An analysis of multimodal resources in environmental protection posters

Exposure of environmental issues is essential to prevent mass environmental destructions; therefore, campaigns (posters) should be able to activate the viewers’ contemplation on such issues. The emergence of multimodal texts provides a vast opportunity for semioticians to do their analyses in a more creative manner in current communication processes. Accordingly, this study focuses on the interactive meanings of semiotic resources in posters on environmental campaigns using a multimodal perspective. It examines the contribution of visual and textual resources to raise people’s awareness on the significance of preserving the environment for future generations. This study drew upon analytical tools from SFL, social semiotics, and reading images (Bezemer Kress, 2008; Kress, 2011; Kress Van Leeuwen 1996; Martinec Salway, 2005).  This form of contemplation can be considered to be a part of an essential educational process to build a good character. This study shows that the sample posters are significant to represent and transfer environmental messages through these multimodal resources

The Washback Effect of the English National Examination (ENE) on English Teachers’ Classroom Teaching and Students’ Learning

Since 2005, Indonesia has administered the National Examination (NE), from which the result is used as a basis to decide the students’ exit from secondary schools. As a high stake testing, the NE has caused various washback effects, both positive and negative. Consequently, the existence of the NE has been accompanied by heated debates and controversies. The pros believe that the NE may improve secondary education standards, while the cons argue that the NE will create injustice and unnecessary anxiety among the students. However, both the pros and cons base their arguments on common sense not supported by a sound reasoning. The present study tries to explore the washback effects of the English National Examination (ENE) in Indonesian secondary education context, involving three Secondary Schools categorized based on their NE achievement. The results of the study indicate that English teachers and students from the schools involved have different perceptions on the ENE. The English National Examination has an influential impact on teachers’ teaching in the aspect of: activity/time arrangement, teaching materials, teaching contents, teaching methods, teaching strategies, ways of assessing, and on the feelings and attitudes of the students. The ENE also affects the students’ learning in the classroom in which teachers mainly teach to test, practice the test and develop test-taking strategies. The dimensions of the washback effect of the ENE on both English teachers and students are negative and positive, strong, specific and for a short period time

IDEATIONAL AND INTERPERSONAL MEANINGS OF CHILDREN NARRATIVES IN INDONESIAN PICTUREBOOKS

Recent understanding as strongly believed by studies investigating the interactive or interpersonal meanings of images in such printed texts as textbooks and picturebooks shows that interpersonal relation can be established not only through verbal sentences as the primarily representational mode of our experiences but can also be represented through visual forms such as photographs and pictures. Further, studies on how meanings are represented through verbal and visual modes have revealed how readers’ experiences and readers’ social roles in relation to the content of the texts are constructed. The construction of readers’ social roles through the use of images in printed texts has been regarded to be parallel with how interactants’ social position is enacted in direct communication relying on the use of verbal sentences. In Indonesian contexts, however, studies on how verbal and visual modes represent experiences and construct social position of the interactants seem to be underexplored. The present study examined three Indonesian picturebooks using the perspectives of multimodality and reported how the children’s experiences were represented through the verbal and the visual modes used, and how these two semiotic resources represented the social relationship between the characters in the picturebook and the potential readers of the books. The examination of the verbal texts has been focused on the clauses as the building blocks of the texts by identifying the participants, process types, circumstances, and clause types. The examination of the pictures has been focused on such visual elements as who/what are in the picture, what activities taking place, the attributes possessed by the represented participants, and the circumstances. In addition, how the represented participants address the viewers was also examined. The results of the analysis show that ideationally the narrative is mostly centered around the activities done by and to children, which are presented as an offer to the readers. Verbally and visually the represented participants are socially equal to the children readers. The three picturebooks are excellent examples of picturebooks that present a narrative of Indonesian children designed for young readers because of their simple vocabulary, simply-constructed Indonesian grammar employed, and simple yet interesting plot they deal with.

