List of Examples (Recount Text)

By Galih Ariffansyah

Today I'm going to share some examples about Recount Text. As we know, this text is very popular in our life, Recount text may be our note, personal diary, or social activity. First what is Recount text?

Let me answer with simple one, Recount Text is a text which retells events or experiences in the past chronologically. This text describes about the writer's personal experience which truly happens in his or her life. The experience may be horror, fun, etc. Yes of course, recount text also called a recent story that happened in your life and it is truly happen, so if you want to tell your friend about what happened based on your experience, you can use this kind of text.

The purpose or the social function of Recount text is to retell or to inform the reader about what was happened to the writer with series of events. 

 The generic structures of Recount Text:

1. Orientation : In orientation, the paragraph usually introduces the participants, who are being involved in the text. 
2. Events : Usually there are many events may be occurred in Recount text, events may be started in the first paragraph, so it is not always started in the second paragraph. The events usually started with time signals, such as; first, second, then, finally, etc.
3. Reorientation : It is the closure of the events. Reorientation is optional, some text may not include this. If there is, usually in the last paragraph.

The language features of Recount Text

Language features is a characteristic of a text, to make it is easily recognized, what tense is used, and so on. 

1. Introducing the participants
2. Using chronological conjunctions, such as; first, second, then, etc.
3. Using action verb, such as; went, arrived, ate, jumped, etc
4. The important one is, using simple past tense. 

The examples of Recount Text:

#1

A Day Visit to Yogyakarta

Last week, I went to Yogyakarta with my family. My father drove the car. My mother sat beside him. My sister and I sat in the back seats.

We woke up early in the morning. My father prepared the car in the garage while mother was preparing food for breakfast and some snacks for us. My sister and I packed some clothes. After everything got ready and we had our breakfast, we left the house at six o'clock. 

It was about nine A.M. We arrived at Yogyakarta. First of all we visited our uncle. We stayed there for an hour. Then we went to Parangtritis beach. We got there at eleven o'clock. There were a lot of tourists because it was holiday. I saw many foreign visitors too. My parents watched us playing with sand in the beach. We did not swim and take a bath since the wave was rough. After having lunch, we went on our picnic to the museum and Malioboro shopping centre.

We drove back to Semarang at 7 o'clock and arrived home at ten. We were tired but happy.

#2

A Bomb in Plane

I am used to travelling by air but only on one occasion I felt frightened. After taking foo, we flew low over the city. It slowly wen high to the sky.

But suddenly it turned round and flew back to the airport. An air-hostess told us to keep calm and to get off the place quietly as soon as it landed. After we landed, the police searched the plane carefully. Everybody on board was worried and we grew curious about what was happening.

Later, we learned that there was a very important person on board. Earlier, somebody told the police that there was a bomb on the plane. Fortunately, they did not find a bomb and five hours later we were able to take off again.

# 3

Last Saturday, I woke up early. I didn't get up from my bed because there was no school. Suddenly, my telephone rang. It was my friend, Fanny. She asked me to go out at 10.00 o'clock. She wanted to buy something in the traditional market. So I hopped from the bed and headed to the shower.

Finally, we were out. In the street, I saw a piece of pink paper. I took it and we read it. We were shocked, it was a voucher for a four night tour to Lombok. The expired date was that day. To our surprised, the name was Fenita and the birth date was exactly the same as Fanny, my friend, and it was also valid for two persons. My God! We were thinking that maybe the paper just fell from the sky for us.

We were hurried to the tour agency that issued the voucher. The tour agency took care of everything. We went home and still couldn't believe what was going on. Two days later we were on the Senggigi Beach, Lombok.

Well, I think that's it for Recount text, I will post more examples later. And hopefully for teachers this will help them in designing appropriate material about Recount text, and for students they can understand what is the definition and its purpose, and what are the characteristics of it.

