The Analysis of Cultural Content in Two EFL Textbooks Used at SMA IT Iqra’ And SMKN 1 Bengkulu City

The aims of this research were to find out how cultural dimensions were displayed, what culture was the most dominant, and the percentage of local culture in textbooks used at SMA IT IQRA? (Pathway to English) and SMK N1 Grade X (Bahasa Inggris by KEMENDIKBUD) Bengkulu. This research applied content analysis study with descriptive qualitative analysis. The procedures used in data collection were document review and observation. In analysing the data, the concept by Mile and Huberman was applied. The study revealed that from the two textbooks, there was a difference in terms of dominance in cultural types and dimensions. In Pathway to English, there was38 % items of aesthetic sense, 32% of pragmatic sense, and 26% of sociological sense. Semantic sense had the least representation which was only 4%. In cultural types, there was (50%) for target culture, 44% for local culture, and 6% for international culture. As for Bahasa Inggris by KEMENDIKBUD, there was 44% for asthetic sense, 25% for sociological sense, 22% for aesthetic sense, and 8% for semantic sense. Local culture has most items to occur, which reached 47 percent, followed by target culture which was 41%. The last is international culture with 11% of occurrence. It is highly recommendable that teachers apply the books with more cultural dimensions and types to hep students broaden their cultural knowledge and awareness

Investigating Students’ Difficulties in Mastering English Listening Skills

This research aimed to find out the difficulties of students in mastering English listening skills at one of non-goverment MTs Bengkulu Tengah. This his study employed descriptive qualitative research method. The research subjects in this study are students at VII A Class of MTs Panca Mukti Bengkulu Tengah as the primary data source with the total subjects are 35 Students. The instruments used to collect the data in this research were observation, interview and documentation. The Semi Structured Interview consists of 12 questions. The researcher observed the class, after that, the researcher choosed fifteen students who had most difficulties in listening to be interviewed.  The results of this study showed that the difficulties that the students faced in listening were related into four categories namely students’ difficulties related to the listening material, students’ difficulties related to the speaker, students’ difficulties related to the listener, students’ difficulties related to the physical environment. Besides, the factors which cause students’ difficulties in listening were lack of vocabulary, having hearing problems, unfocussed, the speaker spoke too fast

THE COMPARISON STUDY ON TWO-TYPES OF STUDENTS` PERSONALITY: SANGUINE AND PHLEGMATIC TOWARD THEIR ENGLISH SPEAKING ABILITY

The study is an attempt to find out the difference between Sanguine and Phlegmatic personality toward their speaking ability. The design in this study was comparative analysis design. The samples of this study were 44 students from Faculty of Law. Personality test was carried out to decide whether the students were categorized to the group of Sanguine or Phlegmatic. Furthermore, the researcher used personal description for monologue speaking technique for testing the students speaking skills. The data were analyzed by using t-test formula to investigate whether there was significant difference result between the Sanguine and the Phlegmatic students in their speaking skill. From the result of the study, it could be concluded that there was no significant different result between the Sanguine and the Phlegmatic students toward their speaking skill. It means, there were not any better students in speaking between both Sanguine and Phlegmatic students. Those two personalities, the Sanguine and the Phlegmatic students could perform better English speaking skill through their own personal way.Keywords:  Comparison Study, Sanguine, Phlegmatic, Speaking Abilit

Pelatihan Pengembangan Bahan Ajar Keterampilan Membaca Berbasis Konten Keislaman Untuk Guru Bahasa Inggris di Tingkat Madrasah Aliya (MA) Kota Bengkulu

