Teacher’s Obstacles in English Online Learning during Covid-19 Pandemic

<p>The study investigated some difficulties on the implementation of learning English through online learning due to Covid-19 pandemic on students from Islamic Family Law of IAIN Surakarta in the academic year of 2020/2021. The type of this research is qualitative descriptive. The data in this study are learning problems that occur in English language online learning activities. The data collection technique was carried out by documentation techniques and observations. Data analysis used in this research is data collection, data reduction, data presentation and conclusion. The study found that there are three main difficulties which hinder English language teaching and learning process namely: (1) student’s limited skills of English, (2) lack of teacher supervision and interactions during the learning process, and (3) inadequate learning facilities and internet networks for online learning. The right implementation of learning strategy, communication, patience, and consideration on students’ condition become the key factors to overcome all the problems during online learning in pandemic era.</p>

Communication Strategies Used by Papuan EFL Students

<p class="AbstractText">To fill the absence of research in the context of communication strategies used by Papuan EFL students, this research would present and fill this knowledge gap. This research aimed to determine the types and their reasons of communication strategies used by Papuan EFL students. It applied qualitative study. The researcher used observation and interview as the research instruments. It was found that Papuan EFL employed fillers, code-switching, self-repetition, self-repair, asking for clarification, asking for confirmation, and direct appeal for help. The reasons why Papuan EFL students do those communication strategies because of thinking time, anxiety, nervousness, doubt, worriedness, hesitation, lack of knowledge, lack of vocabulary, grammatical errors, and self-confidence.</p>

Expert Validation and Students’ Initial Field Trial Responses toward M-Write Academic Essay Writing Application

<p class="AbstractText">Proficiency in English academic writing is still a problem for many students. However, there are no such digital learning media that facilitates academic writing practices. Considering these problems, this research tried to develop an M-Write application, a learning media that combine metacognitive and process-genre writing exercises. This study aims to determine the feasibility level of M-Write as a website-based academic essay writing application. The method used in testing the feasibility of this product includes the alpha test and beta test. The alpha test was carried out by three English Education experts; each of them assessed the aspects of the content, language use, and design. While the beta test was carried out by 25 students of the Computer Science Faculty, UPN “Veteran” Jawa Timur. The data collection technique was done by using a questionnaire and interview. Data analysis was carried out using quantitative descriptive techniques. The results of this study indicate that the M-Write application reached appropriate criteria in terms of content, language use, and design aspects. The percentages of each of these aspects are 71.9%, 73.3%, and 71.9%. While the results of the applications usage assessment by students also showed that the application was appropriate to be used with an average percentage of 75.9%.</p>

Pre-Service English Teachers’ Professional Identity Development: A Case Study

<p>The present study was conducted to investigate the development of the professional identity of Indonesian pre-service teachers of English as they served as lecturer assistants through a qualitative case study. The participants of the study were five lecturer assistants and five students taught by the lecturer assistants at an English Education major in the first semester of the 2020/2021 academic year. The method employed was conducting online semi-structured interviews. Through Thematic Analysis, the study found that the lecturer assistant participants trained their communication skills with their students by experiencing teaching firsthand. It was also found that the experience of being lecturer assistants facilitated the assistant participants to realise the importance of building rapport with their students and have more insights into the teaching profession. In a similar vein, the student participants also agreed that their lecturer assistant had successfully, albeit gradually, built rapport with them. The assistant participants were also reported to have better classroom management as the semester progressed. Based on the findings, possible implications and contributions were stated with possible limitations and suggested directions for future studies in the field of teacher professional identity development.</p>

Incorporating Instagram Features in EFL Learning Environment

<p>Instagram, famous for its easy picture and video sharing features, also has some other features, such as quiz, question, and poll, which can be used as English learning tools. The incorporation of Instagram becomes a valuable resource as most university students use Instagram. This study aims to explore those features and to investigate students’ perceptions of Instagram as learning tools. The research participants are 50 students who speak English as a foreign language (EFL) studying at a university which applies English as a medium of instruction (EMI). The participants follow the researcher’s Instagram account and are notified by email for every new post. They, therefore, can view and participate in those posts. The data is gathered from an online questionnaire. The results suggest that quiz is favored for its surprisingly effective function as a correction tool for common errors. In addition, cartoon post is favored as it provides funny and contextual use of the vocabulary which makes the vocabulary memorable. Hence, Instagram becomes effective English learning environment, which is supplementary to English classes, especially as an error correction and source of vocabulary input reaching massive number of students with only one post.</p>

Real Time Feedback in English Microteaching Practice: A Case Study on Online Learning