Model Pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris - Numbered Head Together

 Oleh Galih Ariffansyah

  

A. Pendahuluan

Pertama-tama saya ingin mengucapkan banyak terima kasih kepada rekan-rekan saya yang telah membantu saya dalam menerapkan model pembelajaran Numbered Heads Together (NHT) ini di kelas PPL 1. Tidak lupa pula saya ucapkan terima kasih kepada dosen PPL 1 saya, Asmi Rusmanayanti, S.Pd. M.Sc. yang telah pertama kali mengenalkan model pembelajaran ini kepada saya. Dan dengan penuh antusias, saya mencari diberbagai media, salah satunya internet mengenai model ini. Akhirnya, dengan modal “paham”, saya langsung mempraktekannya di kelas micro teaching. Pada saat itu, saya berada di kelas Ibu Dra. Rina Listia, M.Pd.

B. Penerapan NHT di dalam kelas 

Apa itu NHT ? NHT adalah suatu strategi model pembelajaran kooperatif yang menggunakan angka yang diletakkan diatas kepala dengan tujuan untuk memudahkan guru dalam mengeksplor aktifitas siswa dalam mencari, mengolah, dan melaporkan informasi dari berbagai sumber yang akhirnya dipresentasikan di depan kelas. Strategi ini pertama kali dikenalkan oleh Spencer Kagan pada tahun 1992. 

Pada saat saya memakai metode ini, pertama saya membagi kelas menjadi beberapa kelompok. Masing-masing siswa dalam kelompok sengaja diberi nomor untuk memudahkan kinerjakerja kelompok, mengubah posisi kelompok, menyusun materi, mempresentasikan, dan mendapat tanggapan dari kelompok lain. Setelah itu tiap kelompok memberikan kesimpulan.

Secara sederhana dapat dijelaskan bahwa langkah-langkah yang dapat dilakukan dalam melaksanakan model ini adalah :

1.       Siswa dibagi dalam beberapa kelompok dan masing-masing siswa dalam setiap kelompoknya mendapatkan nomor urut. Pengalaman saya adalah, ketika dalam kelas PPL 1 saya membuat exercise yang didalamnya ada 5 soal, pertanyaan dimulai dengan W/H questions. Terdapat 25 siswa didalam kelas sehingga saya membagi mereka kedalam 5 grup, yang tiap grup beranggotakan 5 orang. Tiap orang ini bertanggung jawab dengan soal exercise nya.

2.      Guru memberikan tugas dan masing-masing kelompok mengerjakan permasalahannya. Tiap kelompok mendiskusikan bersama.

3.      Kelompok memutuskan jawaban yang dianggap paling benar dan memastikan setiap anggotanya mengetahui jawaban tersebut.

4.      Guru memanggil salah satu nomor secara random dan siswa yang bernomor tersebut melaporkan jawabannya. Dalam tahap ini, seluruh kelompok yang bernomor sama yang dipanggil guru harus siap. Tiap kelompok yang nomornya dipanggil memberikan jawaban mereka. Apabila tidak bisa menjawab, maka guru dapat memberikan punishment.

5.      Siswa dipersilahkan memberikan tanggapan apabila dirasa jawaban kelompok lain kurang tepat.

6.      Setelah siswa melaporkan hasil, guru mendiskusikan jawaban-jawaban yang telah dijawab siswa, dan memberi jawaban yang paling benar.

7.      Tiap kelompok memberikan kesimpulan (apabila diperlukan).

Adapun kelebihan dan kekurangan dari model pembelajaran ini, yakni:

Kelebihan

1.       Setiap murid menjadi siap semua 

2.      Dapat melakukan diskusi dengan sungguh-sungguh

3.      Murid yang pandai dapat mengajari murid yang kurang pandai

4.      Terjadinya interaksi yang tinggi antara siswa dalam menjawab soal

5.      Tidak ada murid yang mendominasi dalam kelompok, karena adanya nomor yang membatasi.

Kekurangan

1.       Tidak terlalu cocok untuk jumlah siswa yang banyak karena membutuhkan waktu yang lama.

2.      Tidak semua anggota kelompok dipanggil oleh guru. Karena kemungkinan waktu yang terbatas.

C. Kesimpulan

Dari hasil pengamatan saya, dengan menerapkan model pembelajaran NHT ini, keantusiasan siswa dalam mempelajari materi guru sangat tinggi. Karena dirasa menarik dan “menegangkan’. Siswa diharuskan bertanggung jawab terhadap soal yang diberikan, sehingga memicu siswa menjadi aktif dalam menjawab. Disamping itu, dalam tiap kelompok mungkin terdapat siswa yang kurang pandai, dengan model pembelajaran ini, maka siswa yang kurang pandai dapat berdiskusi dengan siswa yang pandai, sehingga mereka dapat bersama-sama belajar.