Sebagai media pendukung siswa dalam belajar, bahan ajar memegang peranan yang sangat penting. Bahan ajar merupakan sumber belajar yang digunakan guru untuk mencapai tujuan pembelajaran. Oleh karenanya, bahan ajar hendaklah memiliki kualitas yang baik. Baik tidaknya kualiatas bahan ajar sangat menentukan mutu pembelajaran. Bahan ajar berkualitas tentunya dibuat dan dikembangkan sesuai kebutuhan guru dan siswa. Artikel ini menyajikan pelatihan pengembangan bahan ajar keterampilan membaca (reading skills) yang dilakukan kepada guru bahasa Inggris  di selingkupan Madrasah Aliya (MA) Kota Bengkulu. Menimbang siswa MA memiliki kebutuhan yang tidak dapat disamakan dengan siswa sekolah menengah umum lainnya, pelatihan ini menitik beratkan pada pengembangan bahan ajar keterampilan membaca Bahasa Inggris yang berbasis kebutuhan siswa MA, yakni bahan ajar yang melibatkan konten kultur dan/ atau nilai nilai yang ada pada keseharian siswa di lingkungan madrasah.  Salah satunya yakni nilai nilai keislaman. Terdapat tiga aspek nilai nilai keislaman yang difokuskan dalam pengembangan bahan ajar ini, diantaranya nilai akidah, nilai ibadah dan nilai akhlak. Ketiga nilai nilai inilah yang dicoba untuk diintegrasikan ke dalam teks reading pada produk pengembangan bahan ajar berbasis keislaman

THE EFFECTS OF TIME CONSTRAINTS ON STUDENTS’ WRITING PERFORMANCE

Abstract: Most of the standardized tests that are administered today exist with time constraints for completion. However, these prescribed time constraints are often not allowing test takers enough time to do the test calmly and rationally. Rooted in the phenomenon, this study was conducted. By using factorial design as the design of this study, the objective of this study was specifically to find out whether or not time constraints significantly affected on students’ writing performance. This study was conducted among EFL learners of English Education Study Program at STKIP Siliwangi Bandung. They were asked to write two equivalent types of an argumentative essay writing based on a certain topic under varied testing conditions, a standard time constraint (90 minutes) and under an extended time constraint (120 minutes). To collect the data, the instruments used in this study were a writing test and semi-structured interview. To achieve the objective of this study, the one-sample Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Mann-Whitney U test were used. The findings of the study showed that there was any difference on the students’ writing performance between students with 90 minute test taking time and 120 minute test taking time. In short, time constraints affected the students’ writing performance. Keywords: time constraints, the effects of time constraints, students’ writing performanc

An Analysis the Character Education in Student’s Textbook Entitled English Skills for the Future for 10th Grade Publishing by Grafindo Media Pratama

Character education is everything that is the teacher, who is capable of influencing the character of the learner. The teacher helps shape the disposition of learners. It's exemplary how a teacher behaves, how a teacher talks or conveys material, how teachers tolerate, and various other related things.  The aim of this research is to found the character education in the English Textbook of 2013 curriculum entitled “English for the Future for Grade X of Senior High School Students published by Grafindo Media Pratama”. This researcher use the methodology Qualitative content analysis in this research. Qualitative content analysis goes beyond counting words or extracting objective content from texts to examine meanings, themes and patterns that may be manifest or latent in a particular text. The result showed that character education found in the English textbook of 2013 curriculum entitled English for the Future for tenth grade of Senior High school Students Published by Grafindo Media Pratama. The researcher found there is 18 character education in this book, those,  religious approximately 7.3% found the this book, honest around 3.3%, tolerance about 0.6%, discipline approximately 12.1% , hardwork 12.67%, creative 13,3%, independent 0.6%, democratic 4.67%, curiosity 12%, nationalism 4%, patriotism 2.67%, rewarding achievement 2.67%, friendly/communicate 6%, love of peace 0.67%, love to read  6.67%, caring the environment 2%, social care 6.67%, and responsibility 9.33%. The second question is about how the character education were delivery in this book. The researcher found there is 82.14% character education were deliver implicitly in this book, while the character education the deliver explicitly is about 17.86%

An analysis on Teacher Talk using Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories (FIAC)

The problem of this research was some lecturers only used one categories of teacher talks.  The aims of this study were to identify the characteristics and the categories of teacher talk in the classroom using Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories System (FIACS). This study was case study design and qualitative method. The subject of this study was one novice and senior lecturer at IAIN Bengkulu. It used Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories System (FIACS) to analyze teacher’s talk. The researcher used observation and interview for collecting the data. The result both of novice and senior lecturer showed that the characteristics of teacher is content cross and the most frequent is indirect talk. The percentage of teacher characteristics of novice lecturer was 45% while the percentage of teacher characteristics of senior lecturer was 39%. Novice lecturer used asking question and lecturing as the most frequent in indirect and direct talks. The percentage of asking question and lecturing were 39% and 21.5%. In other sides, senior lecturer used asking question and giving direction as the most frequent in indirect and direct talks. The percentage of asking and giving direction were 27.5% and 18.5%. Nevertheless, the occurred categories happened naturally with the consideration of learning situation that takes place. In addition the analysis of teachers’ talk in the classroom would be beneficial for teachers to plan and conduct enhanced learning situation. It concluded teacher talks of novice and senior lecturer in the classroom using Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories (FIAC).

