Grammarly: An Online EFL Writing Companion

ABSTRACT Writing becomes one of fundamental skills in learning language. In tis digital era, when everything is possible to be done in online, the students prefer to easily find some references in the websites or other online sources. The students hesitate to produce their own ideas in that they can get anything they want on the internet. This cases take a big part of the quality of the students in mastering writing skill. Thus, the teachers should have many alternative to help the students, more to EFL stuents to improve their writing performance through such an online based-learning. Grammarly is one of possible solution can be taken as the students writing assistant while the teachers giving some exercises. The students will be helpful working on Grammarly in that they will be able to produce any languages they know, then Grammarly will take a place to help them correct their work.

A Qualitative Study: Investigating EFL Learners’ Self- Confidence To Decrease The Reticence In Speaking Ability

Language is a pivotal aspect of human being. By learning, language people can communicate with each other, get information from one to another and interact. Unfortunately, in the real condition, it is still difficult for Indonesian students to practice their English ability in daily conversation. This study deals to increase the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students' confidence in English speaking. This research used qualitative analysis by distributing questioner. This study suggest that EFL teachers should seek ways to increase students' collaboration in the classroom to help them gain confidence in speaking. The study involved the students in the fifth semester in the English Department at Tidar University. The researcher compared the gathered data with other relevant researches and theories involved in the study. Based on the research questions, the research result shows that students’ perceptions of self-confidence have a significant to decrease reticence in speaking skills. However, lecturers need to push the students in practice speaking English in front of a class, especially to improve the self-confidence when the students are communicating in English. Two research questions were formulated in this study. There are: (1) what are the factors of the EFL students’ reticence in speaking? (2) Do the students have high self-confidence in speaking skills? In conclusion, this article showed the results that EFL Learners’ self-confidence can be decreased the reticence in speaking ability or not. keywords: Self-confidence, speaking ability, EFL students, qualitative study

Repetition in McDonald's Slogan

McDonald’s is one of the fast food companies which used stylistic devices as the language strategy. The stylistic devices implemented on the analysis is repetition. The purposes of the analysis on repetition in the McDonald’s advertising slogan are (1) to identify the type of the repetition and (2) to identify the language unit used in the slogan. This research implemented qualitative method; the method is used to qualify the slogans that consist of repetition. There are 10 data of McDonald’s repetition slogans. The results discover three different types of repetition and two language units used in the repetition of the slogan. The research concludes that repetition is used as a particular strategy in McDonald’s slogan in order not only to attract customer’s attention or convey the message but also to bear in their mind about the image of McDonald’s.McDonald’s is one of the fast food companies which used stylistic devices as the language strategy. The stylistic devices implemented on the analysis is repetition. The purposes of the analysis on repetition in the McDonald’s advertising slogan are (1) to identify the type of the repetition and (2) to identify the language unit used in the slogan. This research implemented qualitative method; the method is used to qualify the slogans that consist of repetition. There are 10 data of McDonald’s repetition slogans. The results discover three different types of repetition and two language units used in the repetition of the slogan. The research concludes that repetition is used as a particular strategy in McDonald’s slogan in order not only to attract customer’s attention or convey the message but also to bear in their mind about the image of McDonald’s.

The Anxiety of Language Learning and Language Skills: Conceptual Problems and Helpful Ideas to the Study of English as a Foreign Language

Ignoring the fact of anxiety as second language learning is a new issue in the process of acquiring an international language. Teachers seldom recognize anxious students and instead assign a lack of other factor discussions of students’ low accomplishments. in acquiring the English language. This research intends to assist literature completely on the classification of second language and language skills anxiety. The overviews of decreasing or giving solutions about students’ anxiety in various potential aspects occur. Further items of the questionnaire in measuring students’ anxiety in terms of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale mentioned. Utilizing qualitative study presents a review in the classroom that aimed to investigate the variations of anxious students. This study finding and solution also describe analysis approaches and examines the educational effects of the result.

ASSESSING THE VOCABULARY SIZE OF THE INTERNATIONAL CLASS STUDENTS

As the important component of language acquisition and language learning affecting language skill mastery, vocabulary has been the concern of the language expertise. Many of them focus a lot on how to enrich the learners’ vocabulary. In fact, vocabulary development is not only about increasing the quantity but also on its quality. Knowing this fact, it is needed to find out how qualified the vocabulary development nowadays. Therefore, the quantitative study is done to identify and analyze the vocabulary size developmental pattern across the levels. It is a cross sectional survey research. The data was taken by doing vocabulary test to the international students who deal a lot with English exposure in their learning. Three batches consisting of freshmen, sophomore, and junior in the International classes were assessed to see their developmental pattern. Vocabulary size test developed by Paul Nation becomes the best option as the test measuring the vocabulary size of the students. As a result, the hypothesis was accepted. It is found that there is a difference in the vocabulary size from the three batches with a surprising finding too due to the pattern. This result is then useful for a means of reflection and evaluation for the students and the institution.

