and each couple is given two different pictures, for example, picture of boys playing football and another picture of girls playing tennis. Students in pairs discuss the similarities and/or differences in the pictures.

Suggestions  For Teachers in Teaching Speaking

Here are some suggestions for English language teachers while teaching oral language:

• Provide maximum opportunity to students to speak the target language by providing a rich environment that contains collaborative work, authentic materials and tasks, and shared knowledge.
• Try to involve each student in every speaking activity; for this aim, practice different ways of student participation.
• Reduce teacher speaking time in class while increasing student speaking time. Step back and observe students.
• Indicate positive signs when commenting on a student's response.
• Ask eliciting questions such as "What do you mean? How did you reach that conclusion?" in order to prompt students to speak more.
• Provide written feedback like "Your presentation was really great. It was a good job. I really appreciated your efforts in preparing the materials and efficient use of your voice…"
• Do not correct students' pronunciation mistakes very often while they are speaking. Correction should not distract student from his or her speech.
• Involve speaking activities not only in class but also out of class; contact parents and other people who can help.
• Circulate around classroom to ensure that students are on the right track and see whether they need your help while they work in groups or pairs.
• Provide the vocabulary beforehand that students need in speaking activities.
• Diagnose problems faced by students who have difficulty in expressing themselves in the target language and provide more opportunities to practice the spoken language.

Conclusion

Teaching speaking is a very important part of second language learning. The ability to communicate in a second language clearly and efficiently contributes to the success of the learner in school and success later in every phase of life. Therefore, it is essential that language teachers pay great attention to teaching speaking. Rather than leading students to pure memorization, providing a rich environment where meaningful communication takes place is desired. With this aim, various speaking activities such as those listed above can contribute a great deal to students in developing basic interactive skills necessary for life. These activities make students more active in the learning process and at the same time make their learning more meaningful and fun for them.

References

• Celce-Murcia. M. 2001. Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language (3rd ed). USA: Heinle&Heinle.
• Chaney, A.L., and T.L. Burk. 1998. Teaching Oral Communication in Grades K-8. Boston: Allyn&Bacon.
• Baruah, T.C. 1991. The English Teacher's Handbook. Delhi: Sterling Publishing House.
• Brown, G. and G. Yule. 1983. Teaching the Spoken Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Harmer, J. 1984. The Practice of English Language Teaching. London: Longman.
• McDonough, J. and C. Shaw. 2003. Materials and Methods in ELT: a teacher’s  guide. Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell.
• Nunan, D., 2003. Practical English Language Teaching. NY:McGraw-Hill.
• Staab, C. 1992. Oral language for today's classroom. Markham, ON: Pippin Publishing.

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Peranan Multimedia dalam Pembelajaran dan Gaya Belajar Siswa

Artikel ini me-review laporan hasil suatu penelitian yang dilakukan oleh Beacham dkk, (Beacham, N. A., Elliott, A. C., Alty, J. L., Al-Sharrah, A., dalam Media Combinations and Learning Styles: A Dual Coding Approach, Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education  (AACE), 2002), yang tujuannya untuk mengetahui apakah perpaduan beberapa jenis media akan meningkatkan pemahaman siswa terhadap materi pembelajaran yang berbasis komputer. Selain itu, penelitian yang dilaporkan ini juga digunakan untuk mengetahui apakah gaya belajar siswa berpengaruh pada tingkat pemahaman siswa terhadap perpaduan beberapa jenis media ini. Perpaduan beberapa jenis media yang dilakukan telah mempertimbangakan dual coding theory, yang menyatakan bahwa informasi diproses melalui dua channel yang independent, yaitu channel verbal dan visual. Hasil penelitian mengindikasikan adanya peningkatan pemahaman siswa ketika materi pembelajaran disajikan menggunakan suara dan diagram. Pemahaman berkurang ketika materi pembelajaran disajikan melalui teks dan diagram. Hasil penelitian juga menunjukkan bahwa suara dan diagram dapat meningkatkan pemahaman siswa terlepas dari learning style yang lebih disukai siswa, dan siswa yang gaya belajarnya intuitive cenderung memiliki tingkat pemahaman lebih baik.

