THE ANALYSIS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES USAGE FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING AT UNIVERSITAS BANGKA BELITUNG

The use of Information Technologies (IT) tools has become very important requirements for teachers and students nowadays in achieving academic goals in higher education. The harness of computers, internet, e-mail, multi-media and other IT tools is indispensable and has a great influence on the process of language teaching and learning in an effort to improve the quality of education and to produce best human resources that not only having good competence in foreign language but also possessing great capabilities in the use of Information Technology to face the Industrial Revolution 4.0 era. The study seeks to find out the frequency and the purposes of IT usage by students and lecturers in the English learning environment. A questionnaire containing questions about the frequency and the use of IT in the teaching and learning process was disseminated to the students and the lecturers of the English Literature department at the University of Bangka Belitung. The study reveals that the lecturers and students show a positive attitude towards the use of IT tools and the harness of the tools in the process of teaching and learning is believed to be very useful

THE OPTIMAL NUMBER OF OPTIONS USED IN MULTIPLE-CHOICE TEST FORMAT FOR NATIONAL EXAMINATIONS IN INDONESIA

Purpose of the study: The present research purports to find out the most favourable number of options used in the Multiple Choice (MC) format for Senior High Schools in Indonesian National Examinations (UN) and suggest the testing division within the Indonesia ministry of education to consider the result of the study Methodology: Two English tests using MC questions with five options, consisting of 50 questions per test format, were used as the elicitation devices for this research. One of these English tests was rewritten to create four options by deleting the non-functioning distractors in each question. Both tests with different MC test formats were administered to 2 groups within two state Senior High Schools (SMA). The Classical Method and Rasch Analysis were utilized to compare item facility, item discrimination, distractor measure correlation, and reliabilities across the two MC test formats. To corroborate the findings of the study, questionnaires were randomly distributed to 120 SMA students and 15 SMA English teachers. Main Findings: The findings suggested that four options were more difficult than five options. There was significant change observed in Item Facility (p<0.05) and Item Discrimination across the two MC test formats. Based on the questionnaire data analysis, the four-option is the more optimal and preferable format to be used in the National Examinations. Applications of this study: Regarding the practicality issues like saving time and money for implementing the tests, minimizing the amount of time and effort needed for test-makers to create the tests, and also reducing the risk of providing implausible distractors for developing MC tests, this study concluded that the four-option MC format is more optimal to be used for Indonesian National Examinations in Senior High School. Novelty/Originality of this study: The testing division within the Indonesia Ministry of Education uses different numbers of MC options in Elementary, Junior High, and Senior High Schools examinations. The Ministry has predetermined three options for elementary schools, four options for junior high schools, and five options for senior high school students. The decision made the researchers of the present study eager to find out whether the use of MC format with reduced options in the UN SMA will produce the same results or maybe increase or reduce the efficiency, effectiveness, reliability, and practicality of the test administration. This is the first study to compare the number of choices in the MC test format used in Indonesian National Examinations

The esteem needs in the main character of ‘Me Before You’ movie

Humans have gone through many incidents, both good and bad experiences, and sometimes these experiences are shared with others in the form of stories. The stories, as one of the forms of literary works, would be nothing without the created characters within them because they provide the viewers with a purpose and a reason for us to learn about what happens in the story. Besides, they act as one important element in the movie with various psychological effects. This research aims to analyze the characteristics and the hierarchy of human needs, especially esteem needs, that appear in the main character named Will Traynor in the ‘Me Before You’ movie directed by Thea Sharrock. This study uses descriptive data analysis which describes a phenomenon and the main character in the movie. The results revealed seven characters comprising the esteem needs hierarchy: sensitive, open-minded, friendly, kind, confident, humble, and stubborn. The esteem needs hierarchy is the desire to have the need to be approved, valued, and recognized to have some self-esteem. This is striking in the movie because of the status of the character, Will Traynor as a lord, and Louisa Clark who is only a maid and has no superiority over Will in her life. The findings imply the personality of humans differ in their characters and psychology as shown from the esteem needs hierarchy in Will’s personality expressing the different types of characteristics

ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE EDMODO USAGE IN LEARNING ACTIVITIES FOR ENGLISH LITERATURE STUDENTS

The increment of concern in the use of online learning tools into English Language Teaching to adopt the Industrial Revolution 4.0 has inspired this study to examine students’ thoughts on Edmodo, as one of the online learning tools, at the English Literature department within the University of Bangka Belitung. Edmodo is used by the researchers to discuss the students’ attitude in improving their English skills. Data were collected by means of questionnaires and interview. A Likert scale questionnaire was administered and open-ended interviews were conducted to get more information from the students. Data were qualitatively and quantitatively analysed by using SPSS v.22 Software. The results reveal that the Edmodo usage is aiding students’ cooperation in small group discussions, reflecting that teaching and learning activities established on the ground of communicative teaching method were able to improve cooperation and communication, raising students’ motivation to take part and involve in various learning and also empowering them to be self-determining and be more responsible for their own learning. This study is an endeavor to attract more researchers to do further investigations on this area within the Indonesian English learners at the university level

PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF BANGKA MALAY LANGUAGE, TOBOALI DIALECT, IN SOUTH BANGKA REGENCY

The factors that led to the extinction of a regional language dialect are the absence of inputting the vocabulary into a dictionary, recording the phonological system to academic articles, and the absence of language enthusiasts or linguists who want to maintain the existence of a dialect in a community. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the phonological system in the Toboali dialect as the variant of the Malay language in the South Bangka Regency. The research is triggered by the decreasing use of regional languages in society and it purports to identify and describe the phonological system of the Toboali dialect. To do that, this study uses a qualitative method in which the researchers firstly collected data, then analyzed and classified the data, and finally drew a conclusion. The Swadesh list which consists of 250 vocabularies was utilized during the interview. The researchers obtained the Toboali dialect words by gesturing or pointing to objects and images so the informants were able to pronounce the words and then the phonetic transcription could be written. Thus, the data obtained are accurate because the language obtained was not delivered in Indonesian but is purely pronounced in the Toboali dialect. The results of this study indicate that there are 7 vowels: [?], [e], [o], [i], [?], [?], [a] and 19 consonants are found in the Toboali dialect: [b], [c], [d], [f], [g], [h], [j], [k], [l], [m], [n], [p], [r], [s], [t], [w], [y], [z], and [?]

ANALISIS KELAYAKAN KUALITAS SUMBER MATA AIR PANAS DESA NYELANDING SEBAGAI AIR MINUM

Masyarakat di Desa Nyelanding telah lama mengkonsumsi air dari sumber mata air panas sebagai air siap minum. Hal tersebut dilakukan oleh hampir seluruh masyarakat di Desa Nyelanding. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk melihat apakah sumber mata air panas yang ada di Desa Nyelanding memiliki kelayakan sebagai air minum. Telah dilakukan kajian awal sebelumnya dengan beberapa parameter, pada penelitian ini dilakukan penambahan beberapa pengujian yang dilakukan pada parameter kimia anorganik sehingga dapat diperoleh data yang lebih lengkap. Dilakukan 2 jenis Pengujian yaitu: Parameter fisika dan Kimia Anorganik dengan 23 macam pengujian dengan beberapa metode antara lain: C/029/MTD/2016, C/050/MTD/2016,  C/047/MTD/2016, C/035/MTD/2016, C/053/MTD/2016, SNI 06-6989-25-2004, SNI 06-6989-24-2005, SNI 06-6989-23-2005 dan lain sebagainya. Diperoleh hasil pengukuran parameter fisika bahwa air tersebut tidak berbau, tidak berasa, 0.25 mg/l jumlah zat pada terlarutnya, dan tingkat kekeruhan sebesar 0.02 skala NTU. Untuk pengukuran kimia anorganik secara keseluruhan didapat bahwa nilai yang didapat tidak melebihi kadar batas maksimum yang diperbolehkan sesuai dengan Peraturan Menteri Kesehatan Republik Indonesia nomor 492 Tahun 2010

THE ANALYSIS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES USAGE FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING AT UNIVERSITAS BANGKA BELITUNG

The use of Information Technologies (IT) tools has become very important requirements for teachers and students nowadays in achieving academic goals in higher education. The harness of computers, internet, e-mail, multi-media and other IT tools is indispensable and has a great influence on the process of language teaching and learning in an effort to improve the quality of education and to produce best human resources that not only having good competence in foreign language but also possessing great capabilities in the use of Information Technology to face the Industrial Revolution 4.0 era. The study seeks to find out the frequency and the purposes of IT usage by students and lecturers in the English learning environment. A questionnaire containing questions about the frequency and the use of IT in the teaching and learning process was disseminated to the students and the lecturers of the English Literature department at the University of Bangka Belitung. The study reveals that the lecturers and students show a positive attitude towards the use of IT tools and the harness of the tools in the process of teaching and learning is believed to be very useful

PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF BANGKA MALAY LANGUAGE, TOBOALI DIALECT, IN SOUTH BANGKA REGENCY

The factors that led to the extinction of a regional language dialect are the absence of inputting the vocabulary into a dictionary, recording the phonological system to academic articles, and the absence of language enthusiasts or linguists who want to maintain the existence of a dialect in a community. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the phonological system in the Toboali dialect as the variant of the Malay language in the South Bangka Regency. The research is triggered by the decreasing use of regional languages in society and it purports to identify and describe the phonological system of the Toboali dialect. To do that, this study uses a qualitative method in which the researchers firstly collected data, then analyzed and classified the data, and finally drew a conclusion. The Swadesh list which consists of 250 vocabularies was utilized during the interview. The researchers obtained the Toboali dialect words by gesturing or pointing to objects and images so the informants were able to pronounce the words and then the phonetic transcription could be written. Thus, the data obtained are accurate because the language obtained was not delivered in Indonesian but is purely pronounced in the Toboali dialect. The results of this study indicate that there are 7 vowels: [?], [e], [o], [i], [?], [?], [a] and 19 consonants are found in the Toboali dialect: [b], [c], [d], [f], [g], [h], [j], [k], [l], [m], [n], [p], [r], [s], [t], [w], [y], [z], and [?]