Power in Video Game Suikoden V: Its Relation and Exercises

It has been a recent trend for video games to include story as part of the gameplay to further enhance the players experience in playing. However, as any other form in literature which may portray social issues within the story, games also have the same possibility to portray social issues, such as power. Because of this reason, the present study aims to investigate how power manifests among characters in a video game, Suikoden V. The study uses a qualitative method, and uses the theoretical framework from French and Raven (2008) to categorize the data acquired. Foucault’s (1982) theory of power is also used to analyze the findings. The present study finds that power is exercised frequently by the people of authority and in higher position such as nobles and leaders. Power often exercised for two major purposes. The first is for the leaders to control the people, and the second is to construct identities which allow the leaders to control the people more efficiently. The findings revealed how the leaders are able to construct the society through the use of various types of power.Keywords: characters, power, power relation, video games, French and Raven, Foucault

Exploring Indonesian EFL Classroom Interactions in an Online Setting

COVID-19 pandemic has brought a lot of changes in the education field – including the way teachers and students interact in the classroom. As a result, it is considered important for the Indonesian EFL teachers to explore and address this issue to make them familiar with the current pattern of interaction in the online classroom. With that knowledge, making the online teaching and learning effective is achievable. Even though a lot of studies have been conducted on similar topic, this study propose a different analysis by adapting the most prevalent framework in this topic – Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories System (FIACS) – into more focused categories for better understanding. This case study aimed at exploring the interaction in an online EFL classroom by utilizing FIACS as the main framework.  The necessary data was collected through non-participant observation, with an English teacher and her seven grade students as the participants. The results of this study show that the online EFL classroom interaction was dominated by the teacher. It was caused by several reasons namely the passiveness of the students that led to more talking from the teacher and technological glitches. It caused the online meetings to be teacher-centered. As the teaching and learning medium changed, the pattern and characteristics of the interaction became unique. One of the notable uniqueness was the difficulty to oversee the online interactions between students

TEACHING ONLINE IN PANDEMIC TIME:THE EXPERIENCE OF INDONESIAN EFL TEACHERS

Myriad studies reported abrupt transition of face-to-face classrooms to online learning due to pandemic and the results were various, contextually-bounded from country to another. Yet, studies exploring the aforementioned issue in Indonesian EFL context are still scarce. This study explores issues and challenges experienced by Indonesian EFL teachers in conducting English online learning during the pandemic within qualitative approach. Twenty-five secondary English teachers from urban, suburban, rural and remote area participated in this study. Subsequently, online questionnaire and semi-structured virtual interviews were employed to collect data. Then, the data were analyzed descriptively and thematically. The results showed that the participants had positive responses to online learning to maintain learning processes in pandemic time. In terms of teaching language skills, the participants argued that speaking is the most challenging to teach online. Moreover, the study identified three types of online learning challenges related to technical aspects, teachers and students. Pedagogically, this study implied that pandemic time has given teachers disguised blessings as they had an opportunity to upgrade their information technology skills and literacies

Novice Teachers and Native-Speakerism: Identity Recognition on Teacher for English as An International Language

The study aims to explore three novice teachers' perception towards English native-speakerism for the exploration of English as an International Language (EIL). The concern towards English native-speakerism, preferring the English variations from its native background, in the practice of teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) has become the central issue, especially in Indonesia. It is not aligned with the idea of EIL which foster the process of producing competent users of English through the inclusion of local cultural-based items. The case study design will be utilized in the research using the pre-interview, document analysis, and post-interview as the instrument for data collection of novice teachers' perception of local and nativized exposure. The study discovers that all collaborated novice teachers set an agreement to support the local cultural-based inclusion in practice yet support the inclusion of standardized English for teaching pattern and pronunciation. The findings show how the teachers have acknowledged the inclusion of local exposure to maximize the endeavor for students to be competent users of English. The discussion still relies on making the local cultural-based items in teaching practices viable and proposes Englishes in the teaching to lessen the native-speakerism

Thinking critically while storytelling: Improving children’s HOTS and English oral competence

Although studies on the development of higher order thinking skills (HOTS) as part of Bloom’s revised taxonomy have grown significantly among adult learners, little is known about its use for teaching English to young learners. In the Indonesian context, HOTS is mandated by the scientific-based 2013 national curriculum. This study investigates the development of HOTS strategies and possible challenges through storytelling among seventh grade students to improve their speaking ability. This Classroom Action Research (CAR) obtains data from classroom observations, interviews with the teachers and students, and analysis of lesson plans. The findings reveal that, in its simple form, HOTS in storytelling was developed in young English learners through open-ended question, a strategy which enables students to practice speaking through giving opinion, comment, and imagination while analyzing and evaluating the story. However, due to their limited language competence and unfamiliarity with the story context, students still find difficulties in creating their own stories, the highest level of educational objective. The study finally comes up with ways to engage students in storytelling while developing their HOTS

Inspired-TBLT Framework to Enhance Students’ Speaking Performances in EFL Context

As one of the pedagogical approaches, TBLT has been employed by both researchers and practitioners to develop students’ language skills in the last decades. Besides solid grounding theory that possessed, it demands the students to participate actively as well during the class. Its’ flexibility gives the teacher more freedom to integrate it into their teaching. However, only a few studies have been conducted in terms of integration or modification. The current study aimed at developing a framework inspired by TBLT to enhance students' speaking performances. It examines the effect of TBLT modification in the context of EFL in Indonesia, particularly speaking. It is a mixed method study where students (n-91) from two universities in Kuningan, West Java, Indonesia participated. Two instruments were used for data collection, tests, and a questionnaire. The result shows that the framework inspired-TBLT could enhance students' speaking performances. It can be seen from the result of speaking proficiency where the average of the post-test (9,67) was higher than pre-test (8.19). In addition, statistically, the value Sig. two-tailed was 0.042 or < 0.05. It means that this framework influences students’ speaking performance almost in all components that were tested (vocabulary, grammar, fluency, and pronunciation). Furthermore, in terms of students’ perception, this framework has received positive responses from the students since this framework engaged and demanded the students to get involved during class activities