Are The Graduate Students of English Language Teaching Program Ready To Teach The Undergraduates?

According to the curriculum of the Graduate Program, Universitas Negeri Malang, the graduate (S2) students of the English Language Teaching program have to take teaching practicum in their third semester, where they have to teach the undergraduate students. In the past, they could choose and apply for the subjects that they wanted to teach, either skill or content courses. Since the academic year 2012, however, the practice has changed. The students no longer have to teach at the undergraduate program; instead they only have to do Peer Teaching with their classmates. In the past, graduate students were mostly teachers or lecturers of English; while currently they enrol at the Graduate Program straight after graduating from their undergraduate (S1) degree. Some of them are teachers of private courses, some are junior lecturers with 1-5 years’ experience, while the rest are fresh graduates who have nevertaught. Questions then arise: are these students ready to teach the undergraduates? What difficulties do they have in the teaching practicum? What do they hope to get from the course? This paper presents the results of my mini research concerning the readiness of the students to do the teaching practicum, and their hopes and expectations regarding the conduct of the Teaching Practicum Course. Data were taken from observations and questionnaire to 35 students from two classes of the 2014 cohort. Most of them stated that they still needed further lessons, especially in Classroom management and  materials selection to equip them. This is in line with the writer’s observations which show that many of their practicum are still teacher-centered, and there is some apparent difficulty in time management. Some suggestions on improving the curriculum for the graduate program are provided

PYGMALION: A STUDY OF SOCIO-SEMANTICS

This article discusses the novel Pygmalionby George Bernard Shaw (1957) which depicts Eliza, a flower girl from East London, who became the subject of an “experiment†by a Professor of Phonetics who vowed to change the way she spoke. The story is an excellent example of a very real and contextual portrait of how language, particularly socio-semantics, play a role in the achievement of communicative competence

Gender and Language in Movies

This paper is a report on the findings of a mini research study that the writer conducted in her course Gender and Language with the students in the English Language and Literature, cohort of 2017. The students, in groups, analyzed several Disney cartoons and reported the results in PPt. The findings revealed that the cartoons contain the gender stereotypes in line with the theories. Keywords: gender and language, stereotypes, Disney cartoon

Can Duolingo Help People Master a Foreign Language?

Being bilingual has long been considered an advantage over monolingual speakers. People no longer view being able to communicate in one language as more prestigious, showing that the language is superior and the speakers do not need to master another language. Most people now want to be able to communicate in a second or third language, and they learn other languages, either by taking classes, learning independently or through applications. One of the most popular apps for learning a second, or foreign language, is Duolingo. This paper will discuss the potential of Duolingo to help people (the users) become bilinguals. Keywords: bilingual, applications, Duoling

Are the Graduate Students of English Language Teaching Program Ready to Teach the Undergraduates?

According to the curriculum of the Graduate Program, Universitas Negeri Malang, the graduate (S2) students of the English Language Teaching program have to take teaching practicum in their third semester, where they have to teach the undergraduate students. In the past, they could choose and apply for the subjects that they wanted to teach, either skill or content courses. Since the academic year 2012, however, the practice has changed. The students no longer have to teach at the undergraduate program; instead they only have to do Peer Teaching with their classmates. In the past, graduate students were mostly teachers or lecturers of English; while currently they enrol at the Graduate Program straight after graduating from their undergraduate (S1) degree. Some of them are teachers of private courses, some are junior lecturers with 1-5 years\u27 experience, while the rest are fresh graduates who have nevertaught. Questions then arise: are these students ready to teach the undergraduates? What difficulties do they have in the teaching practicum? What do they hope to get from the course? This paper presents the results of my mini research concerning the readiness of the students to do the teaching practicum, and their hopes and expectations regarding the conduct of the Teaching Practicum Course. Data were taken from observations and questionnaire to 35 students from two classes of the 2014 cohort. Most of them stated that they still needed further lessons, especially in Classroom management and materials selection to equip them. This is in line with the writer\u27s observations which show that many of their practicum are still teacher-centered, and there is some apparent difficulty in time management. Some suggestions on improving the curriculum for the graduate program are provided

Professional competence of English teachers in Indonesia: A profile of exemplary teachers

