Indonesian JELT
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Rethinking the place of religious discourse in academic discourse: A critique of Amber Engelson
Get PDFThis article critiques some arguments on religious discourse in the context of academic discourse recently proposed by Engelson (2014). In relation to this critique, four points are raised: religious identities in academic discourse, structural inequities of the spread of English in the Indonesian context, Indonesian rhetorical traditions, and the role of religious expression in academic discourse
Appropriations of policies related to L2 academic writing practices in an Indonesian EFL teacher education program
Get PDFThe current study investigates state and local polices that regulate academic writing and how they are appropriated in an English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) teacher education program in Indonesia. The significance of the current study lies in its affirmation to the notion that policy appropriations are multi-layered. That is, government policies may or may not be translated into local de jure and de facto regulations, and in turn these local policies evolve as they are used and negotiated among colleagues and/or with students. In an attempt to understand the layers of appropriations, interviews with four local instructors were conducted. This research will pave the way for further praxes to provide quality academic-writing instructions, in the light of, or regardless of, the state regulations
Integrating reading and writing in academic writing class
Get PDFBased on the theories and empirical data of the advantages of orchestrating integrated skills in the classroom and the connections between reading and writing skill, this study aims to find out the effects of integrated reading-writing instruction on students’ writing ability. The moderating effect of cognitive styles was also investigated. The present study adopted a quasi-experimental design with 2 x 2 factorial analyses. The subjects of this study were 87 students at STKIP PGRI Jombang. An experimental group using integrated reading-writing instruction was randomly assigned for comparison with a group using a traditional teaching model. At first, the participants were asked to perform Group Embedded Figure Test (GEFT) to determine their cognitive styles. After that, the participants were asked to write an expository essay as the pre-test to justify that both groups had the same writing ability before the treatment. After seven meetings of treatment, they were asked to write another expository essay as the post-test. Based on ANOVA analyses, it was found that the students taught by using integrated reading-writing instruction did not achieve significantly better writing score than students taught by writing instruction only: neither for the field-independent students nor the field-dependent ones
The myth (& some myths) of teaching American culture
No full textIn this paper, the author opens by noting how culture influences outattitudes, emotions, beliefs, and values in pervasive ways. She thenasks how and why myths and generalizations emerge about theculture of various nation-states, regions, or even specific cocultureswithin these nations and regions. The simple answer is weform generalizations and develop myths to create comprehensibleframeworks of comparison regarding the systems of values andbeliefs held, and the codes of conduct followed by the majority ofthe people whose language we teach or study. We seek to createthese frameworks to interconnect the teaching of culture andlanguage, for usually language is taught as a system in (and of)itself, with its rules, exceptions, right answers and wrong answers.If culture is taught, it is usually infused into the language class inone of four common approaches. The author cites these fourcommon approaches to teaching culture: (1) the FrankensteinApproach, (2) the 4-F Approach, (3) the Tour-Guide Approach,and (4) the “By-The-Way” Approach); she warns of the inherentrisk involved in adopting any or all of these facile approaches, thatrisk being the creation and promulgation of cultural generalizations(even “myths”) that need tempering, and eventually revising.Referencing myths can make the teaching of culture easier, but itcan create problems when reality enters the scene. As an example,the author delves into a number of myths promulgated aboutAmericans university culture; these myths constitute sweepinggeneralizations that demand more greater and greater refinementand “reality checks.” The author ends with noting that “Americanculture” is a moving target that needs to be viewed as an evolvingentity that will continue to evolve and change as geopolitical,national, and regional events surface and cause continuous changein that moving target, American cultures
Cognitive grammar on "smash": Perspectives from Langacker's framework
Get PDFThe language system allows us to express perceived events in different ways using different linguistic resources. Ability to perform this task goes beyond the notion of prescriptive grammar, which makes no connection between language and the cognitive mind. Cognitive grammar focuses on the way we construct our ideas. Meaning is equated with conceptualization. Semantic structures are characterized Based on the ideas and theses posited by Langacker with regards to Cognitive Grammar, we seek to illustrate how our cognitive minds help us manipulate the use of language, especially the grammatical items
The fishbowl strategy: An effective way to improve students' speaking ability
Get PDFSpeaking is one of essential language skills in communication. Language teachers are expected to bring an effective method in classroom to improve students’ speaking skills. Based on the preliminary study in language classroom SMA Xaverius Ambon, teachers had limited knowledge of creative method in teaching speaking which can be integrated to curriculum. Thus, the use of Fishbowl strategy can provide opportunity in the form of Fish and the Bowl for each student to practice speaking in the classroom while considering about current curriculum. In the Fishbowl, each student can take a turn to deliver the ideas, and everyone has the equal chance to speak. This research focused on the implementation of Fishbowl strategy to improve speaking ability of 30 students from first grade of SMA Xaverius Ambon. The research methodology was a classroom action research. At the end of implementing fishbowl, the researcher gave the questionnaire to know students’ perception toward the use of Fishbowl strategy. Based on the research findings, there were 26,6% successful students at the pre-test. After conducting fishbowl, 100% of students in the classroom had improvement in their speaking skill because each of them had more chance to speak up something related to the topic given
Telling English in a Foreign Language: Quite another story
Get PDFThe purpose of the present study is to examine how first-year Thai undergraduate students who learn English as a Foreign Language (EFL) using referential forms in telling a coherent story in English. Participants were at intermediate level of English proficiency. Using Mayer’s wordless picture book “Frog, Where Are You?” (1969) as prompts, the participants were asked to tell the story in English. The narratives were tape-recorded and later analyzed. The data were coded on three criteria: (1) referential forms (2) discourse contexts and (3) grammatical functions. The result of the study demonstrates that Thai EFL learners employ several linguistic expressions to maintain clear reference to the characters in their narratives, one of which is using a full noun phrase when referring to a character first introduced in the story and one already mentioned. A pronoun is used if the referent is the subject of the previous clause. This finding suggests that Thai EFL learners’ referential strategies in narratives are similar to those of the native English speakers to a certain extent. Possible factors accounted for their limited linguistic ability to achieve complete discourse cohesion in English storytelling include language transfer, over-explicitness, and topic discontinuity
Mapping grammatical errors in speech production of junior and senior students: A case study
Get PDFAcquiring a foreign language requires a student to master the two elements of language, vocabulary and grammar, and the four language skills, listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Within each skill, these two language elements play a considerably essential role since they are seen as the very core aspects of language learning and that they are regarded inherent in each of these skills. Thus, vocabulary and grammatical aspects cannot be separated from the four language skills in language acquisition as without any one of which each skill is never acquired.
Since the implementation of communicative approach in 1984 to the application of the competency-based language teaching in Indonesia, English programs at high schools have been meaning or message based rather than language usage or form oriented. As a result, grammar learning has been significantly kept aside if not totally ignored in class interactions, and that communication success becomes the main target in instructional objectives. This study attempts to map grammatical errors the students make in their speech productions. It employs an interview technique for data collection by recording the conversations of twenty respondents - - junior and senior students - - on a selected issue of a particular topic and transcribing them in the form of written transcripts which are then to be analyzed from a grammatical perspective with the reference of grammar books. Those violating the grammatical norms will be considered as grammatical errors. It has been found out that learners’ grammatical errors are derived from two major causes - - translating concepts of L1 into L2 and their approximative system. This study concludes that the communicative classrooms which utilize the competency-based language teaching bring about a positive impact upon grammar learning. This research is significant as it gives a great contribution to structure and speaking class teachers, students, as well as to the department for policy making
Factors affecting a successful language learner
Get PDFThis paper reports an investigation of factors affecting a successful language learner. It describes how events throughout the learning processes support the learners in becoming successful in learning English as a second language (EFL). Data was collected from personal experiences regarding English language learning by the three student participants and three lecturer participants in the English Department Manado State University, Indonesia. Semi-structured interviews and personal narratives were used to gather the data. There were three key themes generated from the interview data: family and community, institutional influences and individual factors. The findings highlight that family members, teachers and individuals play important roles in supporting learners becoming successful in learning English
Factors contributing to the implementation of a web-based paragraph writing class
No full textThis study aims to see factors contributing to the implementation of a web-based Paragraph Writing class. The survey research design using open-ended questionnaire was implemented to find out the aspects, and based on the factors found from the questionnaire, an interview was developed to clarify how the factors really contributed to the students’ writing skills. The subjects were the English Letters Department students of Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta who were taking Paragraph Writing classes during the even semester academic year 2010/2011. The results show that there are twelve high factors and also one other factor contributing to the implementation of the web-based Paragraph Writing class