Thematic Progression in Acehnese EFL Learner-Produced Texts

This study reports the thematic progression of the EFL learner- produced texts in Acehnese context. The study employed qualitative method focusing on the content analysis. The content analysis technique was incorporated to analyse the corpora of 40 learner-produced texts. The findings of the study highlight both prevalent and problematic thematic progression patterns in the students’ texts. The EFL learners are inclined to use the constant theme pattern with less consistency of accuracy in longer paragraphs. With regard to the problematic patterns, the students tend to find difficulties in developing the ideas throughout the texts. This is shown through the emergence of many brand new themes and empty rhemes which result in incohesive and incoherent texts. The overall findings suggest that introducing the theme- rheme pattern concept to the students in English writing classes can be useful for improving the cohesion of the EFL students’ writings.

PARTNERSHIP ACTIVITY IN EFL READING CLASSROOM

This paper analyzes the advantages of partnership activity in EFL reading classroom. Understanding a reading text may provide a challenge for some students as it involves a particular context and previous knowledge. For English as a foreign language (EFL) learners, the challenge becomes more complex as they need to understand the words and the written symbols of the foreign language and take the meaning of the sentence by making sense them with its context which may be unfamiliar to them. For this reason, choosing an activity that provides a wider opportunity for EFL students to share their thought and understanding of what they read as well as to listen others comprehension of the similar text is necessary in order to help the students have an accurate meaning of the text and learn how to be an effective reader. In this light, partnership activity is considered to be one of alternative ways to create an enjoyable and meaningful experience for EFL students to develop their reading skill of another language. The benefits of partnership activity include individual concerns and social life

Personality and English as a foreign language learning in Aceh: a sociocultural approach

 This study explores the reciprocal relationship between personality and foreign language classroom learning from sociocultural perspectives. The findings indicate that personality and previous life experience impacted on the participants’ responses to the classroom communicative events in complex ways. Self-development occurred depending on the way participants utilized events and social circumstances

STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION AND RESPONSIVE PEDAGOGY IN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

Students’ motivation contributes to the successful teaching learning process as it determines self-engagement and participations in the classroom. Encouraging students’ motivation, then, becomes important for the teacher to achieve the teaching goal and to provide a meaningful learning process for the students. This research is aimed to discuss responsive pedagogy in encouraging students’ motivation to learn and participate in classroom learning process. One English speaking class becomes the object of the observation. The interviews with the teacher and some students were also part of data collection in order to obtain information about the students’ motivation in learning English speaking, teacher’s teaching strategy, and classroom interactions. The findings indicate that classroom activities are crucial in motivating students’ responsive learning. In addition, the teacher’s competency in creating a conducive environment and leading an interactive communication are the ways of the teacher influence students’ motivation in learning process

Flipping an IELTS Writing Course: Investigating its impacts on students’ performance and their attitudes

The technology-enhanced instructional approach has been proven to stimulate active learning and advance the teaching-learning process. The flipped classroom (FC) instructional method, an instructional technology part of blended learning, has gained remarkable popularity in recent years due to its promising and positive impacts on different aspects of students’ learning process (motivation, engagement, academic performance, independent learning). In the current study, an explanatory mixed-method approach was employed to investigate the implementation of the flipped pedagogical approach in a government-funded IELTS preparation course in Indonesia, particularly in the writing section of the course. It examined the impacts of this instructional technology method on learners’ writing performance and explored their learning attitudes and experiences. A number of 25 participants from various professional backgrounds aspiring to pursue master’s and doctoral degrees who were recruited based on their previous TOEFL or IELTS scores participated in this study. The findings of this study showed that the learners had a positive attitude toward the flipped instruction method, and their writing test achievement significantly improved as reflected in the official IELTS test scores. Method flexibility, independent learning, and collaborative and active learning were factors that emerged in the interviews that were considered the important determinants of the participants’ IELTS writing improvements

COOPERATIVE ASSESSMENT WRITING PRACTICES AT AN ACEHNESE PRIVATE UNIVERSITY: HELPING OR TROUBLING?

A good writing skill could be a benchmark of someone’s good ability in English.  This study aims find the way how the practice of cooperative assessment can diminish errors and mistakes in students’ writing and to see students’ view towards cooperative assessment method in writing class. Qualitative approach by using case study method was selected, and the data were taken by means of observation, document analysis and interview towards the fourth semester students of Serambi Mekah University Banda Aceh, Indonesia in 2018/2019 academic year. The findings shown that there were three techniques of cooperative assessment that may lessen errors and mistakes in students’ writing, namely; peer review, lecturers’ feedback and classroom reviewing activity. In students’ view, cooperative assessment has some benefits (improving grammatical awareness, improving students’ vocabularies, and improving the structure of students’ writing) as well as drawbacks (peer errors in editing, and time consuming). Therefore, it is recommended that students make their errors and mistakes diary notes and lecturers are advised to start making grammar errors and mistakes checklists based on the learning objectives for students’ peer reviewing practice

