A Study on the Communicative Competence of Indonesian Teachers at Bilingual Programs

Teaching with English as a medium of instruction can be challenging for teachers in non-English speaking countries including Indonesia. The use of English as the language of instruction has become a part of marketing strategies for private schools to get more students. Apart from the marketing issue, the quality of the teachers should be on the top priority. Are the teachers qualified to serve as teachers at bilingual programs? Teachers’ communicative competence should add the general teaching competences of in-service teachers at bilingual programs. Unfortunately, schools hardly assess teachers’ communicative competence. This study aimed to find out the level of in-service teachers’ communicative competence and the correlation among the level of communicative competence aspects. This sequential explanatory study involved 82 in-service teachers who taught in English. The results of this study reveal that the subjects of this study were found in safe zone. It indicates that teachers of English speaking programs under this study can perform their tasks adequately although they cannot be called competent yet. From the Spearman correlational analysis, it was found out that the coefficient correlation was above 0.76 indicating a very strong correlation between communicative competence and its aspects and strong positive correlations among the communicative competence aspects. The results of this study provide valuable input of teachers’ communicative competence which can be further followed up with suitable trainings to improve teacher’s English competence.

Review of “Developing Writers in Higher Education”

Instructors and researchers of writing in higher education often experience discouraged when they find their teaching falling short their expectation even though a number of endeavors they invest in the teaching practices and research works. As a writing teacher for higher education, I feel disappointed when I am not able to present more beneficial support than the motivation to write using appropriate vocabularies, making grammatical sentences consisted of compound or complex ones, organizing ideas of writing or paragraphs, constructing coherence essays and so on. After ineffective attempts at aiding higher education students significantly enhance their writing, I began to review the nature of writing and facets other than the language competences comprising what activities the teachers are necessary to carry out, how the students’ writing practices are applied during their writing process, who are involved in the process of writing and how long the writing activities take place. I have figured out solutions to some questions in the book entitled “Developing Writers in Higher Education”. In this five-section book, Anne Ruggles Gere describes comprehensive longitudinal study about topic concerning on how students in higher education keep practicing their writing process and their writing follow various developmental paths.

Developing Multi-Literacy Skills by Creating Graphic Story in Literature Class: A Project-Based Learning Approach

The research aims to develop multi-literacy skills by creating a literary graphic story as a creative and innovative way for English Department students in learning literature. By creating an adaptation from text to picture, students are expected to improve their ability to understand literary works and express their creative and innovative skills. This is a qualitative study implementing the Project-based Learning (PBL) approach in literature class, which aims to produce graphic stories as the output of studying literature. Students do not only understand the literary theories but also make something out of their understanding. The scaffolding instruction method was employed to examine practices of improving multiliteracy skills. A detailed action research plan, including preliminary observation in the classroom, action plan, intervention, and guiding, is applied. The investigation related to the barriers in doing the project is going to be conducted as well. Reader Response criticism is introduced to students in the reading and analyzing stage as a useful method to develop their critical thinking in evaluating the literary works they read. We argue that the students improve their reading skills, writing skills and producing graphic story stories based on their own interpretation of the literary text, which is proven by the summary and conversation texts they produce in the graphic stories. They also develop their creativity by producing images and pictures as the result of the literary adaptation process. There are two significant outcomes of the project: developing literary text understanding as well as producing the original graphic story.

Indonesian Students’ Negotiation of Identities through Language Use in England

Study abroad (SA) is a daunting process in which students who encounter cross-border face a whole new world. They go through positioning and being positioned by others. There is an on-going salient power asymmetry in their language use, which affects their desire to speak up and participate in the new community. This study aimed to scrutinize the ways Indonesian students negotiated their identities through their language use. Using open-ended questionnaires (OEQ)and semi-structured interviews, this study focused on 7 participants who were in the midst of the master’s degree program in England. The results indicated that the participants experienced the identities negotiation multifacetedly. Participants who exercised their agency and invested in their language use challenged the positioning attached to them. As a result, they constructed new identities and gained central participation in the local community. Meanwhile, participants who could not resist the power asymmetry withdrew and formed a more solid community with other international students. Lastly, some participants were also found to maintain their emotional security by not making any contact through their language use. Participants who resisted any contacts but with fellow home students interestingly developed an increased nationalism. Therefore, this article calls for the teachers’ attention and how to devise the English Language Teaching classroom better and program providers’ of how to provide the support for the SA students best.

Paragraph and Its Development Pattern On The Essay Writing Of Elementary School Students

This study aimed to describe the quality of the paragraph and its development pattern in the essay writing of elementary school (Sekolah Dasar – SD) students in Jambi City (Kota Jambi – KJ) (SD-KJ). This study utilized a "quantitative descriptive" design. The population was all essays written by the fifth-grade students of SD-KJ. The sample of this research was 35 paragraphs from the essay writing of the fifth-grade students of SD-KJ. The data analysis steps were searching for frequency distribution of paragraph quality and development pattern; grouping the paragraph frequency distribution according to their quality; counting the percentage of each paragraph quality and type of development pattern; and presenting the results. Regarding to paragraph quality, the results are: (1) paragraph completeness, good (5.71%), poor (68.57%), and bad (25.70%); (2) paragraph unity, good (34.58%); poor (51.42%); and bad (14.28%); (3) paragraph order, good (28.57%); poor (51.42%); and bad (20%); and (4) paragraph coherence, good (54.28%); poor (34.28%); and bad (11.42%). Reffering to the implementation of the paragraph development pattern, the results are paragraph development pattern of comparison and contradiction: 20%, analogy: 5.71%, giving examples: 8.57%, cause and effect: 48.57%; general-specific or specific-general: 11.42%, and classification: 5.71%.