TEACHER ASSESSMENT LITERACY: INDONESIAN EFL SECONDARY TEACHERS' SELF-PERCEIVED ON CLASSROOM-BASED ASSESSMENT PRACTICE

Assessing students' performance is an essential part of a teacher's job. Hence, they are believed to be familiar with various kinds of assessments, especially classroom-based assessments (henceforth CBA). Language teaching and assessment are two interrelated that affect each other to a great extent. Undoubtedly, language assessment becomes a more complicated activity in the field of language teaching. The major objective of this study was to describe how EFL secondary teachers’ self-perceived on the basic principles of assessment and their own practice in CBA. This study was conducted in the form of a descriptive survey research. Shim's (2009) survey instrument was adapted to collect data and gathered using an online survey. 48 respondents willingly fulfilled the online survey containing 80 statements concerning classroom assessment procedures. The data obtained were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings of the current study revealed that teachers seemed to practice assessment for learning (henceforth AfL), in which most teachers conducted assessments to support students’ learning and used the results as feedback to improve and revise their teaching. The teachers in this study appeared to be literate and excellent in understanding the concept and using it in practice. However, a question remains as to whether their classroom practice was excellent. Since most studies have largely reported results on teacher's assessment literacy (henceforth TAL), future programs and research should be directed toward classroom-based research on how the CBAL can improve students' learning and improve the quality of teacher instructions. The implications of the result are expected to provide a clear understanding and theoretical foundations of CBAL.

Zooming in on the Indonesian EFL primary school students’ intercultural sensitivity and their extroversion

Intercultural sensitivity and personality traits constitute eminent and inseparable elements associated with EFL learning. Nevertheless, to the best of the writers’ knowledge, limited investigations in an Indonesian EFL primary school level concerning these two variables were found; therefore, the present study was intended to scrutinize the Indonesian EFL primary school students’ intercultural sensitivity and personality traits. 96 students from the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades of one primary school in Bandung were involved. An embedded design of a mixed-method was employed. The data were garnered using 4-Likert scale questionnaires gauging the students’ intercultural sensitivity and their personality traits focusing on extroversion, followed by some open-ended questions. The findings revealed that students’ intercultural sensitivity was considered good (the mean of 80.06 and standard deviation of 8.50), and most students tended to be extroverted (the mean of 72.62 and the standard deviation of 9.89). The students’ intercultural sensitivity was found to be significantly related to their extroversion at a 99% level of confidence (.000 .01). Finally, the findings along with the previous studies explicating the intercultural sensitivity and personality traits advocate some pedagogical implications for facilitating students’ English learning.

Formative Assessment and Self-Regulated Learning during Pandemic Era

During online learning in Covid-19 outbreak, self-regulation is needed more due to the different learning situation and distance between student and teacher. One of the ways to support student self-regulated learning in EFL classes is through the implementation of formative assessment. The aim of this study is to find out the formative assessment that EFL teachers use in online learning and how they perceive the role of formative assessment in supporting students’ self-regulated learning. To get the data, questionnaire adapted from Gan et al. (2019); Pat-El et al. (2013) was utilized. Interviews also were conducted to get deeper understanding about the findings obtained through questionnaire. The findings revealed that during online learning, EFL teachers used a variety of formative assessment techniques, using online platforms that were easy to use. They agreed that students need to have self-regulated learning skills during online learning. However, some of them did not know for sure that the formative assessment they conducted could enhance students’ self-regulated learning since only some students submitted their work. Further research can be done to find out strategies to implement formative assessment using technologies or tools utilized in online learning where the students can get immediate feedback and use it to help them improve their learning

Teachers’ difficulties and strategies in teaching reading online under text-based approach

