Academic Paper
​​Empowering Indonesian students to willingly communicate orally in English: A study
of situational antecedents
ABSTRACT
Many times, teachers witness some students who have high willingness to communicate using target language but also recognize those students who are reticent in using the language. This phenomenon leads to puzzlement for the teachers on how to solve the gap that exists for someone’s willingness to communicate cannot merely be seen as a personality trait per se. A deeper understanding on the reasons why students do so must be further investigated, particularly on the situational factors that affect their willingness to communicate. To gain the answer, this study explored the situational variables that influence students’ willingness to communicate in English. Under the frame of case study and the employment of classroom observation, questionnaire, and interview, the result of this study indicated that there were five major situational antecedents of willingness to communicate namely teacher, peers, topic, class size or environment, and type of activities. These five dimensions were further analysed using situational antecedents framework and resulting on three aspects of situation cues, situation characteristics, and underlying dimensions of situation characteristics. Pedagogical implication was also presented to follow up the result of this study.
Keywords: willingness to communicate, situational antecedents, oral communication
INVESTIGATING THE FACTORS INFLUENCING STUDENTS' WILLINGNESS TO COMMUNICATE IN ENGLISH
ABSTRACT
This paper aims to investigate the factors that affect the students’ willingness to communicate in English in the classroom. This study employs a qualitative method, particularly the case study with the use of observation, questionnaire, and interview to collect the data. It can be concluded that there are mainly five factors that influence students’ willingness to communicate namely teachers, topic discussions, classroom environment, peers, and types of activities.
Keywords: willingness to communicate, English pedagogy, oral communication
BEING NNES:
SELF-PERCEPTIONS OF INDONESIAN PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS IN THAILAND
ABSTRACT
The dichotomy of native and non-native English speakers (NNESs) resulted in the common views that native speakers are better than the non-natives. Based on some previous studies, this native speaker fallacy gave non-native English speakers negative views towards their English proficiency and teaching competence. This study endeavoured to see the Indonesian preservice teachers’ self-perception towards their status as NNESs while teaching in Thailand for EFL context. To conduct the study, a mix method design was employed by quantitatively analysing data from questionnaire and qualitatively from the interview data. The study showed inconsistent responses as seen from the students’ responses which were not really good but the school members and neighbourhood, in contrast, gave good perceptions. They considered that the Indonesian pre-service teachers had good capability in both English and teaching competence despite their status as NNESs. Further research using more complex data collection was suggested to explore further issues in Indonesian context.
Keywords: native English speaker, non-native English speaker, selfperception
NOVICE TEACHERS’ STRATEGY IN ASSESSING
PERFORMANCE TASKS BASED ON 2013 CURRICULUM
ABSTRACT
The implementation of the 2013 curriculum is somehow still confusing for there are many things that are different with the previous curriculum, including the assessments. In 2013 curriculum, the teachers are supposed to use authentic assessments and this kind of assessments raised pros and cons. Three years after the official regulation have been implemented, several studies were trying to find out its current implementation and process. However, many of the previous studies focused at the pilot testing schools as the objects of the study and little had conducted some research on the novice teachers’ perspectives towards this assessment process. This study then investigated the novice teachers’ strategy in assessing students’ performance tasks based on 2013 curriculum. Using survey research design, ten respondents helped to fill out the web-based questionnaires which the results were then analysed statistically. The findings showed that most of the novice teachers had already implemented many kinds of authentic assessment during their teaching process. However, some difficulties were encountered during the assessments of performance-based tasks. It was suggested for the government to give deeper understanding towards the implementation of this newest assessment and also to the school to have the expert and novice teachers work together.
Keywords: native English speaker, non-native English speaker, selfperception
Enhancing Tenth-Grade Students’ Skill in Writing Narrative Texts by Implementing Process Writing through Storybird Web 2.0
ABSTRACT
Learning English requires all the skills commonly used in learning a language, namely listening, speaking, reading, and writing. However, many believe that writing is one of the most difficult skills to master for learners. A preliminary study done in SMAN 7 Malang revealed that the students of grade X in Language Program had problems in writing, specifically in narrative texts. Their writing results were still problematic related to language features such as tenses and linking words, the use of adjectives, word forms, the way they composed some paragraphs, and mechanics such as capitalization and punctuation.
To overcome the problems, a classroom action research (CAR) was conducted. The classroom action research study involves a cyclical process to make sure that the strategy implemented succeeds in solving the problem. The researcher decided to use a process writing strategy and Storybird web 2.0 as the medium. The steps done in CAR could be summarized as planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. The instruments used in this research covered interview guides, writing task, observation checklist, field notes, and questionnaires. The data then was analyzed by comparing the result of the students’ writing achievement with the criteria of success. A scoring rubric was used as the guidance to assess the students’ writing. Since this study successfully achieved the criteria of success within one cycle, there was no need to make a revised plan and do other cycles.
The implementation of the study resulted in the improvement on the students’ writing achievement. Compared to the preliminary study, the students’ writing score was better and higher, proven by the average score of the students writing which reached 85.14 points on the final score. 89% of the total number of the students in the class achieved the score above the minimum passing grade. Moreover, the students enjoyed and actively participated during the study. All of those data showed an improvement and thus met the criteria of success defined earlier. Upon implementing the process writing strategy, the core activities might be described as follows: (1) planning the story; (2) writing the draft of the story; (3) responding to others’ work; (4) revising the story; and (5) editing the students’ own work.
To conclude, the implementation of process writing strategy through Storybird web 2.0 was considered successful to solve the students’ problems in writing narrative texts. It is suggested for the English teachers who have similar problems to apply the process writing strategy with integration of Computer/Mobile-Assissted Language Learning (CALL/MALL). For further researchers who are interested in conducting a similar study, he or she might vary the media combined with similar strategy.
Keywords: writing, process writing, Storybird, web 2.0