Learning Style Preference of Students

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter deals with background, problem statement, the objectives, scope, and significance of the research.

A.    Background

In recent years, instructional curriculum program in our country focuses on the learners as center of learning process. It means that understanding everything about learners is crucially importance and as the key of educational improvement. One of the things that have to be understood is the way learners take in and comprehend information.

We cannot argue that learners take in and comprehend information in different manners. Some like to see and others like to hear. Some prefer to learn individually, independent of others, while others enjoy interaction and relationship with their peers, it is widely believed that the different ways of how learners take in and process information are collectively referred to as Learning styles or learning preferences

(Reid, 1987; Celce-Murei, 2001).

In the reality today, most of teachers who have important role in the class still do not know about learning style differences of their students. Even if they know, they only give little attention to it. We can see that some teachers teach by their own teaching style. They conduct learning activities in the class without giving attention to their student’s learning style preference. For instance, in one hand, teachers provide a material, ask the students to copy, and read it. At the end of the lesson, teacher asks the students to do exercise about the material individually. In another hand, most of their students do not like to learn individually. They prefer to learn in group. Another example, in one side, a teacher provides material by speech in front of his or her students during a class-taking place, so the students only become a good listener. Meanwhile, his/her students need to see or do another activity because they prefer to learn while see picture or some of them easier to learn not only by hearing but also by touching or doing body movement. As the result, mismatches exist between teachers and their pupils.

When mismatches exist between learning styles of the learners in class and the teaching style of the teachers, the students may become bored and inattentive in class, do poorly on test; get discouraged about the courses, the curriculum and themselves, and in some cases change to other curricula or drop out of school (Felder, 1996).

Mismatching between teachers’ teaching style and students’ learning style also takes place in SMU Negeri 1 Larompong. Based on my experience when I studied there, I found that some of my teachers only taught by their own teaching style especially in English class. At the time, My English teacher only asked us to do exercise in LKS and then if we did not know the vocabulary in the LKS, we looked for the vocabulary in dictionary or asked the teacher about it. This case made my friends and I become bored with English and did not like it. Even most of us thought that English was a very difficult subject. My teacher never knew that if most of his students did not like with his teaching style. My teacher never knew that if most of us liked to learn not only by doing exercise but also to see the authentic object or visual presentation and did discussion with each other[..?]

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