THE EFFECT OF GRAMMATICAL ACCURACY AND GENDER ON INTERLANGUAGE REQUEST STRATEGY

The present study was aimed at examining whether grammatical accuracy and gender were significant predictors of the use of request strategy (direct or indirect). Participants were 39 seventh semester students (29 males and 10 females) majoring in an International Business Management program at a public higher education institution in Bali. Their English proficiency levels ranged from pre-intermediate to intermediate. The participants were asked to write an e-mail based on a situation carefully designed so as to necessitate the use of indirect strategy. Grammatical accuracy was operationalized as an average score per T-unit. The head act of each request was coded as either direct or indirect, and the binary logistic regression was conducted on the data with significance level being set at p < .05. The results revealed that neither grammatical accuracy (Wald = 0.72, df = 1, p = 0.40) nor gender (Wald = 0.67, df = 1, p = 0.41) was a significant predictor of a request strategy use. The use of request strategy could not also be predicted from the interaction of grammatical accuracy and gender, Wald = 0.66, df = 1, p = 0.42. These results indicate that the odds for using indirect strategy are similar regardless of the level of grammatical accuracy and gender.Â

COMPARING HEDGES USED BY ENGLISH AND INDONESIAN SCHOLARS IN PUBLISHED RESEARCH ARTICLES: A CORPUS-BASED STUDY

The study examines whether English and Indonesian research articles written by their respective native speaker scholars are significantly different from each other in terms of the number of hedges used. Hedges are rhetorical features (e.g. may, perhaps, suggest) used to withhold complete commitment to the truth-value of propositions. The ultimate goal of the study is to examine whether Indonesian scholars need special instruction in hedging propositions. The assumption underlying the present study is that when they write in English, Indonesian scholars will deploy rhetorical features inherent in the Indonesian academic writing. Statistical analysis on 52 Applied Linguistics research articles (26 from each language) reveals that English research articles contain significantly more hedges than their Indonesian counterparts (Mann-Whitney U = 68.00, n1 = n2 = 26, p < 0.05, r = - 0.69), suggesting that Indonesian scholars are indeed in need of instruction that specifically focuses on hedging propositions in English

THE EFFECTS OF L2 PRAGMATIC AUTONOMOUS AND CONTROLLED MOTIVATIONS ON ENGAGEMENT WITH PRAGMATIC ASPECT

No study has investigated the relationship between student engagement per se and student motivation within second language (L2) pragmatics, notwithstanding the significance of engagement for L2 learning. The present study aimed to explore the effects of two global motivational orientations (autonomous and controlled motivations) on behavioral engagement within the perspective of L2 pragmatics by drawing on self-determination theory. A total of 76 college students agreed to participate and were requested to fill out a tailor-made, 34-item, 6-point Likert-scale questionnaire. The results of data analysis using standard multiple linear regression revealed that both Autonomous and Controlled Motivations significantly predicted and explained a large amount of variance in Engagement, F(2, 71) = 161.28, p < .01, R2 = .82, adjusted R2 = .81, and that the effect of Controlled Motivation, B = .33, t(71) = 8.05, p < .01, was twice as large as that of Autonomous Motivation, B = .16, t(71) = 4.91, p < .01. These findings indicate that students’ controlled motivation is more powerful in enhancing their engagement in learning L2 pragmatics. Pedagogically, it implies that teachers should bolster students’ motivation to learn L2 pragmatics, which can eventually lead to their increased engagement