LITERACY PRACTICE: READING COMMUNITY AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO SELF-READING

The reading community is the local group of Indonesian in urban area bear on reading. The member provides an opportunity for members to support literacy during the community day and extend reading out of the community day. The reading community activities are individual and grouping reading practice. Besides, the members’ background is in different age and study background. The present study designed to explain the reading members’ on reading motivation, problem and strategy. Furthermore, the researcher explained more about the literacy practice, such as self-reading to depict the reading activity of the member, in terms of time and frequency. The researcher used a mixed method. It is integrating between quantity and qualitative data. Observation applied to get a further background of the members’ reading motivation, problem as well as strategy. Besides, the one on one interview used for describing the self-reading. The respondents of the research are 20 members in a group of the reading community. The members were selected randomly. The result showed members’ reading motivation, reading problem and reading strategy. Those covers curiosity, aesthetic involvement, challenge, recognition, and grade. A reading problem consists of low memory to remember, progressive decline in visual sensitivity, a result of the normal process affect reading, poor reading skill and feel out of place in the conversation that moves quickly. Reading strategy such as using prior knowledge/previewing, predicting, identifying the main idea and summarization, questioning, making inferences, visualizing as well as their self-reading in terms of time and frequency.

ERROR ANALYSIS OF SIMPLE PRESENT IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent of the ability to write descriptive text. This research was conducted at the University of PGRI Yogyakarta and specifically investigated how simple present tense is used and which errors are most often done by research subjects.The subjects of this study were 8 4th-semester students majoring in English Education at PGRI University of Yogyakarta. Researcher used qualitative descriptive method in this study. The first step taken by researcher was to gave students three themes, namely Family, My Idol & Beautiful Place in Yogyakarta. After that students choose one of these themes and then wrote it into descriptive text. By using the Surface Strategy Taxonomy, researcher then classify what errors they have made.The results of this study indicate that students made 33 errors (47.14%) from 70 Present Present Tense sentences. This was less than the correct use of Simple Present Tense, with a total of 37 (52.86%). Students made the most error in misformation by 13 (39.39%). Whereas the most rarely made error is addition with a total of 2 (6.07%).

The Translation Problem Types in Translating Indonesia Text to English (A Case Study of Translation Subject of Fifth Semester English Students –UPY)

This research is entitled “The Translation Problem Types in Translating Indonesia textinto English (A Case Study of Translation Subject of Fifth Semester English Department –UPY) . It is about how Indonesia text is translated into English by English students, toidentify the translation problems, and to identify the problematics of translation technique.This research uses qualitative method to analyze the data. Techniques of analyzing datain this research consist of 3 components, they are (1) reducing the data, (2) explaining thedata, and (3) taking a conclusion. Reducing data is a process of selecting, focusing,simplifying and abstracting the data. Explaining the data is a process of organizinginformation and arranging the complete narration. Taking a conclusion is a process ofdrawing conclusion from the data. The data source of this research are Indonesia text andstudent’s translation.After conducting the research, the research find the data that all respondents havesimilar translation problem types in translating Indonesia text into English. The problems arediction, tenses, no equivalence translation; others have problems of adverb, article, andrelative clause. None of respondents apply other translation technique. They only apply wordper word translation technique. The accuracy of transfer level is adequate level. Only onerespondent have almost completely successful transfer level. Other respondents haveadequate accuracy transfer level. By applying the untrue translation technique has an impactto translation accuracy transfer level.This research is expected to open wide opportunities and challenges to academicians,especially those in translation linguistics sphere to deepen their research and study, especiallyin translating Indonesia text to English in order to be a new contribution to the translationfields.

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILL BY USING SCAFFOLDING TECHNIQUE TO THE SEVENTH GRADERS OF SMP BOPKRI GODEAN

The background of the study was based on the phenomenon at the seventh graders of the SMP BOPRI Godean. Learning English especially writing skill were still low in mastering vocabulary, sentence structure, and paragraph organizing. The research aimed (1) to analyze the students’ writing by using scaffolding technique; (2) to describe the improvement of the students’ writing skill by using scaffolding technique; and (3) to find out the students’ interests in writing skill by using scaffolding technique. To solve the problem, the researcher conducted Classroom Action Research and applied scaffolding technique in teaching English to improve student’s ability in writing skill. The participants of this research were the 14 students of the seventh graders of SMP BOPKRI Godean. In this study, the researcher conducted a scaffolding technique of teaching writing descriptive text in three cycles by using scaffolding model adapted from Silvia Read. The five steps in scaffolding technique by Silvia Read were inquiry, modeling, shared, collaborative, and independent. The researcherexpected that the students could improve their writing skill by using the scaffolding technique and interested in English writing skill. The result of this study was showed by pre-test and post-test. In pre-test, the students’ average score was 49, whereas in the students’ post-test cycle one, the students’ average score was 64. In the second cycle, the students’ average score was 75.9. Finally, the researcher could conclude that the result of this research showed an improvement of the students’ writing skills by using scaffolding technique.

BUZZ GROUP-BASED STRATEGY IN EFL READING CLASSROOM

The intention of this study is to describe the effectiveness of buzz group in EFL reading classroom of English Department students of PGRI University. The comprehension analysis is intended by comparing the answer of EFL reading classroom students in reading exercises. In order to sequence the reading comprehension of the EFL reading classroom the pre-test and post-test of reading exercises are measured. The experiment of reading comprehension includes the recruitment of 40 students of EFL reading classroom, the training, and exercising of reading text in reading exercises. These students are all first-year female teacher training students at PBI-UPY and aged between 17 and 23. The measurement is compare with pre-test and post-test of reading exercises. Standard measurement is comparison of students answer in pre-test and post-test of reading exercises.