Student’s participation in classroom:What motivates them to speak up?

#CAR13

Teachers are naturally encourgae their students to be active in a class. But in fact, most of students are reluctant to speak up in front of their friens. They feel uncomfortable and unconfidence with their own ability in speaking. So this research disscussed about the reason for students to speak up in the class. Discussion is based on focus group interviews conducted on three groups of active students and three groups of passive students identified through a five weeks observation on three classrooms. The study found that the size of a classroom, personalities of the instructor and students and the perception of peers influenced the students to speak up in class.

We all know that it is an important context where both students and instructor come into contact to share information in their quest for knowledge. In the classroom the students are expected to be presence on time and participate actively to absorb, seek and apply the skill and knowledge shared in the classroom or other learning activities. But to achieve that students and teacher need a conducive classroom first. A conducive classroom environment involved two-way interaction between students and instructors. This type of classroom environment will stimulate learning and makes both the instructor and students feel satisfied, which eventually leads to effective learning process.

The result showed that students’ reason to speak in a classroom was their responsibility to ask if they don’t understand and personalities such as like to read, like to ask to friends or instructors, prepared before entering the class and have a high curiosity attitude. On the other hand the passive students said that they are difficult to focus in class, no interest in learning, no interest in the topic being studied, was ashamed to ask, lack of knowledge, and not confident with themselves. Students prefer to ask in person with a lecturer or do some reference from the Internet if they do not understand or want to seek more information.

Source:            Student’s participation in classroom:What motivates them to speak

up?

by Mohd. Yusof Abdullahª**, Noor Rahamah Abu Bakarª & Maizatul Haizan Mahbobª