Pengaruh Hidden Curriculum terhadap Pembinaan Karakter Religius Peserta Didik di Dayah Jeumala Amal Pidie Jaya dan Dayah Al-Furqan Pidie

Hidden curriculum helps manifest the development of students’ religious characters; however, it is often neglected and not used properly in the learning process. The questions posed in this study include: How is the implementation of the hidden curriculum in the development of the religious characters of students? To what extent the hidden curriculum influences the development of the religious characters of students? and What is the impact of the hidden curriculum on the formation of the religious characters of students? This mixed methods study obtained data by means of questionnaire, interview, and observation. The subject of the study had a sample size of 153. The study employed the SPSS ver. 25 to analyze the quantitative data, whereas the qualitative data were presented descriptively. The findings indicate that the hidden curriculum has been applied inside and outside the classroom. The study revealed that the hidden curriculum implemented at Dayah Jeumala Amal and Dayah Al-Furqan reached the medium level of 40% and of 34.78%, respectively and also created students with high religious characters of 51.54% and of 43.48%, respectively. Further, the simple linear regression test obtained the value of 0.00, at the level of significance α = 0.005, indicating that there was an influence of the hidden curriculum on the development of the religious characters of students. The influences of the hidden curriculum in the forms of role model, habituation, coaching, and attitudes from an educator have resulted in the birth of exemplary values ​​that are more long lasting and impactful within the students. In addition, the influences in the social and environmental forms have triggered the establishment of a harmonious relationship with other people and yielded an attitude of concern for the environment in which the students live. Moreover, the implementation of the hidden curriculum in the form of worship carried out in schools has also enabled the development of religious attitudes, including honesty, patience, and trustworthiness, within the students

Weighing research competencies of department of English language education graduates at UIN Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh

The purpose of this study is to scrutinize participants’ research competency, source of research competency, and problems related to the research conduct. Nine graduates of the Department of English Language Education were purposefully selected; three of them completed their theses in one semester, three others finished in two semesters, and one other finalized in three semesters. In this qualitative study, semi-structured interviews were used. The findings revealed that graduates with one-semester thesis completion rates have stronger research proficiency than other groups. They have a higher motivational value component, a higher methodology-reflective component, and a higher operational activity component of research competency. Meanwhile, the emotional-volitional component of research competency remains equal for each group of participants. Furthermore, graduates acquired research competency through coursework, research conduct, and self-study. In terms of problems with research conduct, the data disclosed that graduates frequently struggled with self-motivation, supervisors, time/class schedule, knowledge of prior studies, data analysis, and  participants selection

The impact of bullying on EFL students’ academic achievement at state Islamic universities in Indonesia

Issues and incidents of bullying may take place, regardless of time and place, notwithstanding at Islamic education institutions. This study is aimed at finding out types of bullying and their triggering factors taking place in the university classroom; examining steps taken by lecturers to anticipate and prevent classroom bullying; and analyzing the impact of bullying on EFL students’ academic achievement. This mixed-methods study involved 546 students and 30 lecturers of the English Language Education Department at three state Islamic universities in Indonesia; Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif Hidayatullah in Jakarta, Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Kalijaga in Yogyakarta, and Universitas Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry in Banda Aceh. Both surveys and interviews were employed to collect the required data. The findings elucidate that physical, social, verbal, and racial are among the most common emergent bullying incidents the students experienced. Revealing the triggering factors of bullying, the data show that competition in academic and social life, differences in thoughts and appearances, lack of understanding of bullying meaning, and lack of regulation are pointed as the source of bullying. The findings also indicate that bullying influences students’ academic achievement; bullying incidents have driven their victims into four pathetic conditions: less confident, stressed, anxious, and passive. Some steps are applied by the lecturer to prevent and handle bullying; they are: providing classroom regulation, being a counselor for students, enforcing the regulation, and massive socialization

Scrutinizing EFL students' plagiarism practice

The current study was designed to investigate the types of plagiarism that appear in EFL students’ theses at Ar-Raniry State Islamic University, Indonesia. It sought to examine the plagiarism level, and investigate the triggering factors encouraging these EFL students of the 2019 batch to plagiarize. This study used a qualitative method with a case study approach. The participants in this study were ten EFL students of the 2019 batch and their theses. The participants were randomly selected. The data collection was carried out using two research instruments, namely document analysis, and interview. The researcher analyzed the student's thesis using Plagiarism Checker X. The results of the document analysis showed that there were two types of plagiarism detected in the student's thesis, namely word for word and mosaic plagiarism. Second, the researcher found that the plagiarism level of the 2019 batch English students' thesis of UIN Ar-Raniry was at the low-level plagiarism category, which can be observed from the result of the similarity index. The level of plagiarism found in these theses was less than 30%, still at an acceptable level as stipulated by the university regulation. Meanwhile, the result of the interview showed that all participants know what plagiarism is and they think that plagiarism is a negative conduct. Several factors influences EFL English students to plagiarize, such as poor time management, laziness, poor paraphrasing skills, affordable internet access, and running out of ideas