Language learning strategies employed by proficient EFL students in learning speaking skills

This study investigatres the language learning strategies utilized by two proficient EFL learners in learning speaking skills. The present descriptive case study probes and narrates the accounts of two proficient English speakers related to the language learning strategies they employed in learning speaking skills. The two proficient English speakers were perceived as credible and ellible sources for this study as they possess the required TOEFL score for proficient learners as indicated by the English Testing Service (ETS), which is around 543-627 in range. The data used in this study were obtained through four semi-structured interviews conducted via Zoom meetings with the participats. A document in the form of participants’ detailed learning schedules was also gathered to enhance data trustworthiness. Subsequently, the data collected were analysed thematically, generating seven categories of language learning strategies. Findings indicate that both participants utilized all seven strategies performed as the most frequently used strategy. It implies tht both participants often plan, arrange and evaluate their learning in advance. The study also found that few strategies were employed at the early stage of leanring and are no longer in use at present

STUDENTS' PROBLEMS IN WRITING ANALYTICAL EXPOSITION TEXT IN EFL CLASSROOM CONTEXT

Writing is perceived as the most challenging skill among other productive skills in English language learning. This preliminary study aims at revealing problems encountered by secondary EFL students writing analytical exposition. Employing students' writing and interviews in qualitative manner, 25 second-year EFL secondary students in Bandung, Indonesia, were purposefully involved. Result indicated that students encountered three major problems in writing their analytical exposition; cognitive, linguistic, and psychological problems. Cognitively, most students had limited knowledge of the topic, problems with the structure of the text, the mechanism for capitalization, punctuation, and spelling, and difficulties in sharing ideas due to limited English vocabulary. Linguistically, students frequently encounter the two most challenging areas: vocabulary and grammar. Psychologically, students often found difficulties starting writing, lack of interest, laziness, and confusion in deciding sentence structures. Further discussion of the results is recommended to take into consideration to determine the appropriate treatment for the follow-up research

EFL teachers’ perceived language proficiency and teaching effectiveness

The importance of language teachers possessing a high level of language proficiency has been extensively studied. On the other hand, studies related to teaching effectiveness (TE) have yet to define the concept of teaching effectiveness, and studies to relate teacher language proficiency (TLP) and TE, especially in the Indonesian context, are found to be scarce. In addition, the lack of both clear guidelines on how to assess TLP and current and official data of TLP in Indonesia only exacerbates this matter. Thus, the objective of this study was to find the relation between TLP and TE in the context of a language school in Bandung and the perception of its teachers on the role of TLP in the effectiveness of their teaching process. Using a mixed-methods sequential explanatory research design, the result of the data collection was then cross-tabulated and analyzed using the Fisher-Freeman-Halton exact test. It was found that there was a strong positive relation between TLP and the two aspects of TE: managing the classroom, and understanding and communicating lesson content, but no relation between language proficiency and assessing students and giving feedback. This was further confirmed in the qualitative stage that teachers with lower language proficiency could also deliver lesson content and assess students, albeit with a lower degree of flexibility compared to their more proficient counterparts. This means that the relation between TLP and TE was complex and not straightforward and that the mastery of one does not always entail the mastery of the other

Investigating digitized authentic materials: Pre-service teachers’ voice

Over past few decades, research on authentic materials has been focused on helping teachers provide their learners’ teaching materials. Most of the researches in this area explore the benefits and drawbacks of authentic materials utilization in the classroom. This multiple case study aims at investigating benefits of and barriers in using authentic materials presented as a digital media used in their EFL classrooms. Document and an interview were employed to reveal the teachers’ perception. The findings indicate although it was considered difficult to find and organize, digitized authentic materials helped teachers in teaching English as a Foreign Language for learners with various levels and backgrounds. Its use could help teachers motivate and promote their students’ interest in learning. However, disselection and misuse of it might not meet students’ needs and interest in learning. Good teachers’ capacity in finding and using the digitized authentic materials could encourage better learning process and students’ better learning achievement. Therefore, it is recommended that for the further study, learners’ perception also need to be explored

