Non-Native English Teachers and Varieties of English: Ready, or Not?

Language is dynamic. And thus, for English as an international language, it keeps on changing and developing over time. Now there are more non-native English speakers compared to native speakers around the world. Thus, intelligibility becomes fundamental in the world of Englishes. Besides teaching in the English accent (i.e. American or British English) as part of the educational policy given by schools, respectively, non-native English teachers must also be prepared to inform their non-native students of the Englishes around the world. Moreover, research in identifying the varieties of English spoken in different areas around the world are rapidly progressing. Especially in the field of acoustic phonetics, in which the studies here assist researchers and teachers to identify vowel distinctions among different group of English speakers and the extent of the first language (L1) influence. Specifically, the analysis in phonological variations can help teachers deal with variation in varieties of English. Understanding the varieties of English that exist today and having mutual intelligibility can improve communication with different people from different countries around the world

The dehumanizing metaphors in the culture of Acehnese in Indonesia

This study investigated dehumanizing metaphors used in the daily life and collective memory of Acehnese people in Indonesia and how male and female persons are presented. The interviews were held with 20 people from six districts in Aceh province, Indonesia. Data were collected from elders aged 60 and above, and Acehnese is spoken as their mother tongue. Since they did not travel much (except for occasional holidays with families and Hajj pilgrimage), they are deemed untainted native speakers of Acehnese. For analysis, grounded by the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, this study found that the metaphorical expressions in the Acehnese culture that dehumanize people mostly use animals' concepts, and the rests are of the inanimate entity, and plants. The negative meanings present human as animals are such as agam buya (crocodile man), kamèng keudèe (goat in the market), manok agam (cock), among others, and the positive ones that present human as plants are boh lam ôn (a leaf-covered fruit) and padé jum (wet rice). They negatively or positively describe a person's behavior where the negative ones are commonly associated with a person's corrupt behavior and the positive ones for good behavior. Most of the dehumanizing metaphors are genderless; only a few are gender-based. Acehnese is a genderless language that has no distinctions of grammatical gender. These metaphors inform the conceptual system or belief of the Acehnese society through language use

Multicultural Awareness and Practices among Malaysian Primary School Teachers

This study was designed and aimed at identifying the awareness and practices of multicultural awareness among primary school teachers in Malaysia. It attempts to identify their awareness of multicultural concept when dealing with their students and staffs at their school. This awareness was measured by three variables: awareness, knowledge and skills. A number of 41 questions which inquired about the three variables were distributed randomly to 50 primary school teachers in Malaysia. These teachers were from three ethic types of primary schools: Tamil, Chinese and Malay primary schools. The reason for choosing the three different mainstream schools was because they represented the main different multicultural practices in the country. From these participants, five teachers were selected for further interviews to obtain richer data. The findings revealed that the awareness of multicultural education among primary school teachers was still at the medium level. Thus, this study suggests that there should be a multicultural awareness campaign at all schools in Malaysia in order to ensure that each student, no matter from what backgrounds they are from, feel they are part of the Malaysian society as a whole. The study also found that the awareness should start from the home, environment and peer and through parental guidance because school is a bridge between home and the society that will form one Malaysian society to achieve vision 2020

THROUGH THE METAPHORICAL LENS: UNDERSTANDING OTHERING OF LANGUAGE LECTURERS IN INDONESIAN HIGHER EDUCATION

This research attempted to delve into the Indonesian and English lecturers’ views on othering experiences through the metaphorical lens. The data collection employed interviews with ten lecturers teaching at two public universities in Aceh, Indonesia. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, and further analyzed using Johnson and Lakoff’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) where a metaphor is referred to understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another thing. The results revealed that the lecturers expressed their feelings of being othered through 14 Acehnese metaphorical expressions. They are ‘awak dalam’, ‘awak droe’ ‘asoe lhôk’, ‘Cina saboh geudông’, and ‘ureung lhap darah’,‘kön ureung gulam budée’, ‘kön awak dalam’, ‘kön awak droe jih’, ‘kön syara Ma jih’, ‘gob mat aweuk’, ‘ureung di luwa pageu’, ‘jamok di luwa keuleumbu’, ‘awak gop’, and ‘awak blah déh laôt’. Those in power (i.e., the ‘us’) discriminated against some lecturers (i.e., the ‘them’) by not providing them equal opportunities in the institution, regardless of their quality and credentials. Othering that existed in the universities negatively affected their work enthusiasm, education quality, social justice, and equality. Consequently, othering must be eradicated so that the human resources recruitment and education in universities uphold the principles of transparency, equality, and accountability

