The Implementation of Scientific Approach for Teaching English in Senior High School: Voices from the Field

摘要

This paper is aimed at reporting the results of a qualitative study investigating how English teachers implement the Scientific Approach (SA) for teaching English in a Senior High School in Pekanbaru. This study is particularly intended to answer three research questions: 1) What is teachers' understanding on the Scientific Approach; 2) How do they implement the mandated approach in their classroom; and 3) What kinds of problems they encountered during the implementation of the approach. Three English teachers wererandomly selected as the participants of this research. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with each participant. The findings showed that the English teachers were rather skeptical with the SA. They did not really follow all stages of teaching mandated in the SA during the implementation. All the participants reported that most of the time they made some adjustments during their teaching procedures. Two participants reported that the main problems they faced during the implementation of SA were about challenges to make the students active and the complicated procedures of assessment. Lack of supervision on the new curriculum implementation has also been reported as another major problem. The findings imply that the implementation of this new curriculum may have been not working well in the field yet. It requires an integrated and well-planned effort from related parties to make sure that the suggested approach can positively affect the effectiveness of English teaching in the field.