Washback Effect of Vocational High School Final Examination: Indonesian EFL Teachers' and Students' Voices

The English final examination is no longer a high-stake test since National Examination (NE) was abolished in 2021 and replaced with the Ujian Satuan Pendidikan (USP). Therefore, this study explores the washback effects experienced by Indonesian EFL teachers and students and discovers teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the implementation of USP. Six participants, three Indonesian English Foreign Language (EFL) teachers, and three Public Vocational High School students in Singosari were interviewed to meet the research goals. The findings indicated that focusing on teaching to the test, cheating, and feelings and attitudes were the washback effects of the English final examination in implementing USP. Then, the English final examination still harms the teaching and learning process and teachers’ and students’ feelings and attitudes, even though it is not a high-stake test. Besides, the implementation of USP also reduces the washback effect of the English final examination

Utilizing Edmodo in writing class: Why and how?

ABSTRACT This paper comes up to discuss the theories and previous studies about using Edmodo in writing class. Using social network system in the Industrial era 4.0 helps teaching and learning activities become more effective because students can learn in and outside the class. Thus, it is helpful especially in writing class which require long learning time to use this kind of application. Therefore, utilizing an online applications in writing class can help students to improve their writing skill and to make learning time more efficient. One of online applications that is widely used in writing is Edmodo. Generally, this paper then will discuss about explanation of writing processes, problems in writing, explanation about learning media, description of online application, description of Edmodo,benefits of Edmodo, and how to apply Edmodo in writing course. Some previous research highlighting the effect of Edmodo on student’s writing skill is the next discussion. This paper finally gives conclusion and pedagogical implication as the closing. Keywords: writing class, online application, Edmodo &nbsp

The Challenges in Teaching English Online to Young Learners: Teachers’ Voices

Teaching and learning activities had shifted to online classes due to Covid-19 pandemic outbreaks. Hence,primary school teachers in Indonesia encountered several challenges with the unexpected changes inEnglish face-to-face classroom interaction to online learning with digital platforms. This study exploredthe challenges faced by four Indonesian EFL primary school teachers in implementing online learningand teachers’ solutions to the challenges. A qualitative study with a phenomenological approach was usedas the research design, and the data collection was obtained through observation and interview. Thisstudy showed that teachers found online English Language Teaching (ELT) activities more difficult thanface-to-face classrooms due to some challenges. The technical issue became the first challenge faced bythe teachers since both teachers and students needed an internet connection and device management.Secondly, most teachers found it difficult to implement various teaching methods in online learning. Theother reasons were that enhancing students’ engagement required more effort, and assessing students’English development took more work than in the face-to-face classroom. The implication of this researchis for teachers and students as it may help them address and generate new insights about the challengesand solutions in online classrooms. Furthermore, it highlights specific areas for future research

The Portrait of Teacher Talk and Language Choices in EFL Classroom: Insights for Children’s Language Learning

The present study focused on teachers’ perceptions of how teacher talk works in the classroom and some challenges they might encounter during initiating interaction to encourage students.  A classroom observation was done to portray the data of the learning process and teachers’ interview was also conducted to discover insights about teacher talk and the challenges encountered in the classroom interaction. Findings demonstrated that the teachers enacted dominant English communication as the input rather than using students’ first language. They felt increasing the use of the target language would be more challenging as it is influenced by some aspects from both teachers and students’ motivation, attitude, and proficiency. In addition, teacher talk is varied in some extents based on the teacher and student factors. The findings also showed that teacher talk mostly occurred in the form of asking questions, giving directions, explaining the lesson, and praising the students. In addition, as the students were considered young learners, it was found that classroom interaction and language choice must be adjustable in order to make communication become more effective.   Keywords: teacher talk, perception, challenge, language choice, primary level

EXPLORING UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES

Writing is an ability to compose or communicate intended implication, idea, and purposes to the reader by using a clear, coherent, and well-organized paper through the process of thinking, studying, developing organizing, producing, revising, and editing the product. One of the types of writing is descriptive text. Then, students frequently faced difficulties in writing a descriptive text. Therefore, this research aimed to know the students’ best and worse aspect, the students’ difficulties in writing a descriptive text and the factors that caused the difficulties.This research applied descriptive qualitative research design. The participants were 26 English students of class IIC of the English Education Department. However, only five students represented the participants to be interviewed. The instrument were students’ writing product and interview. Researcher analyzed students’ writing product. After that, students were interviewed with seven interview questions. Then, the results of interview were interpreted.The results showed that students performed better in organization aspect. Then, mechanic aspect was the worse aspect that students had based on the result of analyzing students text. Students did not found big difficulties in content and organization aspect. Most students encountered difficulties in grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics aspects. Whereas, the causes of students’ difficulties were students’ background and teaching technique. Students were lack of motivation, were less interested, and did not understand the descriptive text well. Then, students revealed that the teaching and learning process was boring since the teacher did not provide the material creatively.In conclusion, undergraduate students still had the difficulties and it was caused by some factors. Some suggestions were provided for students to improve their knowledge and motivation in learning, especially in writing descriptive text. For teachers, they should create more interactive media for learning. Furthermore, for the next researchers, they should analyze the strategies to overcome the students’ difficulties in writing a descriptive text, and then they should conduct the research with a larger number of participants.