elt paper: closing teaching session skill

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THE CLOSING TEACHING SESSION SKILLS MUHAMMAD YUSUF 1352044027 ENGLISH EDUCATION FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE

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This paper deal with the issue on how to make the tail end of teaching session as the reinforcement moment toward the materials have been taught during the class. It also discuss the common problem which occur in the closing session and how to encounter it through various ways.

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Page 1: ELT Paper: Closing Teaching Session Skill

THE CLOSING TEACHING SESSION SKILLS

MUHAMMAD YUSUF

1352044027

ENGLISH EDUCATION

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MAKASSAR

2014

Muhammad Yusuf

Page 2: ELT Paper: Closing Teaching Session Skill

[email protected] Education Study Program

Faculty of Languages and LiteratureState University of Makassar

1. Introduction

One of the key roles that may contribute to the successful of teaching

and learning process is the well managed of closing teaching session.

Closing session is an important part in teachingsequences because it carries

reinforcement elements to the learning process that has taken place (Frey:

2007).Then it is true to say that closing, perhaps, the place for clarifying the

students’ comprehension toward the whole lesson points, constructing the

students’ ability to provide a learning summary, praisingthe students’

efforts, and giving them appreciation for hard work done, creating what

psychologists call the recency effect, otherwise known as a last impression

(Lucero: 2006). In this matter, we can say that, theclosure activityis truly

expected tocreate powerful learning effects at theend of the class.

Considering to the vitalrole of closure, thenthe act of closing should not

just simply ended by delivering the valedictory speech or farewell address

to the students. The writer personally believe that, it should take much

attention to the teacher that closure is a series of strengthening process,and

more than that, it is an evaluation stage to some necessary aspects,

includingthe material that have been taught, the students’attainment during

and after the class, the teacher’s performance, and also the adjustment of

closure with context of lesson and time, or hereinafter referred to the four

perennial truthsof EFL teaching and learning(Rasyid in Sadilia,2011:1).

Hence, the teachers essentially should behave according to these.

Page 3: ELT Paper: Closing Teaching Session Skill

Although closure may assume, however, to prop the teaching session,

but it is sadly to say thatsome teachers still pay less attention to their tail

end of the teaching session. Pesce (2013) in his personal weblogclaimed

that many teachers often underestimate the value of the lesson closing. Of

course, this derelictionmay lead to decrease the impressive value of the

subjects teaching. Further discussion by Peggy (2012) stated that “…the

closure oftentimes being skipped, short changed or merely

perfunctory.”(p.1).Suchbehaviour in teachingperhaps just give lesser

contributionto create meaningful lesson.

Another problem that commonlyencounter in the closure session is the

time efficiency.In the personal experience of the writer, hediscovered that

some of teachers, in thedistant past school,stretched closing session time

into preaching or sermon time in uncontrolled duration. Of course, there is

no doubt in the writer’s mind thatthe teachers likely have a well-intentioned

to put some wise advices for their students’ applicative lives and of course

that is truly gave significant effect for the students’ ways to behave.

However,it should be also considered that time management in class is

absolutely crucial because this may affect to the students’ perception about

the impressiveness ofthe closure in the last moment of the class.All of these

manners, on its basis should take on the consideration to be prepared well.

Thus, if the closing teaching session isso important, then how do the

teachers should manage the closing teaching session? What skills the

teachers need to close the teaching session? Those issued questions

arediscussedin the following sections.

Page 4: ELT Paper: Closing Teaching Session Skill

2. The Essence of Closing Teaching Session

The closing teaching session is clearly important as previous mention.

In broad outline, according toH. Jerome Freiberg (2009)he specified

thatclosure contain with two core ideas.

a. As A Reinforcement Stage

To Clarify the Students’ Comprehension

Basically theparamount aim of closure is to make clearer the

students’ understanding before leaving the class as well as to give

clarification if any misconception among the students’ perception.

Fisherand N Frey (2007) argue that,

“Closure is the act of reviewing and clarifying the points of a lesson, tying them together into a coherent whole, and ensuring their utility in application by securing them in the student's conceptual network.”

Somehow, the teacher’s insight to the concept of material is different

to the way of students understand the lesson. Students may possess

different interpretation in comprehending the implicit information

that given through the materials on the class.If this happened, then

teachers should take their role again as bridging information to

students in clarifying their understanding and to achieve the learning

objectives as it was mentioning in the opening session.

To Provide the Summary of Teaching Points

The function of summary in closure is to link learning to what was

just taught. As Lewis (2013) stated that closure is the time when you

wrap up a lesson plan and help students organize the information

into a meaningful context in their minds. The activity of course will

foster the students to understand deeply the material in longer time.