This study was conducted to find out the profile of exemplary English teachers at secondary schools. Data were collected through observations, interviews, and questionnaires. The study was conducted in four towns, covering exemplary teachers in one senior high school and three junior high schools. The subjects were exemplary in terms of their active participation in the Teachers' Forum (MGMP), and their roles in the professional development of both themselves and their colleagues. This study was done mainly to find out (1) the professional competences of the exemplary teachers in each town and (2) how they achieve the competences. The collected data were analyzed qualitatively by the usual process of sorting, coding, and analyzing. The findings reveal that the subjects in three of the four towns have all the four competences (subject matter, pedagogical, social and personal competences), with the personal competence being the most influential in shaping them as professional and exemplary teachers. From the findings a profile of the professional competences of the exemplary English teachers at secondary schools is developed

Improving Vocabulary Mastery of Elementary School Students by Using Storytelling Strategy

Vocabulary is the language resource for the students to construct a sentence. Despite the important role of vocabulary, studies about vocabulary teaching, especially for young learners, revealed that their vocabulary mastery was still unsatisfactory. The students at Class 5A SDN Lowokwaru 2 Malang also had similar problems. It was found out that there was a lack of a variety of teaching strategy which was interesting for elementary school students who are young learners. This current study was collaborative action research covering four stages: planning, implementing, observing, and reflecting. There were 34 students who participated in the current study. The study revealed that of storytelling strategy could improve the students’ vocabulary mastery. The average score of students’ vocabulary test at the end of Cycle 1 was 81.5. It indicated that 91.17% of the students had reached the criteria of success. The researcher did three stages in implementing storytelling strategy i.e. in pre-story stage, in-story, and post-story stage. Based on the research findings, the implementation of a storytelling strategy could improve the students' vocabulary mastery and participation in learning activities. It could be inferred that the storytelling strategy was successful in improving students’ vocabulary mastery. Keywords: vocabulary, storytelling strategy, young learne

PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE OF ENGLISH TEACHERS IN INDONESIA: A PROFILE OF EXEMPLARY TEACHERS

This study was conducted to find out the profile of exemplary English teachers at secondary schools. Data were collected through observations, interviews, and questionnaires. The study was conducted in four towns, covering exemplary teachers in one senior high school and three junior high schools. The subjects were exemplary in terms of their active participation in the Teachers' Forum (MGMP), and their roles in the professional development of both themselves and their colleagues. This study was done mainly to find out (1) the professional competences of the exemplary teachers in each town and (2) how they achieve the competences. The collected data were analyzed qualitatively by the usual process of sorting, coding, and analyzing. The findings reveal that the subjects in three of the four towns have all the four competences (subject matter, pedagogical, social and personal competences), with the personal competence being the most influential in shaping them as professional and exemplary teachers.  From the findings a profile of the professional competences of the exemplary English teachers at secondary schools is developed. Keywords:      professional competence, exemplary teacher, profile.

PREDICTORS OF THE STUDENTS’ ENGLISH ACHIEVEMENT AT LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL: CLIL CONTEXT

English across curriculum has been of world-wide practice, including in Indonesia. Through a blended curriculum (a synergy of national and international frameworks), some schools have put this program into action within the context of CLIL (Content-Language Integrated Learning). This correlational study is intended to find out the correlation between a combination of predictor variables and students’ English learning achievement in secondary school in CLIL context. The predictors include the students’ interest in ELT, the students’ internal and external motivation, the facilities, the exposure to English, and the interactional process between teacher and students at primary school level. The study also investigates to what extent the predictors, in combination as well as individually, contribute to students’ English learning achievement in secondary school in CLIL context. Data were collected through questionnaires administered to four secondary schools which implement an international framework. Seventy students were the sample of the present study. The data were analyzed using multiple regression. Results show that the two most significant predictors of the students’ English achievement in secondary school are the students’ interest and the school facilities

COMIC STRIPS:A STUDY ON THE TEACHING OF WRITING NARRATIVE TEXTS TO INDONESIAN EFL STUDENTS

Comic strips are proposed in the teaching of writing not only because of their appealing forms, but also due to their salient features as media to present content, organization and grammatical aspects of narrative texts. This study investigates the implementation of comic strips in teaching writing through a collaborative classroom action research at MAN Bangil. The procedures included planning, implementing, observing, and reflecting. The results show that teaching writing using comic strips through Process-Genre Based Approach (PGBA) could successfully improve students' ability in writing. The findings also reveal that comic strips' effective implementation requires proper stories as well as sufficient teacher's guidance during the writing process