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As a result, English teachers from junior secondary schools in Madiun, especially from MBE schools, got together to discuss everything to do with the national examinations.For reference we used the Standard Competencies for junior secondary schools and Standard Operational Procedures on which to base our conclusions.
Our first conclusion was that most, if not all, of the questions in the final examinations for English are reading questions. Our second conclusion was, therefore, that the most important competency which the children have to master is reading competency. Based on these conclusions we drew up a reinforcement program covering what we felt were the main aspects of the material: Factual Information, Parts of Speech, Making Inferences and Text Analysis.
Factual Information: Activities to find factual information start with identifying the subject and object of the sentences in a paragraph. Following on from this, students make questions using wh-words, for which the answers should include the subject and object already identified. A further development of this could include questions using the word 'how'and other variations.
Parts of Speech: These activities begin with asking students to make a list of personal and possessive pronouns. They are then asked to find these pronouns in their reading material and to find what the words refer to. In this case the students are introduced to the phrases used to ask about the pronouns, such as "what does 'it' in line.... refer to?" or "'its' in line.... refer to?" etc.
Making Inferences: To help them make inferences, the students are given questions which have to be answered by drawing conclusions from the text they were given. For this activity to be successful there needs to be reading material with a lot of implied information.
Text Analysis: What is meant by text analysis in this case is naming the kind of text, the purpose of the text and the different parts of the text. To teach this the first step is to explain that every different kind of text has its own special purpose. After this the students are given several texts and asked to determine for what purpose the text has been written, based on the explanations that received from the teacher. From this the students can determine the name of the kind of text.
Following on from this, it is explained to the students that each kind of text has a different structure, for example 'recount' texts consist of orientation, then sequence of events (event 1, event 2 etc.) The students are asked to identify the different parts of the texts they had been given.
That is an account of what we are doing to prepare the students to face the final examination in English. We hope they will get good results.
By Bambang Ari Sugianto, Teacher and English facilitator, Madiun
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PASURUAN: Showing off PAKEM in the Madrasah
Remarks frequently heard during training indicate that teachers in madrasahs (Islamic schools) need special attention. But during mentoring activities with the teachers it appears that these observations are incorrect.
The madrasah are very much aware that they urgently need to make changes in their teaching, if their students are to compete with those from other schools. This is the case at MI Negeri Mandaranrejo and MTs Nurul Islam (both MBE schools) in Bugul Kidul the district.
The two madrasahs have pioneered changes in the way they work. They have become innovators and are able to give an example to other madrasahs in this district, using the ideas which they have received during PAKEM training.
These madrasahs are no longer second class institutions but already the equals of conventional public schools. There have been many changes in management and teaching.
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Above: Students in grade 2 measuring using standard units
Below: PAKEM teaching is already the norm for the teachers at MIN Mandaranrejo
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