Character Education from the Students’, Teachers’, and Schools’ Perspective

In 2016, the Indonesian Government emphasized character education by sparking a Character Strengthening Program or Program Penguatan Karakter/PPK to build and strengthen the students’ character. This program focuses on character building but it mainly highlights five main good characters which are religiosity, nationalism, integrity, independence, and cooperation. This study aims to deeply understand the perspective of students, teachers, and schools toward knowledge and value of character education and to explore the linkage among them as a complete picture. A mixed-method research was employed in this study. The data was collected from 2 junior and 2 senior high schools, which involved 4 headmasters, 12 teachers, and 212 students. Regression analysis was performed to evaluate the roles of teachers and schools in the internalization of character education among students, while the qualitative approach was employed to understand teachers’ and schools' perspectives. This study finds that based on the students’ perspective, teachers' and schools' roles are playing a significant effect on the internalization of the values of character education to them. The school and the teachers were not familiar with terms used by the governments PPK programs. Despite, the school and teacher are in synergy in developing the students’ good character with their own character development terms such as “akhlaq mulia” which is actually has similar values with the Government’s Character Strengthening Progra

Modified Cloze Test, Essay Test, Personal & Collaborative Writing Tasks in EFL Composition Class at Universitas Andalas

This retrospective study reports a quantitative analysis of two types of assignments and two test forms used to measure improvement of student’s writing skill in two composition classes at Universitas Andalas, West Sumatera, Indonesia. This project aims to identify the different roles of the two test forms used as well as the relationship and learning effects between the two test forms and weekly personal writing task or in-class group tasks. In this research, two EFL classes of Composition with two different groups of students in two successive academic years were observed. The classes’ activities, held through fourteen meetings for learning activities and two meetings for mid-term and end-of-term examinations, consisted of weekly assignments of composing paragraphs or short essays individually and collaboratively. The first composition class used an integrative test, i.e. cloze test, as the mid semester examination and a short essay test as the final semester examination. The second class used only essay test for both exams. The individual weekly writing task was assigned in both classes while the collaborative writing task was assigned only in the first class. The pearson r corelational analyses on scores of the assignments and the tests in both classes shows that the modified cloze test appeared to still correlately weakly with the essay test but, through t-test analyses, still significant in detecting the learning effect. Personal weekly writing assignments correlate strongly with essay test while the collaborative work appeared to have less significant learning effect on the student's writing competence

A Naturalistic Study Design of the Warm-Up Prompt and Online Planning Effect on Fluency in Informal Dialogues

As many studies on pre-task planning and a few on online planning were designed in experimental settings, this research article offers a naturalistic model for investigating the effect of warm-up prompt and online planning effect on fluency in informal dialogues. Among Skehan’s (1996) three parameters of oral language performance, the researcher focused only on measuring the fluency of two male Indonesian learners of English as a Second Language. The participants were also explicitly prepared for the topic through preconditioning information and warm-up prompts. They were also implicitly allowed to have ‘rapid planning’ (Ochs, 1979) or online planning strategy in response to the questions. Their entire informal conversations were audio-taped, transcribed, and analyzed according to Ellis and Barkhuizen’s (2005) scheme of measuring spoken language. The result shows that participants of different proficiencies committed errors of fluency by choice as their online planning strategy. However, the high proficient learner produced fewer errors that the low proficient learner did. They both used the errors for making rapid / online planning to buy time but for two different purposes. The high proficient speaker planned for strategic purposes and formulating a better answer while the low proficient speaker planned mostly for overcoming shortage of vocabularies. The errors were also found to be used in combined format thereby giving the full time-buying benefit for the speakers in their online planning mode

Beyond Linguistic Documentation: Between the National Language and Local Languages in Indonesia

This paper discusses the politics of national language policy, especially in Indonesia and the effects of the policy toward the continuity of language diversity in Indonesia. Firstly, a short review of studies in endangered languages is presented in order to fit this discussion in appropriate place in the literature. To get more specific, the Indonesian language policy and its influence toward the country’s linguistic diversity is reviewed which is followed by the description of the media’s influence upon the threat posed to the marginal local languages. After this point, Indonesian linguists’ work will be reviewed in relation to their own status as members of different communities of practice. At the end, recommendations for improving the future linguistic works are suggested in light of language documentation, preservation, and maintenance

HOW READY ‘INDONESIAN ENGLISH’ IS TO LAUNCH: AN EMIC PERSPECTIVE

This is a qualitative study investigating the strength of the proposition of Indonesian English (Indolish) as a potentially emerging English variety from the outer/expanding circle from an emic perspective. This proposed variety does not yet exist even as a de facto English variety spoken in Indonesia or elsewhere. Nonetheless, the growing spread of English used by Indonesians has frequently prompted the idea of promoting the establishment of Indolish as a new English variety in the World Englishes areas for Indonesians. To clarify this early signal, an exploratory study was conducted to investigate the perspective of Indonesian postgraduate students who pursued their higher degrees in some Australian universities and whose overseas learning and language contact experience should bring them into a direct contact with a wide range of English varieties and thereby allowing them to better reflect on the significance of creating a special type of English for Indonesians. Seven participants responded to the three open-questioned survey questionnaire sent to two mailing list groups of Indonesian Postgraduate students. Two participants prefer to have Indolish while five others disagree with the idea. Majority of the participants show a strong nationalistic identity indicating a stagnant foundation process in Schneider’s Dynamic Model  in Indonesian context. Nevertheless, the participants demonstrate a strong dependence on English NS norms which confirm Kachru’s proposition and indicate their rejection of Norton’s notion of ownership of English language. In conclusion, these participants view that Indonesian English does not seem ready to launch yet

