English Review: Journal of English Education
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SCIENTIFIC APPROACH OF 2013 CURRICULUM: TEACHERS’ IMPLEMENTATION IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING
Get PDFThe research is aimed at investigating the teachers’ implementation of scientific approach in English Language Teaching in one state junior high school in Bandung Regency. In addition, this research discusses the conformation of the Scientific Approach implementation and the lesson plans based on the 2013 curriculum. This research employs a case study qualitative research design. The data were obtained from classroom observation and teachers’ lesson plan analysis and interview. The findings showed that the teachers implemented the scientific stages in English Language Teaching. They conducted observing, questioning, experimenting, associating and communicating in the sequence activities. Besides, the teachers can demonstrate the student-centered learning strengthened by collaborative, cooperative, active and meaningful learning. However, concerning the conformation of the implementation with lesson plans, based on the indicators, learning objectives, learning materials, learning media, scientific stages and Scientific Approach model (discovery learning, inquiry leaning, problem based learning and project based learning), the teachers still have to underline and mention the Scientific Approach model and state learning objectives. Furthermore, the other components have been presented well in both teaching and lesson plans.Keywords: English language teaching, lesson plan, scientific approach, teaching practice, the 2013 curriculu
THE USE OF AUTHENTIC MATERIAL IN TEACHING WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT
Get PDFThis study was conducted to figure out the effectiveness of using authentic materials in teaching writing descriptive text. The study was carried out at one of private universities in Bandung. This study used authentic materials from magazine, newspaper and internet articles as teaching media. The reason of using authentic materials taken from magazine, newspaper and internet was that they could bring the students into a non-threatening atmosphere in the classroom and link the classroom environment with the real world (Clark, 2000). In this study, the qualitative and quantitative methods were applied to gather the data. The data of this study were collected through pretests, posttest, and questionnaires. The findings indicated that using authentic materials in teaching descriptive writing had a significant role in improving students’ writing skill with the significance of 0.05 (α 0.05). The result of t-obs was 3.218 and t-crit was 2.042. This result was supported by the questionnaire results in which the participants showed positive opinions in learning descriptive writing using authentic materials. Finally, it is expected that this study will give beneficial contribution to the teaching of writing for college students in which the technique applied is recommended to be used as an appropriate alternative to improve students’ writing competence.Keywords: descriptive writing, authentic material
EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF FREE VOLUNTARY READING IN UPGRADING UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' CREATIVE WRITING AT AL BAHA UNIVERSITY
Get PDFThe purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of free voluntary reading in upgrading university students' creative writing at Al-Baha University. It introduces the types of free voluntary reading that can be employed by the students. In order to achieve this, thirty students at Al-Baha University enrolling in the BA program in English department were chosen randomly. The descriptive analytic method then applied in this study. Pre-test and post-test designed for the students and a questionnaire directed to the teachers were used as tools of collecting data. Finally, the results revealed that free voluntary reading plays critical roles in upgrading the students’ creative writing. Also, the teachers highly appreciate the contributions of free voluntary reading materials in pushing forward the students' achievement. Keywords: free voluntary reading, university students, BA program, creative writin
DEVELOPING ESL/EFL LEARNERS’ PUBLIC SPEAKING SKILLS THROUGH PECHA KUCHA PRESENTATIONS
