THE CLOSING TEACHING SESSION SKILLS

MUHAMMAD YUSUF
1352044027

ENGLISH EDUCATION
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MAKASSAR
2014
Muhammad Yusuf

yusufhamzah5@gmail.com
English Education Study Program
Faculty of Languages and Literature
State University of Makassar

1. Introduction
One of the key roles that may contribute to the successful of teaching
and learning process is the well managed of closing teaching session.
Closing session is an important part in teachingsequences because it carries
reinforcement elements to the learning process that has taken place (Frey:
2007).Then it is true to say that closing, perhaps, the place for clarifying the
students comprehension toward the whole lesson points, constructing the
students ability to provide a learning summary, praisingthe students
efforts, and giving them appreciation for hard work done, creating what
psychologists call the recency effect, otherwise known as a last impression
(Lucero: 2006). In this matter, we can say that, theclosure activityis truly
expected tocreate powerful learning effects at theend of the class.
Considering to the vitalrole of closure, thenthe act of closing should not
just simply ended by delivering the valedictory speech or farewell address
to the students. The writer personally believe that, it should take much
attention to the teacher that closure is a series of strengthening process,and
more than that, it is an evaluation stage to some necessary aspects,
includingthe material that have been taught, the studentsattainment during
and after the class, the teachers performance, and also the adjustment of
closure with context of lesson and time, or hereinafter referred to the four
perennial truthsof EFL teaching and learning(Rasyid in Sadilia,2011:1).
Hence, the teachers essentially should behave according to these.

Although closure may assume, however, to prop the teaching session,

but it is sadly to say thatsome teachers still pay less attention to their tail
end of the teaching session. Pesce (2013) in his personal weblogclaimed
that many teachers often underestimate the value of the lesson closing. Of
course, this derelictionmay lead to decrease the impressive value of the
subjects teaching. Further discussion by Peggy (2012) stated that the
closure

oftentimes

being

skipped,

short

changed

or

merely

perfunctory.(p.1).Suchbehaviour in teachingperhaps just give lesser

contributionto create meaningful lesson.
Another problem that commonlyencounter in the closure session is the
time efficiency.In the personal experience of the writer, hediscovered that
some of teachers, in thedistant past school,stretched closing session time
into preaching or sermon time in uncontrolled duration. Of course, there is
no doubt in the writers mind thatthe teachers likely have a well-intentioned
to put some wise advices for their students applicative lives and of course
that is truly gave significant effect for the students ways to behave.
However,it should be also considered that time management in class is
absolutely crucial because this may affect to the students perception about
the impressiveness ofthe closure in the last moment of the class.All of these
manners, on its basis should take on the consideration to be prepared well.
Thus, if the closing teaching session isso important, then how do the
teachers should manage the closing teaching session? What skills the
teachers need to close the teaching session? Those issued questions
arediscussedin the following sections.

2. The Essence of Closing Teaching Session

The closing teaching session is clearly important as previous mention.
In broad outline, according toH. Jerome Freiberg (2009)he specified
thatclosure contain with two core ideas.
a. As A Reinforcement Stage
To Clarify the Students Comprehension
Basically theparamount aim of closure is to make clearer the
students understanding before leaving the class as well as to give
clarification if any misconception among the students perception.
Fisherand N Frey (2007) argue that,
Closure is the act of reviewing and clarifying the points of a
lesson, tying them together into a coherent whole, and
ensuring their utility in application by securing them in the
student's conceptual network.
Somehow, the teachers insight to the concept of material is different
to the way of students understand the lesson. Students may possess
different interpretation in comprehending the implicit information
that given through the materials on the class.If this happened, then
teachers should take their role again as bridging information to
students in clarifying their understanding and to achieve the learning
objectives as it was mentioning in the opening session.
To Provide the Summary of Teaching Points
The function of summary in closure is to link learning to what was
just taught. As Lewis (2013) stated that closure is the time when you
wrap up a lesson plan and help students organize the information
into a meaningful context in their minds. The activity of course will
foster the students to understand deeply the material in longer time.
To Appreciate the Students Efforts
The purpose when a teacher takes a few minutes at the end of the
class period to connect the main ideas to relevant applications is that

