REFLECTIVE TEACHING UPON THE ACQUISITION OF THE SIMPLE PAST TENSE IN YOUNG LEARNERS: IMPLEMENTING KOLB’S EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING CYCLE

Abstrak

This study presents the implementation of reflective teaching in facilitating young learners’ acquisition of the simple past tense through the framework of Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle. Grammar lessons for young learners require repetitive drilling to develop awareness of grammatical functions in a real context. With young learners, the engagement occurs when teachers integrate meaning while introducing forms implicitly, avoiding pressures to grammar rules. Given this, the procedures may be time consuming, which contradicts real classroom conditions, where teachers often face with very limited time to deliver grammar lessons in a meaningful way. In the case of Indonesian young learners, learning the simple past tense involves more than a single effort. This is because Indonesian does not have a tense system, nor does it have verb changes to indicate time. Moreover, understanding past time reference holds another challenge for young learners. This study specifically reports on the struggles young learners faced when acquiring the simple past tense in the verb inflection and the use of its forms in complete sentences.

Since the analysis is drawn from real classroom practice, reflective teaching was employed to review the learning process and the instructional approach implemented by the writers, who took the roles of teachers in the study. Reflective teaching is expected to identify best practices and implementations that need improvement in order to make a more effective approach. Referring to Kolb’s four-stage cycles, which are concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation, this study explores how experiential learning combined with teacher reflection can enhance students’ simple past tense acquisition. The finding indicates that learners in the study found it difficult to retain newly introduced irregular verbs, such as feed, ride, have, and see. Learners also struggled to use these verbs in sentences when doing classroom activities. Reflective teaching helped the writers as teachers map the teaching process, and therefore, gained suggestions for improvement. The study suggests that reflective teaching, supported by Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle, provides a pedagogical framework for facilitating the acquisition of the simple past tense. Teachers are suggested to introduce irregular verbs in stages, beginning with more familiar verbs and gradually progressing to less familiar ones among young learners.