EKSISTENSI KETERANGAN AHLI SEBAGAI ALAT BUKTI DALAM SISTEM PERADILAN PIDANA DI INDONESIA

 Dalam pemeriksaan perkara pidana, seorang ahli yang dihadirkan dalam persidangan memerlukan pula pengetahuan secara hukum tentang kedudukan dan ruang lingkup keterangannya sebagai ahli dalam sebuah persidangan. Seorang ahli dalam memberikan keterangan dalam satu persidangan perkara pidana harus memiliki pemahaman yang memadai atas keterangan yang akan diberikannya, karena bisa jadi ahli terjebak memberikan keterangan seolah-olah keterangan yang diberikannya tidak obahnya keterangan “saksi”. Kemungkinan ahli memberikan keterangan layak keterangan seorang saksi bisa berasal dari diri ahli sendiri, bisa pula terjadi karena ketidakmapuannya memilah dan memahami pertanyaan yang diajukan hakim, penuntut umum maupun penasehat hukum.Kata kunci: keterangan saksi, persidangan, pengetahuan In the examination of a criminal case, an expert presented in the proceedings requires legal knowledge of the position and scope of his testimony as an expert in a trial. An expert in giving testimony in a trial of a criminal case must have sufficient understanding of the information to be given, as it may be that the expert is trapped giving information as if the information he provided does not obey the "witness" description. The possibility of the expert giving the information worthy of the testimony of a witness may come from his or her own expert, may also occur because of his incompetence to sort and understand the questions posed by the judge, prosecutor and legal counsel.Keywords: testimony of witnesses, trial, knowledg

Implementasi Kebijakan Rehabilitasi Sosial Penyandang Tuna Grahita Di Panti Sosial Bina Grahita Nipotowe Palu

This study aimed to analyze the implementation of the policy of the Social Rehabilitation of Persons with Tuna Grahita in Panti Sosial Bina Grahita Nipotowe Palu, as well as supporting and inhibiting factors. Methods: The qualitative research with descriptive method, the informant as much as 7 people and are selected based on purposive sampling. Data collection techniques with interview, observation and documentation. Results of the study explained that, the implementation of rehabilitation policy of mentally disabled persons. because of the four dimensions studied, there is one dimension that implementation is not maximized, namely: first communication, especially the aspect of socialization maximum, second, human resources quality is adequate but the quantity is still lacking, infrastructure and funding shows the results sufficient for implementation of the policy, namely the third disposition implementer support and attitude regarding honesty, democratic nature and a commitment has been executed by the implementer, but not maximized, so that the implementation is less effective. While the bureaucratic structure that is SOP and the division of tasks was clear, so there is no fragmentation, and be flexible. Factors that inhibit the lack of professiona lhuman resource

Mothers' involvement: Children's perception of maternal childrearing practices

The purpose of this study is to identify maternal childrearing practices (achievement values, monitoring, and discussion) among employed and unemployed Malaysian mothers. Generally, these mothers have similar levels of childrearing practices. They instill high achievement values, conduct consistent monitoring on their children, and carry out regular discussions with them. They only differ in terms of monitoring. Discussion, implications, recommendations, and suggestions for future study are included

Kesediaan pelajar dari aspek kemahiran teknikal terhadap pembentukan kebolehkerjaan di Kolej Vokasional Wilayah Selatan

Graduan yang menganggur terus menjadi masalah yang semakin meruncing di Malaysia. Terdapat majikan yang menganggap kompetensi akademik sahaja tidak mencukupi dan mula meminta institusi pendidikan tinggi untuk menghasilkan graduan yang dilengkapi dengan kemahiran teknikal. Kajian ini merupakan satu kajian untuk mengenalpasti kesediaan pelajar dari aspek kemahiran teknikal terhadap pembentukan kebolehkerjaan di kolej vokasional wilayah selatan. Seramai 113 responden telah dipilih sebagai sampel kajian. Instrumen kajian yang digunakan dalam kajian ini ialah borang soal selidik yang mengandungi 60 item. Kajian rintis dijalankan untuk mendapatkan nilai alpha bagi instrument kajian di mana nilai alpha bagi aspek kemahiran teknikal adalah α = 0.962 dan bagi aspek kebolehkerjaan adalah α = 0.954 . Data yang diperoleh dianalisis dengan menggunakan Statistical Package for Social Science Version 20 (SPSS 20). Analisis deskriptif dalam bentuk skor min digunakan untuk melihat kesediaan pelajar. Hasil kajian mendapati bahawa tahap kesediaan pelajar dari aspek kemahiran teknikal terhadap pembentukan kebolehkerjaan di Kolej Vokasional Kluang, Kolej Vokasional Batu Pahat dan Kolej Vokasional Muar berada pada tahap tinggi. Hasil kajian juga menunjukkan terdapat perbezaan antara jantina pelajar dari aspek kemahiran teknikal yang mempengaruhi kesediaan pelajar terhadap pembentukan kebolehkerjaa

Identifying parenting practices: An initial step in setting up parenting program in school

The purpose of this study was to identify the levels of parenting practices among Malay and Chinese parents as perceived by their children. A total of 217 students responded to a questionnaire with items pertaining to their mothers’ and fathers’ demandingness and responsiveness practices. Findings revealed most of the Malay and Chinese parents in this study were perceived by their children to be low in demandingness and responsiveness. The only difference reported was between mothers’ and fathers’ demandingness. The response to each item in the demandingness and responsiveness measurement would be a guide to what should be included in the parenting course program. Implications for further research were also discussed