COMMUNICATIVE GAME-BASED LEARNING IN EFL GRAMMAR CLASS: SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION

The role of grammar instruction is inevitably important for second and/or foreign language mastery. Unfortunately, in practice, many English teachers in foreign language contexts such as in Indonesia still teach grammar deductively; that is, learners are provided the grammar rules and examples, are told to memorize them, and then are asked to apply the rules to other examples. This particular method of teaching is believed to produce learners who cannot use the language communicatively although they have considerable knowledge of grammar rules. It has also been seen as contributing to learners’ passive participation and negative feelings towards grammar learning. The aims of this paper are to give an alternative solution to that problem by offering some ideas of game-based activities and to investigate students’ perception of the implementation of communicative game-based grammar learning. Using pre- and post-study questionnaire, the research study was conducted with 30 adult EFL learners taking an after-class English course. The findings indicated that these activities were effective in creating a non-threatening and more relaxing grammar classes, changing students’ negative perception of grammar learning and improving their perceived communicative skills

Perpustakaan sebagai jantung Universitas New Mexico

A library as a source of information should become the heart of the university. University Library (UL) should serve as an integral part of education, research and community service. However in reality, university libraries in Indonesia are still not functioned optimally. UL in Indonesia still lags behind those in other countries, especially in the United States. This paper aims to provide an overview of how UL in the University of New Mexico, one of flagstaff universities in the United States, are functioned and what facilities and services are provided and offered in supporting academic life and activities at UNM

Grammatical Errors in Madrasah Aliyah Students’ Narrative Texts: An Error Analysis of the Surface Strategy

Framed by Error Analysis (EA) approach, this study aimed at analyzing grammar errors in writing narrative text, with a special focus on the differences of errors made by the students of Mathematics & Natural Science (MNS) and Social Studies (SS) streams at a Madrasah Aliyah (Islamic senior high school). This study used 60 narrative essays as the data corpus, which was analyzed using the adoption of Coder’s EA approach. The result of data analysis showed that MNS students made more grammatical errors than SS students did in writing narrative texts. A closer look at the data revealed interesting findings as follows: 1) both MNS and SS students made grammatical errors in six categories, noun, pronoun, verb, article, preposition, and conjunction; 2) there were five types of errors found in students’ writing including mis-selection, over inclusion, and omission as the dominant ones; and 3) MNS students produced more errors in five categories; noun, pronoun, verb, preposition, and conjunction while SS students were only in one category, namely article. These findings could be used as a proof to debunk the stereotype of MNS and SS students labeling with more preference given to MNS students who are perceived to be more dominant in academic performance

TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING IN GRAMMAR INSTRUCTION: A LITERATURE REVIEW

The role of grammar instruction for EFL/ESL learners has been a major debate among the stakeholders; the English language teachers and students, researchers and practitioners. Some believe that language teaching should focus on meaning and fluency to reach the goal of language as a means of communication, while some others argue that the focus on language form and accuracy is more important in language acquisition. Despite this long controversy, grammar gains its prominence in English language teaching, particularly in Asian context. Many methods and approaches with their strengths and weaknesses have been proposed in order to get the best learning outcomes in grammar instruction. One which has proven effective to achieve the goal of language learning is Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). Various methods have emerged as an attempt to make CLT feasible in any classroom contexts and one of them is the task-based language teaching (TBLT). This paper aims to give the review of TBLT frameworks in grammar instructio

Indonesian Students\u27 Perceptions of Written Feedback in Second Language Writing

Grounded in sociocultural theory, written feedback activities in second language (L2) writing provide the social interactions that help learners develop their psychical functions within the zone of proximal development (ZPD) as they co-construct knowledge with teachers and peers through guided learning (De Guerrero & Villamil, 2000). Written feedback can also help student writers improve their writing proficiency, including organization of their texts and awareness of the mechanics of the language necessary for successful communication of the intended message (Chandler, 2003; Ferris, 2006; Jahin, 2012; Kamimura, 2006). Regarding the eminence of feedback in L2 writing, a large body of research has been conducted to investigate different aspects of feedback in L2 writing classrooms, however much of the feedback research has put teachers at the center of the focus. Research on students’ perceptions of feedback only began to develop in the 1990s, thus this study builds on the growing literature, with particular focus on students’ perceptions of written feedback in L2 writing in Indonesian EFL context. Framed within Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), this study aimed to examine: (1) second language learners’ preferences of written feedback, (2) its benefits as they perceive, (3) how they incorporate feedback in their writings, and (4) cultural influences that shape the perceptions, within the context of an after-class EFL writing course at a state university in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia. Guided by qualitative research methodology, data for this study were collected from a sample of seven students majoring in English Education. The data were analyzed quantitatively through frequency count and qualitatively through thematic content analysis by identifying the themes emerged related to the issues under discussion. The results of data analysis showed four findings. First, students preferred direct than indirect form of feedback. Furthermore, they preferred their peers to provide feedback focusing on local issues but expected feedback focusing on global issues from the teacher. Second, students’ perceptions of written feedback revealed three benefits, namely; improving writing quality and skills, encouraging critical reasoning, and promoting learner autonomy. Third, students received more feedback from peers than the teacher but incorporated more teacher feedback than peer feedback in their writings. During the composing process, they also made self-revisions whose total number was larger than that of written feedback provided by their peers and teacher combined. Further analysis showed that the reasons why they incorporated or rejected/ignored the received written feedback came from some factors related to the feedback provider, the feedback receiver, and the written feedback provided. Finally, students valued more teacher feedback than peer feedback, which indicated the influence of hierarchical culture. However, power distance between the teacher and the students and face-saving strategy which is commonly practiced in a collectivist society did not seem to have much influence on students’ perceptions of written feedback

Scientific Writing Syllabus

Scientific Writing is designed to help you develop your academic and professional writing skills and strategies in English with the emphasis on critical reading response and proceedings paper writing. The course guides you through all stages of the writing process from planning using brainstorming including freewriting, mind mapping, listing and outlining; drafting and revising; to proofreading and providing/receiving feedback through peer review. In this course you will also practice academic writing skills which include summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, organizing your ideas, doing basic library research, supporting your claims with good forms of evidence, and preparing citations. Although the primary aim of this course involves helping you build your proficiency and confidence as a writer of English, we will also devote time and effort to improving your reading and critical reasoning skills to support your research and writing activities

Gender stereotypes in educational texts: A comparative study of Indonesian and international primary English textbooks

Despite the claim that the world is progressing toward gender parity, gender stereotyping continues to be a challenge for many countries, including Indonesia. This critical discourse study sought to investigate if gender stereotypes (still) exist in English language textbooks (ELTs) utilized in international and local (Indonesian) contexts. To this end, this study analysed visual texts portraying male and female characters from the student books of English Chest 6 and Let’s Go 6 from a Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA) perspective. In terms of gender representation and responsiveness, both quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that both ELTs depict unequal portrayals. Furthermore, gender stereotypes were identified in both educational documents under investigation in two social settings, namely family and occupation/profession. This empirical research implies that, in order to achieve more equality in education, both textbook authors and schoolteachers around the world should be fully aware of gender issues encapsulated in educational documents

A collection of accepted international conference/workshop abstracts

This file contains the abstracts I have sent to international conferences in several places around the world including Arizona, Ohio, and Albuquerque in the United States; Siliwangi, Indonesia; and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysi