‘Another Place, Another Feeling’: Narrating the Emotional Geography of an Indonesian English Teacher

Commencing his teaching career as a university students’ English teacher in a religious surrounding, Harry, with his free-will and open-minded personality, has experienced a turbulent feeling. He was sometimes confused to situate himself in certain situations which turned him out to be a little bit more clunky. Within the framework of Hargreaver’s (2001) emotional geography, this present study explores the life of Harry amidst his two years teaching experience at one university in Tasikmalaya, West Java, Indonesia. This scrutiny was geared by employing in-depth interviews. Utilizing narrative inquiry as the research methodology, the researchers share the stories of Harry when updating into a novel teaching and cultural circumstance and delving into his emotional ups and downs. The findings of this study revealed five major issues, namely (1) Harry needs to be more careful when engaging with the students (2) teaching is the work of the soul, no matter what (3) exhaustion is very human, (4) experienced-based teaching practice, and (5) having supportive colleagues truly help.

The Correlation between University Students’ Vocabulary Learning Strategies and The Vocabulary Mastery Level

This research was intended to find the correlation between the students’ vocabulary learning strategies and the vocabulary mastery level. The research design of this study was a quantitative research and the study population was the second year students of English study program FKIP Universitas Riau. 41 participants were selected from the second year students of English Study Program FKIP Universitas Riau using the cluster random sampling technique. The instruments of this study were vocabulary learning strategy questionnaire and vocabulary level test. The data showed that 53.7% of students was used the vocabulary learning strategy in learning new vocabularies and 31.7% students were high vocabulary level. Moreover, the result of the study indicated that there was a negative correlation between two variables. The value of correlation coefficient was 0.813. It was on scale 0.00 – 1.00. It meant that the correlation between the students’ vocabulary learning strategies and the vocabulary mastery level of the second year students were categorized as high correlation. This research would assist students to understand the correlation between used the strategy in learning new vocabularies in order to increase the level of vocabulary mastery.

Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy: Is It Effective to Improve Vocabulary Mastery Achievement on Senior High School Students?

The objective of this research was to find out whether there was a significant difference in vocabulary mastery between students who were taught using vocabulary self-collection strategy and those who were taught using a conventional method. This research used a quantitative approach with the experimental method of quasi-experimental design. There were 60 students involved as a sample of this research selected using the purposive cluster sampling technique. The instrument used was a test including pretest and posttest. Data were analyzed using Mann Whitney U test. The result indicated that the score of Asymp Sig. (2-tailed) was 0.001 which was fewer than α (0.05). It meant there was a significant difference in vocabulary mastery between students who were taught using vocabulary self-collection strategy and those who were taught using the conventional method. Furthermore, based on the result of the N-Gain test, it was found that the vocabulary self-collection strategy was more effective than the conventional method.

Developing Narrative Text-Based Module for Teaching Reading Comprehension: Focus on Practicality

This paper shows the function of a narrative text-based module to develop students reading skills. The research design is R & D (Research and Development), focusing on students' practicality. The researcher tried to find out the analysis and the practicality of the module in designing and implementing reading in a narrative text based-module. The sample was selected from second-semester students at the English Department of FKIP UIR. The students were given a test to be answered to find out the practicality, which consisted of pre-test and post-test. The module provides exercises that encourage the students to develop their reading comprehension. This module combines summary and references in every unit of the module. This module provides a formative test with an answer key at the end of each chapter.

The Students’ Perspective of Using Instagram as a Writing Assignment Platform

This study aimed to find out the students’ perspective of using Instagram as a writing assignment platform. Using a qualitative research method, this study involved the students of the 2nd semester in English Department Universitas Islam Syekh-Yusuf Tangerang. There were 61 students in writing class who were involved as the participants. It used the technique of survey with open-ended questionnaire as the instrument of data collection The results show that almost all students have positive perspective towards Instagram as a writing assignment platform. The participants found out that Instagram was fun, easy, and effective media to be used in doing writing assignment. Although, there were also some barriers in using it such as, bad internet network and privacy issue. It can be concluded that, Instagram can be one of useful teaching media, especially for writing, as long as it is used and supervised appropriately.

Psychological Problems Encountered by EFL Students in Speaking Class at Universitas Islam Riau

The target of the study is to give perspectives to the English teachers or lecturers about the psychological problems encountered by students. It also will be used as the basic information for teachers or lecturers to find the best way in teaching and learning English especially in English speaking skill classroom. This study was a qualitative design that would be analyzed in form of description and were collected from the second semester students of English Study Program of Universitas Islam Riau. The questionnaires were distributed to 15 students while five out of them were interviewed to assure their responses towards 18 statements in the questionnaire. Moreover, the questionnaire comprised statements that based on the psychological problem that consist of low of self-confidence, anxiety, and low of self-esteem. It was found that the students faced the psychological problem. The problems that prominently encountered by the students was low of self-esteem, which stated that they were unable to speak in English as well as most of their friends. Then, they felt they had not much to be proud during the class due to several problems. Most of the students tend to feel they were failure, because they have not improved their speaking skills yet, due to several problems which encounter them at the same time.

A Video-Mediated EFL Learning: Highlighting Indonesian Students’ Voices

The emergence of videos as instructional media in the EFL learning contexts has provided meaningful values to learners’ learning experiences. There have been many studies investigated the effectiveness of the videos in EFL field. However, this study presents a gap in the literature regarding the acceptance of videos usages of Indonesian senior high school students who learn English as a foreign language. This study employed quantitative survey research by distributing a closed questionnaire to one hundred fifteen students from the tenth grade of a state senior high school. Overall, participants showed positive voices towards using videos to support their learning in terms of ease of use, learning opportunities, learning experience, and preferences. With regard to the actual use of videos in learning, most students spent at least 1-2 hours watching videos in and outside the classrooms. The availability of smartphones contributes significantly to ease video access. Moreover, social media networking, such as Youtube, Instagram, and WhatsApp, provides more video sources for the student. Amongst the video types enjoyed by the students, videos of interviews, tutorials, explanations, vlogs, profiles, and testimonials were their preferences.

Evaluation of Software Tell Me More for Teaching English : Technology Acceptance Model Approach

Knowing the students’ technology acceptance about the use of learning media is important because it can measure how far the media’s utilisation is.The research purpose is to recognize the significant influence between the variable of Technology Acceptance Model, such as perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude towards use and behaviour intention in accepting software Tell Me More for teaching English. The participants of this research consisted of 51 students of English Education Study Program from Universitas Muhammadiyah Metro. Questionnaire was used to find out the students’ acceptance towards the use of software Tell Me More. Regression analysis is applied to analyze the data. Based on the data analysis through the questionnaire, it is revealed that there was significant influence between the variable of technology acceptance model towards the students’ acceptance of Tell Me More software.

Portfolio-Based Assessment in English Language Learning: Highlighting the Students’ Perceptions

Portfolio-based Assessment (hereafter, PBA) plays an indispensable role in language assessment. PBA represents the development of the students’ learning process outcomes, trains autonomous learning, and stimulates metacognitive awareness. Conversely, a few investigative attempts, addressed the students’ perceptions of PBA in the Indonesian EFL Context. Therefore, this study aimed to decipher the perceptions of EFL students in Indonesia on PBA use in the English subject. Empirically speaking, two female students were involved as the participants in this study. The data were collected through a semi-structured interview and analyzed with Thematic Analysis (TA) (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The findings revealed that students articulated their perceptions in three major themes, namely developing self-monitoring from the students’ learning processes, generating discipline, responsible and autonomous language learning attitudes, and mitigating perceptual mismatches among teachers and students. Pedagogically speaking, this study indicates that PBA employment can provide opportunities for students to monitor their learning progress, and enhance their self-confidence and learning motivation.

EFL Students’ Perception of Distance Learning Practice in a Vocabulary Class

The perception of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students toward the significance of distance learning practice in EFL teaching at university is essential to provide suggestions for enhancing distance learning practice in the context of EFL teaching. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate students’ perception towards distance learning practice at University of Muhammadiyah Gresik, especially in Words in Contexts class as the main course for learning vocabularies. Therefore, this study explored several aspects that needed in the implementation of distance learning practice. The subjects of this study were 34 first semester students of English education department who had applied distance learning practice. Questionnaire was used as research instrument to collect data from the respondents who had been selected. In addition, interview was also conducted to confirm the result of questionnaire. After the data were collected, they were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative analysis method. The finding indicated that students had average perception towards the implementation of distance learning practice, since distance learning practice provided advantages for their learning process. However, there were setbacks and problems such as students’ participation, internet connectivity, and material clarity that needed to be solved in order to improve the quality of distance learning practice.