Landasan Teori
Berdasarkan berbagai hasil penelitian, diyakini bahwa suatu materi pembelajaran harus didesain sedemikian rupa sehingga mengakomodasi tipe pembelajar, dan gaya belajar, bukan hanya menunjukkan gaya mengajar instrukturnya. Salah satu metode yang efektif untuk mencapai hal ini adalah melalui penggunaan berbagai media yang disesuaikan dengan gaya belajar si pembelajar. Salah satu teori yang menjadi dasar dari pemikiran ini adalah dual coding theory yang dikemukakan oleh Paivio (1971).

Menurut dual coding theory, informasi diproses melalui dua channel yang independent, yaitu channel verbal seperti teks dan suara, dan channel visual seperti diagram, animasi, dan gambar. Penelitian lebih lanjut berkaitan dengan dual coding theory yang dilakukan oleh Paivio, Bagget (1989), dan Kozma (1991) mengindikasikan bahwa dengan memilih perpaduan media yang sesuai, hasil belajar dari seseorang dapat ditingkatkan. Sebagai contoh, informasi yang menggunakan kata-kata (verbal) dan ilustrasi visual yang relevan memiliki kecenderungan lebih mudah dipelajari dan dipahami daripada informasi yang menggunakan teks saja, suara saja, perpaduan teks dan suara, atau ilustrasi saja. Sejumlah penting prinsip dan tips untuk mengembangkan bahan-bahan ajar berbasis komputer telah dirumuskan berdasarkan dual coding theory ini. Terlebih lagi, meskipun sudah berumur lebih dari 30 tahun, teori ini tetap relevan dengan perkembangan teknologi dan inovasi dalam bidang pendidikan.

Meskipun banyak penelitian yang telah dilakukan sampai saat ini, diperlukan lebih banyak lagi penelitian untuk lebih meyakinkan pengaruh informasi multimedia dalam belajar siswa unruk berbagai learning style yang berbeda. Banyak penelitian yang sudah dilakukan mengenai dual coding theory untuk mempelajari pengaruh informasi multimedia pada pembelajar visual dan verbal, tetapi masih sedikit yang mempelajari pengaruhnya pada pembelajar tipe lain, seperti pembelajar bergaya sensorik, intuitif, sequential, global, aktif, dan reflektif.

Penelitian yang dilaporkan dalam artikel ini mencoba mempelajari pengaruh informasi multimedia pada siswa dengan gaya belajar intuitif dan sensorik, yang kemudian dibandingkan dengan siswa bertipe verbal dan visual. Tujuannya adalah untuk menjawab pertanyaan:

- Dapatkah perpaduan media yang berbeda meningkatkan pemahaman siswa
- Adakah perbedaan pengaruh perpaduan media ini pada siswa dengan gaya belajar yang berbeda?

Penelitian ini dianggap penting karena hasilnya diharapkan dapat membantu para penulis materi multimedia untuk memilih perpaduan media yang tepat disesuaikan dengan semua tipe gaya belajar ketika mendesain pembelajaran berbasis komputer.

Eksperimen
Dalam penelitian ini, sebanyak 44 siswa (umur 20 – 24 tahun) dibagi ke dalam 3 kelompok secara acak, masing-masing beranggotakan 13, 14, dan 17 siswa. Kepada tiap kelompok diberikan bahan ajar berbasis komputer yang memiliki perpaduan media yang berbeda.

Kelompok 1 : bahan ajar yang memadukan teks dan diagram
Kelompok 2 : bahan ajar yang hanya berupa teks
Kelompok 3 : bahan ajar yang memadukan suara dan diagram

Bahan ajar dibuat dengan program Macromedia Flash 5 untuk materi pemanfaatan statistik dalam menguji eksperimen (Null Hypothesis and Significance). Materi ini dipilih karena diyakini banyak siswa yang belum memiliki pengetahuan awal sebelumnya tentang materi ini, dan kalau pun siswa telah memiliki pengetahuan awal, mereka tetap menganggap materi ini sulit dipahami. Durasi tiap bahan ajar sama, yaitu 12 menit. Bahan ajar dipresentasikan melalui laptop ke proyektor.

Sebelum bahan ajar disampaikan, para siswa ditest lebih dulu mengenai pengenalan atau pengetahuan awal mereka tentang bahan ajar yang akan dipelajari, yaitu tentang null hyphothesis dan significance. Para siswa juga diminta untuk mengisi learning style inventory berdasarkan pada Model Felder-Silverman, yang akan digunakan untuk mengetahui gaya belajar yang mereka miliki. Setelah gaya belajar setiap siswa diketahui, maka diaturlah pengelompokan para siswa ini ke dalam kelompok-kelompok sedemikian rupa sehingga dalam tiap kelompok terdapat berbagai siswa dengan gaya belajar yang berbeda secara proporsional, terutama untuk gaya belajar sensorik dan intuitif.

