Gendered perspective on online communication strategies: A case on English department students

This study aims to investigate whether gender influence on online communication strategies performed by the English Department. This study provides types of communication strategies, the frequency of communication strategies used, and the factors that influence students in differentiating communication strategies used by both male and female students. The researcher used qualitative approach. Online face-to-face conversation and interview were chosen as the data collection technique. For the research instruments that the researcher used were communication strategies sheet, interview, and audio and video recording. The participants of this study were the eight semester students of English Department. The data collected were analyzed used communication strategies taxonomies proposed by Celce-Murcia et al. (1995). The results of this study show that used variety of communication strategies. The most frequent communication strategy used both male and female students is fillers, hesitation devices, and gambits. It was proven by the percentage that was 50%. The least used communication strategy by the students is circumlocution (0,07%). Related to gender, female students almost show higher number of occurrences for all of the communication strategies than male students. This phenomenon happened due to some factors such as the female characteristics that is socially oriented, expressive and avoid making mistakes. Meanwhile, male students showed characteristics such as talk simpler, have a great willingness to manage anxiety and they seem to conceal their inability to others.

Teaching strategies: How do teachers in remote area survive during remote learning?

During the pandemic of COVID-19, remote learning has been very highlighted. This environment creates huge challenges especially to those teaching in remote areas. Drawing on them, this descriptive qualitative study aims to explore teaching strategies applied there. In collecting the data, interviews and questionnaires were given to two English teachers of a Junior High School in Aranio, Banjar Regency. The results show that they have to face some challenges such as the limitedness of internet access and low motivated students when implementing remote learning. Due to this condition, they need to survive by making some efforts such as creating and using interesting teaching modules, coordinating with the related parties, carrying out blended learning, conducting home visit and setting up offline classes because of no possibility for online learning. Through this study, other teachers are kindly informed on the applicable teaching strategies to create effective remote learning experiences in remote areas.

Pre-service EFL teachers’ perception on technology-based formative assessment in their teaching practicum

The spread of the pandemic COVID-19 has made many changes in educational policy such as the assessment in English teaching and learning process. The process and procedures in the assessment need to be adjusted from face-to-face assessment into blended and online assessments. Not only English teachers, pre-service EFL teachers are also required to be ready and adapt to the changes quickly. To adapt it, the integration of technology in the assessment process has been examined. However, the involvement of technology in the area of formative assessment remains underexplored, particularly in the teaching practicum conducted by pre service EFL teachers. The present study is trying to fill the gaps by investigating pre-service EFL teachers’ perception on technology-based formative assessment which is implemented in their teaching practicum. A total of 57 pre-service EFL teachers completed a Likertscale questionnaire. After fulfilling the questionnaires, there were 19 pre-service EFL teachers who agreed and volunteered to be in a semi-structured interview. The findings show that the involvement of technology in formative assessment is perceived positively by pre-service EFL teachers in their teaching practicum during the pandemic COVID-19. They confess that technology has played its practical role in helping them assess their students. Further, the implementation of technology-based formative assessments promotes the students’ performance.

Teaching ESP during emergency remote learning (ERL): Best practices

After a year more of living with COVID-19, the teachers’ and students’ resilience is still demanding, particularly regarding language online learning. Both parties must keep struggling to fulfill the learning requirements in times of crisis. One of the challenges in language issues is teaching English for Specific Purpose (ESP) in higher education during emergency remote learning (ERL) including teaching ESP at Poltekkes Kemenkes Malang in 2020-2021. At these times, ESP teachers have to design the materials by taking a lot of consideration regarding the students’ needs, goals, learning model, activities, tools, and feedback that met the emergency due to Coronavirus outbreak. They planned, implemented, and evaluated the learning process until they can find the best ones for the students. This study was a survey research with 23 participants of ESP lecturers. This article presented some best practices of teaching ESP in the online mode during ERL as the best experience of ESP lecturers, in the hope that it will be able to give some new insights for fellow educators to help them to provide better learning experiences for the students.

Teaching and learning process of test-taking strategies in answering reading comprehension section

The study was aimed at finding the difficulties faced by test takers in Reading Comprehension section of TOEFL and describing the teaching and learning process of test-taking strategies of Reading Comprehension section of TOEFL. This study used qualitative research design. To collect the data, the researchers used document analysis and observation as the instrument of the study. The subjects of this study were the students or test takers and a teacher or tutor in TOEFL preparation class. The study showed the range of difficulty faced by students or test takers are skill 6 (57.14%), skill 8 (50%), skill 7, 9, 10, and 11 (33.3%), skill 3 (31%), skill 4 and 12 (16.7%), skill 1 (8.3%), and skill 5 (0%). In teaching and learning strategies, the Planning Strategy was applied in skills 1, 3, 9, 6, 7, 4, 5, and 8. Monitoring Strategies was applied in in skills 1, 3, 9, 6, and 4. Comprehending strategy was used in skills 1, 3, 6, 7, 4, 10, and 11. Retrieval Strategy was applied in skills 9, 5, and 8. Socioaffective strategy was applied in skill 9. Test-wiseness strategy was applied in skills 1, 3, and 9. Based on findings, the researchers found that there is still high percentage of difficult skills faced by students or test takers and more than one strategies were applied in almost every skill of the Reading Comprehension Section of TOEFL.

