EFL teachers’ online teacher professional development experiences amidst the COVID-19 pandemic: Practices and perceptions

This research investigates the EFL teachers’ practices and perceptions of online teacher professional development (OTPD) experiences to improve their competencies for teaching online language learning amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. 42 EFL teachers voluntarily became the participants through invitation. All participants were requested to give responses on a questionnaire. Eight participants were then invited for an individual semi-structured interview. Descriptive statistics were employed to analyze the questionnaire data, whilst qualitative coding was used to analyse the interview data. The results reveal many important findings regarding EFL teachers’ practices and perceptions of experiencing OTPD amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings are beneficial to help OTPD designers and providers, policy makers, and school leaders provide OTPD which best fits EFL teachers’ needs, preferences, and teaching contexts.

An analysis of new English words created during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic affects almost all aspects of life, including social and language aspects. One of the phenomena of language change is the emerging of new words during COVID-19. Taken from a linguistic perspective, this research aims to analyze the new words created during COVID-19, to analyze their meaning of the new words, and how they affect human social life. The method used in this research is discourse analysis using a descriptive qualitative research design. The researchers collected these new English words from social media, books, articles, and news. Findings reveal that there are nineteen new English words created during COVID-19. These new words are now very popular on social media and are used in general conversation. In addition, it suggests that these new words have profoundly affected our social life and also the teaching and learning process of English.

Secondary school students’ English literacy achievement based on PISA reading literacy test 2009

Reading literacy has become global concern that Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has conducted Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) reading literacy test to assess what students know and can do in reading. Participating in PISA test since 2000, Indonesian students’ reading literacy has not shown a significant improvement. Because PISA reading literacy test is adapted into language of instruction of each participating country, it is Indonesian students’ reading literacy in Indonesian language which is not satisfactory. Considering the fact that Indonesian fifteen-year-old students study English as a compulsory subject, investigating students’ reading literacy in English is considered important. There has been much research investigating issues in reading achievement in Indonesia, but there are limited studies focussing on PISA reading literacy based on school location, school accreditation, gender, and academic major. Employing survey study design, this study assessed reading literacy of two thousand and two hundred secondary school students sampled from twenty four public secondary schools accredited A+, A, and B in Palembang. Data were obtained using PISA reading literacy test 2009 and were analysed statistically. The findings revealed that students’ English literacy was in level 3 (low category). Students studied at schools in central urban district performed better than those of in peri urban district. Those from secondary schools accredited A+ outperformed their counterparts in schools accredited A and B. Female students performed slightly better than male. Students majoring in science were better than those of majoring in social. The results lead to the conclusion that students’ English literacy achievement should be enhanced using innovating strategies to achieve targeted literacy level that is needed to survive in school academic life.

Offline or online?: EFL students’ perceptions on working in face-to-face and virtual learning modes

Given the intensified number of online learning activities and having inadequate knowledge to identify the details of how it was organized within increased students’ language learning ability; this study focused on identifying the students’ perceptions of learning in two different situations. This study investigated how students perceived working in a new learning mode (online learning activity) compared to the traditional or face-to-face learning mode (offline learning activity) in regards to the learning frameworks, including the depth and comprehensiveness of learning, appropriate length for learning, comfortability of learning, and flexibility of learning. Ten students were selected to be the participants of the current study; all of whom were sixth and eighth semester students at the Department of English Language Education of Universitas Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh. They were served by several questions related to their experiences working on two different learning modes. The findings revealed that working in offline learning mode was still the common preference among the students and only a few of them preferred online learning. Even more interesting was the finding of one or two students who perceived no differences between participating in offline and online class learning activities. In addition, the findings also indicated that interaction between the course instructors and students still becomes a prominent element on the students’ satisfaction and comfort of learning. The students also suggested that the keys to their satisfactory learning experiences are access to learning materials and to their class instructors. To conclude, this study also provides new insights on what matters the most to the students’ learning experiences with respect to the current online learning trend.

QuillBot as an online tool: Students’ alternative in paraphrasing and rewriting of English writing

QuillBot is an online application to paraphrase writing, avoid plagiarism, summarize long sentences and improve grammar to be more precise and look professional. The objective of this research is to review the QuillBot as an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool system for students’ in paraphrasing and rewriting English writing both in the free and premium versions. This research applies descriptive qualitative. The data used is an English abstract article. The results show that QuillBot paraphrasing tools use several ways to paraphrase the text: 1) paraphrasing by using equations or synonyms, 2) paraphrasing by changing the form of the word, 3) paraphrasing by using active or passive sentences, and 4) paraphrasing by changing the order of words in sentences. This paraphrasing uses Standard Mode, which serves to balance changes to the text when users input them but still keeps them from changing the actual (original) meaning of the text, also making the result look more original. QuillBot is one of the paraphrasings and summarizing tools that can be used by students for rewriting any content based on a state-of-the-art AI system. This tool can be the students’ alternative which provides a solution by helping paraphrase when students do not have the idea to paraphrase English writing manually. However, a good knowledge of vocabulary and understanding of English grammar, of course, will help students or other users (s) both in using online or manual paraphrasing to be better or the best quality.

