Name : NISA RIEZQYA FAHMINOVIA

NIM : 0803288

Class : 1B

The Importance of Teaching Media in Language Classroom

Language, a unique part of human being, grows within us. But for many of us, a
foreign language which is not our daily language, is still a barrier. Certainly, it’s never
late to learn it, but the earlier the better. Actually, learning language is a natural
instinct. Children in their youth can absorb as much language as possible, they
construct their language from language patterns which surround them, testing,
exploring, and modifying their own progress. Children become proficient users of
language through experience and experiment. Their experience of language that they
hear and see, their experimentation with language that they speak and write enables
them to become literate. The more varied experiences children have, the more they are
talked with, the greater will be their opportunities for development. Therefore, they
can’t do it by themselves. They need another person to learn language, including a
teacher. And to reduce the difficulty of learning language, it’s desirable for teachers to
choose the appropriate strategy of teaching in language classroom. One of the strategies
is using the teaching media.

The origin word of media is “medium” which is from Latin language that means
carrier or escort, that is a thing that bring the information from source to receiver.
Media can be classified become three kinds, that are visual media, audio media, and
audio visual media. Visual media is the media that can be seen and be touched, like
photos, pictures, maps, cards, doll, puppets, and realia. Audio media is the media that
can be heard, like radios, cassettes, tape recorder, and compact disks. Audio visual
media is the media that can be seen and be heard, like television, film, and computer. In
the learning activities, media can help the teachers to carrier the learning matters for
students because each of learning matters have some variation of difficulty level and to
simplify it, they need the teaching media. Beside of that, over 87% of the students are
visual learners, just hearing the information is not enough for them, they need to see it
and either to experiment it.

Teaching with media is easy to make our memory remembers everything what we
learn because human brains rely heavily on stimulus from the outside for learning.
Media can help to avoid the general problems in the classroom, like the boredom,
weariness, not understanding the relevance of the information, and incorrect modalities
for learning. Visual media is used to make children’s memory remembering the new
words in better way, describing things, then immediately children catch the target
difference between the word of the foreign language and its meaning. Audio media is
used for developing the children’s scrutinize ability and for introducing how to say the
word in foreign language. Teachers can also use audio visual media to get the benefit of
audio and visual at the same time. But it’s not easy thing for teachers to choose and to
use the teaching media in language classroom with the consideration that their students
are in the primary level or young learners who have some special characteristics.

Teachers have to determine the media correctly and agree with the capability of
themselves. They have to pay attention of objectivity, teaching program, learning
target, situation and condition, technique quality, utilization’s effectiveness and
efficiency. The media should be easy to be prepared, be operated, and of course can
develop the students ability and interesting for them. After determining the media,
teachers have to expand the media and actively demonstrating, giving sample to use
that media to their students. The role of media as helper in explanation, as learning
source for students, and the others will visible if the teacher knows how to apply it into
learning activities of language classroom.

At the point, the teaching media in language classroom is important to use by

teachers. Teacher, as a mediator has responsibility which is not only to supply the
media but also to be a model or user of it. They shouldn’t forget that at the teaching
language, moreover for young learners, the teaching media have great meaning in effort
to get the optimum result for the learning language process.