IMPACT OF ENGLISH INSTRUCTION AT THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS ON THE STUDENTS' ACHIEVEMENT OF ENGLISH AT THE LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL

The current study is intended to examine the effect of time of learning, English teachers' characteristics, teaching and learning process characteristics, socioeconomic context and students' characteristics in the teaching of English at the elementary schools on the students' achievement of English at the first year of lower secondary school. Two kinds of research designs were implemented, an ex post facto and a tracer study. Therefore, the data were collected in two ways in order to (1) discover the students' English achievement at the lower secondary school and (2) observe the prior English instruction at the elementary school. The study adopted the statistical analysis of multiple regressions. The subjects consisted of 172 students who obtained the English instruction at the third and fourth grades of the elementary school, 172 students' parents, and 31 English teachers in the five (5) sub districts of Pemerintah Kota Malang. The students were to do the communicative English test and fill out two kinds of questionnaires; whereas, the teachers were interviewed. The students' parents had also to fill out a questionnaire on their perception on the English instruction at the elementary school. The finding shows that there is an impact of the teaching English starting at the fourth grade of elementary school on the students' achievement of English at the first year of lower secondary school

Literature Circle and Critical Reading Across EYL Learning Strategies

The results of survey of Program of International Student Assessment (PISA), it was evident that in 2009 Indonesian lower secondary school students’ literacy ranked 57 out of 65 countries obtaining 396 (compared to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development/OECD scoring 493), and in 2013 achieved the same score while OECD increased, 496 (Indonesia Curriculum Document, 2013). Inasmuch as the empirical evidence, and a few studies on this, the study was conducted aiming at improving students’ critical reading through literature circle strategy adopting a quasi experimental design by comparing two strategies, conventional and literature circle, for two intact groups in post test at primary school implementing a blended curriculum (Tuckman, 1978; Creswell, 2008). The subjects were composed of 42 students of Grade 5, 5 A for the control group and 5B for the experimental one. The instruments used consisted of posttest for the critical reading competence, observation sheet, underlying relevant documents, interview guide, and questionnaire, and all were validated and tried out. Based on the results of t-test (.002<.05), it revealed that in the significance level of.05 the null hypothesis was rejected meaning that literature circle strategy was verified effective and meaningful in improving the students’ critical reading, specifically in making judgments and producing a summary. It is recommended that the strategy should be implemented as early as primary school, especially for the upper classes to improve their critical thinking for future life.   Keywords: Literature circle strategy, critical reading, across learning strategies, English for Young Learner

Building Cultural Awareness and Critical Thinking Skills through Project-Based Task: A Workshop for Indonesian Context

Facing the Third Millennium, any countries should prepare young generation with cultural awareness and critical thinking skills so as to survive in the global era. According to Scriven and Paul (2001), critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information  generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. Whereas, cultural awareness refers to the foundation of communication  involving the ability of standing back from ourselves and getting aware of our cultural values, beliefs and perceptions (Cunningham, 2013). These two conceptual insights can be appropriately practiced by pedagogically and professionally competent teachers through the language classroom activities, one of which is ‘project-based task’ which requires learners to think critically to complete cultural-based tasks, and at the same time appreciate the cultural norms. Therefore, the workshop is intended to equip participants with the practical knowledge and skills of building cultural awareness and critical thinking skills through the project-based task.Keywords: Cultural Awareness, Critical Thinking Skills, Project-Based Tas

PREDICTORS OF THE STUDENTS’ ENGLISH ACHIEVEMENT AT LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL: CLIL CONTEXT

English across curriculum has been of world-wide practice, including in Indonesia. Through a blended curriculum (a synergy of national and international frameworks), some schools have put this program into action within the context of CLIL (Content-Language Integrated Learning). This correlational study is intended to find out the correlation between a combination of predictor variables and students’ English learning achievement in secondary school in CLIL context. The predictors include the students’ interest in ELT, the students’ internal and external motivation, the facilities, the exposure to English, and the interactional process between teacher and students at primary school level. The study also investigates to what extent the predictors, in combination as well as individually, contribute to students’ English learning achievement in secondary school in CLIL context. Data were collected through questionnaires administered to four secondary schools which implement an international framework. Seventy students were the sample of the present study. The data were analyzed using multiple regression. Results show that the two most significant predictors of the students’ English achievement in secondary school are the students’ interest and the school facilities

MULTIMEDIA-BASED LISTENING MATERIALS FOR LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Achieving the Millennium Development Goals means preparing the Z Generation to learn English in more challenging instructional process that requires instruction using technology-based materials. Ample research has been conducted in developing such materials; however, little has been carried out for non-college students. Therefore, this study was conducted to develop a prototype of supplementary multimedia-based listening materials to teach descriptive texts for the seven graders using scientific procedure as recommended by the 2013 Curriculum involving stages of learning, namely: observing the oral texts, formulating questions about the texts, collecting the data, analyzing the data, communicating knowledge about the oral texts and then finally creating the texts. The research design of this study was adapted from the framework of developmental model by Gall, et al. (2003) that covers the following steps: needs assessment, product planning and design, product development, product validation, product revision and product try-out. The procedures of materials development were adapted from the Delphi Model by Kinney and Bruck (2009) which includes pre-development, product development, and final product. The final product of this study was in the form of macromedia flash file attached inside CDs/DVDs. The result of product evaluation and try-out showed that the listening materials were interestingly presented in terms of topics, listening activities and animations, and motivating for the students to learn descriptive texts