Setelah bahan ajar diberikan dalam durasi waktu yang sama, kepada para siswa dalam tiap kelompok diberikan post-test yang berisi 10 pertanyaan menyangkut materi bahan ajar yang telah disampaikan. Dalam tiap nomor pertanyaan, ditanyakan juga apakah mereka telah mengetahui jawabannya sebelum mengikuti presentasi bahan ajar, apakah presentasi bahan ajar membantu mereka menemukan atau me-recall jawabannya, ataukah mereka belum tahu jawabannya sebelum mengikuti presentasi.

Hasil Eksperimen
Hasil eksperimen ditampilkan melalui diagram batang seperti pada Figure 2. Tampak bahwa pengetahuan awal yang dimiliki siswa tentang “null hyphothesis” dalam Kelompok 1 (teks dan diagram) sebesar 53.8%, Kelompok 2 (teks saja) sebesar 14.3%, dan Kelompok 3 (suara dan diagram) sebesar 29.4%. Sementara pengetahuan awal yang dimiliki siswa tentang “significance&rdquo ; dalam Kelompok 1 (teks dan diagram) sebesar 61.5%, Kelompok 2 (teks saja) sebesar 35.7%, dan Kelompok 3 (suara dan diagram) sebesar 35.3%. Secara umum dapat dikatakan bahwa sebagian besar siswa tidak memiliki pengetahuan awal tentang materi bahan ajar.

Dilihat berdasarkan rata-rata hasil post-test, tampak bahwa Kelompok 3 (suara dan diagram) cenderung memiliki nilai tertinggi, diikuti oleh Kelompok 2 (teks aja). Siswa-siswa dalam Kelompok 1 (teks dan diagram) cenderung memiliki nilai yang rendah. Hal yang menarik adalah bahwa sebenarnya Kelompok 1 ini memiliki pengetahuan awal tentang materi bahan ajar yang lebih tinggi dibandingkan dua kelompok lain, tetapi mereka ternyata memiliki hasil post-test yang paling rendah.

Dalam penelitian ini diketahui bahwa secara statistik tidak terdapat perbedaan yang signifikan di antara nilai pembelajar sensorik, nilai pembelajar intuitif, dan nilai pembelajar “seimbang” (seimbang antara sensorik dan intuitif, atau gabungan). Namun demikian, ada kecenderungan bahwa nilai pembelajar sensorik lebih tinggi dibandingkan nilai pembelajar intuitif. Nilai tertinggi diperoleh oleh kelompok pembelajar “seimbang”. Hasil ini mendukung sejumlah teori belajar yang menyatakan bahwa tidak ada gaya belajar tunggal yang lebih baik satu di antara yang lain, melainkan bahwa gaya pembelajar “seimbang” akan menunjukkan kinerja yang lebih baik.

Pada Figure 3 ditunjukkan perbedaan nilai di antara gaya belajar untuk perpaduan media yang berbeda. Untuk gaya belajar tertentu, perbedaan nilainya lebih nyata. Namun demikian, jika pasangan gaya belajar tersebut dibandingkan (sensorik-intuitif, sequential-global, aktif-reflektif), salah satu di antara keduanya selalu menunjukkan kecenderungan lebih terpengaruh oleh perubahan media daripada yang lainnya. Padapasangan sensorik-intuitif misalnya, terdapat perbedaan nilai yang signifikan pada pembelajar intuitif untuk masing-masing perpaduan media, tetapi tidak untuk pembelajar sensorik. Yang menarik, pembelajar intuitif mendapat nilai tertinggi ketika ditunjukkan pada perpaduan media suara dan diagram, tetapi mendapat nilai terendah ketika ditunjukkan pada perpaduan media teks dan diagram.

