THE USE OF REINFORCEMENTS IN TEACHING ENGLISH

Reward plays a substantial part in our everyday lives. In many of our daily activities, our efforts
are rewarded. For instance, at home, we may receive praise for completing a task or thanks for a
helping hand. Those rewards, actually, will motivate us to do the same things again and again.
Based on that tendency, psychologists have long investigated the effect of rewards and
punishments on the way human learn. In this context, the term reinforcements is used.
Reinforcements refer to the teacher action to strengthen a particular behavior. It uses positive and
negative aspects that help a teacher control and maintain a productive classroom environment
with minimal distractions.
The first aspect, positive reinforcement, is the act of strengthening students behavior by
presenting a desired stimulus after a particular behavior. This way will increase the frequency of
the students good behavior. When the students do a good behavior, the teacher should
acknowledge their actions by congratulating them. For example, when a student could answer a
question correctly, then the teacher says Well done! This positive reinforcement will make the
students feel that what they did has made their teacher happy. Consequently, they are
encouraged to do that again in the next occasion.
Second, negative reinforcement, is the way of strengthening behavior by removing bad stimulus.
An example of negative behavior is nagging students to get back to work. Negative
reinforcement is often confused with punishment which is the addition of an undesired outcome
for misbehaving. Punishments like no free time, and no recess are avoidable, while negative
reinforcements are the act to keep students on task.
Both positive and negative reinforcements are very useful to be used in teaching English.
Moreover, English is considered to be the first foreign language to be learned in Indonesia.
Reinforcement would make the class alive and encourage the students motivation to be active in
class, for example by giving them verbal, gesture, or proximity reinforcing in class.
Verbal reinforcing refers to a teachers comments and encouragements when students do the task
correctly, such as, the word great!, Nice work, Well done, etc. A gestures reinforcing is
like smiling, winking, raising eyebrows, nodding, clapping hands, or shrugging shoulders when
the students make an effort, while proximity reinforcing include standing alongside the students,
advancing toward, or walking nearby the students.
With the reinforcement stated above, teaching English become more attractive and the students
will be motivated to get involve the class actively. Besides, the achievements of the English
subject would be increasing, too. To conclude, reinforcement is one of the ways to teach English
effectively.

DIFFICULT WORDS

SYNONIM

1. Substantial (Adj)

: Strong, big (Adj)

2. tendency (N)

: propensity(noun)

3. Reinforcement(N)

: strengthening(N)

4. acknowledge (V)

: admit (V), accept (V)

5. encourage(V)

: Support(V)

6. distractions (N)

: annoyances(N), disturbances(N)

7.detention (N)

: imprisonment(N)

8. proximity(N)

: nearness(N)

9. nagging(V)

: grumble (V), complain(V)

Summary
Reinforcement refers to the teacher action to strengthen a particular behavior. It has two aspects,
positive and negative
The first aspect, positive reinforcement, is the act of strengthening students behavior by
presenting a desired stimulus after a particular behavior. the example is when the students do the
job well, the teacher admit it by congratulating him.
Second, negative reinforcement, is the way of strengthening behavior by removing bad stimulus.
The example is when the student do the job badly, the teacher ask the students to work it again
There are three types of reinforcement:
1. Verbal reinforcement, is like by giving comments such as great, good etc
2. gesture reinforcement, is like smiling, winking, clapping hand etc
3. proximity reinforcement, is like standing alongside the students, walking nearby the students
With the reinforcement, teaching process become more attractive and the students will be
motivated to get involve the class actively. So, reinforcement is one of the ways to teach English
effectively

EXTENDED READING
ASSIGNMENT
THE USE OF REINFORCEMENTS IN TEACHING ENGLISH

COMPILLED BY:
NAME
NIM
CLASS

: KINGKIN GALIH PRIAMBUDI

: 0701050011
: A1

THE FACULTY OF TECHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION

MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OFPURWOKERTO
2009