<p class="16">Online microteaching classes allow the student to practice their teaching ability using the online platform. This case study attempted to find out the perspective of teacher trainees using real-time feedback and peer observation of online microteaching classes. The researcher focused on 3rd year microteaching students in 2020/2021 at one of Indonesia's state universities. In this qualitative case study, the researcher used multiple data collection techniques. The researcher uses a questionnaire from (Eksi, 2020) with some changes to suit the purpose of this study in collecting data. The researcher distributed the questionnaire to 40 teacher trainees who already practiced online microteaching and got real-time feedback from the lecture and their peers. The teacher trainee showed a positive perspective in using real-time feedback. They thought the process helped increased their professional development. Many student-teachers were engaged in giving real-time feedback to other student teacher's performance. They realized that real-time feedback helped them positively. However, the results found that most of the teacher trainees believe that the direct observation from two or three students was enough. Teacher trainees also thought that online classes are increasing the opportunity for misunderstanding.</p>

A Study of ELE Students’ Perception of Undiksha Moodle E-learning in Pedagogical Courses

<p>E-learning has significantly influenced the educational field. Education currently utilizes e-learning as one of the learning systems that facilitate students and teachers' learning process is distanced or traditional, or even in blended learning. One of the platforms used is the Undiksha Moodle E-learning Platform used in the pedagogical courses. This study aimed to identify students' perception of the use of the Undiksha Moodle E-learning platform. This discussion focuses on the effectiveness offered in the use of the Undiksha Moodle E-learning platform. This study is a case study involving 15 English Language Education students. This study's object is students' perception of using the Undiksha Moodle E-learning platform in the pedagogical courses. Data collections were done with questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to see the suitability of perceptions expressed by students. Data analysis is conducted qualitatively supported with quantitative data by considering the questionnaires' results and interpreting the data obtained. This study showed that English Language Education students have a positive perception of using Undiksha Moodle E-learning. The findings on the effectiveness of the use of the Undiksha Moodle E-learning platform used amounted to 4,173. That indicates that students strongly agree that the platform is effectively used in pedagogical courses.</p>

Personal and Social Deixis as A Political Campaign Strategy Used in Donald Trump’s Rally

<p>The use of personal and social deixis often has a crucial role in political speeches. This study investigated how personal deixis was used as a strategy to get other people’s support in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign speech. The object of the study was Trump’s speech in his presidential rally on October 10, 2020, and the data were the personal and social deixis in the speech. The occurrences of deixis were counted to reveal the parties to whom Trump gave his attention, and an analysis of the words used was conducted to see Trump’s attitudes toward the parties addressed by the deixis. The study revealed that Trump used personal deixis more than social deixis. There were five big parties to which he gave his attention using the deixis: the audience, Trump himself, the USA and its people, his opponents, and his party and government. Using the deixis, Trump also showed a positive attitude to his side and a negative attitude to the opponents. His use of personal and social deixis was also used as a campaign strategy. The deixis created inclusiveness, positioned Trump in different roles, showed support from several American communities, and influenced the audience’s attitude toward Trump’s opponents.</p>

The Effect of Prophet Yusuf Storytelling on Students' Grammar Mastery

<p>The study of grammar has been shifting in language teaching classroom. However, the fact that the difficulty to understand grammar, especially past tense among the junior high school students has been an issue that needs to be solved. This study investigated the effect of using storytelling of Prophet Yusuf based on Quran verses towards students’ grammar mastery at the 8th grade in MTsS Diniyyah Pasia, Agam, West Sumatera. This quasi-experimental research involved 32 sample students who were treated as experimental class and taught by using storytelling of Prophet Yusuf and another 32 students as control class who were taught by using conventional technique. These two groups of samples were determined by using purposive sampling technique. To analyze the data from the students’ grammar test of pretest and posttest of experimental and control classes, the researcher used SPSS program. The result of the post-test scores of both classes, experimental and control classes, showed that the t-obtained (3.557) was bigger than t table (1.67). It indicates that the use of Prophet Yusuf Storytelling which is based on Quran verses in learning Grammar can help the students to master the grammatical pattern effectively.</p>

Visual And Metaphorical Representation In McDonald’s Singapore Advertisement

<p>The raise of technology advanced the advertising platform, social media, as one of their ways of offering products that can reach wide audience around the world. This research aims to scrutinize the advertisement of McDonald’s Singapore Instagram account using social semiotic approach and pictorial metaphor theory. This research applied four steps of collecting and analysing 60 multimodal data 1) collecting the data in McDonald’s Singapore account, 2) observing the data, 3) taking data sample, and 4) transcribing and analysing the data. From the analysis, the result of this research shows that conceptual representation dominates the data by 39 data and it is followed by embedding and narrative representation by 19 and 2 data respectively. The compositional meaning was combined with the analysis of pictorial metaphor and the result shows that the non-metaphorical centre is more dominant that others by 15 data, and then it is followed by non-metaphorical tryphtic as many as 13 data, non-pictorial metaphor ideal-real by 8 data, pictorial metaphor tryphtic by 6 data and pictorial metaphor centre by 5 data, while the rest is pictorial metaphor given-new, non-pictorial metaphor given-new, pictorial metaphor ideal-real, and verbo-pictorial metaphor ideal-real by 5, 4, 2, and 2 data respectively.</p>