The Effectiveness of Extensive Reading in Improving EFL Academic Writing

This study attempts to answer the question of to what extend extensive reading (ER) could enhance the English of Foreign language (EFL) learners' academic writing. This quasi-experimental study compared two English classes in terms of academic writing improvement after six weeks. This sample of the study was 64 students in a private university in the academic years of 2020-2021. In a traditional English class, the students primarily focused on grammar instruction and writing practice. On the other hand, the students in an ER class engaged in an ER program in and out of class involving the reading-related writing practice. The pretest and posttest were administered to measure students’ writing improvement. The results indicate that students in ER group with more exposure to comprehensible input show statistically significant progress on their posttest, whereas students in a traditional class show a moderate increase

NATIVE LANGUAGE INFLUENCE ON THE PRODUCTION OF ENGLISH SENTENCE STRUCTURE

Two main questions to be answered in this study are what the ill-formedness of English syntactic structures are made by the English Department students of Buddhi Dharma University, Tangerang and what the ill-formedness of English syntactic structures which get the influence of Bahasa Indonesia as their native language. A topic was given to be written in 3-5 paragraphs by 12 respondents who participated the study. The rules for constructing English syntactic structure were used to identify and determine the syntactically ill-formed sentences in English made by the respondents. The result obtained there are 3 groups of the ill-formedness of English syntactic structures; Noun Phrase, Verb Phrase, and Word Order, and 9 types of ill-formedness in constructing English syntactic structures. The types of the ill-formedness from the most frequent to the least frequent one are: Number, Agreement of Subject and Verb Form, Use of Prepositions, Use of Past Tense, Question sentence, Use of Verb, Use of the Verb Pattern, Embedded Question, Use of Present Tense, and. The ill-formed sentences appeared because of the interference of the students’ native language

LANGUAGE FUNCTION USED BY THE MAIN CHARACTER IN “JOKER” MOVIE

Penelitian ini terutama bertujuan untuk menganalisis fungsi bahasa yang terdapat pada tokoh utama dalam Film Joker. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui fungsi bahasa yang digunakan tokoh utama dalam film Joker dan mendeskripsikan konteks fungsi bahasa yang digunakan tokoh utama film tersebut. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif deskriptif. Dikategorikan sebagai analisis wacana karena kajian ini berfokus pada analisis fenomena ujaran tokoh utama. Data dikumpulkan dari ucapan Arthur sebagai tokoh utama. Peneliti menggunakan teori Holmes untuk menganalisis fungsi bahasa dan teori Hymes untuk mendeskripsikan konteks fungsi bahasa. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan hanya ada tujuh dari delapan jenis fungsi bahasa yang dikategorikan oleh Holmes yang menggunakan tokoh utama dalam film Joker. Mereka adalah fungsi bahasa ekspresif, direktif, referensial, metalinguistik, phatic, puitis dan komisif

Digital Entertainment to Support Toddlers’ Language and Cognitive Development

This current research aimed at seeing how English nursery rhymes and kids’ songs as learning media support toddlers who are not living in an English speaking country (Indonesia) but exposed to the English language media during their normal baby-sitting times to learning English. To observe how two Indonesian toddlers learned English language in their early critical period of language acquisition through co-watching activity, Early Development Instrument which focuses on language and cognitive development domain with reading awareness and reciting memory subdomain was applied to observe two subjects after 15 month treatments (from age 10-24 months). The results show that the media and the co-watching activity are able to support the toddlers’ understanding of the English words spoken and their ability to produce the intelligent pronunciation of those words. The interesting fact reveals that English which is normatively learned merely as a foreign language to most Indonesian people is no longer something far-off to the toddlers who are exposed to it through English nursery rhymes and kids’ songs online since they are at the very young age. They naturally tend to be bilingual since at the same time they learn their mother tongue

