English Review: Journal of English Education
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SUNDANESE ISOGLOSSES OF LEXICAL VARIATION IN KUNINGAN
Get PDFAbstract: This article discussed the distribution of lexical variation in 32 districts of Kuningan. The study was conducted to uncover dialect maps in Kuningan, their isogloss lines, and also major lexical variations.The study employed descriptive design. The data were collected from 32 respondents by using two methods, questionnaire and interview. Each respondent represents one district of Kuningan. By using judgment sampling technique, the respondents were chosen. The data were analyzed in three ways: populating the data, mapping the data and describing the map. As the result, the study revealed 30 dialect maps in Kuningan. The maps described the distributions of 135 lexical variations and the isogloss lines. The isoglosses lines are mostly overlapped with the others. 70% of the maps indicate that there are “overlapping isoglossesâ€. This indicates that every district in Kuningan has more than one lexical variation in describing one signiï¬ed. Based on the maps; it was also found that the isogloss lines were mostly overlapping. It means that, most of Kuningan people tend to use different lexical variations compared to their surrounding districts. Besides, it was also found that there were ï¬ve major lexical variations used by the Kuningans.Keywords: dialect, lexical variation, isogloss
APPLYING SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO ENHANCE INDONESIAN EFL LEARNERS’ DESCRIPTIVE WRITING PERFORMANCE
Get PDFAbstract: This study investigated the use of scientific approach to enhance students’ descriptive writing skill of seventh grade students in one of junior high schools in Kuningan, Indonesia. The use of scientific approach was examined based on Cuff and Payne (1979), Educational staff development center of ministry of education and culture (2013), and Syahmadi (2014) while students’ attitude was examined using a theory of Wenden (1991), and Gardner (1985). The writer used mix method study. Two instruments were used to get the data needed: test of descriptive text and questionnaire. The result showed that the Ha was accepted and the Ho was rejected as the t observed was higher than t table. Students’ descriptive writing skill in the experimental class enhanced since they were treated throughout scientific approach. It could be seen from the result of post-test (7.89) which increased significantly from pre-test result (3.697). This study also revealed that students’ attitude toward the approach was positive during the treatment. Moreover, this study proved that scientific approach enhanced students’ descriptive writing skill in one of junior high schools in Kuningan, Indonesia and gave positive impact to the students.Keywords: scientific approach, descriptive text, attitud
TEACHERS’ PERCEPTION ON ICT-BASED ENGLISH TEACHING
Get PDFAbstract: This article was related to the teachers’ perception on the application of ICT-based English teaching in Senior High School and the readiness of the teachers and schools in applying the 2013 Curriculum. This qualitative data was described from the interview and the survey during the socialization of the 2013 Curriculum. 8 participants of different ages from different Senior High School in Kuningan Regency were interviewed by phone, direct interview, and Facebook-chatting. The findings showed that most of the senior teachers (80%) of more than 50 years of age were not motivated in using the ICT, 20% of them were familiar with ICT; 60% of the teachers between their 30s and 40s generally understood how to use ICT but seldom implemented the ICT based English teaching because of lack of ICT facilities. Almost 95 % of new English teachers were familiar with ICT and they applied the ICT-based English teaching when the ICT facility was available. Their reasons of not using ICT were lack of ICT literacy, taking too long to learn, and the fact that it was expensive and not always available. The conclusion of this research was that the application of the ICT-based English teaching could not be applied 100% because some teachers were still illiterate with ICT and the ICT facilities were still limited. Keywords :ICT,Teachers’ Perception, the 2013 Curriculum, ICT literacy, ICT-based English Teachin
COLLABORATIVE STRATEGIC READING IMPLEMENTATION TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION
Get PDFAbstract: This collaborative action research is aimed to find out whether or not the implementation of Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) improves students' reading comprehension and also to identify students' attitude towards the implementation of CSR. CSR is reading strategy that employs four strategies namely Preview, Click and Clunk, Get the Gist and Wrap Up during students’ cooperative learning. A class of eleventh grade students of a public senior high school in Majalengka, West Java, Indonesia is participated as the participant of the study. The required data were collected through the use of questionnaire, observation checklist, and reading test. The data from the questionnaire indicated that 82% students had positive attitude toward the implementation of CSR. They feel that CSR improves their motivation in learning English and CSR brings more fun to the process of learning. Moreover, it was found from observation data that the students were actively participated during CSR implementation and they were motivated when comprehending a text by means CSR strategy. Finally, the study proved that CSR improved students’ reading comprehension. Students’ mean score of reading test in the beginning of the study was 67, meanwhile, after applying CSR as reading strategy, their mean scores improved to 88.Keywords: CSR, Reading Comprehension, Action Research
THE USE OF PAIR COMPOSITION METHOD ON STUDENTS’ DESCRIPTIVE WRITING SKILL
Get PDFAbstract: This research was aimed to find out roles of pair composition method on students’ behaviour in learning processes and their writing assessment, and also to find out students’ attitude toward learning process of pair composition method in writing descriptive text in the classroom. Descriptive qualitative method was used in this research. The participants were 33 students of X grade of Senior High School. The data were collected from observation, the result of analysis showed that 66% of the seriousness of students during learning process was high, 78% of enthusiasm of students in doing task was high, and 58% of students’ participation was high. The increasing of students’ assessment was 18,7 from the average score before. The data collected from interview and questionnaire indicated that pair composition method provided the opportunities for sharing ideas, developing text, corresting writing errors, motivating students being active, and 50% students strongly agreed that pair composition method on writing descriptive text was lively and enjoyable.Keywords: Active learning strategy, cooperative learning, pair composition method, descriptive writing, descriptive text
