An exploration of students’ engagement in EFL classrooms

The purpose of this research was to explore students' behavioral engagement in the classroom and the factors that affect it. This research was approached using an explorative descriptive qualitative study., involving teachers and students in two classes at the first grade of a senior high school in Langsa, Indonesia. The classes were taught by two English teachers, and 57 students were involved. The instruments used in this research were observations, questionnaires and focus group discussions with teachers and students. The results of this study indicate that most students paid serious attention to the lesson, put their best effort to focus on the teaching and learning process, and complete assignments. In addition, the students were active in asking questions, giving opinions, and participating in group discussion. The results of this study also show that the most dominant factor in influencing students 'engagement was the teachers' support factor, followed by class structure and school level factors. Therefore, it is suggested that English teachers and school provide best support to students, and they establish good class structure in terms of class size and situation to improve students’ engagement

Research on the second-grade students' reading comprehension ability through fix-up options strategy implementation

Problems in reading comprehension are usually identified when the information obtained is incongruent with the reading text. Consequently, a reading strategy is made to support the comprehension ability. This study was aimed to determine the impact of reading comprehension ability on students of SMP Pos Keadilan Peduli Ummah (Henceforth called PKPU) and their responses to the implementation of the fix-up options strategy. It focused on improving reading comprehension by identifying the main idea, summarizing, making inferences, and interpreting vocabulary. A mixed-explanatory research design was used as the method of the study. Forty-four students of PKPU junior high school's second grade were involved as samples. They were split into two groups: experimental and control. The reading test was used, with data analyzed using SPSS 20 series for quantitative analysis and questionnaires analyzed using interactive analysis for qualitative analysis.  The findings showed a significant improvement in students' reading comprehension. The dominant aspects of improvement were making inferences and interpreting vocabulary. The students' responses were positive to applying fix-up strategies to improve their reading comprehension. Thus, using the fix-up options strategy was found to help students improve their reading comprehension ability

Competitive storytelling: What do teachers do in assisting students to win the contest?

This study was aimed to investigate the teachers’ strategy used by the teachers in assisting their students to win story telling contests. The study employed the qualitative approach with multiple case study as the design. The teachers from five schools considered as the role model based on the number of their students’ achievement in storytelling contest were interviewed. The data were then analyzed by data condensation, data display and conclusion (Miles, Huberman, Saldana, 2018). The conclusion of the study illustrated that the preparation process conducted by those teachers were motivation through emphasizing the benefit of joining the storytelling contest, providing a role model of a successful storyteller, enabling the parents approach to strengthen the benefit of storytelling to the students, avoiding a winning oriented competition that put more burden to their shoulders, and facilitating internal competitions. Moreover, the result found that the coaching strategy used by the teachers were adjusting duration, reading the story, modelling, observing, and giving feedback. Lastly, the sources of storytelling model that the teachers used were also available

Pre-service teachers' perception of their competence and their readiness for teaching profession

The Indonesian Government takes serious measure on the future prospect of the teacher education graduates who are considered not to have a standardized competence ability to become a professional teacher. It inflicted some responses that opposed with the implementation of the program. This issue highlights the need for a more thorough investigation on the legitimacy of new teachers in Indonesia, as well as their quality. The goal of this study is to learn about pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their own competency and readiness to teach. This quantitative study used internet-based questionnaires to collect the data. The participants were 67 undergraduate students of university in Lamongan, East Java Province. The result of this research showed that p value (.258) is higher () than ɑ value (.05). It means that there were no correlation between pre-service teachers’ perception of their competence and their readiness for teaching profession. Nevertheless, the pre-service teachers have a positive perception regarding their competence and readiness to teach in a professional setting. By realizing and considering their competence and readiness for the teaching profession, they willfeel more confident and ready to face the real environment of teaching as a profession

The effectiveness of reciprocal scaffolding technique on students’ writing skill

The objectives of this research were to investigate the effectiveness of using the reciprocal scaffolding technique on students’ writing skills and the students’ responses toward the implementation of the technique in the teaching and learning process at the second-year student of State Junior High School 1 Kutamakmur, North Aceh. The samples for this study were drawn in two customized groups using a random sampling approach with class VIII/b as the experimental group and class VIII/d as the control group forming a total of 52 students. The data for this study were gathered using a test and a questionnaire. The data were analyzed to determine the difference in the t-test scores between the two groups. The statistical results showed that the control group’s mean pre-test score was 50.15, which was lower than the experimental group’s 51.69. Meanwhile, the mean score of the experimental group in the post-test was 70.88, which was higher than the control group’s 58.34. The significant value for both groups in the post-test was 0.00, which is less than 0.05. Therefore, the null hypothesis was rejected and the alternative hypothesis was accepted. It indicates that teaching writing while employing reciprocal scaffolding more effectively improves the students’ writing than teaching without it. In addition, the questionnaire that was presented to the experimental group revealed that the students gave positive responses toward the use of reciprocal scaffolding techniques in teaching writing