Women Language Features used by Bella Swan in Twilight Movie

This study aims to identify the types and functions of women language features used by Bella Swan in Twilight movie. The design of the study is descriptive qualitative. The data were taken from the utterances of Bella Swan, then analyzed using Lakoff’s theory. The study results discovered eight types of women language features from Bella Swan's utterances: lexical hedges or fillers, tag question, rising intonation, intensifier, hypercorrect grammar, superpolite form, avoidance of strong swear words, and emphatic stress. The most frequent women language features used by Bella Swan was lexical hedges or fillers. The researcher identified 14 functions of women language features used by Bella Swan. The dominant functions of women language features were to indicate uncertainty and lack of confidence, wrap up the idea, denote hesitancy and make the sentence less assertive, and express slight surprise and agreement.Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengidentifikasi jenis dan fungsi fitur bahasa perempuan yang digunakan oleh Bella Swan dalam film Twilight. Rancangan penelitian ini adalah deskriptif kualitatif. Data diambil dari ucapan Bella Swan, kemudian dianalisis menggunakan teori Lakoff. Hasil penelitian menemukan delapan jenis fitur bahasa perempuan dari tuturan Bella Swan: lexical hedges or fillers, tag question, rising intonation, intensifier, hypercorrect grammar, superpolite form, avoidance of strong swear words, dan emphatic stress. Fitur bahasa perempuan yang paling sering digunakan oleh Bella Swan adalah lexical hedges. Peneliti mengidentifikasi 14 fungsi fitur bahasa perempuan yang digunakan oleh Bella Swan. Fungsi dominan fitur bahasa perempuan adalah untuk menunjukkan ketidakpastian dan kurangnya kepercayaan diri, menyimpulkan ide, menunjukkan keragu-raguan dan membuat kalimat kurang tegas, dan mengungkapkan sedikit keterkejutan dan persetujuan

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILL USING A MOBILE LEARNING APPLICATION

Writing is claimed to be the most difficult skill for second language and foreign language learners. Thus, it needs an effective model of teaching to improve the students’ writing skill. This study aims to describe the use of a mobile learning application Busuu to improve students’ writing skill. This is a classroom action research (CAR) that was conducted into two cycles. Each cycle consisted two meetings and involved four steps namely planning, action, observation and reflection. The data were collected by using technique of observation, test, and interview. The subject of the research was fourteen students of Widya Kartika University. The result showed that there was an improvement in students’ writing skill. It can be seen from the result of writing test in each cycle which was improved. Mean score of the students’ writing in cycle 1 was 61.14 and the mean score of the students’ writing was 71.42 in cycle 2. In addition, the results of the interview showed that the students had a positive attitude toward the implementation of mobile learning application Busuu in the activities of learning writing

THE USE OF SLANG BY THE MAIN CHARACTERS IN “P.S. I STILL LOVE YOU” MOVIE

Penelitian ini terutama ditujukan untuk menganalisis penggunaan bahasa slang oleh karakter utama dalam film “P.S.I Still Love You”. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui ciri, jenis dan fungsi dari setiap kata slang yang terdapat dalam film tersebut. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif deskriptif. Penulis menggunakan teori karakteristik oleh Chapel dan London, teori tipe oleh Eric Partridge, dan teori fungsi oleh Yanchun dan Yanhong, dan penulis juga menggunakan teori Allan dan Burridge untuk mencari fungsi. Data dikumpulkan dari “P.S. Film Aku Masih Mencintaimu”. Hasil dari penelitian ini, penulis menemukan dua belas kata slang, penulis juga menemukan bahwa ada tiga karakteristik bahasa slang dalam film; Kreativitas, Ceroboh, dan Imitatif. Juga hanya ada tiga jenis dari sebelas jenis yang ditemukan dalam film yang digunakan oleh karakter utama; Bahasa gaul rumah umum, Bahasa gaul di sekolah umum dan universitas dan Bahasa gaul masyarakat. Penulis juga menemukan fungsinya; perasaan emosional pengguna slang, untuk memulai percakapan santai, untuk mempermalukan dan untuk mengatasi

Vocabulary size and L2 academic writing quality of Indonesian Graduate Students: a correlative study