To Appreciate the Students’ Efforts

Page 5: ELT Paper: Closing Teaching Session Skill

The purpose when a teacher takes a few minutes at the end of the

class period to connect the main ideas to relevant applications is that

students are able to see the purpose for the work that they have

assigned. This kind of treatment helps students to see that their

effortsbeing rewarded through their new knowledge or skills. They

will understand that what are they already learnt bring benefit to

their real lives.

b. As an Evaluation Stage

The Material That Have Been Taught

The material evaluation is crucial in teaching process since it is the

guidance of the learning process itself. To ask students opinion about

the material will assist teacher to figure out the value of the material

that already used.Gower, Phillips and Walters (1995:55) express that

“asking students for their opinion of the lesson -whether they found the topic interesting or not, whether the language practice was useful, easy, difficult, whether they enjoyed the activities, whether they would like more or less of anything -not only fills the gaps, it also provides vital feedback on your lesson.”

In short, through this implementation teacher can really measure the

true outcomes of the use of the materials and thus provide the data

on which reliable decisions about the use of the materials can be

made.

The Students’ Achievement

At the end of a lesson, it is usually valuable to evaluate what the

studentshave tried to achieve through the lesson. It is always

important to review what they already know after the class. During

the closing stage, students may raise issues or problems that they

would like to discuss or resolve; at this time, teachers may also

Page 6: ELT Paper: Closing Teaching Session Skill

encourage the students to ask for suggestions concerning the class

which have been delivered.

The Teacher Performance

Like as students, teachers’ performances also need to evaluate after

bringing the lesson in the class. To evaluate the teachers’ ways of

teaching in closing time will bring valuable feedback for the future

application to themselves. An accurate feedback emerged on the last

study session by tried to answer the question, “How am I doing”? Of

course these assessing activities aim to evaluate both students’

understanding and teacher’s ways of teaching whether it is

successfully managed or not.

3. Skills on Closing Teaching Session

At the closure activities, basically teachers are going to deal with the

most important thing before leaving class. The work of closure should not

be ended abruptly without providing any impression value to the learners.

The successful and meaningful of a closing session assessed on how well

the teacher engaging and strengthening the students’ understanding toward

the current lesson. Of course these activities would invoke the essential

skills where the teachers are required to perform it well. These activities are

including the skills of evaluating which close related to the four perennial

truths of EFL teaching and learning as clearly mention in the previous

section.

According to Abimanyu in TohaThea (2011), he classified six major

components in his paper entitled

KeterampilanMembukadanMenutupPelajaran that the teacher should

possess to perform opening and closing lesson, they are:

a. Engaging students’ attention

Page 7: ELT Paper: Closing Teaching Session Skill

In this point of discussion, teachers basically required to have the

students’ enthusiasm when performing the closing lesson. The

teacher should constantly change his/her project every teaching

session and try to make distinctive actions in each series of his/her

closing session, such as making games, interacting in buzz-groups,

asking questions, and providing shortinformation which connect the

incoming and/ or the previous discussion materials that already

discussed to the learners’ real lives.

b. Encouraging motivation

Motivation will take significant role in the students’ learning

achievement. When teacher successfully constructed the students’

positive attitude to the lesson at the closure time -such as intriguing

the students’ curiosity and enthusiasm to what they learn-, then it

would spurred the eagerness of the students to delve deeply the

subject even after the end of the class session. At least, there are

three ways to encourage the students’ motivation:

1) To be friendly with learners

Meaning that teacher should build social relation with students

not be simply interacting in restricted area between educators

and learners.

2) To amaze them through distinctive activities

Teacher gives variation in the session of close their teaching, not

just restrictively used one way.

3) To accommodate their needs

As the students start to learn vigorously then teacher should

come to provide wider information for them. Telling and

clarifying what they not know at the end of the class may fulfil

their desire for learning and that will build their spirit for dig

more what they have learnt.

Page 8: ELT Paper: Closing Teaching Session Skill

c. Reviewing the lesson

The act of reviewing basically means that the students are directed

to perform flashback revising toward highlights of the lesson that

they already learnt. This activityincludes addressing questions or

clarifying to the teacher toward the unclear information that have

been taught. For teachers, they should provideopportunity to the

students for offering questions and preparingevaluation-related-

materials in the form of task or exercise to the students in order to

assist them recalling their prior knowledge.

d. Evaluating the achievement

The skill of evaluating highly required in closure. This is because

teachers are going to deal with the measuring process to discover

the students’ learning achievement so far. Evaluating achievement

also provides information to the teachers whether they successfully

teach the lesson or not. Of course, this will bring feedback for both

students and teachers to be awareof their achievement.

e. Summarising the teaching points

A well summarising skill will be able to crystalize the whole

teaching pointsthat have been presented. The essence of wrapping

up the lesson is to tell the students what they have figured out in one

learning session. Furthermore,it also indicates to studentsthat the

materials have been finished to discuss as well as the risingissues or

problems related to the course have been resolved and they are

ready to come to the new lesson.

f. Following-up progress

Following up involvesgiving an activity which undertook by

students after the class is finish. The idea of following-up progress

is important to do in order to obtain the lesson objectives and it will

help them to practice their knowledge while out of class, so that

Page 9: ELT Paper: Closing Teaching Session Skill

they will able to strengthen their abilities and skills. Some activities

can relate their knowledge, for the case of points, by assigning

students a project, paper, exercise, and home-assignment.