Get PDFIn the 21st century workplace, there has been an increasing demand for graduates to possess communicative competence particularly in speaking. Anchored on the 21st Century Learning Framework (Partnership for 21st Century Skills or P21, 2006) and the TPACK Framework (Koehler & Mishra, 2009), this study reports findings on the pedagogical viability of utilizing Pecha Kucha 20x20 Presentations in developing students’ competence and confidence while presenting in the language classroom. Research participants include 43 English as Second Language (ESL) learners taking Speech Communication classes in a private university in Manila, the Philippines during the second semester of the academic year 2016-2017. Research data from students’ reflections, interviews, survey, and focus group discussion (FGD) suggest that despite some format and technological limitations, delivering Pecha Kucha presentations may help students develop their English speaking and oral presentation skills, build their confidence in speaking before an audience, and practice their English macro skills such as listening and reading. In the light of these findings, pedagogical implications are provided for ESL (English as a second language) and EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers, communication educators, and researchers.Keywords: Teaching speaking, Pecha Kucha Presentations, ESL public speaking, TPAC
ENGLISH TEACHERS’ PROBLEMS IN APPLYING THE 2013 CURRICULUM
Get PDFThe 2013 curriculum is regarded as the current issue for teachers and students. This curriculum is based on the competencies concerning on implementing four aspects of spiritual, attitude, knowledge and skills in order to achieve students’ character building. This study, moreover, investigates the teachers’ problems in applying the 2013 curriculum at vocational high school in Tegal. Four English teachers are observed and interviewed to obtain data. The data is analyzed referring to four points; a) preparing lesson plan, b) applying the steps of teaching learning activities, c) preparing media, and d) making evaluation. The result shows that; a) three teachers do not prepare lesson plan before their teaching learning process, b) for all teachers, they understand the principles of scientific approach and the basic concept of 2013 curriculum (i.e. inquiry-based learning, project-based learning, discovery-learning, problem-based learning and task-based learning) but they do not apply it in their teaching, c) one teacher prepares the teaching media but the others do not prepare it, and d) all teachers get difficulties in assessing students’ attitude (behaviour).Keywords: English teachers’ problem, the 2013 curriculu
TEACHERS’ QUESTIONING STRATEGIES TO ELICIT STUDENTS’ VERBAL RESPONSES IN EFL CLASSES AT A SECONDARY SCHOOL
Get PDFThis article reports on a study aimed at exploring and examining English language teachers’ skills in questioning to enhance students’ verbal repsonses in EFL (English as a Foreign language) classes. This was a qualitative case study, employing discourse analysis, conducted in one junior high school in a town in Central Java Province, Indonesia. The research participants were two Indonesian teachers of English language. They taught Year Eight students in the academic year of 2015/2016. The data were collected from audio-video recordings, transcripts of the lessons, classroom observations notes, and teachers’ interviews. The transcriptions were analysed by using Wu’s taxonomy of questioning strategies (1993) as it gave a detailed categorization of teachers’ questions to stimulate students’ verbal responses. The findings showed that the teachers used mostly four questioning strategies. The first teacher often applied decomposition strategy where the initial question was elaborated into some questions, while the second teacher tended to use repetition strategy. This study has shown that teachers’ questioning skills is crucial to successfully make students engaged in the classroom interaction, enhance students’ verbal responses, and lead to the comprehension of the lesson. Therefore, it is suggested that teachers should be more aware of their questioning skills to assist students achieve better proficiency in the English language. Keywords: Teachers’ questioning strategies, students’ verbal responses, EFL classes, classroom discourse analysi
NEED ANALYSIS: THE WRITING SKILL INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIAL CONTEXT FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES
Get PDFThe required instructional material should be designed based on students needs. This study is intended toidentify 1) material design and organization, 2) language content, and 3) method and techniqueof the writing skill instructional material context for academic purposes which appropriate with studentscharacteristics and their situationrelated to the need of writing skills for academic purposes at non-English education study programs of STKIP Kusuma Negara Jakarta. The descriptive survey was used in identifying its material context through questionnaire, semi-structured interview and non-participant observation. The respondents were non-English education study programs students duringthe fifth semester in academicyear of 2016-2017.The result showed that 1) It is required to have clear and easily understandable writing instructional material for academic purposes; 2) The required language content is related to a)rhetorical-functional (descriptive, narrative, classifying and identifying); b) academic genres, in the forms of essay and report; c)writing process; d) summarizing; e) paraphrasing; 3) The method and techniques which are applied to instructional material must empower thestudents to practice a lot through communicative and applicative activities. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that need analysis should be the starting point in designing the instructional material, due to it is a process to determine students needs according to their wants, lacks, and necessities.Keywords: need analysis, writing for academic purposes, instructional material contex