5 Problems in Speaking English as Foreign Language

There are many experts that suggest about problem. One of them says that problem will appear if there is inappropriate between exception and reality. Another defines that a problem will happen if someone’s necessity does not fulfill. A problem is something that if it appears many people will get dissatisfaction. It can make trouble and difficulty for him/herself or other people, and if people procure a problem, they always want to lose it. Problem is perceived gap between the existing state and a desire state, or a deviation from a norm, standard or status quo, although most problems turn out to have several solution. Problem is a question proposed for solution, anything which is required to be solved or done, or a source of difficulty.

The learners have their own difficulties in learning the language. Particularly in improving speaking skill is not easy for the students. The Following are the problems of speaking skill (Munjayanah, 2004: 17):

1. Inhibition

Unlike reading, writing or listening activities, speaking requires some degree of real-time exposure to an audience. Learners are often inhibited about trying to say thing in foreign language in the classroom: worried about mistakes or simply shy of the attention that their speech attract.

2. Nothing to say

Even they are not inhibited, you often hear learners complain that they cannot think of anything to say: they have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should be speaking.

3. Low or uneven participation

Only one participant can talk at a time if he or she is to be heard; and in large group this means the each one will have only very little talking time. This problem is compounded of some learners to dominate, while other speaks very little or not a tall. 

4. Mother tongue use

It is easier for the student to use their mother tongue in their class because it looks naturally. Therefore, most of the students are not disciplined in using the target language in the learning process. 

  
What to do when we have these kind of problems? 

Try to use English everyday in our class, and or outside the classroom. This can stimulate our behavior to always use English as habitual even daily conversation. Keep in touch with someone who likes English too, because they have much more attention than to those who don't. 

Create a small group to train our English, whether in class or outside the class. Learning by doing is really important in learning to speak English. We can share information through the group, make small conversation, and check others error.  This also can give extra additional vocabulary to the persons.

While we have problems in our dialect, the solution is train our pronunciation to be better. Find some videos, musics, or authentic conversations in English. See or hear, then practice the sounds that we've heard in the source.

Teaching Vocabulary - Interactive Word Wall Strategy

There are many ways to teach vocabulary, one of them is by using Interactive Word Wall. Before we explore what is Interactive Word Wall, I would like to explain what is the term of vocabulary first, then what is the Interactive word wall, then how to implement the strategy.

What is vocabulary?

According to ask.com (www.answers.ask.com) Vocabulary is the group of words that a person or group of people knows how to use. Another definition according dictionary.com. Vocabulary also is a group or stock of words used in a particular way by a certain group of people regarding their language. It is simply the words of a language.

                                  

The basic component in English is vocabulary, it is because the term of vocabulary states that vocabulary is made by the agreement of group of people regarding to their language. So, in another words, vocabulary refers to a word. Word is generally a vocabulary.

In vocabulary, there are some words which is categorized into their part of speech. For example, "She" is a noun, that is a word which is also a vocabulary. Moreover, vocabulary always has meaning, there is no vocabulary without its meaning.

In Indonesia, when learning a new language, we expose to new words. For instance, we want to know what is the meaning of 'child' in English, if we do not know the meaning, then we can not use the word. In fact, in Indonesia, learning English is obligatory. Most of the students are still unaware about English. Meanwhile, the teacher has an important role to raise the students' awareness of English, especially about their vocabulary.

What is Interactive Word Wall? 