4. Closing Teaching Variation

There are some ways to vary the closing teaching activities. Dr. Rod

Lucero (2006) suggests practice the following ways:

a. Asking questions

The principle to ask questions to students at the end of the class is to

measure the students understanding regarding to the materials that

have been presented as well as to evaluate their ability to provide

lesson summary. The followingare questions that can be addressed in

the closing teaching session.

o “What one thing did you learn today?”

o “How does today's lesson impact your understanding?”

o “How would you summarise today's lesson for someone who

wasn't here?”

o “What was the most significant learning from today?”

o “What "a-ha" did you have today?”

o “What was the most difficult concept in today’s lesson?”

b. Sharing

Sharing is conducted due to the limited time of closure session. To

encounter it, teachers can give instruction in simple way.

“On a scale of 1-5—using your fingers—rate today's lesson!”

(To eliminate peer pressure, teacher can have everyone close

their eyes.)

Page 10: ELT Paper: Closing Teaching Session Skill

The aims of the instruction above are to arousing the students’

memory back toward what they have been learnt today, how’s the

teacher deliver the class, and how’s teacher provide the new lesson

to them today.

Another way, teacher can order the following instruction.

“As you leave today, I'll be at the door. Please share with me

one word or concept you learned today”.

Furthermore, this activity may provide information to evaluate the

teacher performance indirectly, beside it is also to provide simple

game in the very brief time to students before leaving the class.

c. Commenting

Giving comments also mean reminding toward what already done on

class as well as let them picturing the incoming meeting activities.

Teachers can use the following comment forms.

o “Today, we did this…..tomorrow we will continue by doing

that….”

o “Tomorrow you will need to bring…”

o “Tomorrow, we will be the coolest learning experience of your

life!”

o “Tonight’s homework is….”

d. A Get-Out-of-Class Ticket

Aside its function as game, this also provides a chance to the teacher

to personally connect with students. Saying goodbye by using ticket

is an opportunity to build up individual relationships with the

students which, in turn, helps build up a positive classroom culture.

Teachers can close the teaching session by asking students to write

down one potential test question from today's lesson. Collect them as

Page 11: ELT Paper: Closing Teaching Session Skill

the students leave the room, a ticket out of class, if the teachers will.

Hang on to the students. Teachers might want to use one or two on

an upcoming unit exam.

5. Conclusion

Based on the discussion, we can conclude that a well manage closing

session will contribute to the effectiveness of a language lesson. Creating

impressive lessons can be judged upon the closure, it plays a big role in a

lesson. In closure sessions, students may raise issues or problems that they

would like to discuss or resolve. At this time, teachers should come to deal

with the students’ needs and may also encourage them to ask for suggestion

concerning how the learning atmosphere should be. Furthermore, teacher

should allow students to demonstrate their successful engagement of the

lesson. Together with this, if a summary is necessary, teachers ask students

to do it. All of these ensure the effectiveness of learning. Thus, closure

should be used very well and effectively.

References

B. Peggy. 2012. The Importance of Closure. Retrieved on October 21, 2014

from http://www.peggybud.com/2012/01/the-importance-of-closure/

Cambridge. Retrieved on October 20, 2014 from

http://www.cambridge.org/other_files/downloads/esl/fourcorners/Pedagogical_Books/Creating-Effective-Language-Lessons-Combined.pdf

Demir, Nida. 2011. Opening and Closing of the Lesson. Retrieved onOctober 21, 2014 from https://www.academia.edu/5659842/ OPENING_AND_CLOSING_OF_THE_LESSON

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Frey, Fisherand N.2007.Reflections of English Language Teaching, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 70- 102. Retrieve on December 24, 2014 fromhttp://www.nus.edu.sg/celc/publications/RELT72/077to102lee.pdf

Freiberg, H. Jerome.2002. Essential Skills for New Teachers. Retrieved onOctober 22, 2014 from

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar02/vol59/num06/Essential-Skills-for-New-Teachers.aspx

Ediyanto, Irwan. 2008. KeterampilanMembukadanMenutupPelajaran. Retrieved on October 22, 2014 from https://www.scribd.com/doc/200653434/Ketrampilan-Membuka-Dan-Menutup-Pelajaran

Lewis, B. 2013.Lesson Plan Step #5- Closure.Retrieved on October 16,2014fromhttp://k6educators.about.com/od/lessonplanheadquarters/ g/closure.htm.

Lucero, Rod. 2007. Closure Activities. Retrieved on October 15, 2014 fromhttp://www.edison.k12.nj.us/cms/lib2/NJ01001623/Centricity/Domain/58/closure_examples.pdf

Pesce,C. (2013). 7 Best Ways to End A Lesson. Retrieved on October 19,2014 from http://busyteacher.org/3370-7-best-ways-to-end-a- lesson.html.

Sadilia, Sukmawati.2011 . The Students’ Perception Towards The Teachers’ Pedagogical Competence. Undergraduate Thesis of a Student of FBS UNM.

Thea, Toha. 2011. Keterampilan Membuka Dan Menutup Pelajaran.Retrieved on October 15, 2014 fromhttps://sites.google.com/ site/tohathea/rpp