INTERACTIONAL MODIFICATIONS FOR COMPREHENSIBLE INPUT: A CASE STUDY OF TWO EFL TEACHERS

This study aims to investigate the use of interactional modifications proposed by Long (1982) by two English teachers and language learning opportunities obtained. The study found out the distribution and the form of interactional modification in two different levels of English proficiency, elementary and pre-intermediate. To answer the research questions, case study was adopted. The main data were six transcribed classroom interactions of six sessions with audio-video recording. From the analysis, it was found that elementary teacher modified more interactions compared to pre-intermediate teacher due to less capability of lower student to comprehend the information delivered. The form of interactional modification used was other-repetition strategy, where both of the teachers repeated student`s utterances frequently in order to clarify, confirm, or emphasize the initial utterances. Besides, the occurrences of interactional modifications were considered to be determined by several factors, such as student`s level of proficiency, material delivered, and teacher`s knowledge. As for the question of language learning opportunities, the findings revealed by modifying the interactions there were gap noticing where the teacher noticed the mistakes of student`s language used by bringing that gap into awareness. Besides, modified interactions also gave the student the chance for meaning negotiation where the understanding of information was obtained through resolving the communication breakdown in the classroom. Therefore, it is paramount for teachers to acknowledge, believe, and aware that modified interaction is important not only to provide comprehensible input but also to make student comprehend the information and are triggered to be able to participate in the conversations

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ NEEDS OF WRITING COURSE MATERIALS: A CASE OF INDONESIA

The aim of this study is to explore the target needs (i.e. necessities, lacks and wants) of the students to inform academic writing courses materials. A case study design was employed as this design to provide in-depth data information. To collect the data, questionnaire and interviews were used. Twenty-three undergraduate students of English department at a private university in Mataram West Nusa Tenggara who take academic writing course in the 2019-2020 academic year participated in the study. The result of the study showed that the students need to learn the types of writing texts, vocabulary and construct sentences into paragraph, have good skills in writing different genres since they are lack of grammar knowledge and vocabularies, and improvement on the aspect of teaching writing. This finding may promise implications for updating the current curriculum and materials as practiced for tertiary level English department students in an attempt to keep up with the latest changes in the methodologies of English language teaching. This study recommends that lecturers and universities should conduct a need analysis regularly and updated the curriculum with such insightful needs

THEMATIC PROGRESSION IN STUDENTS’ HORTATORY EXPOSITION TEXTS

This study focused on the investigation of theme and theme progression in students’ hortatory exposition text. This study employed a descriptive qualitative design. The data were twelve hortatory exposition texts written by eleventh grade students from one public school in Kabupaten Bandung. The texts were analysed by analysing the schematic structure and theme system derived from Systemic Functional Linguistics proposed by Halliday (1985). This study revealed that almost all the students’ texts had fulfilled its schematic structure of hortatory exposition text. In addition, students employed various textual strategies in organizing an exposition text as seen from the application of various theme choices such as marked and unmarked topical theme, interpersonal theme to make their texts coherent. In terms of theme progression, the students seemed to make the text clear and focus, so they manipulated the theme reiteration pattern dominantly. Based on the findings, it is recommended that theme and theme progression analysis can be applied in language studies to gain a better control of text organization and development. It is also suggested that further researcher can investigate the other texts or analyse the text beyond the theme system

INVESTIGATING THE FACTORS INFLUENCING STUDENTS' WILLINGNESS TO COMMUNICATE IN ENGLISH

This paper aims to investigate the factors that affect the students’ willingness to communicate in English in the classroom. This study employs a qualitative method, particularly the case study with the use of observation, questionnaire, and interview to collect the data. It can be concluded that there are mainly five factors that influence students’ willingness to communicate namely teachers, topic discussions, classroom environment, peers, and types of activities

MULTIMODAL FEEDBACK PROVISION IN IMPROVING PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ COMPETENCE

Studies on potentials of feedback over English language teaching seem not to have not been well-revealed, including studies on the use of feedback to improve English pre-service teachers’ competence. The present study investigates to what extent a multimodal feedback can influence pre-service teachers’ teaching, and which teaching aspects are influenced. Twenty five pre-service teachers taking Microteaching Course served as respondents supervised by a course advisor. The data were collected by teacher observation in a rating-scale form, self-appraisal, and interviews. The data were analyzed by using correlated sample t-test and the eight teaching components proposed by Brown (2001). The results showed that after multimodal feedback provision, pre-service teachers indicated an improvement significantly in seven out of eight teaching aspects. The provision of multimodal feedback could improve their teaching competence on preparation, instructional objective elicitation, mastery of instructional materials, use of media, and classroom management, including classroom language. But, the results do not indicate that they perform well on reflection and follow-up due to some reasons. In addition, the results evince that multimodal feedback provision could improve pre-service teachers’ pedagogical competence when the multimodal feedback is integrated with content, interpersonal relationship, and management