THE PORTRAYAL OF REMEDIAL TEACHING PROCESS

Niken Larasati*)
Oikurema Purwati
Ahmad Munir

Pendidikan Bahasa dan Sastra

Pascasarjana
Universitas Negeri Surabaya
Surabaya, Indonesia
*) nikenlarasati16070835003@mhs.unesa.ac.id

Abstrak

Adapun masalah yang terkait dengan kompetensi bahasa Inggris adalah permasalahan penguasaan bahasa
Inggris siswa yang berada di level bawah. Oleh karena itu, dibutuhkan kelas tambahan untuk membantu
siswa remidi dalam penguasaan pembelajaran bahasa Inggris. Sejumlah pendekatan telah diterapkan untuk
meningkatkan kemahiran berbahasa Inggris siswa. Pengajaran remedial adalah sebuah kelas insentif dalam
meningkatkan penguasaan kompetensi bahasa Inggris. Artikel ini bertujuan untuk membahas implementasi
atau pelaksanaan pengajaran remedial dalam kelas remidial. Secara spesifik, artikel ini mendeskripsikan
teknik pengajaran, materi untuk kelas remidial, kegiatan belajar, dan penilaian guru yang dilakukan di
dalam kelas.
Kata Kunci: Remedial, Pengajaran, Kemahiran Berbahasa Inggris

Abstract
Some issues found that English competencies are at a low level to be mastered by the students. Hence, the
additional course is needed to help the low achievers in mastering learning. A number of approaches have
been applied to develop students’ English proficiency. Remedial teaching is the incentive course for remedial
students in raising mastery competencies. This article is proposed to discuss remedial teaching
implementation to the remedial class. In specific, this article was done to describe the techniques, materials,
learning activities, and assessment that is used by the teacher in implementing remedial teaching.
Keywords: Remedial, Teaching, English Proficiency