EFL college students writing anxiety of English language education at Universitas Internasional Batam

Writing is considered to be the most difficult skill to master for EFL students. This experience was faced by English Language Education (ELE) students at Universitas Internasional Batam (UIB). Based on the observation, the results of their writings were not satisfying. This study assumed that the students might feel anxious when they were writing in English. Therefore, this study aims to examine the types and causes of writing anxiety of ELE students at UIB. This study employed explanatory design of mixed method research. The research instruments were questionnaires adopted from SLWAI and CWAI developed by Cheng (2004). To extend the deeper analysis, this study conducted interviews to the high- and low-level writing anxiety students. This study found that the most dominant levels of writing anxiety is high-anxiety (71.43%). In terms of writing anxiety, this study found that cognitive anxiety is the most dominant type with the mean of 26.37. Next, when studying the cause of writing anxiety, the most dominant cause was linguistic difficulties. This result was in line with the interviews with high-and low- writing anxiety students. Students with both high and low writing anxiety still found that linguistic difficulties affect their writing anxiety. Therefore, the learning process at English Language Education needs to be equipped with sufficient linguistic competences in the first year, such as vocabulary, grammar, and punctuation.

Teachers’ questioning strategies and students’ perceptions toward critical questions in EFL classroom interaction

This study aims to find out teachers’ questioning strategies and students’ perceptions of critical questions in EFL classroom interaction. This research was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, in which the classroom interaction was online. We used a case study design that focused on the descriptive analysis. This study was conducted at one of Senior High Schools in Semarang. The participants in this study are two English teachers and two classes. The data were gained by using classroom observation, interview, questionnaire, and documentation. We used Chen’s (2016) theory and Anderson & Krathwohl (2001) to categorize and analyze the data findings to know teachers’ questioning strategies and students’ perceptions toward critical questions in EFL classroom interaction. The result of the analysis showed that the teachers used all of the teachers' questioning strategies and they posed critical questions. Teachers questioning strategies used by the teachers when posing critical questions were wait-time, repetition, paraphrasing, simplifying, and probing. The obvious strategy to elicit students’ responses toward critical questions was probing. In line with this, the teachers also combined the teachers questioning strategies with the skill of basic questioning to elicit students’ critical answers. The students didn’t perceive critical question as a threat, although it was difficult to answer. However, they perceived critical question as a challenge for them. It can be concluded that the students perceived critical question as a motivational question.

The analysis of teachers’ professional competence in utilizing information and communication technology

This study is about the utilization of ICT in classroom learning to develop teacher’s professional competence. Nowadays, COVID-19 pandemic has already spread around the world. It brings bad impacts on many sectors, especially the education sector. Based on the issue, this study aims to investigate teacher’s familiarity with the use of ICT, to find out teachers’ professional competence in utilizing ICT in classroom learning, and to obtain supporting and inhibiting factors of teachers’ professional competence in utilizing ICT. A qualitative approach was used as a method of this study. Data collection was conducted by distributing questionnaires, carrying out structured interviews, and documentation addressed to ten respondents consisting of English teachers from three schools in Wonosobo, Central Java, Indonesia. This study reveals that ten teachers were familiar with using ICT in classroom learning. They claimed that the use of ICT can help their works in the teaching and learning process. Second, the teacher’s professional competence can improve ICT utilization in teaching and learning classrooms. The use of ICT also can improve teachers’ professional competence because ICT usage is easier and more effective to deliver materials. Third, some supporting factors of the use of ICT were found in this study. They were making teaching and learning process easier, increasing students’ motivation, and improving teachers’ professional competence. The use of ICT also could make teachers easily take part in this digital era.

Implementing a mobile application Quizlet to help Senior High School students learn vocabulary

This study analyzed how Quizlet, a digital vocabulary learning platform, was implemented in helping students learn vocabulary and how students perceive the application. There were 13 high school students of a private school in Yogyakarta who took part in this study. The vocabulary studied were taken from the students' course book which was on the level B2 of CEFR. This research employed CAR (Classroom Action Research) as its methodology. The findings of this research suggested that the students were engaged when using Quizlet during the class activity. The mean score of Perceived Usefulness is very high (M= 4.03, SD= 0.86) and Perceived Ease of Use is also very high (M=4.38, SD= 0.75). This indicated that students had favorable views towards the application. The data acquired from the interview also indicated that Quizlet was a practical and easy-to-use learning platform. The application was a one-stop vocabulary learning platform. Moreover, it utilized cutting-edge technology in learning and the application was practical and easy to use. Based on the results mentioned, the researchers strongly recommend that teachers start using Quizlet to help their students learn vocabulary.

“Success is in your hand”: Digital literacy to support students’ autonomous learning in speaking class

The expected objectives of the results of this study are to obtain a concrete picture of students 'digital literacy mastery in the Transactional Conversation course and to find out the effect of students' digital literacy mastery on the quality of autonomous learning in the Transactional Conversation course. In particular, this study will examine theories on digital literacy and autonomous learning in the Transactional Conversation course. The approach to be applied in this research is interdisciplinary using qualitative methods. The research design used is a case study. The technique of collecting data uses participatory observation techniques, interviews, and document studies. The data validity technique used triangulation, which mainly consisted of source data triangulation, methodological triangulation, and theory triangulation. The results show that there is a relationship between digital literacy mastery and the quality of autonomous learning. The role of the lecturer as a facilitator invites students to have the courage to evaluate the quality of their own learning.