Learning and growing: an alternative strategy to teach English

One of the problems faced by ESL learners is not a linguistic one, but they are afraid to express what they know and feel, in English. They are afraid of making mistake and prefer keeping passively attitude to participating actively in learning activities. They have less self-confidence to speak English though they have enough linguistic knowledge and skill. Therefore, it is important to find a strategy to break such “ice” in order to overcome psychological impediment faced by the learners. Thus, learning English is simultaneous with a growing personality. This article is based on the classroom experience by experimenting with the method called Learning and Growing (L&G). The basic principle of this method is how to motivate the learners talking about themselves, or things close to them. The method enables them to know who they are, to accept themselves, and to feel their self-confidence. After practicing one topic, e.g. Who Am I, the learners are able to accept themselves and have an awareness that making mistake is normal in the learning process. As the result, they dare to share who they are without being afraid to make mistake linguistically. The other principle is how to make relax atmosphere of learning, ignoring some formal rules. A friendly relationship is built during the learning process both the learner-learner and the teacher-learner. The teacher’s task is to choose the topics with double goals: language and psychology. What language skill will be achieved and what personal growth will be focused on are the vital concern of the teacher. These goals will be realized by making an appropriate lesson plan and preparation. Finally, the evaluation may be conducted, especially for language achievement. The main purpose of this evaluation would rather know if the goal has been achieved than to get grades

Archive management to support information services of the administration section

The purpose of this study is to explain archive management in supporting information services in the administration section. The research method used is a qualitative approach with a descriptive type of research. The results obtained from the research explain that the creation of archives through incoming and outgoing letters, the distribution of archives is carried out through procedures written in the standard operating procedures for distributing letters in government agencies, the storage of archives is carried out with a numbering system, the use of archives through retrieval and borrowing of archives, maintenance of archives carried out regularly every two months; Archive depreciation is only carried out by transferring archives to the warehouse. However, there are obstacles in its management, namely the absence of archivists, insufficient storage cupboards, and no archive management training while the supports are adequate storage warehouses and administrative staff who are painstaking in managing archive

Indonesian EFL Learners’ Motivation to Learn Second Language Pragmatics

Despite the significance of motivation and pragmatic competence for L2 learners, surprisingly, research into L2 pragmatics learning motivation is almost non-existent. Drawing on the self-determination theory of human motivation, the present study was carried out to investigate the level and nature of Indonesian EFL learners’ motivation for L2 pragmatics learning. A total of 76 Indonesian-speaking sophomores studying international business management were asked to fill out a tailor-made, 29-item online questionnaire designed to measure the level and nature of their motivation for L2 pragmatics learning. It was found that (i) Indonesian EFL students’ motivation for L2 pragmatics learning was insufficiently high, (ii) their intrinsic motivation was the highest compared to other types of motivation, and (iii) their external motivation was surprisingly low. These findings can be explained in the light of the students’ previously instructed foreign language learning experiences which placed undue emphasis on the formal aspects of the target language while marginalizing the social ones. Pedagogically, the findings imply that, owing to the malleability of human motivation, EFL teachers should employ principled instructional methods to promote their students’ L2 pragmatics learning motivation. Be that as it may, further studies need to be conducted to (in) validate the above-mentioned findings, taking into consideration the limitations of the present study

Pragmatic development in foreign learners of Indonesian

This study was aimed at mapping pragmatic competence development of foreign learners’ of Indonesia. The participants involved were ninety foreign learners of Indonesian in five institutions in Bali who have been learning the language for two semesters. They were grouped into two groups, forty five students were in experiment and the other forty five were in control group. The comparison result showed that students performed better after they have learned Indonesian language for two semesters. It can be implied that teaching Indonesian language should incorporate language content and other aspects, such as Indonesian culture, pragmatic, cross culture understanding, and they should be inserted in syllabus.Este estudio tuvo como objetivo mapear el desarrollo de competencias pragmáticas de los estudiantes extranjeros de Indonesia. Los participantes involucrados fueron noventa estudiantes extranjeros de Indonesia en cinco instituciones en Bali que han estado aprendiendo el idioma durante dos semestres. Se agruparon en dos grupos, cuarenta y cinco estudiantes estaban experimentando y los otros cuarenta y cinco estaban en el grupo de control. El resultado de la comparación mostró que los estudiantes obtuvieron mejores resultados después de haber aprendido el idioma indonesio durante dos semestres. Se puede dar a entender que la enseñanza Del idioma indonesio debería incorporar contenido lingüístico y otros aspectos, como la cultura indonesia, la comprensión pragmática y transcultural, y deberían insertarse en el programa de estudios