Investigating Indonesian Beauty Contest Instagram Posts Sparking Feminism

In a patriarchal country like Indonesia, feminism is still an extremely relevant movement that needs to be manifested to improve women's life. Social media has become the most effective platform to promote the idea of feminism. Nowadays, women have crucial roles during the COVID-19 pandemic such as a working women community participating in the digital age. Many other feminists or woman-related communities, such as beauty pageant groups, contribute to spreading the pandemic awareness using their media while displaying their feminist perspective. Relevant to these issues, this study intends to uncover how women are represented on a beauty pageant social media account during the COVID-19 era to exhibit how the feminism ideology is presented through the women’s representation. This study focuses on analyzing the pictures from the Puteri Indonesia Instagram account (@officialputeriindonesia) posted during the pandemic by employing Kress and van Leeuwen's social semiotics theory of visual grammar complemented by the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) method. Results of the study denote that women represent their roles day by day by posting their images while conducting various activities such as social, environmental, cultural and health activities in well-dressed outfits. Women are also portrayed as possessing various characteristics that challenge the patriarchal stereotypes. Furthermore, these indicate the positive portrayal of feminism that concerns giving women more chances to be independent of the stereotypes and be more engaged in various roles regardless of gender

Teachers’ TPACK in Teaching EFL during Covid-19 Pandemic

This study explores the TPACK of EFL teachers in two distinct school districts during the Covid-19 pandemic. This study comprised two English teachers from rural and urban schools in Bengkulu, Indonesia, with 2 to 10 years of experience teaching English. The researchers collected the data utilizing an interview-based comparative descriptive methodology to address research questions. Following the interview, the collected data was transcribed. The findings of this study indicate that urban teachers have a higher level of TPACK than rural teachers in terms of their ability to use technology and manage classes when teaching English during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly concerning online learning applications such as Zoom meetings, WhatsApp, Google Classroom, and the YouTube app. On the other hand, rural EFL teachers have insufficient TPACK. Due to a lack of time to design technology lesson plans, technology training, and inadequate supporting facilities and infrastructure, such as limited internet network availability and power outages, teachers lack knowledge of technological advances for online learning. Even though teachers in rural and urban areas had never utilized an online learning system during the previous school year, they had varying capacities for addressing problems that developed while utilizing this system

CONTENT ANALYSIS OF SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH TEXTBOOK BASED ON 2013 CURRICULUM FOR THE FIRST GRADE STUDENTS AT SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

This research is focused on speaking activities in two versions of English Textbooks published by the Government/Kemendikbud and published by Private Publications/Erlangga based on the 2013 Curriculum syllabus, and this research is also to find out which books meet the good category to help student learning activities. This research is very important for the academic world to make it easier for a student and teacher to choose a good textbook to meet their speaking needs. The method used in this research is Content Analysis. The researcher used two analysis matrixes in collecting data. The first analysis matrix will show the suitability of the speaking activities in the two versions of the textbook with the 2013 curriculum syllabus. The second analysis matrix will show the percentage scores of the two versions of the English textbook based on the guidelines evaluation. As for the results of data analysis, the first matrix shows that speaking activities in the two versions of the English textbook are in accordance with the 2013 curriculum syllabus, and the second matrix also shows that the two versions of the English textbook are in the "good" and “fair” category, which is the textbook published by the Government/Kemendikbud has an average percentage of 93%(good) and textbooks published by Private Publications/Erlangga have an average percentage of 73% (fair). In conclusion, both versions of English textbooks published by the government/Kemendikbud and published by private publishers/Erlangga are good and fair categories for students in carrying out the teaching and learning process