Ministry of Education highlights the role of teachers in improving students' literacy, and the Text-Based Approach has shown its capability in improving students’ literacy skills. It can be seen that the Text-Based Approach is implemented in the latest curriculum Kurikulum Merdeka. In relation to the post-pandemic era, online learning is familiarly applied in educational settings. However, it is not easy to implement a Text-Based Approach in an online learning setting. Thus, this research seeks to investigate the difficulties in implementing a Text-Based Approach for teaching reading in the online setting and explore teachers’ strategies in dealing with the difficulties. This research used a qualitative method through open-ended questionnaires as an initial screening and online interview with five High School English Teachers in West Java, Bandung. The findings show that the issues faced by the teachers are miscommunication in learning due to unstable connectivity, limited teaching duration, and technical errors

The Portrayal of Colored People in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)

This study is a transitivity analysis of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960). This study aims to investigate representation of a colored man named Tom Robinson through the types of process related to Tom Robinson. By using qualitative research, the research used the theory of Transitivity proposed by Halliday (1994). The data sources were in the form of eighteen clauses that specifically represent Tom Robinson and were sorted by concordance software Antconc 3.8.1. The findings of the research showed that there are four processes found in the clauses related to the character. Material process is the most frequent process (50%) followed by Relational process (27%) which are divided into two: Attributive Relational process (22%) and Identifying Relational Process (5%), Mental process (17%), and Verbal process (7%) are the second lowest and least frequent type in this research. The result of the research indicates that Tom Robinson as one of the people of color in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird is represented as a man who experienced social injustice.Keywords: Representation, Systemic Functional Linguistics, Ideational Meaning, Transitivit

USING FLIPGRID AS ELECTRONIC PORTFOLIO IN SPEAKING ASSESSMENT

 Given the prolonged pandemic situation that forced schools to run online in both synchronous and asynchronous modes has impacted some changes in either teaching practice or conducting the assessment. With the limited timetable provided to each school subject, there is a significant adjustment that the teachers should take to make the teaching and learning meaningful, not to mention in assessing students’ learning. In the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) setting, assessing speaking is another challenge the teachers encounter specifically during online teaching. Consequently, English teachers are required to have specific strategies to manage this assessment still. Electronic portfolio-based assessment has been shown to serve both as an effective learning tool and assessment tool. Hence, this study was aimed to investigate the use of the Flipgrid as the electronic portfolio in assessing speaking. The qualitative design was applied in this study with students' scores, teacher’s field notes, and questionnaires as the instruments to collect data. This study was expected to describe the washback of the Flipgrid as electronic portfolios in speaking assessment. BAHASA INDONESIA ABSTRAKSituasi pandemi yang berkelanjutan telah memaksa setiap sekolah untuk melaksanakan pembelajaran daring baik secara synchronous maupun asynchronous. Hal ini berdampak pada berubahnya praktik mengajar dan penilaian dalam pembelajaran. Dengan jadwal pembelajaran yang terbatas untuk setiap mata pelajaran, guru harus dapat melakukan penyesuaian yang signifikan untuk membuat proses kegiatan belajar mengajar menjadi berarti, begitu pula dengan penilaian hasil belajar siswa. Pada pembelajaran bahasa Inggris sebagai bahasa asing, penilaian keterampilan berbicara menjadi tantangan tersendiri bagi para guru khususnya pada saat pembelajaran daring. Sebagai konsekuensinya, setiap guru bahasa Inggris harus memiliki strategi tertentu untuk dapat mengelola penilaian dalam proses pembelajaran. Penilaian berbasis portofolio elektronik telah menunjukkan bahwa penilaian ini digunakan sebagai alat pembelajaran dan penilaian yang efektif. Oleh karena itu, penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menelaah penggunaan Flipgrid sebagai portofolio elektronik pada penilaian keterampilan berbicara dalam pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris. Pendekatan yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah pendekatan kualitatif dengan menggunakan nilai siswa, catatan lapangan guru, dan kuesioner sebagai instrumen untuk mengumpulkan data. Penelitian ini diharapkan dapat mendeskripsikan dampak penggunaan Flipgrid sebagai portofolio elektronik pada penilaian keterampilan berbicara dalam pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris.