Journal of English Language Teaching and Linguistics
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Supplementing Coursebooks--How, Why, and to What Effect: A Case Study
Get PDFThis article reports on a case study of one instructor’s use of supplementary materials in an English as a Foreign Language course in China. Starting with the notion that no coursebook can be perfect and that supplementary materials therefore should form part of an English course, the study employed qualitative research methods to analyze the types of supplements used, the instructor’s rationale behind his use of the supplements, and the students’ interpretations of the supplements. Class observations, semi-structured interviews with the teacher, and focus-group discussions with students allowed for the triangulation of data. Findings indicated that the instructor provided a variety of types of supplementary materials in order to cater to different learner needs (specifically, affective needs, language-learning needs, course-content needs). While findings also indicated that learners generally appreciated the instructor’s use of supplementary materials, significant mismatches between instructor goals and learner interpretations suggested that the purpose of the supplements was not always clearly defined. The article addresses these mismatches and provides suggestions for their future avoidance
The Effectiveness of Local Wisdom-Based Teaching Materials in Enhancing Creative Writing Skills of Elementary School Students
Get PDFThis study aims at describing the effectiveness of local wisdom-based teaching materials on the creative writing skills of elementary school students. The sample of the study was 2nd-grade students at SDN 1 Campurdarat, which amounted to 45 students. The research design uses quasi-experimental research in the form of a nonrandomized control group pretest-posttest design. The data were collected using the instrument of creative writing skills. The analysis was performed by different tests using the Wilcoxon formula. The results showed that there were differences before and after the use of teaching materials based on local wisdom towards students' creative writing skills. The results of evaluating creative writing on each learning from learning 1 to 6 show the students' mastery in achieving creative writing criteria
Critical Literacy for ELT in Indonesia: What EFL Teachers should be Aware of
Get PDFThis article explores the basic and important issues related to critical literacy for ELT in Indonesia. Hopefully, it could contribute to improving EFL teachers’ understanding of critical literacy, particularly in Indonesia. Critical literacy is still considered as a new approach in EFL contexts. However, it is promising such benefits for both students and teachers for it might contribute to developing both teachers’ and students’ critical manners in reading and writing. This article describes the concept of critical literacy. Then, it elaborates the appropriate learning sources and activities to support the development of students’ critical literacy. After that, it describes some challenges for implementing critical literacy in ELT in the Indonesian context briefly. Finally, it offers conclusions on the important points of the topic.
Graphic Organizer as Strategy to Teach Extensive Reading on Non-Fiction for EFL Learners
Get PDFThe research was conducted based on the teaching and learning Extensive Reading on Non-fiction for second-semester students of English Language Education Department of STKIP PGRI Trenggalek. The research was aimed to apply graphic organizer appropriate with the type of non-fiction passage. The graphic organizers utilized in the research were Keep-in-Time Sequence String for Chronological Order passage, Venn Diagram for Compare and Contrast passage and Character Traits for Description passage. The research was also intended to know the students’ comprehension of the passage after the utilization of graphic organizer and their response toward the use of a graphic organizer in learning extensive reading. The students’ comprehension was evaluated by summarization. They were assigned to summarize each passage based on the graphic organized arranged in the previous activity. Meanwhile, the attitude scale was used to know the students’ response during the utilization of graphic organizer in learning extensive reading. The score of the summarization revealed that the students’ reading comprehension was good. The average of their summarization was 81.67. Based on the result of the attitude scale, the students gave a good response toward the utilization of graphic organizer in learning extensive reading
Motivating EFL Learners Comprehensively: Applying Dörnyei’s Taxonomy of Classroom Motivational Strategies
No full textLearning English as a foreign language is considered as a long-term process. During the period of learning, students might undergo ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ issue related to motivation swings. It is believed that motivated learners likely to outperform others who have high language aptitude but possess low motivation. For this reason, EFL teachers are required to involve strategies that captivate EFL students’ motivation. Motivating students should not only rely on immediate teaching strategies or a single activity since learning English as a foreign language is not an immediate process. Students tend to show fluctuated motivation in a time while in the other occasions could suffer in learning. Hence, how motivation is considered as a process rather than a single state is described. Examining other perspective about motivation and the changing of focus in researching motivation show that seeing motivation as a process indicates more promising results for EFL students’ learning accomplishment. Pointing out the importance of motivation in English learning attainment and the need of continuum process in motivating students, this paper offers the practical and comprehensive classroom motivational strategies by applying Dörnyei’s motivational taxonomy
Measuring the Effect of Parents’ Socio-economic Status and Early Literacy Experience on Moroccan Students’ Reading Comprehension Development: An Illustration from PIRLS 2016