PICTURES FOR IMPROVING INDONESIAN EFL STUDENTS’ SPEAKING COMPETENCE
Get PDFAbstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate whether to what extent pictures can improve students’ speaking competence.  It was carried out at SMAN in Cigugur for three months. The subject of the research was the students of SMAN in Cigugur in the academic year 2012/2013. The research method was classroom research and it was conducted in two cycles. The data was collected through interview, observation, diaries, document and test. The qualitative data were analyzed by using constant comparative method. While the quantitative data were analyzed by descriptive statistic to calculate the mean scores of pre-test, test, and post-test. The research findings show pictures can improve the students’ speaking competence by indicating their speaking fluency, appropriate vocabularies, grammatical sentences, and good pronunciation. The advantages of pictures were also shown by the classroom situation, i.e.: during the speaking class the students can answer teacher’s questions; the students had courage to express their idea freely; the speaking activities was not limited in the written way; and their attention in speaking class.Keywords: Speaking, pictures, students’ competenc
PROBLEMS FACED BY INDONESIAN EFL LEARNERS IN WRITING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY
Get PDFAbstract: This study aims to find out problems in writing argumentative essay faced by Indonesian EFL learners. It is carried out in a qualitative research design as it attempted to describe the problems and their ways out. The data were taken from university students’ writing task and interview. The participants are the second year of university Indonesia students who enrol their study in English Department. Results of the data indicated that Indonesian EFL learners faced the problems in three categories, those are linguistics problems, cognitive problems, and psychological problems. Mostly, students faced problems in linguistics related to the grammatical structure (23.2%), formatting words (30.2%), words classes (16.3%), error in using words (9.3%), and the use of article (21%). Second, cognitive problems are related to organizing paragraph, difficulties in remaining word classes, getting lost the generic structure, making a conclusion, and putting punctuation. Last, psychological problems which included laziness, egoism, bad mood, and difficulties to start writing also faced by Indonesian EFL learners. Data analysis also indicated the problem solving which hopefully will be beneficial for EFL teachers in writing class. It is strongly recommended that the EFL class should strengthen all the language skills in general and writing in particular, motivate the students to use English with the teachers, introduce pair work, peer-correction, and use dictionaries frequently etc.Keywords: argumentative essay, linguistics problems, cognitive problems, psychological problem
THE PORTRAIT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE SUBJECT IN AN INDONESIAN PRIVATE HIGHER EDUCATION OF COMPUTER SCIENCE (HECS)
Get PDFAbstract: At the tertiary level in Indonesia, English language subject is mandatory as a general education course, especially for those non English programs/ departments. How this subject be positioned in an Indonesian Private Higher Education of Computer Science (HECS)’ curriculum, that later breeds the representation of the subjects on its teaching materials and its teaching and learning process by the teacher, and the students’s perceptions on such implementation of English subjects in the classroom become the concerns of this study. Qualitative research by using interviews, questionnaires and documents were used to collect the data. From the study, it was found that in this institution English is considered as an English for Speciï¬c Purposes(ESP), though regarded as a minor subject, yet itsexistence is considered as important. This perception is acceptable by all stakeholder (the institution, the lecturer and the students).Keywords: English, Higher Education of Computer Science, English for Speciï¬c Purpose
PERSON DEIXIS IN USA PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN SPEECHES
Get PDFAbstract: This study investigates the use of person deixis in presidential campaign speeches. This study is important because the use of person deixis in political speeches has been proved by many studies to give significant effects to the audience. The study largely employs a descriptive qualitative method. However, it also employs a simple quantitative method in calculating the number of personal pronouns used in the speeches and their percentages. The data for the study were collected from the transcriptions of six presidential campaign speeches of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney during the campaign rally in various places across the United States of America in July, September, and November 2012. The results of this study show that the presidential candidates make the best use of pronouns as a way to promote themselves and to attack their opponents. The results also suggest that the use of pronouns in the speeches enables the candidates to construct positive identity and reality, which are favorable to them and make them appear more eligible for the position.Keywords: person deixis, presidential campaign speeches, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney Â
LINGUISTIC FEATURES ANALYSIS OF THE ENGLISH ELECTRONIC COMMERCE WEBSITES
Get PDFAbstract:Â This research aims at identifying linguistic features used in the English electronic commerce websites used in correlation with the field, tenor and mode of discourse as parts of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) approach. Findings have shown that in the field of discourse, the linguistic features are largely appeared in the experiential domain analysis which shows that all terms of registers function as technical terms, of which the two major forms of nouns and verbs were the most frequent categories among other kinds of technical terms. The goal orientation is considered to be as a long term and the social activity is exchange. In the tenor of discourse, the linguistic features are highly appeared in the social distance analysis which shows that the social distance between participants is considered minimal. The agentive role is said to be equal and the social role is considered as non-hierarchic. In the mode of discourse, the linguistic features are excessively occurred in the language role analysis which exists equally of both constitutive and ancillary. The channel is in graphic mode. The medium is in written with a visual contact as its device.Key words: systemic functional linguistics, register, discours