The Implementation of Contextual Teaching and Learning ( CTL ) in the Teaching of Integrated Skills

This article discusses about the implementation of contextual teaching learning (CTL) to solve three problems found in the teaching of integrated skills (English proficiency class): materials, methods (the integration of the four skills), and the students’ passiveness. Contextual teaching learning helps teachers relate materials or content to real world situations and motivate students to make connections between knowledge and its applications to their real lives or roles as family members, citizens, and workers and engage in the hard work that requires learning. This research was an action research done in three cycles and each cycle took five sessions with five phases: diagnosis, plan, action, and observation, evaluation and reflection. It was found that in the first cycle with five phases the three problems found could be solved with the implementation of CTL, but there were still some students who were passive in the speaking activities in groups because they had problems with their vocabulary, grammar, and self confidence. In addition, in the second cycle with five phases the problems found in the first cycle could be handled, but there were still a few students that had the same problems found in the first cycle. Finally, in the third cycle with five phases again the problems in the first cycle could be solved even though there was still one student who did not speak English actively.


I. Introduction
There are four major skills of English that need to be mastered by an the problem was about materials. The materials that the teacher gave were not so interesting for the students because they were not connected with the students' real lives and experience. In other words, the materials were not meaningful for them.
As the result, they were not interested and motivated in learning. In fact, connecting the materials with students' real lives and experience will ease the students in learning because they have background knowledge and experience in the materials, which makes learning interesting for them.
Another problem was about the teacher's method. In teaching integrated skills, the teacher has to integrate one skill with other skills in teaching well so that it is easier for the students to get involved in the skills. For example, when she begins teaching speaking, she has to transfer the students' skill in speaking to the next skill (writing) by relating materials in speaking to writing so that it is easier for the students to write because they have background knowledge about the materials. However, based on the observation, the teacher had not integrated one skill with another skill yet. As a result, the students got difficulty doing other skills. It could be seen from the result of the students' writing. It is hard for them to start writing as the said that they had no ideas to write. Nonetheless, if the teacher relates the materials discussed in one skill to other skills, the students will not have difficulty in writing due to no ideas.
Moreover, she just focused on textbooks without having some modifications in teaching.
The last problem was about the students. Many of them were still passive.
In other words, only a few of them really got involved in the learning activities. It might happen because the teacher had not applied active learning yet. To make them involved optimally in learning activities, the teacher should create more tasks or activities in the four skills. This is very important in the teaching of integrated skill subject (English Proficiency) so that students will be more proficient in English.
One alternative which could be used to overcome the problems above was Contextual Teaching and Leaning (CTL).
CTL is an educational process that aims to help students to see meaning in the academic materials that they are studying by connecting academic subjects with the context of their daily lives (Johnson: 2002 to the students to construct the knowledge by themselves by finding a problem, applying their own ideas, and realizing and using their own strategies in learning.
Therefore, they will use their brains to interpret meanings.

Inquiry
Inquiry is a basic activity in CTL. It can be concluded that authentic assessment is good to apply to know the students' mastery, increase their knowledge and find ways to improve their understanding or mastery. To analyze the data, inductive analysis was used. The inductive analysis was used to look at the group of data and try to include or create order by organizing into group or defining and describing categories such as items, themes, or patterns (Johnson: 2005).

III. Methods of the Research
Therefore, the data gotten were analyzed inductively by listing themes that have been seen to emerge.

IV. Findings
This research was divided into three cycles, each of which consisted of five phases: diagnosis, plan, action and observation, evaluation, and reflection. The next problem was that the students did not use the time or chance to participate in the class activities. The reasons were almost the same as why they were not confident. They had lack of vocabulary, and lack of grammar. In addition, some of them were dependent on their mood. If they were in good mood, they were active, but they were not, they were passive.
In addition, they did not have high willingness to do tasks inside the classroom and outside the classroom (at home) In conclusion, some students still have low motivation to study which made them not participate actively in the class.
It means the problem that needed to be solved in this cycle was that the students' passiveness. The efforts to overcome the first problem and the second problem were needed to be maintained and even improved.

b. Plan
Based on the diagnosis above, the third problem will be the focus of this cycle to be solved besides the first and the second problems. Since there were still some problems related to the students' passiveness in the classroom activities, the following plan were set up: 1) Redesigning the activities to implement CTL to solve the third problem. Since there were some students who did not participate because of lack of vocabulary and grammar, there were some steps in teaching to discuss vocabulary and grammar implicitly with the entire students before dividing them into groups.
2) Rearranging the members of groups as some students found that they did not cooperate well with them and they were not confident to speak to them.
3) Paying more attention to the lower students who were not confident, less motivated, and unwilling to study.

4) Approaching the students more
individually and closely.

c. Action and Observation
This cycle was done in five meetings for three topics. The first meeting was about the students' likes and dislikes.
The class was held in the morning.
When the teacher entered the classroom, almost all of the students had been there.
As soon as the teacher came in, they too seat. The teacher greeted the students by saying good morning and the students replied good morning, too. Afterwards, she introduced the topic in that morning and asked some students about their likes and dislikes on food and music. The students seemed to be interested in answering her questions. Some of them said that they did not like "dangdut".
Many of them liked rock, pop, and jazz.
On the other hand, very few students kept silent for the first time after the teacher asked them. Then, the teacher gave the following questions which were easier to guide them to answer the previous questions patiently and friendly. Finally, the spoke and answered the questions even though the answers were not complete. The teacher looked to appreciate them by saying "good". The class was quite noisy.
After giving some questions to the students about their likes and dislikes, the teacher wrote some unfamiliar words on the white board related to the topic and discussed the meaning of the words with the students. Then, she also asked the students' difficulty on the pattern of questions and describing likes and dislikes to the students as well as them with the students. She also monitored them very carefully while they were working in their groups. She always walked around and talked with some students who still got difficulties. The students seemed to be active to talk to each other in English.
Therefore, the classroom was noisy. In addition, she always reminded the students to use English, not Indonesian. In fact, almost all of the students used English in the class. Only two students did not use English all the time in the class.
They sometimes used Indonesian.
Moreover, she never corrected the students' mistakes directly and always encouraged them to speak English even though they made mistakes. She, even, gave more rewards to them even though their answers or what they talked about was not appropriate. The students seemed to be more creative and not afraid to speak to give their ideas.
She also asked some questions to the students about what their friends had presented in the class discussion.
Therefore, most of the students seemed to be serious to listen to their friends' presentation. There were only very few students who were not serious.

d. Evaluation and Reflection
After distributing a questionnaire and interviewing the students, the data were analyzed. It can be concluded that there had been some significant improvements of the students' interest, motivation, and confidence which made them more active in the class. In addition, there were no problems about the first and second problem. It means that the teacher's efforts should be maintained and even improved. Talking about the third problem, it could be solved well even though there was a student who still got difficulty or was still quite passive because of her personal problems.
Moreover, it can be said that CTL could solve the three problems (materials, methods, and the students' passiveness).
In other words, CTL could improve the teaching of integrated skills successfully.

V. Conclusions
From the research done in three cycles with three problems as the focus (materials, method: the integration of the four skills, and the students' passiveness), the conclusions are as follows: 1. All of the students are more interested in the materials which are related to their lives and experience as a member of a family, a society, and a school.