USING
HAND PUPPET TECHNIQUE
IN
TEACHING SPEAKING
Partial
Fulfillment of There Requirement
Seminar
on English Language Learning
Lecturer: Heru Bitono, M. Hum.
Hamidah
Nur Akhiriyah
1121082128
FACULTY OF TEACHER AND EDUCATION
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT INSTITUTE FOR TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
STKIP PGRI PONOROGO
2014
A.
Introduction
English is one of the international
languages. In Indonesia, English is even the first foreign language and one
compulsory subject taught from elementary school up to university. For several
reasons, English is very difficult for Indonesian learners in general. One of
the factors of obstacles in understanding speaking skill is unless daily
conversation about English language.
Learning is a new
language should be fun, interactive and exciting because language learning
often causes considerable stress and anxiety teachers. As facilitator in developing student ability,
need to be creative in creating a joyful environment in learning process, it is
clear that learning environment play an important role in the students learning
process. The teacher use the teaching
media in speaking in order to motivate the student in learning activity,
especially in teaching speaking skill.
Teaching English using media is
useful to support English teaching process in the classroom because it can help
teacher to convey lesson clearly and more easily understand by student. In this
working through, the study is focused on teaching speaking for elementary school
especially second grade. One of the ways to make interesting learning is using media,
the name is hand puppet. By using “hand puppet“media for teaching in speaking,
it will contribute in involving their interest and motivation in learning
speaking.
B.
Hand
Puppet Technique
A
creative teacher usually uses a tool or media to help her in delivering message
while teaching. The teacher believes that it is better to use an appropriate
media to attract the students’ attention and to make them understand the
material easier. Doll is belongs to puppet, so puppet is a kind of media for
teaching. Puppet is related to things that enrich our imagination which
immediately can attract someone especially children. Almost all of us have seen
a doll or puppet around us. It is fun, interesting and colorful.
As
we know, we used to play with doll or puppet when we were child. Doll or puppet
is interesting, funny, and colorful. It also enriched our imagination when we
played with it. Then, as I cited in Wikipedia, there are some definitions about
puppet: (1) Puppet is a small figure of a person operated from above with
strings by a puppeteer creature: a person who is controlled by others and is
used to perform unpleasant or dishonest tasks for someone else; (2) it is an
inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by a
puppeteer. It is usually a depiction of a human character, and is used in
puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre.
Puppet
is a doll with a head of a person or animal and a cloth body; it can be
manipulated with the fingers. The definition of puppet based on Oxford
Dictionary (1995), “puppet is a small figure of a person or animal that can be
made to move,” for example by pulling strings attached to its limbs, or by
putting one’s hand inside it. Based on the definitions of puppet above, I
conclude that puppet is a small figure of object such as animals, person, or
fantasy things that is interesting, colorful and can be operated by someone.
Children usually love to play it. They usually use their imagination to play
it. They also feel good; appear fun and appealing in the eye of the beholder
when they see a puppet. Because of puppet can develop imagination and
creativity, it has an important role in education. Moreover, puppet has role to
increase the students’ attention at the lesson. It shape, color, form can
attract the students to study more.
1.
Kinds
of Puppet
There are lots of kinds of puppet that we can see it on television
or internet. It is unique, colorful and funny. As I cited in Wikipedia there are some kinds of
puppets: (1) Bunraku puppet – Bunraku puppets are a type of wood-carved puppet
originally made to stand out through torch illumination; (2) Finger puppet, it
is simple puppet which fits onto a finger, it is used mainly in pre-schools or
kindergartens for storytelling with young children;
The
other kinds of puppet are: (3) Hand or glove puppet –
it is controlled by one hand; we can put our hand into it. A sock puppet is a
particularly simple type of hand puppet made from a sock; (4) Shadow puppet,
shadow puppets can form solid silhouettes, or be decorated with various amounts
of cut-out details. Javanese shadow puppets “Wayang Kulit” is the classic
example of this.
2.
Advantages
of Using Hand Puppet
The benefits of the use of hand puppets
in the classroom are many and varied. The use of hand puppets provides an
opportunity for student expression through the social aspects of communication.
