PROMOTING SOME LEARNING STRATEGIES IN ENGLISH CLASSROOMS OF MADRASAH'S by Bisri Mustofa

INTRODUCTION
The Ministry of Religious Affairs (MoRA) of Indonesia always attempts to improve the quality of education at Madrasahs. Curriculum, including English, has been issued several times to make our Madrasahs’ quality better. The most recent curriculum issued is Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP). This curriculum recommends active learning process where the learning process is student centred rather than teacher centred. However, this doesn't mean that teacher centred is unimportant.

RESEARCH METHOD
This research is based on reading three articles of previous research by English practitioners published in language periodicals, and the writer's experiences during teaching and reality in the field.

THE RESULT OF RESEARCH
Robles (1998), in her article: Reflective Learning; Why and How, explains that reflective learning is important to the students. Students can study based on their own learning style, while teachers can help the students to consider how to evaluate their own learning style.
According to her, there has been an argument among teachers that learning a language involves both content of the language and skills to use the content. So teachers have to teach the contents of language as well as the language skill. Teachers have to find some information about students' style of learning in order that teachers can guide students to learn as well as possible. This is intended to be aware of individual differences and learning style of the students, and to pay attention to the process and to provide the individual needs.
To know about students, Robles (1998), recommends using questioners and interviews. The questioners cover the questions about; what is going on, how they are doing, what they can do better, what has to be improved, and what problems they have individually. These questions can be done formally and informally such as writing class journal, oral report, and expressing like and dislike, etc.
Robles (1998), offers this strategy because it has at least six advantages for the students learning the second language. First of all, students will be active in the learning process because they know what they need after they have answered the questionnaires given by the teachers. Secondly, students are responsible for their own learning process because they can decide whether to improve their language or not. Next, students can increase their freedom from teachers to control their own learning style. After that they can learn from their mistakes as feedback to learn better for the next time. Mistakes become a source of information in terms of language and what to do next. Then they are encouraged to adopt the positive attitudes and believes in the terms of their learning and the language because the positive attitudes and believes become a strong tool for improvement. Finally, the students will realize what they have to do next after they have done something wrong with their learning because they have been aware of their learning process.
In short, reflective learning can be used to promote and awaken the students' motivation in order that they learn effectively, because students realize their own needs of learning.
Another second strategy is a stakeholder classroom, offered by Allen and Ryan (1999). They state that a stakeholder classroom must be applied to achieve effective learning for students who study English in a monolingual environment and students who have low motivation in second language learning. Allen and Ryan assume that this strategy has advantages for students. They have a freedom to choose learning materials and can play an active role in the class. The students can organize and construct their own tasks as well.
To achieve this, Allen and Ryan (1999), offer three stakes as follows: Stake one is content, where teachers have to conduct learners need analysis to elicit their own interest and to show their needs of learning are accounted. Stake two is setting the task, where students set up the tasks to exploit chosen raw materials, based on the model provided by teachers. Stake three is learners' participation where successful student's participation is seen as an awareness, which constantly seeks to involve students in all stages of the lessons. Step-by-step, the students come to participate in the setting of their own tasks. Thereby, they are engaged in taking a more active role in their own learning.
In conclusion, the involvement of students in choosing the tasks will cause the success of learning a second language provided that the teachers support them to take a part in the whole learning process, because students are more challenged and become more motivated.
Field (1998) suggests authentic material strategy. He offers how to set up the tasks from an original material for the beginners. The way to set up the task is to use whatever raw materials but teachers have to adjust the task given according to the students' level. This has some advantages for students. First of all, it is to develop their skill of English because original material gives students a practice for real English situation. Another one is to provide some experiences to learn without limitation of curriculum, because original materials are available everywhere. And the last one is to allow students to practise in identifying particular words by predicting the sense of the message.
However, Field (1998) admits scripted and simplified materials to build students' confidences by requiring certain characteristics to these materials. The one is that the language, which is used, is a clear language. The other is that the exchange is almost similar to the real language, and the still other is that the communicative purpose should be credible or contextual.
In short, the materials of English have to be taken from the real language to develop students' motivation in order that they study effectively. Teachers have to make the tasks according to the students' level, because the difficulty level depends on the tasks not on the materials.

DISCUSSION
To analyze the three strategies above, the reality at most Madrasahs must be answered. First of all, Madrasah has three grades with several classes of each paralleled. Each classes has formerly forty to forty-five students, while now according to the Process Standard, each classes should be thirty-five students. Most of Madrasahs have under qualified English teachers, even mismatch English teachers. Secondly, the students of Madrasah especially Tsanawiyah level, are relatively young and psychologically they do not realize their own purpose to study, because their emotions are still inconstant. After that Madrasah is still the second or third choice to study. next, generally, the Madrasah's facility of study including IT are still limited, and finally most students live in a country or remote area where English is never used to as a means of communication.
Based on these realities, a reflective learning strategy may has weakness as follows; firstly, the students probably do not answer the questionnaires provided honestly according to their learning needs because they feel afraid to make mistakes. Secondly, based on my experiences, many students are not ready to make mistake when studying. Next, not all language skills can be achieved with this strategy especially speaking skill because it needs guidance how to pronounce and utter a word, a phrase, or a sentence. Meanwhile English pronunciation is different from its writing form. Finally this strategy may be applicable for small classes of Madrasah where the English teachers are challenged enough to change their paradigm of learning process.
A stakeholder strategy has also disadvantages. Firstly, the contents that students are learning are very wide while curriculum just offers some limited texts or genres. So the students' needs to learn are not accommodated. The next, teachers will get difficulties to set up the tasks suitable to each student's interest. Finally it is hard to control too many students in each class. While the disadvantages of authenticity are that the authentic materials are still difficult to find especially for madrasahs which are not equipped with it or multi media sets. Secondly, learning process with authenticity strategy needs natural life of English like children learn their mother tongue while classrooms are not designed conditionally. And finally, its needs high costs to support or to find the raw materials, especially for private madrasahs in remote area, as many as the number of students.

CONCLUSION
Realizing these problems, it seems difficult for teachers to apply these three strategies in Madrasahs in general. However there is a possible thing to apply reflective learning strategy where teachers can convince the students not to be afraid to make mistakes when studying English. Making mistake is one of studying process. The other thing is that teachers can give students freedom to select the simplified materials which are set according to selected texts or genres, or functional language in each term or semester.

RECOMMENDATION
This research is not adequate enough because it is not based on the real research in the field. So it needs further research by other experts or practitioners especially in a form of class action research.

* Widyaiswara Balai Diklat Keagamaan Semarang

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allen, T & Ryan, S. 1999, 'A Stakeholder Classrooms', Modern English Teacher, Vol. 8. No. 2, pp. 58-61.
Field, J. 1998, 'Note on Listening: Authenticity', Modern English Teacher, Vol. 6. No. 3, pp. 49-51.
Robles, A. 1998, 'Reflective Learning: Why and How', Modern English Teacher, Vol. 7. No. 1, pp. 43-46.