Skimming and Scanning Techniques to Assist EFL Students in Understanding English Reading Texts

This research aimed to find out whether the skimming and scanning techniques (SST) can improve EFL students’ English reading comprehension in recount texts, especially on identifying the main ideas and detail information, in a senior high school in Meulaboh, Aceh, Indonesia. A number of 32 eleventh grade students participated in this study, and the one group pre-test and post-test design were used. Data collection was from a pre-test and a post-test. In analyzing the data, statistics was used. The results showed that the mean score of the pre-test was 45 and the post-test was 65, with 20 points of improvement. Furthermore, the result of t-test was 4.7, while the critical value of 0.05 significant level was 2.4, with the degree of freedom at 23. Since t-test>t-score, thus SST improved the students’ reading comprehension in this study. Nevertheless, the paper further discusses some setbacks while implementing SST in the classroom

An analysis of Acehnese archaic words among North Acehnese speakers

This study concerned about the Acehnese archaic words in Lhokseumawe. The aims were to find out the archaic words, their replacements and their extinction factors. The researcher used qualitative descriptive methods and analyzed using three interactive models; data reduction, data display and verification. The result of this study showed that they are sixty Acehnese words given by informants; 32 words referred to archaism and 25 words referred to semi-archaism, and 3 words referred to non-archaism. 12 of 32 archaic words were replaced and 20 others were not. This condition was caused by the word-borrowing factors from second and foreign languages and also the lifestyle. Therefore, we need to teach Acehnese language to the future generation and introduce the Acehnese archaic words to especially the Acehnese in Lhokseumawe by studying and documenting the language and the archaic words as the language is a part of local cultures

LOOKING INTO THE EFL STUDENTS TYPE OF FEEDBACKS ON PEER CORRECTION ACTIVITY

This research studies the types of feedbacks made by EFL students in a writing class. A number of 25 students essays were collected and analysed. The results revealed that a number of 61 responding feedbacks were found in the types of support, sharing knowledge, negotiation, appreciation and criticism. Meanwhile, 142 correcting feedbacks were found in the types of coded, uncoded, a combination of coded and uncoded and direct answer. The type most used in responding feedback was support, which indicates that it is an important pursuit in these students learning to drive each other into improving their writing skills with confidence. Whilst the least used was criticism, and this indicates that it was not considerably favoured to be given in the peer correction feedbacks since they restrain encouragement and cause social anxiety. The type most used in correcting feedbacks was a combination of coded and uncoded. This signifies that to provide both mark and symbol on an error can avoid confusion between the student corrector and the student writer. The least used was direct answer, which signified that it was only done by students who had high English proficiency and confidence to provide the correct answer directly on the errors

The types and functions of code switching in a thesis defense examination

This study investigated the acts of code switching by lecturers and student in thesis defence examination at a university in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. The study involved five participants (four lectures and one student) of the English Language Department. Data from recordings were used to analyse the types and functions of code switching that occurred during the defence. The types of code switching were analysed based on Poplack, and the functions of code switching were analysed based on the theories by Gumperz, Hoffman and Holmes. The result showed that there were three types of code switching found in 109 examples during the interactions between the lecturers and the student, they were: intra-sentential switching (77.06%), inter-sentential switching (15.59%), and tag switching (7.33%). In term of the functions of code switching, 10 functions were identified from 68 switches, they were: addressee specification at 22.05%, followed by interjections (16.17%), loanwords (16.17%), message qualifications (11.76%), transfer of the subconscious markers (8.82%), proper names (8.82%), quotations (5.88%), message reiteration (4.41%), personalization versus objectification (2.94%) and specific features of Islamic terms (2.94%) as the least. It can be concluded that in this case, code switching allowed the participants achieve a wide range of important and interesting ends in their discourse during the thesis defence examination