students are able to see the purpose for the work that they have
assigned. This kind of treatment helps students to see that their
effortsbeing rewarded through their new knowledge or skills. They
will understand that what are they already learnt bring benefit to
their real lives.
b. As an Evaluation Stage
The Material That Have Been Taught
The material evaluation is crucial in teaching process since it is the
guidance of the learning process itself. To ask students opinion about
the material will assist teacher to figure out the value of the material
that already used.Gower, Phillips and Walters (1995:55) express that
asking students for their opinion of the lesson -whether they
found the topic interesting or not, whether the language
practice was useful, easy, difficult, whether they enjoyed the
activities, whether they would like more or less of anything
-not only fills the gaps, it also provides vital feedback on your
lesson.
In short, through this implementation teacher can really measure the
true outcomes of the use of the materials and thus provide the data
on which reliable decisions about the use of the materials can be
made.
The Students Achievement
At the end of a lesson, it is usually valuable to evaluate what the
studentshave tried to achieve through the lesson. It is always
important to review what they already know after the class. During
the closing stage, students may raise issues or problems that they
would like to discuss or resolve; at this time, teachers may also
encourage the students to ask for suggestions concerning the class
which have been delivered.
The Teacher Performance
Like as students, teachers performances also need to evaluate after
bringing the lesson in the class. To evaluate the teachers ways of
teaching in closing time will bring valuable feedback for the future

application to themselves. An accurate feedback emerged on the last

study session by tried to answer the question, How am I doing? Of
course these assessing activities aim to evaluate both students
understanding and teachers ways of teaching whether it is
successfully managed or not.
3. Skills on Closing Teaching Session
At the closure activities, basically teachers are going to deal with the
most important thing before leaving class. The work of closure should not
be ended abruptly without providing any impression value to the learners.
The successful and meaningful of a closing session assessed on how well
the teacher engaging and strengthening the students understanding toward
the current lesson. Of course these activities would invoke the essential
skills where the teachers are required to perform it well. These activities are
including the skills of evaluating which close related to the four perennial
truths of EFL teaching and learning as clearly mention in the previous
section.
According to Abimanyu in TohaThea (2011), he classified six major
components

in

his

paper

entitled

KeterampilanMembukadanMenutupPelajaran that the teacher should

possess to perform opening and closing lesson, they are:
a. Engaging students attention
In this point of discussion, teachers basically required to have the
students enthusiasm when performing the closing lesson. The
teacher should constantly change his/her project every teaching
session and try to make distinctive actions in each series of his/her
closing session, such as making games, interacting in buzz-groups,
asking questions, and providing shortinformation which connect the

incoming and/ or the previous discussion materials that already

discussed to the learners real lives.
b. Encouraging motivation
Motivation will take significant role in the students learning
achievement. When teacher successfully constructed the students
positive attitude to the lesson at the closure time -such as intriguing
the students curiosity and enthusiasm to what they learn-, then it
would spurred the eagerness of the students to delve deeply the
subject even after the end of the class session. At least, there are
three ways to encourage the students motivation:
1) To be friendly with learners
Meaning that teacher should build social relation with students
not be simply interacting in restricted area between educators
and learners.
2) To amaze them through distinctive activities
Teacher gives variation in the session of close their teaching, not
just restrictively used one way.
3) To accommodate their needs
As the students start to learn vigorously then teacher should
come to provide wider information for them. Telling and
clarifying what they not know at the end of the class may fulfil
their desire for learning and that will build their spirit for dig
more what they have learnt.
c. Reviewing the lesson
The act of reviewing basically means that the students are directed
to perform flashback revising toward highlights of the lesson that
they already learnt. This activityincludes addressing questions or
clarifying to the teacher toward the unclear information that have
been taught. For teachers, they should provideopportunity to the
students for offering questions and preparingevaluation-relatedmaterials in the form of task or exercise to the students in order to
assist them recalling their prior knowledge.