University-Affiliated Lab Schools: A Collaborative Partnership Between the University of Pittsburgh's Falk School and the State University of Malang Lab Schools

This article focuses on contemporary discussions about university-affiliated lab schools and their growing international networks. Topics include university-affiliated lab schools, the State University of Malang-University of Pittsburgh partnership created by a consortium of rectors in Indonesia, and the growing importance of international professional development networks for university-affiliated lab schools. The instructional leadership side of the partnership has shared ways: (a) to design a better aligned curriculum; (b) to make learning activities more active and student-oriented; (c) to trigger creativity, critical thinking, and independence; (d) to practice ongoing assessment; and (e) to enrich the cultural repertoire of students. The institutional management side has focused greater attention on: professionalism in management; use of technology; human resources issues of recruitment, induction, and continuing professional development; and more innovative, balanced, transparent and sustainable funding sources. The following recommendations are made. First, fostering international partnerships is a good way for already strong schools to make continuous improvements in both instruction and institutional leadership. Second, partnership sustainability is paramount, especially during transitions in senior university management. Careful and thoughtful construction of the universities’ core memorandum of understanding is time well spent because it becomes embedded in institutional policy.</jats:p

The Relationship between Reading Self-Efficacy, Reading Attitude and EFL Reading Comprehension Based on Gender Difference

Literacy has been of vital importance in learning in a foreign language, and lots of research have been conducted to investigate the importance of reading comprehension; however, studies on this dealing with gender are limited. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to examine the relationship among reading attitude, reading self-efficacy and reading comprehension of EFL tertiary students based on gender difference. A convenient sampling is used to draw data from 208 respondents ranging form the age of 19 to 24 years old using questionnaires and a reading comprehension test. This is a correlational study (Creswell, 2008) employing a multi-group path analysis. The result of analysis showed a pattern of relationships based on gender difference among reading attitude, reading self-efficacy and reading comprehension. The study has significant impacts for EFL reading comprehension by showing prediction of EFL reading comprehension achievement from reading self-efficacy and reading attitude on the basis of gender difference.

The Implementation of Lesson Study in Improving the Primary School English Teachers’ Professionalism on Developing Materials

The implementation of lesson study as a means of improving teacher professionalism has been under research for long. In fact, a teacher generally acts like an actor/actress who is to perform many different roles at different times (Byrne, 1992; Brown Lee, 2015). Inasmuch as the many roles the teacher should possess, s/he is required to always have efforts to develop her/himself professionally through informal and formal academic forum to pursue credentials, one of which is conducting lesson study for ongoing improvement of instruction. Lesson study, as a matter fact, has been popular in Japan to promote teachers’ professional development since 1990s. This practice has provided positive and significant impact on the improvement on the teachers’ way of teaching and students’ learning (Murata and Takahashi, 2002). Teachers will attempt to improve the lesson after conducting the lesson study with their colleagues, experts on education, and stake holders. The benefits of the implementation of lesson study have been verified by the results of research in America and Japan (Yoshida, 1999) and in Indonesia, exactly at SMA Lab Universitas Negeri Malang (2008). Due its positive impact on professional development, the lesson study was then put into empirical study to the primary lab school teachers. Ten English teachers were involved in the study to develop interactive student worksheets. Therefore, the design adopted is action research with four stages in two cycles: planning, implementation, observation and reflection. It was discovered that the teachers and students have displayed a positive response on it

DEVELOPING A COMMUNICATIVE SUPPLEMENTARY SPEAKING E-BOOK FOR JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS

This research was conducted to develop a communicative supplementary speaking e-book for the English teachers in SMPN 3 Batu. This product provides the communicative speaking materials with communicative tasks to be applied in teaching learning process. The research design of this research is research and development (R & D) that has been modified from Borg and Gall (1983). The instruments used to collect the data for the needs analysis were interview with the teachers and a questionnaire for the students,  about the current materials. Then the data from the needs analysis used a developing a communicative speaking material product. After that, the product needs to be validated by three experts using validation checklist as the instrument in the expert validation. This product was design for the 8th graders of junior high school, academic year 2013/2014, in SMPN 3 Batu. Twenty students from nine classes that were selected by the teachers were chosen as the subjects of the research. Then the instruments used in try-out were an observation checklist for the students’ speaking activity, questionnaire for the students about the try-out material, and observation checklist for the teachers about the try-out material.This e-book contains communicative and interactive speaking materials and tasks to help the teachers’ improve the the students’ confidance using English in various communication situations, both formal and informal. This e-book is also equipped with a manual to help the teachers and the students.  It revealed that the result of the try-out from the instruments used in this step was very good which means that the developed product did not need any revision

CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: TEACHERS' VOICES

Being professional English teachers requires knowledge and competences that should be continuously nurtured to sustain their expertise, and one of the programs in Indonesia is the so-called Continuous Professional Development as officially declared by the Indonesian government in 2012. Certified teachers generally undergo either short- or long-term training experiences to update their teaching knowledge and skills. However, little empirical evidence has been conducted to examine the sustainability of such training practices on the teachers' professionalism. Henceforth, this study is aimed at investigating how such English teacher professional development training practices have been carried out and what teachers expect from such training. To that end, a survey is conducted involving a number of teachers drawn randomly from different six provinces. i.e. East Java, West Java, Lampung, East Borneo, South Sumatra, and East Papua throughout Indonesia. Descriptive statistical analyses are exerted to analyze the data collected. The findings suggest that a more down-to-earth reflective training as continuous professional development is in compelling need