Dua hasil utama yang diperoleh dalam penelitian ini adalah: pertama, perpaduan media berbeda yang digunakan untuk menyajikan bahan ajar kepada siswa akan berpengaruh kepada pemahaman siswa. Hasil kedua, para siswa yang memiliki gaya belajar berbeda menunjukkan kinerja yang berbeda untuk setiap perpaduan media berbeda. Kedua hasil penelitian ini mendukung beberapa gagasan dalam dual coding theory. Hasil penelitian ini menyatakan kepada kita bahwa ketika informasi disajikan melalui perpaduan verbal dan visual, kita akan mengingat informasi tersebut lebih banyak dibandingkan ketika informasi tersebut disajikan melalui teks saja. Namun demikian, hasil penelitian ini juga menemukan kasus di mana perpaduan verbal dan visual dapat menyebabkan seseorang mengingat lebih sedikit dibandingkan dengan ketika hanya menggunakan teks, yaitu pada kasus teks dan diagram. Alasan untuk kasus ini barangkali adalah karena teks dan diagram dipadukan, sehingga perhatian seseorang akan terpecah (sesuai dengan cognitive load theory).

Penelitian ini juga menghasilkan penemuan bahwa siswa dengan gaya belajar tertentu memiliki nilai test yang lebih tinggi dibandingkan siswa lain dengan gaya belajar berbeda dalam masing-masing kelompok (pada perpaduan media yang sama). Hal ini boleh jadi disebabkan siswa dengan gaya belajar tertentu merasa lebih cocok dengan perpaduan media tertentu pula, misalnya pembelajar sensorik lebih tertarik dengan model presentasi dibandingkan dengan pembelajar intuitif. Pembelajar sensorik lebih tertarik kepada informasi yang disajikan dalam presentasi, sementara pembelajar intuitif lebih tertarik untuk menemukan hubungan antar-elemen informasi. Akibatnya, pembelajar intuitif tidak punya waktu yang cukup untuk mengaktifkan jenis processing yang diharapkan. Alasan lain dapat dikemukakan misalnya, pembelajar sensorik menggunakan strategi surface learning sementara pembelajar intuitif menggunakan strategi deep learning.

Aplikasi Praktis
Ada beberapa aplikasi praktis yang dapat dilakukan berkaitan dengan hasil yang diperoleh melalui penelitian ini. Dari hasil bahwa perpaduan suara dan diagram memiliki efektivitas yang tinggi, maka sebaiknya dalam mengembangkan bahan ajar berbasis komputer, guru dan sekolah memperhatikan aspek ini. Di samping itu, dalam melaksanakan program pembelajaran di kelas, sebaiknya guru juga mempertimbangan perpaduan media ini. Artinya, jangan sampai di dalam kelas seorang guru cenderung hanya menulis di papan tulis saja, berbicara saja, tetapi harus berupaya memadukan berbagai media, yaitu teks/tulisan, percakapan, gambar dan diagram (misalnya melalui LCD/Proyektor, komputer, televisi, atau media alam langsung).

1. Bagi penulis buku, penerbit, dan berbagai lembaga yang bergerak di bidang pendidikan, sebaiknya mengembangkan bahan ajar atau media yang memadukan berbagai media sebagaimana dalam penelitian ini. Dalam buku misalnya, sebaiknya sebuah buku tidak hanya merupakan kumpulan teks, tetapi juga harus dipadukan dengan gambar/diagram. Bagaimana memadukan media suara ke dalam buku? Saat ini di luar negeri sudah banyak beredar buku yang dilengkapi dengan CD-ROM. Oleh karena itu, tidak salah rasanya jika buku-buku di Indonesia juga dilengkapi dengan perangkat multimedia ini.
   
2. Dalam penelitian ini juga diperkuat pendapat bahwa tidak ada suatu gaya belajar yang terbaik. Oleh karena itu, semua gaya belajar siswa harus bisa diakomodasi dan diperhatikan oleh guru di sekolah, oleh penulis buku (selama ini penulis buku menulis buku sesuai gayanya sendiri, jarang mempertimbangkan gaya belajar pembacanya), dan pengembang perangkat multimedia pendidikan lainnya.

Kesimpulan
Hasil penelitian ini tidak saja mendukung dual coding theory, tetapi juga menemukan bahwa pemahaman siswa akan meningkat ketika bahan ajarnya disajikan dalam perpaduan suara dan diagram. Di samping itu, pemahaman siswa dengan gaya belajar tertentu juga meningkat dibandingkan dengan siswa dengan gaya belajar lain untuk perpaduan media yang sama. Jika pemilihan perpaduan media tidak tepat, apapun gaya belajarnya, siswa tidak akan dapat menunjukkan kinerja yang maksimal. Hasil penemuan ini bermanfaat untuk mendesain bahan ajar yang berbasis komputer (termasuk internet dan mobile learning environment).

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