Flannel Board media

Flannel Board

1.  Introduction

As we know, English is an International Language and English is the important thing for communicating around the world. Nowadays, English is a second language can easily be studied by young learner after they got the first language. The young learners must learn English because they face globalization era. In Indonesia Elementary school learners use English as a local content subject. By using language, we are able to express our ideas and feeling. In Indonesia, English learned by the students as a foreign language. English must be taught as early as possible because it is a compulsory subject from kindergarten until the university. For the junior high school student, English is very important to be learned. Especially with vocabulary, the students are expected to be able to mastery in listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

The improvement of students’ vocabulary in learning English depends on the teacher’s strategy because teaching English in elementary school is not easy, it is different from teaching adults in secondary schools.  Huyen (2003: 1) stated: “most students learn vocabulary passively due to several factors. First, they consider the teacher’s explanation for meaning or definition, pronunciation, spelling, and grammatical functions boring. Second, the students only think of vocabulary learning as knowing the primary meaning of new words. Third, the students usually only acquire new vocabulary through new words in their texts books. Fourth, many learners do not want to take risks in applying what they have learned”.

In teaching English, teachers are obliged to choose any suitable teaching media in order to achieve the teaching objective easily, so that the student will be motivated to learn more. Teacher who area able to presents the material easily will be students’ idol. In applying teaching media, the teacher should consider many things like teaching material, students’ level, classroom management and many other aspects, because the use of appropriate technique could cause many difficulties or the students and the teachers fail in teaching them and would also be a burden for.

In this study, I would like to show a simple and interesting teaching media in presenting vocabulary items to the fifth year student, which is called Flannel Board. As one of language teaching media such as Flannel Board has a very significant role to make the teaching and learning activity more interesting. Many examples of language teaching and learning English that doesn't make the students bored.

By media, we mean all aids which may be used by teacher and learner to attain certain education objectives. We shall restrict ourselves in some respect in our treatment of media which may be used in FLT, only those media which have a direct contribution to make to teaching/learning process will be discussed. We shall also restrict ourselves to the use of media in the classroom.

2.    Formulating the problem

a.       What is Flannel board?

b.      What is the use of Flannel Board as Media in Teaching Vocabulary?

c.       How to make Flannel board?

d.      What are techniques of presenting Picture Flannel Board?

e.       What are the advantages and disadvantages of Flannel board?

3.    The Aims of paper

a.       To know what is the definition of Flannel board

b.      To know what is the use of Flannel Board as Media in Teaching Vocabulary

c.       To know how to make Flannel board

d.      To know Technique of Presenting Picture Flannel Board

e.       To know the advantages and disadvantages of Flannel board

  3.  Discussion

A.      Definition of Picture Flannel Board

Flannel board is a board which is the one face of board covered by flannel cloth and in this face, we can touch many kinds of picture and give the students some contributions to rich the vocabulary mastery.

B.      Flannel Board as Media in Teaching Vocabulary

One of the media in teaching English is Flannel Board. The effort of the linguist has strong basic because the learner entertained with their everyday life, give chances to the student to more creatively because Flannel Board as media in teaching English vocabulary is very effective and more interested because the students will be memorized the vocabulary because the enjoying the picture in the flannel. So that using Flannel Board in teaching vocabulary will give achievement acquiring English.

Flannel Board can increase motivation to learn English for the students. They also have to add the advantage of being memorable the words much less likely that the students will forget the words, and therefore the language practice in it. Whereas, language practice in the even well-constructed drill is usually very quickly forgotten and finally, Flannel Board which helps to bring the students memorize more word.

C. How to Make a Flannel Board

Making your own flannel board is easy. You’ll need plywood or heavy cardboard and a piece of felt or flannel that is big enough to cover the front of the board and wrap around to the back to be attached. Take your piece of plywood or heavy cardboard and cover it in the flannel or felt. Attach the material to the back using duct tape, a staple gun or a hot glue gun. Any type of wood can be used for the backing of the board. But, for this project, we are going to use Styrofoam.

For making flannel board pieces, you can make it out of paper or felt. The felt pieces can be cut and decorated. They don’t need anything on the back because felt will stick to the felt. The flannel pieces stay in place on the board but are easily changed as the lesson progresses.

D.  Technique of Presenting Picture Flannel Board

As a good teacher, we have to know how to conduct picture flannel board in the class order to make the student understand what they will do in playing picture flannel board itself.

There are some procedures to apply the teaching vocabulary using picture flannel board:

a)      The teacher explains and gives an example to play a picture of the flannel board.

b)    The teacher sticks the illustration on the board. The teacher asks the students go forward to answer the question based on the picture on the board.

c)     The teacher gives the clue such as the name of the animal on the board then the students go forward to answer the question, the students stick the picture on the board.

E. The advantages of Flannel board:

·         The Flannel board is simple and light to carry.

·         Can be used to teach the student of all ages and of all levels of languages.

·         They can be used over and over again for a wide variety of activities.

·         You can easily switch the pieces from activity to activity.

·         A great way to get students attentions.

·         The flannel pieces are easy to adhere.

·         A tool to help keep children focused on what is being taught.

·         To enlarge vocabulary, increase vocabulary and deepen vocabulary

F.  The Disadvantages of Flannel board:

·         Time and cost of making material is a problem.

·         To tell a complete story it often takes either too much board space.

·         Smaller designs and materials some of which cannot be easily seen

Space is usually limited.

·         Requires considerable ingenuity and imagination to construct effective varied materials.

           Materials must be attractively prepared.

4. Conclusion

            Flannel board is a board which is the one face of board covered by flannel cloth and in this face, we can touch many kinds of picture and give the students some contributions to rich the vocabulary mastery. Flannel Board can increase motivation to learn English for the students. They also have to add the advantage of being memorable the words much less likely that the students will forget the words, and therefore the language practice in it.

Reference :

Nguyen, Thi Thanh Huyen & Khuat, Thi Thu Nga,(2003), The Effectiveness of learning vocabulary through games, Asian EFL Journal Quarterly, 5 (4), Available online at:http://www.asian-efl-journal.com (accessed  June 2017)

Azalina Yunus Noor, 1981, Preparing And Using AIDS For English Language Teaching, Kuala Lumpur, Oxford University Press

http://www.ehow.com/how_8186212_use-flannel-boards.html#ixzz2fUafV4B7

http://www.ehow.com/about_5044291_flannel-board.html#ixzz2fJoc9u1i
http://laico.org/v2020resource/files/flannel_board.htm (accessed June 2017)