Students who are working in a group to prepare and present a puppet play are
learning to work cooperatively with others, where there is give and take and
sharing of ideas. This
offers the students the advantage of establishing group cohesion (Bennett,
2002).
The use of puppets can motivate student
interest in the reading selection or topic. According to Peyton (2002),
“Students typically resistant to lecturing and representing diverse learning
styles and personalities are freed to process and articulate concepts and
explore who-what-when where- and why of the curriculum physically,
interactively, and experientially.” For many students the group work of the puppet presentations
can be less intimidating than an individual performance. The use of a puppet
can provide help with public speaking, especially for the shy or apprehensive
student. The use of puppets is beneficial to the student who prefers to learn
kinesthetically. Puppet activities keep students actively engaged with hands on
activities.
3.
Disadvantages of Using Hand Puppet
Disadvantages
include the cost and storage of the puppets. Jeffrey Peyton, founder of Puppet
tools and a noted researcher in the field of puppets having studied the topic
for over thirty-five years, concludes that, “There is no question that puppets
and play will help students. People standing primarily in the way are adults.”
There is a perception that puppets are used only by very young children or
trained puppeteers. Beside that the students might balk or be disruptive during
the lesson.
C.
Speaking
Skill
Speaking is one of the four language
skills. If students want to speak English Fluently, as Harmer (2001) says “They
have to be able to pronounce correctly. In addition, they need to master
intonation, conversation, either transactional or interpersonal conversation.
Transactional function has its main purpose conveying information and facilitating
the exchange of goods and service, whereas the interpersonal function is all
about maintaining and sustaining good relations between people. Speaking is
called productive skill because when we speak we produce the language.”
Furthermore, speaking is the term that I
use for verbal communication between people. When two people are engaged in
talking to each other, I am sure that they are doing communication.
Communication between people is an extremely complex and ever changing
phenomenon. There are certain generalizations that we can make about the
majority of communicative events and these have particular relevance for the
learning and teaching process. Based on the definitions above I know that
speaking is a production of oral language by human which aimed to deliver
message, expressing idea, opinion or feeling to get some purposes. Every people
who meet each other will speak a language to prove that they are exists in
their community. That’s why we need to speak up and we need to improve our
speaking skill by learning a new language.
1.
Teaching
Speaking
For many years, 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.
According to Hughes (2002:6),
“the goal of teaching speaking is communicative efficiency”. So, in learning
speaking, students should be able to make they understood and they should try
to avoid confusion in the message due to. Its pronunciation, grammar, and
vocabulary and to observe the social rule that apply in communication
situation.
2.
Assessing
Speaking
There
are some ways in giving evaluation on teaching, according to Harmer (2001:
101), the ways can be followed as, Comments: Commenting on student performance
happens at various stages both in and outside the class. The teacher can say,
very good, good, and that‘s not quite right; Marks and grades: When students
get good grades, their motivation is often positively affected. However, bad
grades can be extremely unheard; and Reports: At the end of year some teacher
writes reports on their student‘s performance. Such reports should give a clear
indication of how well the students have done in the recent past and a
reasonable assessment of their future prospects.
(Syakur,
1987: 3) as stated in Pipin (2010) defines there are five components of
speaking skill concerned with comprehension, grammar, vocabulary,
pronunciation, and fluency that may be assessed: (1) Comprehension, for oral
communication certainly requires a subject to respond to speech as well as to
initiate it; (2) Grammar, it is needed for students to arrange a correct
sentence in conversation; (3) Vocabulary, vocabulary means the appropriate
choice of words which is used in communication; (4) Pronunciation,
pronunciation is the way for students‘ to produce clearer language when they
speak. And; (5) Fluency, fluency can be defined as the ability to speak
fluently and accurately. Fluency in speaking is the aim of many language
learners. Signs of fluency include a reasonably fast speed of speaking and only
a small number of pauses.
3.
Characteristic
of Elementary School Student
A
series of studies have confirmed what was probably obvious from the beginning.