Get PDFBecause students’ reading development is a subject to many influences, home-based factors constitute important components in this process. Parents socio-economic status (parents’ occupation and educational level) as well as early literacy experience before school are strongly linked to students’ reading comprehension achievement. However, less is known about home-based effects on Moroccan students’ reading comprehension development. This research is concerned with investigating the relations between early literacy experience before school, parents’ occupation and educational level and reading comprehension development. This study is framed within developmental systems framework. This perspective states that influences on reading achievement do not exist in isolation and that we must direct attention towards examining the interactions between the different layers of the systems (psychological and contextual factors) and the learners’ developmental outcomes (reading comprehension achievement). The reading comprehension is measured based on two reading purposes; a) reading for literary experience, b) reading to acquire and use information. Data of 7805 grade 4 students participating in PIRLS 2016 (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) is investigated. A multilevel linear regression analysis is used to model the relationship between parents’ SES, early literacy experience and reading comprehension achievement. These home-based factors explain 15% of variance in reading achievement. Early literacy activities before school and parents’ educational level, particularly fathers’ education have a substantial impact on reading comprehension achievement. These findings have important practical implications for encouraging early literacy experience before school and enhancing parents’ educational involvemen
Fostering Students’ Reading Comprehension Ability through Directed Reading Thinking Activities (DRTA) Strategy
Get PDFThe current curriculum school reform in Indonesia supported the students to be a critical thinker in the sense that the students become a centered of teaching instruction in the school life. This changing becomes a new demand for the teacher as an educator to facilitate their learners with teaching aids practices that adjust learners to be actively participate in the classroom. Thus, this study used Directed Reading Thinking Activities (DRTA) to reveal the effectiveness of this strategy on the students’ reading comprehension teaching. A quasi-experimental research design with pretest and posttest was used in this study. Two classes were randomly selected as the sample of this research. They are class 8C which used Directed Reading Activities (DRA) as the control group, while class 8H becomes the experimental group which used Directed Reading Thinking Activities (DRTA). Independent and dependent (paired) sample t-tests were used to analyze the data. The research finding showed: 1) there were no significant differences of posttest score among the students taught by using DRTA and those taught by using DRA strategy in reading comprehension teaching, 2) there were significant effects of using DRTA in reading comprehension teaching for grade eight students. DRTA strategy was believed to give more contribution (82%) than DRA strategy which contributed only 77%. In conclusion, DRTA was effective strategy in reading comprehension teaching
A Discourse Analysis: Cohesion of the Introduction Section of Research Article
Get PDFAs an effort to give contribution to the existing knowledge, it is expected for the undergraduate students to compose an engaging research article in order to convince the readers about the importance of the research article. However, there is only a little attention given to the articles written by the undergraduate students although it is considered very critical to examine whether the exposure of English academic writing has significantly enhances the writing competence of the students. Furthermore, as it is also very crucial to build a meaningful semantic meaning among the sentences in order to disclose the worthiness of the research article, it is essential to analyze the cohesion of the research article written by the undergraduate students. Henceforth, the present research is projected to investigate the cohesion of the research articles written by the undergraduate students of English Language Teaching. As the introduction section of research article is likely to be an area to portray the logical explanation of the research, the present research solely focuses on examining the cohesion of the introduction section of research article. By adopting a qualitative design and involving several steps to analyze the introduction section, it is revealed that the grammatical cohesion is considered to be the most utilized type of cohesion in writing the introduction section. Still, the lexical cohesion is also necessary to build an eloquent semantic meaning about the topic as well the importance of the research article
External Factors Causing Students’ Difficulties in Listening
Get PDFTo become a good speaker, one has to be a good listener because naturally people cannot speak properly before listening first. Listening is an important requirement, and also a basic competence to be a good speaker in English. Listening is not an easy process since one who listens must be able to distinguish between sounds, understand the vocabulary and grammatical structures, as well as interpret the meaning at the same time. Listening in English requires focus and attention yet, in fact, many students tend to have several difficulties to focus in listening practice. The article aims to show the external factors affecting the students’ difficulty within each process of listening comprehension. The external factors include the speaker, the context of material, and the physical setting. By adopting qualitative design, it is found that the external factors have the higher potential to influence the students’ focus negatively than the students’ physical condition and behavior which are known as internal factors. Moreover, through several findings based on the library research, it is revealed that the external factors are linked to each process of listening. Suggestions with the effective ways to resolve the difficulties in listening are provided
Group Dynamics and Student Participation in a Chinese Setting: Teacher and Observer Perspectives
Get PDFThis article addresses the frequently discussed notion of Chinese students’ supposed reticence and passivity in the English as a Foreign Language classroom. Using the concept of group dynamics as a starting point, it examines teachers’ classroom-management techniques in terms of promoting (or not promoting) active student participation. The study, using a grounded theory of research, analyzed classroom data obtained from class observations and from class filmings and supplemented these data with post-lesson interviews with the four involved teachers. Findings suggested that Chinese students were not necessarily reticent or passive but rather engaged actively when given a learning environment conducive to active engagement. The study pointed to three practical implications for classroom teachers: (1) promoting participation by working toward group cohesion, (2) promoting participation by providing effective teacher-student scaffolding and by providing opportunities for student-student scaffolding, (3) promoting participation by actively replacing textbook materials in order more effectively to offer students adequate support in terms of both language and affect. Acknowledging the fact that different institutional contexts may require different classroom-management techniques, the study calls for further testing of the present findings in other Chinese settings