A word wall is literacy tool composed of an organized (typically in alphabetical order) collection of words which are displayed in large visible letters on a wall, bulletin board, or other display surface in a classroom. The word wall is designed to be an interactive tool for students or others to use, and contains an array of words that can be used during writing or reading (on Wikipedia, 2013)

The interactive word wall strategy promotes a vocabulary rich-environment where walls are alive with words. The key to implementing this strategy is interactivity. The class walls are adorned with new and interesting words that the students learn through interacting with their texts, teacher, or their peers.

To promote interaction and dialogue, around the words, it is important to keep the words relevant, that is the posted words (on the wall) should be focal point for thinking about and noticing how and when they are used. It means that when the words are poster on the wall, they can always be used on students' needs in reading or writing where the words are frequently used and appeared (Patricia Antonacci & Catherine M. O'Collaghan, 2012: 105)

There are some tips to support our interactive word walls, (Patricia Antonacci & Catherine M. O'Collaghan, 2012: 105)

1. Incorporate the Interactive Word Wall strategy as part of the word study instructional routine. It means whenever you teach English, promote the students to always use this strategy when they have any difficulties in words  
2. Select the display wall carefully; making sure that it is at eye level and large enough to post the words. Teachers must create the word wall bigger so students can see clearly. 
3. Decide on how you wish to display the words, such as alphabetically or organized by themes or content areas. There are many kinds of word wall example, there are alphabetically and themes, you can see, that is the example of alphabetical word wall, and that one is the theme word wall. 
4. Write the words legibly on oak tag or paper, demonstrating appropriate handwriting. The teachers or students write the words in an oak tag or paper in a good handwriting, so other students can understand the handwriting.        

When to Use this Strategy?

This strategy can be used before, during, or after reading. The teacher may use the word wall to introduce new vocabulary prior to reading. During the reading, students are encouraged to find words that are unfamiliar and that should be placed on the word wall to learn. After reading, the class may also be used outside reading as a review or practice, such as when the teacher asks the students to “read the wall”, then they find the unfamiliar word on the word wall and they understand the meaning. As a result, word walls are resources for students and should be used when they are looking for new and interesting words to use in their writing.

How to Implement this Strategy? 

1. Establish a purpose for using the word wall. Word walls may be used to help students learn high frequency words, or they may be used to develop vocabulary around a theme. For example, themes for word walls may include the tropical rainforest, biography, or anything you want to teach. 
2. Select the words that are targeted for instruction. Select a few words for teaching and post them on the wall. Words on the wall need to be spelled correctly and written legibly, as students will be encouraged to use the word wall as a resource for their reading and writing. 
3. Before reading, teach the words. Engage students in a lively discussion of the words. Teachers may decide to write a brief meaning of the word. 
4. After reading, students may post words to the word wall. Because word walls are effective when they are interactive, teachers guide discussion of the readings to include new and interesting words that student discovered in their readings. These words, along with their meanings, may bes posted on the word wall. 
5. Initiate activity around the word wall. For the word wall to be effective, members of the learning community must use them. The teacher plays an important role in initiating activity that leads to interactive word walls. For example, using word walls as references in finding interesting words for writing and playing word games will encourage students to make the word walls their own. 

Students with Special Needs

Students with special needs benefit from practice and repeated exposure to new vocabulary words. Have students create personal word walls that are portable. Students design their own interactive word walls from a blank file folder. Using the four sides of the folder, they draw 26 boxes, one for each letter of the alphabet. They post words from their classroom word wall on their portable word wall as well as new words they learn from their own readings. Students may be encouraged to post additional words from their readings. Words will be available to them on demand, at home and in school. (Patricia Antonacci & Catherine M. O'Collaghan, 2012: 108)

Conclusion 

By using this strategy (Interactive Word Wall strategy) the student can choose their own words that they fell unfamiliar. And they may post it on the wall for their needs (writing or reading).

High frequency words in academic text also can be highly exposed to the students by using this strategy, so they can recognize it and always remember the words. Meanwhile,  this strategy is interesting and the words always can be seen and read on the wall.  

DOWNLOAD THE SLIDE FOR THIS ARTICLE  HERE!!!!!