CELEBRATING STUDENTS’ DIVERSITIES THROUGH UNDERSTANDING STUDENTS’ CHARACTERISTICS

Abstract

Dealing with different students’ characteristics cannot be avoided by the teacher ineveryday teaching. It is well-known that teaching English to young learners is different fromteaching an adult. Therefore, teachers are required to understand the characteristics of thestudents in order to know the students’ needs so that learning goals can be achievedeffectively. Research under the case study design had been done at a private school inSurakarta which used interview and observation to collect the data from 2 English teachers inthat school. This research aims at investigating the teachers’ beliefs on understandingcharacteristics of students and exploring how those beliefs are reflected in the teachinglearningpractices. The result shows the two participants believe that understanding thecharacteristics of students is important for teachers because it can help them to develop theirteaching-learning strategy and achieve learning objectives effectively. This research alsoreveals the way the participants reflect their beliefs in teaching-learning practices.