Good teachers, effective teachers, matter much more than particular curriculum
materials, pedagogical approaches, or "proven programs" (Allington
& Johnston, 2001; Darling-Hammond, 1999; Duffy, 1997; Pressley, et al,
2001; Sanders, 1998; Taylor, Pearson, Clark & Walpole, 2000). It has become
clearer that investing in effective teaching – whether in hiring decisions or
professional development planning – is the most "research-based"
strategy available.
Elementary
students begin learning the parts of speech as early as second grade. They need
to understand that each part of speech has a different job to do in order to
create clear communication. Activities that encourage the use of mind and body
reinforce the learning process and help elementary students master the parts of
speech and understand their purpose in language. The work these children in these
classrooms completed was more substantive, more challenging, and required more
self-regulation than the work that has been more commonly observed in
elementary classrooms.
D.
Teaching
Speaking Using Hand Puppet Technique
Based on Wright
(1997:48), there are some media that can be used in teaching speaking: Some
ways in prompting the speaking skill are a sequence of picture which prompts
their memory. Then, a sequence of picture these can be card picture or paper. A
sequence of key words, in addition, mime, where students try to speak based on
the gesture. Finally, teacher can use figurines or puppet, teacher and students
operate the figure of puppet.
Puppet is one of
media to improve speaking. It can be used as a model. The students can see the
performance of the model first and then, they can imagine or imitate the
performance. According
to Reyhner (1997: 98), there are five basic techniques of using puppet:
1)
Lip Synchronization
It
is synchronize the opening of the puppets mouth with the spoken words. The puppeteer should avoid moving the mouth
at random during a sentence. The puppeteers save the wide mouth openings for
exaggerated or loud expression.
2)
Mouth Action
Practicing
to pen the puppet’s mouth by moving the puppeteers thumb downward without
moving his fingers upward. A slight forward thrusting of the hand may help when
first starting out.
3)
Eye Contact
The
puppeteer should look the audience regularly. If the stage is elevated, the
puppeteer will want his puppets to look down a little more than usual, rather
than over the heads of the audience. This will ensure more effective eye
contact. This is achieved by simple adjustment of the wrist angle.
4)
Posture
To
make the puppet appear naturally, good posture cannot be ignored. To achieve
this, the puppeteer’s arm must be held at right angles to the floors with the
hand level. The puppeteer should not allow puppets to learn from side or learn
on the stages
5)
Entrances and Exits
There
are many ways to enter and exit puppet, one of the ways is to make the puppet
appears as if it is walking up or down a ramp. This movement uses the whole arm
and requires the puppeteers to keep his fare arm straight up and down while the
wrist remains relaxed using a motion.
From
the explanation above it is clear that each technique has its own characteristic.
The writer used the mouth action technique because it was easier to be done. It
was not difficult to do and it looked simple.
E.
Conclusion
Puppet is related to
things that enrich our imagination which immediately can attract someone
especially children. Almost all of us have seen a doll or puppet around us. It
is fun, interesting and colorful. Puppet is one of media to improve speaking.
It can be used as a model. The students can see the performance of the model
first and then, they can imagine or imitate the performance. The use of a puppet can provide
help with public speaking, especially for the shy or apprehensive student. The
use of puppets is beneficial to the student who prefers to learn
kinesthetically. Puppet activities keep students actively engaged with hands on
activities.
F.
Bibliography
Burn,
J. (1989) Express it with puppetry—an international language. In S. Hoffman,
and L. Lamme (Eds.), Learning from the inside out. Wheaton, MD:
Association for Childhood Education International.
Gillian
Brown and George Yule.1983. Teaching the
Spoken Language : An Approach Based on the Analysis of Conversational English.
Australia: Cambridge University Press.
Mulyadin, Taufik. 2012. “Bahasa
Inggris dan Pembentukan Karakter Anak Sejak Dini”. (Online)
Renfro, Nancy. Puppetry and the Art
of Story Creation. Austin, Texas: Nancy Renfro Studios. 1979.
Puppets & Disabilities. (1980,
September 1). Library Journal, Retrieved October 14, 2014, from Professional
Development Collection database.