The effect of using computer-assisted reading with inquiry-based learning on student reading comprehension

This study aims to determine whether there is a difference between students who read using computer-assisted reading and those who read using other means in terms of reading. The sample was 23 students studying at two senior high schools in Sumenep, East Java, Indonesia. They were selected from student representatives based on their English language skills. The experiment was divided into six stages which include learning and testing. The researchers used lexical-tutor where there are audio-assisted reading, concordance, and online dictionary. For the learning process, researchers use inquiry-based learning, which focuses on student activity. To determine whether there is an effect on reading comprehension, the researcher used a paired sample t-test and an independent sample test to determine whether there is a difference in student reading comprehension score using an inquiry-based computer aid with those who do not use it. Based on the results of the study, there is no effect and no difference between reading using computer-assisted reading with inquiry-based learning and those who did not use computers. When viewed from individual scores, the results of the study showed little progress. The results of the observation show that not all students like to read while listening to audio

The mapping of TOEFL scores among EFL students in Aceh

The purpose of this study was to describe the proficiency level of English for Foreign Language (EFL) students based on their TOEFL scores. The samples for this descriptive quantitative study consisted of 30 English Education Department students from Syiah Kuala University and Ar-Raniry State Islamic University. The scores gathered from the organised TOEFL test were analysed according to the CEFR reference levels to categorise the English proficiency level of the students. The total TOEFL scores gathered showed that, on average, the students placed in the B1 (intermediate) level of English proficiency. Individually, there were four students in the A2 (elementary) level, 15 students in the B1 (intermediate) level, ten students in the B2 (upper intermediate) level, and one student in the C1 (advanced) level of proficiency. Regarding the skills proficiency, on average, the students achieved the B2 (upper intermediate) level in the first section, which was higher than the remaining two sections that averaged on the B1 (intermediate) level. The students’ proficiency levels found in this study showed that, on average, they were able to pass the universities’ TOEFL graduation requirement but still fall short for abroad scholarship admission

The strategies used by English department students in giving and receiving compliments

This qualitative research aims to find out the strategies used by students in giving and receiving compliments. The research participants were graduate students of English language education at Syiah Kuala University. In collecting the data, the researcher used the Discourse Completion Task (Henceforth called DCT) framework of Xiang (2013). The researcher carried out an interview adapted from Fattah (2020) to elicit participants’ understanding in conveying their compliments based on the topic complimented. The findings of DCT revealed that there were three of four types of compliment topics identified: topic appearance, topic ability/performance, and topic possession. The interview result showed that they knew how to utter compliments to each case. The responses strategies tend to use appreciation tokens consisting of 65 answers. The return consists of 11 responses, the question consists of 10 responses, the scale down consists of 8 responses, and comment history consists of 3 responses. While, praise upgrade, request, and qualification consist of 1 response, respectively. The questionnaire and DCT results were equal, which means the participants favored using appreciation tokens in giving and receiving compliments. It occurred due to their habit of daily conversation.

Teaching Vocabulary through Round Robin brainstorming technique

The researcher focused on improving vocabulary achievement through the Round Robin Brainstorming technique at the seventh-grade students of SMA Negeri 5 Luwu Utara. The aim of the research was to find out whether or not the use of the Round Robin Brainstorming technique improves the vocabulary achievement of the students effectively. Pre-experimental research was used by the researcher. The population was the tenth-graders of SMA Negeri 5 Luwu Utara. The population amounted to 132 students. The Class X Ipa 1 sample consisted of 21 students. A vocabulary test was the resource of the research. The researcher gave the students a pre-test and a post-test. The data analyzed by using SPSS 22. The finding of this research shows that the use of the round-robin brainstorming technique effectively improves the students' vocabulary achievement. The students' result means score in the pre-test was lower than the mean score in the post-test (52.86 60.24). The researcher found that p-value (0.02) was lower than the alpha (0.05). The researcher concludes that using the Round Robin Brainstorming technique is effective to improve students' vocabularyThe researcher focused on improving vocabulary achievement through the Round Robin Brainstorming technique at the seventh-grade students of SMA Negeri 5 Luwu Utara. The aim of the research was to find out whether or not the use of the Round Robin Brainstorming technique improves the vocabulary achievement of the students effectively. Pre-experimental research was used by the researcher. The population was the tenth-graders of SMA Negeri 5 Luwu Utara. The population amounted to 132 students. The Class X Ipa 1 sample consisted of 21 students. A vocabulary test was the resource of the research. The researcher gave the students a pre-test and a post-test. The data analyzed by using SPSS 22. The finding of this research shows that the use of the round-robin brainstorming technique effectively improves the students' vocabulary achievement. The students' result means score in the pre-test was lower than the mean score in the post-test (52.86 60.24). The researcher found that p-value (0.02) was lower than the alpha (0.05). The researcher concludes that using the Round Robin Brainstorming technique is effective to improve students' vocabulary