THE GAP BETWEEN LEARNING NEEDS AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION IN ENGLISH FOR HOSPITALITY SPECIFIC PURPOSES PROGRAM
Get PDFThis study is to reveal the gap between the English language communicative competence required by students of the hospitality department and English learning program provided at state of Vocational High School 1 Tasikmalaya, Indonesia, drawing through qualitative evaluation approach, including semi-structured interviews and observations. It explores how learning needs is implemented in teaching-learning process and the respondents description, what they saw and what they felt. Findings show inconsistency between learning needs in enrichment students English communicative competence and teaching-learning process. This prompts a re-instructional design of English learning for hospitality specific purposes program at this department currently. It provides to support of graduating required at hospitality industry workplace. Lead of recommendations, in terms of both the instructional design including materials development, teaching method usage and the professional development of ESP teachers, to address an understanding of the gap identified, so that students will enable to communicate more effectively with the English, in such contexts graduates can hire at the hospitality industry workplace.Keywords: learning needs, pre-vocational English field, authentic materials and teaching method
TEACHING WRITING USING THINK-PAIR-SHARE VIEWED FROM STUDENTS’ LEVEL OF RISK-TAKING
Get PDFWriting is considered as the most difficult skill to master compared with the other skills because it involves many language elements such as content, organization, vocabulary, grammar and mechanics. The research examines the effect of two independent variables (Think-Pair-Share and Direct instruction method) on dependent variable (Writing Descriptive skill). The samples were class A1 2016 as the experimental class and A3 2016 as the control class. Each class consisted of 32 students. The instruments used covered the risk-taking’s questionnaire and writing test. Before applying the questionnaire of risk-taking, it was tried out to class A2 2016 to find out the validity and the reliability of the instrument. Meanwhile, before conducting the writing test, it needs to test the readability of the writing instruction. The treatment was conducted in eight meetings, and the 9th meeting was allocated for the post-test. The data were then analyzed using ANOVA and Tukey test. From the analysis, it reveals that: (1) Think-Pair-Share is significantly different from direct instruction method to teach writing; (2) the students with high level of risk-taking have better writing than those with low level of risk-taking; and (3) there is an interaction between teaching methods and the students’ level of risk-taking. Even though Think-Pair-Share is effective to teach writing, teachers must consider about the students’ condition, in this case their level of risk-taking.Keywords: Think-Pair-Share, Direct instruction method, Writing descriptive text, Risk-Takin
THE EFFECTS OF HOMOGENEOUS AND HETEROGENEOUS PUSHED OUTPUT INSTRUCTIONS ON SPEAKING COMPLEXITY
Get PDFThis study was set out to investigate the efficacy of homogeneous and heterogeneous pushed output based instruction on upper-intermediate EFL learner’ speaking complexity. To do so, 41 (17 males and 24 females) EFL learners were selected from University of Zabol based on the results of OPT. Then, they were put in control and experimental groups based on the predetermined criteria. Retelling and decision making tasks were used in the treatments of experimental groups while control group received placebo during 15 sessions, twice a week. Public versions of IELTS speaking test were used as pre/post-test. The results of Independent sample t-test indicated that experimental groups outperformed control group. On the other hand, statistical analyses showed no significant differences between male and female speech complexity. To sum up, the findings demonstrated the fruitful effects of collaborative pushed output activities on speaking sub-skills. Likewise, the results suggested the implementation of similar strategies in the development of male and female speaking dimensions. Based on the findings, it can be claimed that teacher preparation programs should put teaching speaking on their list of priorities and provide courses on effective strategies for the development of speaking dimensions through implementing the main tenants of pushed output hypothesis.Keywords: homogeneous, heterogeneous, complexity, speaking, pushed outpu