THE STUDENTS’ READING ANXIETY AND READING STRATEGIES IN EFL LEARNING

Numerous students experience anxiety in reading, particularly, when they are asked to read a foreign language text. There are some factors that must be taken into account such as the cultural background of the text, the ability of the language being read, the unfamiliarity of the scripts, and the writing systems of the text. This study examined the sources of students’ reading anxiety and the use of reading strategies to overcome the anxiety in EFL reading. It employed a qualitative descriptive method and was considered as a case study design. EFLRAI adopted from MasoudZoghi (2012), RSQ adopted from Oxford et al. (2004), and a semi-structured interview were used as the instrumentations and materials in this study. The data from EFLRAI and RSQ were analyzed qualitatively by calculating manually the percentages and mean scores of the student responses to infer the data findings. The interview data were analyzed to corroborate and confirm the data from questionnaires. The result of this study showed that most of the students considered top-down reading anxiety as the most affecting source causing anxiety in EFL reading (35.78%). It was followed by the bottom-up reading anxiety (34.86%) and classrooms reading anxiety (29.36%). On the other hands, students preferred to use top-down reading strategies (55.38%) rather than bottom-up reading strategies (44.62%). In addition, the students’ reading anxiety is mostly derived from the text. Therefore, choosing an appropriate text is important in order to decrease the students’ reading anxiety and increase their interest and comprehension in reading. Besides, it is also inferred that the effectiveness of the use of a certain strategy does not depend on the strategy itself, what makes a strategy effective is associated with how it is employed. Therefore, teaching on how to use reading strategies is useful to improve students’ comprehension since effective strategies can be taught and reading comprehension can be improved through instruction.--------Banyak siswa mengalami kecemasan saat membaca, terutama ketika mereka harus membaca teks bahasa asing. Ada beberapa faktor yang harus diperhatikan seperti latar belakang budaya teks, kemampuan bahasa dibaca, skrip yang tidak dikenal, dan sistem penulisan teks. Penelitian ini meneliti sumber kecemasan membaca siswa dan penggunaan strategi membaca untuk mengatasi kecemasan dalam membaca teks Bahasa Inggris. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode deskriptif kualitatif dan dianggap sebagai desain studi kasus. EFLRAI diadopsi dari MasoudZoghi (2012), RSQ diadopsi dari Oxford et al. (2004), dan wawancara semi terstruktur digunakan sebagai instrumentasi dan materi dalam penelitian ini. Data dari EFLRAI dan RSQ dianalisis secara kualitatif dengan menghitung secara manual persentase dan skor rata-rata tanggapan siswa untuk menyimpulkan temuan data. Data wawancara dianalisis untuk menguatkan dan mengkonfirmasi data dari kuesioner. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa sebagian besar siswa menganggap kecemasan membaca top-down sebagai sumber yang paling mempengaruhi kecemasan dalam membaca EFL (35,78%). Hal ini diikuti oleh kecemasan membaca bottom-up (34,86%) dan kecemasan membaca classroom (29,36%). Di sisi lain, siswa lebih suka menggunakan strategi membaca top-down (55,38%) daripada strategi membaca bottom-up (44,62%). Selain itu, kecemasan membaca siswa sebagian besar berasal dari teks. Oleh karena itu, memilih teks yang tepat penting guna mengurangi kecemasan membaca siswa dan meningkatkan minat dan pemahaman mereka dalam membaca. Selain itu, disimpulkan juga bahwa keefektifan penggunaan strategi membaca tidak bergantung pada strategi itu sendiri, yang membuat strategi efektif adalah terkait dengan bagaimana penerapannya. Oleh karena itu, pengajaran tentang bagaimana menggunakan strategi membaca yang baik sangat dianjurkan untuk meningkatkan pemahaman siswa karena strategi yang efektif dapat diajarkan dan pemahaman bacaan dapat ditingkatkan melalui pengajaran

Integrating Technologies in the New Normal: A Study of Blended Learning

The objective of this research is to describe how the teacher integrates technologies in blended learning and to analyze students’ perception and challenges in blended learning. The research was conducted in a private senior high school in Bandung and used a qualitative descriptive method. The data were collected through interview and questionnaire. The findings show that the teacher had already integrated technologies to run the process of teaching and learning in the new normal era as a replacement of a face to face learning due to Covid-19 pandemic. In the blended learning, the teacher integrated the variety of technologies in teaching-learning activities, namely zoom meeting and WhatsApp group chatting for the synchronous learning and she utilized google classroom, screencast o matic screen recorder, viva video editor, YouTube, and Quizizz the synchronous learning. The students perceived  blended learning positively and determined that it is it is one of the effective ways of teaching. The biggest challenge overcome by the teacher is more time needed to learn and adapt to this new situation where they must employ technology in our educational culture. For the students, the stability of internet connection also becomes major obstacle in blended learning. Apart from that, blended learning can be an option applied in the learning process in the current pandemic era

Learner’s Autonomy In English As A Foreign Language Teaching And Learning: A Case Study At A State University in Indonesia

This article presents the outcome of a case study research which is particularly aimed at investigating dimensions of learner autonomy in EFL teaching-learning particularly in an English education program and situations under which learners learn autonomously. To collect the data, a questionnaire adapted from Murase (2009) was distributed to fourty first-year undergraduate students of a university in Bandung and interview was addressed to nine undergraduate learners. The findings showed that all dimensions of learner autonomy are found and each dimension is reflected in various degrees. The degree of technical and political dimensions of learner autonomy is in respect not as satisfactory as expected. However, the degree of learner autonomy in the psychological and socio-cultural dimension is high enough. There are four major aspects related to situations under which learners learn autonomously, including the subject matter, the lecturer, the time, and the challenging task. It is recommended for further research to investigate learner autonomy in a more specific context of class, for example learner autonomy in a speaking class, in order to get more in-depth data. &nbsp