Translation techniques used in translating a smartphone user manual

As many smartphones are imported from overseas and the user manuals are written in English, the translation of a user manual is, therefore, very important for the Indonesian customers whose English is not their second language. Good translation results are then very essential in order that the customers understand the information easily and clearly. The focus of this research is the bilingual English-Indonesian Samsung’s GT-19500 user manual. This research aims to find translation techniques applied in the book. In this descriptive research, the sentences were the tokens that were recorded in Microsoft Excel. The tokens were then analyzed based on the categories of translation techniques in question. It was found that there were nine translation techniques used in the user manual. The translation techniques used in Samsung’s GT-19500 user manual are borrowing (41%), literal translation (25%), calque (13%), transposition (7%), equivalence (6%), adaptation (5.3%), modulation (3%), and omission (2%). Therefore, the techniques used in translating a smartphone user manual are unique to this type of document because the document consists of many terms without Indonesian equivalence.

Scrutinizing EFL students' plagiarism practice

The current study was designed to investigate the types of plagiarism that appear in EFL students’ theses at Ar-Raniry State Islamic University, Indonesia. It sought to examine the plagiarism level, and investigate the triggering factors encouraging these EFL students of the 2019 batch to plagiarize. This study used a qualitative method with a case study approach. The participants in this study were ten EFL students of the 2019 batch and their theses. The participants were randomly selected. The data collection was carried out using two research instruments, namely document analysis, and interview. The researcher analyzed the student's thesis using Plagiarism Checker X. The results of the document analysis showed that there were two types of plagiarism detected in the student's thesis, namely word for word and mosaic plagiarism. Second, the researcher found that the plagiarism level of the 2019 batch English students' thesis of UIN Ar-Raniry was at the low-level plagiarism category, which can be observed from the result of the similarity index. The level of plagiarism found in these theses was less than 30%, still at an acceptable level as stipulated by the university regulation. Meanwhile, the result of the interview showed that all participants know what plagiarism is and they think that plagiarism is a negative conduct. Several factors influences EFL English students to plagiarize, such as poor time management, laziness, poor paraphrasing skills, affordable internet access, and running out of ideas.

Addressing English language needs of Economic Development students in Indonesian context

The heart of the study is English for Economics purposes as a branch of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). This study is dedicated to addressing the immediate needs of economics students in English language courses. By employing an explanatory survey method, researchers distributed a self-administrated survey and interviewed five first-year students majoring in Economic Development in one of the state universities in Indonesia. In this study, the researchers attempted to analyze Economic Development students’ target situation, present situation, and learning situation in English courses to prepare them to face global competition. The results revealed that most students admitted that English is essential for their future careers. Thus, they expected English courses should include materials related to their discipline and emphasize more authentic activities. Following the discussion, this need analysis can be a consideration in designing English learning materials for economics students.

Codeswitching of bilingual preschoolers in Pakistan: A study of Arabic and Urdu alphabets

Urdu is the official language of Pakistan, while Arabic is the language of the Holy Quran, Muslims' sacred book. Pakistan, as a Muslim country with a religious bond, makes it obligatory for Muslims to recognize and interpret Allah's commandments, as well as to pray and recite the Holy Quran. The most effective skill is oral communication. It has become one of the fundamental language learning skills, alongside listening, reading, and writing. Pronunciation is the process of processing speech sounds to communicate. The current research study focuses on the codeswitching of bilingual preschoolers while learning the Arabic and Urdu alphabets. The study demonstrates why preschool children fail to recognize images of simple words in Arabic and Urdu at the same time and how this challenge can be tackled with the ingenuity of a committed teacher. The researcher used the Oral Proficiency Test (OPT) to assess the quality of the children's pronunciation, and he processed the data using Setiyadi’s (2020) Triangulation of method, which includes three data collection techniques: observation, interview, and questionnaire. The observation focused on how the teacher pronounced both alphabets and how the children responded by pronouncing the same at the top of their voices to make good use of articulators. Later, an interview and a questionnaire were conducted to collect data that could be used to ensure the validity of the observational results. Creswell & Baez’s (2020) Model of the Structure of Study was implemented. The research on bilingual preschoolers is significant in that it reveals that the children had difficulty in discerning resembling sounds from the Arabic and Urdu alphabets and that this difficulty caused them to deviate from one alphabet to the other. Speech therapists, pathologists, psychologists, bilingual scholars, and researchers will all benefit from the research.

Exploring curriculum approaches and issues: A descriptive analysis

A curriculum is a guideline used to achieve an educational goal, in which a curriculum contains at least four important elements: objectives, materials, methods, and evaluation. This descriptive study aims to describe several types of methods or approaches that are often used in teaching and learning activities. In addition, this paper also describes issues related to curriculum changes and the factors that influence such changes as well as the challenges faced in each curriculum change. The paper firstly elaborates the disciplinary curriculum approach in which it highlights the ideas of exploring a particular discipline science from single-focused lenses relating to such the science without linking it with other connected sciences. After exploring the disciplinary curriculum approach, the paper provides significant information on multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary curriculum approaches that have great potential in enhancing students’ critical thinking skills. This study is ended by exploring issues of curriculum changes and their driving factors, and challenges of curriculum changes.