d. Evaluating the achievement

The skill of evaluating highly required in closure. This is because
teachers are going to deal with the measuring process to discover
the students learning achievement so far. Evaluating achievement
also provides information to the teachers whether they successfully
teach the lesson or not. Of course, this will bring feedback for both
students and teachers to be awareof their achievement.
e. Summarising the teaching points
A well summarising skill will be able to crystalize the whole
teaching pointsthat have been presented. The essence of wrapping
up the lesson is to tell the students what they have figured out in one
learning session. Furthermore,it also indicates to studentsthat the
materials have been finished to discuss as well as the risingissues or
problems related to the course have been resolved and they are
ready to come to the new lesson.
f. Following-up progress
Following up involvesgiving an activity which undertook by
students after the class is finish. The idea of following-up progress
is important to do in order to obtain the lesson objectives and it will
help them to practice their knowledge while out of class, so that
they will able to strengthen their abilities and skills. Some activities
can relate their knowledge, for the case of points, by assigning
students a project, paper, exercise, and home-assignment.
4. Closing Teaching Variation
There are some ways to vary the closing teaching activities. Dr. Rod
Lucero (2006) suggests practice the following ways:
a. Asking questions
The principle to ask questions to students at the end of the class is to
measure the students understanding regarding to the materials that
have been presented as well as to evaluate their ability to provide

lesson summary. The followingare questions that can be addressed in

the closing teaching session.
o What one thing did you learn today?
o How does today's lesson impact your understanding?
o How would you summarise today's lesson for someone who
wasn't here?
o What was the most significant learning from today?
o What "a-ha" did you have today?
o What was the most difficult concept in todays lesson?
b. Sharing
Sharing is conducted due to the limited time of closure session. To
encounter it, teachers can give instruction in simple way.
On a scale of 1-5using your fingersrate today's lesson!
(To eliminate peer pressure, teacher can have everyone close
their eyes.)
The aims of the instruction above are to arousing the students
memory back toward what they have been learnt today, hows the
teacher deliver the class, and hows teacher provide the new lesson to
them today.
Another way, teacher can order the following instruction.
As you leave today, I'll be at the door. Please share with me
one word or concept you learned today.
Furthermore, this activity may provide information to evaluate the
teacher performance indirectly, beside it is also to provide simple
game in the very brief time to students before leaving the class.
c. Commenting
Giving comments also mean reminding toward what already done on
class as well as let them picturing the incoming meeting activities.
Teachers can use the following comment forms.

o Today, we did this..tomorrow we will continue by doing

that.
o Tomorrow you will need to bring
o Tomorrow, we will be the coolest learning experience of your
life!
o Tonights homework is.
d. A Get-Out-of-Class Ticket
Aside its function as game, this also provides a chance to the teacher
to personally connect with students. Saying goodbye by using ticket
is an opportunity to build up individual relationships with the
students which, in turn, helps build up a positive classroom culture.
Teachers can close the teaching session by asking students to write
down one potential test question from today's lesson. Collect them as
the students leave the room, a ticket out of class, if the teachers will.
Hang on to the students. Teachers might want to use one or two on
an upcoming unit exam.
5. Conclusion
Based on the discussion, we can conclude that a well manage closing
session will contribute to the effectiveness of a language lesson. Creating
impressive lessons can be judged upon the closure, it plays a big role in a
lesson. In closure sessions, students may raise issues or problems that they
would like to discuss or resolve. At this time, teachers should come to deal
with the students needs and may also encourage them to ask for suggestion
concerning how the learning atmosphere should be. Furthermore, teacher
should allow students to demonstrate their successful engagement of the
lesson. Together with this, if a summary is necessary, teachers ask students
to do it. All of these ensure the effectiveness of learning. Thus, closure
should be used very well and effectively.

References
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Cambridge. Retrieved on October 20, 2014 from
http://www.cambridge.org/other_files/downloads/esl/fourcorners/
Pedagogical_Books/Creating-Effective-Language-LessonsCombined.pdf
Demir, Nida. 2011. Opening and Closing of the Lesson. Retrieved on
October 21, 2014 from https://www.academia.edu/5659842/
OPENING_AND_CLOSING_OF_THE_LESSON
Frey, Fisherand N.2007.Reflections of English Language Teaching, Vol. 7,
No. 2, pp. 70- 102. Retrieve on December 24, 2014
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df
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https://www.scribd.com/doc
/200653434/Ketrampilan-Membuka-Dan-Menutup-Pelajaran
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http://k6educators.about.com/od/lessonplanheadquarters/
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http://www.edison.k12.nj.us/cms/lib2/NJ01001623/Centricity/Domai
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Toha.
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Dan
15,

Menutup
2014