1
INTRODUCTION
The reputation of English is increasing in
Indonesia because English is used globally to
participate in the education domain specifically.
Armana (2011) states that English controls the
language of science. Realizing the importance of
English language, Indonesia be familiar with its
education in English subject as the most important
part to give to the students. Hence, education in
Indonesia is acknowledged as an active teaching-
learning process where it needs the teacher’s role
to support the students to learn and understand the
given topic for them (Aziziah, 2010). In addition, the
students are asked to learn and obtain rather than
only study the material which is known as
competency-based learning (Widiastuti, 2010).
However, the teacher always realizes that the
students still difficult to learn and acquire English as
their subject in school. Some issues found that both
teachers and students face the difficulties in the
teaching-learning process because they are the key
players to play the roles in education. The issues
faced by the teachers are about the techniques they
used in the classroom to control the students in the
large class on how modifying some techniques and
materials to meet a very wide range of students’
needs. In addition, teachers are asked to be able to
maintain the competencies and capabilities in the
subject that they teach in order the learning can
successfully complete (Cabanatan, Cabrera,
Crucena, & Terrobias, 2012).
While some issues faced by the students are
they have to study hard to be able to take the
theory and try to acquire the knowledge what the
teachers have been given. It is related to the level of
the students’ skills in mastering the competencies
who characterized as low achievers or incompetent
students. Therefore, the government approved the
Passing Grade Standard (Standar Kompetensi
Kelulusan – SKL) to evaluate the students’
accomplishments. SKL is used as the measurement
in developing the standard of content; process;
assessment; and educator. (Permendikbud Number
20, 2016).
Due to that condition, the low achievers or
incompetent students or remedial students who are
not able to accomplish the SKL are expected to join
the additional course. This course is useful both for
teachers and students. The teachers need an
additional course to reflect the teacher’s
performance in teaching and the preparation of the
material. While an additional course is used to help
the remedial students in raising mastery
competencies. According to O’Toole (1994),
remedial teaching is one of the approaches that is
worth trying as an additional course.
THE DEFINITION OF REMEDIAL TEACHING
Some researchers have their own definition and
explanation about remedial teaching. According to
Selvarajan & Vasantagumar (2012), remedial
teaching is used as a “tool” to help the remedial
students’ needs in achieving the competencies that
they failed in a normal/regular class. While, Maharaj
& Khan (2016) states that remedial has definition to
repair, improve or remedy particular skill. Remedial
teaching is giving a treatment to a group of students
who identified as low achievers to push them to
achieve the goal (Kumar, 2016). In addition,
remedial teaching means curing, healing, or
correcting the way of teaching to get the maximum
goals (Mukhtar & Rusmini, 2007). As a result, the
aims of remedial teaching are to know the
weaknesses of the remedial students in learning
process, to change the way how the remedial
students study, to aid the remedial students in
choosing the material and facilitation, to motivate
the better result, to be responsible to the given
task, and to reflect the way of teaching (Mukhtar &
Rusmini, 2007).
THE PROCESS OF REMEDIAL TEACHING
The teacher’s main role in the teaching-learning
process is to stimulate the quality of learning
(Selvarajan & Vasanthagumar, 2012). It means that
during the teaching-learning process, the teacher
locates and identify the areas where the students
commit mistakes. It is the crucial stage of the
teaching-learning process where the teacher
diagnose and prepare additional material for
remedial teaching to guarantee the quality of
learning. For the further detailed, here is the
flowchart of the process of how the remedial class is
formed, research by Education Bureau of Hong
Kong (2007).
Figure 1.1 The Flowchart of Remedial Teaching
Process.
The flowchart above is purposed as a guide how
the students do mistakes and how the teacher
diagnoses and prepare additional material to assist
the students who perform mistakes then the
teacher open additional class known as remedial
class.
The process starts from the middle side where
the process of teaching-learning in a regular class
run. Then, the bottom one is used by the teacher to
diagnose and identify the students. It divided into
two groups. The “achieving targets” group is for
those who perform well and the “obstacle in
learning” group is for those who perform mistakes.
The “obstacle in learning” group will join in the
remedial class.
3
THE TEACHER’S TECHNIQUES IN REMEDIAL
TEACHING
A number of teaching techniques have been
researched and authorized by the researchers and
experts for the successfulness of the teaching-
learning process. However, the techniques of
teaching that bring in the class are not always as
well as the expectation. It is because of the
condition of the teacher, students, class, references,
and so on. Hence, remedial teaching or remedial
class does not have the specific techniques on the
process of teaching-learning process.
In remedial teaching, diversified teaching
activities such as situational teaching, competitions,
gathering of information, discussion, oral reporting,
games, up-to-date examination, production of
graphs, figures, models, role play, recording, visit
and experiments may help remedial students
improve their interest in learning, stimulate their
thinking and strengthen the effectiveness of
teaching (Dasaradhi et. al., 2016). The use of
teaching aids should be the key part of the teacher’s
technique. However, the teacher needs the
selection of teaching aids in the appropriate use of
teaching aids. Appropriate teaching aids not only
help to enhance students’ interest in learning, but it
also combines the knowledge they learned, thus the
objective of teaching can be achieved (Boylan et. al.,
1999). When designing and using teaching aids, the
teacher should first consider their practical use and
assess whether the goal of remedial teaching can be
achieved (Cheng, 2014).
THE SUPPORTING MATERIALS IN REMEDIAL
TEACHING
The teacher should adapt the curriculum to
assist the learning characteristics and abilities of
remedial students. They should set teaching
objectives which are easy to accomplish and to
guarantee that remedial students may get the
knowledge. The teacher may select and use the
materials in textbooks to meet the teaching
objectives, or collect their own supplementary
teaching materials. They may also design materials
of different standards (Basturkmen, 2010). In
addition, materials from the internet, newspapers,
magazines and references provided by the school
help the teacher in designing the motivating and
enjoyable activities to enhance students’ learning
(Clarke, 2003).
However, schools can also support and design
the supporting materials in assisting remedial
students by classifying the teaching content based
on the teaching objectives and students’ abilities
(Brinley, 1989). The design and organization of
teaching materials should be student-oriented. The
teacher and school should be selected and collected
systematically to provide the purpose (Bureau,
2007).
THE LEARNING ACTIVITIES IN REMEDIAL TEACHING
The teacher should design proper learning
activities in line with the focus of teaching. On the
basis of the low starting point, small steps,
diversified activities and instant feedback (Bureau,
2007), the teacher should encourages remedial
students to play a part actively during the learning
process to help the students in mastering the skills
and teacher may use the methods of collaborative
learning (Wang, 2009).
Well-designed learning activities help to
maintain students’ attention and interest in
learning and facilitates the accomplishment of
teaching goals (Widiastuti, 2010). The teaching
environment should be designed to support
remedial teaching and group activities. For
examples, seat arrangements of students should be
flexible to meet the specific teaching purposes of
each learning activity, placing self-learning corner,
book corner, science corner, prize corner or
stationery/learning resources corner (Bureau,
2007). The key points to arrange the learning
activities are preparing a rich, enjoyable, and
comfortable learning environment for the students
to stimulate their motivation in learning.
THE ASSESSMENT IN REMEDIAL TEACHING
By means of assessment, the teacher can know
the learning progress as well as the strengths and
weaknesses of pupils. That is why assessment plays
a very important role in teaching and learning.
Assessment has two common methods for
teachers’ reference, those are formative and
summative assessments (Stiggins, 2005). Formative
assessment is done for daily classwork and
homework as well as individual or group projects.
While summative assessment is done by doing
examination or tests.
Due to the types of assessment methods, the
teacher should keep a detailed individual record of
each student. The teacher should assess the
progress of the students regularly and
systematically. Another consideration of
assessment, the teacher should focus on the
response of students during classroom learning and
make a record as the individual evaluation to
facilitate development actions or changes in
teaching strategies (Brown, 2005). In addition, the
teacher should make reference to the teaching
objectives in evaluating the effectiveness of
teaching, and revise their teaching plans according
to the learning needs (Gardner, 2006).
CONCLUSION
The above description shows that the
implementation of remedial teaching specifically
the techniques, the materials, the learning
activities, and the assessments in assisting the
remedial students or low achievers is one of the
approaches that are worth trying. However, it
should be known that some efforts need to be done
if a teacher wants to implement remedial teaching.
First, prepare on the way how to teach remedial
students in this intensive class. Second, prepare and
compile supplement materials that appropriate to
the students’ needs. Third, arrange the positive
environment so that the learning activities can be
acceptable for remedial students. Last, assess the
students in many ways they do their individual
evaluations. It is believed that remedial teaching
brings positive reflection for both teacher and
students.
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