Vocabulary size is an indicator of how well the second language (L2) learners can perform academic language skills such as, reading, listening, and writing. Learners with big vocabularies are more proficient in a wide range of language skills than learners with smaller vocabularies. some evidence supports the view that vocabulary skills make a significant contribution to almost all aspects of L2 proficiency. The present study is an attempt to find the correlation between vocabulary size and writing ability.This study also attempts to examine the vocabulary size of 20 students of S2 in the English Education Department of Graduate School Widya Mandala Catholic University. The study involved two lecturers of English Education Department of Graduate School at Widya Mandala University as the raters. The subjects’ vocabulary size was estimated by using the receptive and productive version of the Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) designed by Norbert Schmitt (2005) and Paul Nation (2001) respectively. Additionally, their writing quality was rated from their essays by using the analytical scale (ESL Composition Profile) established by Jacobs et al (1981). The tests were administered weekly in which the writing test was the first, followed by the productive vocabulary size test and finally the receptive vocabulary size test. The scores of the vocabulary tests were correlated with the scores of writing test by using Pearson product moment. The subjects’ receptive and productive vocabulary size were found to be around 5,000 and 4,000 words respectively. In general, the correlation analysis revealed that writing quality correlated more closely with productive vocabulary size than receptive vocabulary size. Writing quality was also found to have high correlation with the academic words. On the other hand, it had almost no correlation with the 2,000 word level of receptive vocabulary size

Vocabulary size and L2 academic writing quality of Indonesian Graduate Students: a correlative study

Vocabulary size is an indicator of how well the second language (L2) learners can perform academic language skills such as, reading, listening, and writing. Learners with big vocabularies are more proficient in a wide range of language skills than learners with smaller vocabularies. some evidence supports the view that vocabulary skills make a significant contribution to almost all aspects of L2 proficiency. The present study is an attempt to find the correlation between vocabulary size and writing ability.This study also attempts to examine the vocabulary size of 20 students of S2 in the English Education Department of Graduate School Widya Mandala Catholic University. The study involved two lecturers of English Education Department of Graduate School at Widya Mandala University as the raters. The subjects’ vocabulary size was estimated by using the receptive and productive version of the Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) designed by Norbert Schmitt (2005) and Paul Nation (2001) respectively. Additionally, their writing quality was rated from their essays by using the analytical scale (ESL Composition Profile) established by Jacobs et al (1981). The tests were administered weekly in which the writing test was the first, followed by the productive vocabulary size test and finally the receptive vocabulary size test. The scores of the vocabulary tests were correlated with the scores of writing test by using Pearson product moment. The subjects’ receptive and productive vocabulary size were found to be around 5,000 and 4,000 words respectively. In general, the correlation analysis revealed that writing quality correlated more closely with productive vocabulary size than receptive vocabulary size. Writing quality was also found to have high correlation with the academic words. On the other hand, it had almost no correlation with the 2,000 word level of receptive vocabulary size

Unravelling the Swear Words Uttered by the Characters in Suicide Squad Movie from Pragmatic Perspective

Nowadays, the use of profanity is becoming more widespread, and it seems to be particularly common among teenagers. However, swear words do not have a fixed, universal meaning, as their usage is context-dependent and pragmatic. A single swear word can have multiple meanings and functions depending on the situation. This study aims analyze the pragmatic purposes behind their usage, based on the themes proposed by Ljung in 2011. The research adopts a qualitative content analysis method since the data comprises the characters' spoken words in the movie. The data collection process involves gathering relevant information about swear words, and once sufficient material is obtained, the movie is rented from YouTube. The data analysis steps involve data reduction, data displaying, and finally drawing conclusion. The findings reveal that the functions of the swear words, replacive swearing emerges as the most frequently used function among the characters, followed by name-calling, and the third are expletive interjection, and emphasis with the same occurrence frequency, anaphoric use of epithet, adjectives of dislike, and the last are unfriendly suggestions, as well as adverbial/adjectival intensifiers which share the same occurrence frequency. The results indicate that swear words are heavily used in the Suicide Squad movie. This research provides a rich theoretical and empirical framework for future research, especially concerning the study of swear words