A Problem-based Learning Approach and Its Effects on the Writing Performance of Nigerian Undergraduates

Writing is considered as an important but a difficult language skill for undergraduates. To develop writing skills, undergraduates need to be given the opportunity to interact with and help one another in the writing process. They also need to be supported by teachers in the process. However, most of the traditional teaching methods adopted by writing instructors in Nigeria do not allow students to interact in the learning process. In this light, this study investigates the effects of a problem-based learning approach (PBL) on the writing performance of Nigerian undergraduates. The study employed a pre- and- post-treatment quasi-experimental research design. The participants (n=18) involved in the study were an intact class of second-year students taking English composition course and two tutors in a college in North-eastern Nigeria. The study was conducted over a period of 12 weeks. To determine the effects of PBL on the participants’ writing performance, a rating scale was used to rate the content, organisation, vocabulary, grammar and mechanical accuracy of the pre- and post-treatment writing scripts. A paired-sample t-test analysis was run to compare the mean scores of the undergraduates’ pre- and post-treatment writing. The results showed significant improvements in all the components (content, organisation, vocabulary, language use and mechanics) of the participants’ writing in the post-treatment. The paper concludes with a discussion on the pedagogical and theoretical contributions of the findings. It provides writing instructors with a student-centred approach that would help to develop their students’ writing skills.

Investigating Learner Silent and Verbal Responses to Tasks

This article reports a study on EFL/ESL learner perceptions of classroom tasks with reference to verbal or non-verbal participation, that is, how much speech and silence would be employed in response to a rage of task types. Data were collected from 260 learners from Indonesia and the Philippines. The article begins by explaining why silence and speech are the focus of the discussion. Secondly, it shares the literature review on how silence works in language learning and why it deserves a place in classroom teaching. Thirdly, it highlights classroom tasks that trigger silent processing and explain why this is the case. Finally, there are recommendations for task design in which similar activity types are introduced to assist the learning of reflective students.

Utilizing Facebook Groups in Teaching English as Foreign Language: Indonesian EFL Teachers’ Voices

In the era of 4.0, social media has become an integral part of everyday life, including for the purpose of teacher learning. One of the means of social media that has been used for enhancing teachers’ independent professionalism is Facebook Groups related with their teaching professions. The present qualitative study aims at (i) exploring English as A Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ experiences in utilizing Facebook Groups for their teacher learning and (ii) finding out the benefits of teachers’ involvement in teaching-related Facebook Groups. In collecting the data for the present case study, in-depth interviews were done with two teachers, one novice teacher and one experienced teacher. The findings and discussions indicated that teachers use Facebook groups to enhance their professionalism, despite they tend to start refraining from utilizing the groups due to uncomfortable atmosphere that Facebook now offers. Additionally there are three benefits found of joining Facebook groups, namely their enriched information on content knowledge, knowledge of curriculum and knowledge of educational contexts. In the current time where teachers need to shift into distance learning in the timely fashion, whereas many subjects need to be comprehended quickly.

EMI in Vietnam: What High School Teachers Think and Do

The current case study was driven by a recent policy on using English as a medium of instruction (EMI) in the mainstream school system in Vietnam. It aimed to explore what science teachers believed and reported doing about EMI in teaching science subjects in the high school context. Nine EMI teachers of different science subjects at a specialized high school in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam participated in a semi-structured interview. Thematic analysis revealed the perceived positive impacts on teachers’ and students’ English proficiency, and negative influences on science content coverage. In practice, the teachers reported a focus on simple contents, explaining specialized terminologies and key concepts as the input. They mainly employed a lecture style and teacher initiation-student response interaction, switching between English and Vietnamese during their lessons. These results imply that EMI across the curriculum has the potential to improve English proficiency of students, but the EMI policy needs to consider its transparency in goals and communication to stakeholders especially teachers and school managers.

Investigating The Implementation of ICT In Education Reformation: National Instructor Teachers’ Perspectives

To facilitate quality teachers to support individual learning and encourage students to use technology, the Indonesian Ministry of Education has launched the National Instructor Teacher Program. Although the primary objective of the program is not limited to ICT, the instructor teachers’ existence is driven by the demand for technology use in classrooms. This qualitative paper aims to investigate National Instructor Teachers’ perspectives toward the use of ICT in education. Data were gathered by interviewing two National Instructor teachers from two provinces, namely Jawa Tengah and Yogyakarta. The results of this study showed that National Instructor teachers had a positive attitude towards the use of ICT. They were able to share and collaborate with other teachers and could find their own solutions related to the barriers in implementing ICT in their classes. The results of this study suggest that the government take a different approach in implementing the policy and support teachers forum to encourage ICT usage in the classroom and teachers’ autonomy.