Developing EFL Students’ Descriptive Writing through Alternative Joint Construction

This study attempts to explore how Alternative Joint Construction (AJC) can improve the fifth-semester-English-Education-Department students’ academic descriptive writing in large Indonesian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Classrooms with Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and a Genre-Based Approach (GBA). AJC combines Derewianka’s (1999) whole-class-model and Emilia’s (2010) small-group-model of Joint Construction to be a Group-Class-Group-Class (GCGC) model that merges the advantages of those models. The implementations of traditional Joint Construction caused serious problems: teachers’ difficulties in guiding, supervising, and providing feedback to the students’ Joint Construction due to the big number of students. Therefore, previously identified issues with the students’ descriptive writing—such as (1) the students’ incohesive and incoherent flow of information exchange, (2) the red herring of a personal perspective, and (3) lexicogrammatical issues—were not optimally improved. The result of this case study shows that AJC eliminates various problems in the implementation of traditional Joint Construction. The students’ writing also improved in some respects: (1) more cohesive and coherent text, (2) a less personal perspective, and (3) lexicogrammatical improvement in some parts of their writing. In sum, Joint Construction with the GCGC model is recommended for teaching academic descriptive writing in large EFL classrooms with similar characteristics to this Indonesian context

Developing EFL Students’ Descriptive Writing through Alternative Joint Construction

This study attempts to explore how Alternative Joint Construction (AJC) can improve the fifth-semester-English-Education-Department students’ academic descriptive writing in large Indonesian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Classrooms with Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and a Genre-Based Approach (GBA). AJC combines Derewianka’s (1999) whole-class-model and Emilia’s (2010) small-group-model of Joint Construction to be a Group-Class-Group-Class (GCGC) model that merges the advantages of those models. The implementations of traditional Joint Construction caused serious problems: teachers’ difficulties in guiding, supervising, and providing feedback to the students’ Joint Construction due to the big number of students. Therefore, previously identified issues with the students’ descriptive writing—such as (1) the students’ incohesive and incoherent flow of information exchange, (2) the red herring of a personal perspective, and (3) lexicogrammatical issues—were not optimally improved. The result of this case study shows that AJC eliminates various problems in the implementation of traditional Joint Construction. The students’ writing also improved in some respects: (1) more cohesive and coherent text, (2) a less personal perspective, and (3) lexicogrammatical improvement in some parts of their writing. In sum, Joint Construction with the GCGC model is recommended for teaching academic descriptive writing in large EFL classrooms with similar characteristics to this Indonesian context

Modelling Behaviour Semantically

Context is only one of several strata of meaning and we can not predict realisation at the lexical or grammatical level from context alone. Yet, there is a tendency to confuse contextual patterning with semantic patterning and allocate patterning to the contextual level that might better be dealt with on other levels. While much work has been done on theorising lexis and grammar and, more recently, on seeing these in context, much remains to be done on theorising semantics as a separate level mediating between context and lexis and grammar. This paper examines the problem of modelling behaviour and the challenge of understanding behaviour in context as well as on a semantical level. By understanding the descriptive responsibilities allocated to each level of language, we are better able to see what remains to be covered by context within a model.7 page(s