Teaching English as a foreign language is something challenging. Teachers of foreign language should have good language skills of the second language they teach because they provide the main language input for the students who may have limited exposure outside of classroom. A good teaching and learning process does not only put the qualified teachers as a single main source but also involves the students in that process. The teachers actually can use the students’ knowledge to construct or build their understanding by asking them some questions such as what do you like, giving them some clues like before we make a descriptive text we should make….., or providing some variations in their teaching to create the students understanding. The scaffolds facilitate the students’ ability to build on prior knowledge and internalize new information.
The objective of the study is to identify and classify the teachers’ scaffolding talks by describing the types of scaffolding talks the teachers use in their classes, functions of each scaffolding talks and the reasons of using such scaffolding talks.
This research is qualitative. It was conducted at first grade of bilingual class of SMP 01 Tayu. The numbers of this subject are two English Teachers. The data were collected from classroom observation and interview. The data from observation were analyzed whether they belong to scaffolding talks or not. The functions of scaffolding talks were classified through components provided by Turney et al. the data from interview were transcribed and interpret to know the reasons of using such scaffolding talks.
Based on the data obtained, it is reported that the teachers used scaffolding talks through the teaching and learning process. The types of scaffolding that used by the teachers were inviting students’ participation, inviting students to contribute clues, verifying and clarifying students’ understanding and providing model. The functions of scaffolding talks performed by the teachers in the classrooms were explaining for example simple present tense is used to express everyday activities. Questioning like could you make the simple present tense in negative form?, Reinforcement such as good, excellent, nice or signaling ok and introductory procedures and closures. The teachers used almost of the lesson to explaining and questioning, sometime they gave reinforcement to their study but thy only spent a little time to attract their students’ attention and motivation to the topics. The teachers used such scaffolding talks are to make their students more understand and keep the students motivation and interest to their lesson.