Promoting Big Book and Reading Corner to Support Gerakan Literasi Sekolah (GLS) in Primary School

This study aims to describe the implementation of literacy socialization and training to some of the primary school teachers to support the government action in response to the Indonesian students’ low reading habit, called Gerakan Literasi Sekolah (GLS). This program focused on the English language literacy through promoting suitable material in media, namely Big Book and encouraging the school to provide reading corner to accommodate the literacy source storage and comfortable area to enjoy literacy activity. This is considered crucial since the comfortable area and neat arrangement of book play significant role to attract the students’ motivation in reading, later it is expected that they share about what they have read by listening to others, communicating with others, and writing their idea about what they found. The trainees agree that this kind of event is supposed to be conducted continuously to facilitate the teachers in enriching their updated information as well as creativity for producing appropriate media as a literacy source for the students to develop their literacy skill

CHALLENGES IN TEACHING EFL FOR PRE-SERVICE YOUNG LEARNERS TEACHERS

To educate 21st century young learners, a teacher is demanded to have balanced knowledge in both theory and practice. Focusing on EFL, regardless whether English is taught as a compulsory or local subject, primary school students need introductory concept of English covering several skills and components. To encourage the students’ English mastery, the teacher indeed becomes the center point of the class. The success in achieving the competencies depends on how creative and innovative the instructors are. However, Indonesian pre-service teachers seem to have obstacles in learning and preparing sound English instruction. Various factors contribute to their competence including the fact that English teaching is not their primary goal. Thus, this article aimed to reveal potential challenges appeared to the college students in the English Learning for Primary School class and propose several strategies to enhance their English performance. To get the data, descriptive qualitative method was applied with interview and questionnaire as the main instruments. The results showed that pre-service primary school teachers in Indonesian context believed that teaching English faced prospective challenges identified from five categories. Furthermore, to cope with those difficulties, they have several strategies to conduct focusing on three aspects: media development, plenty of fun activities, and a technology literate teacher. In short, the earlier pre-service primary school teachers get a lot of ELT illustration and treatment, the more ready they will undergo English teaching. This is considered significant to discuss, especially for the teacher candidates to build and develop their professionalism in teaching English for young learners

EMPOWERING TERTIARY LEVEL STUDENTS’ CHARACTERS THROUGH CULTURAL EDUCATION

Character is a significant element to build. The appropriate place to develop it is through educational institution since most of the students’ time is spent in school besides in their own home with family members. In Indonesian context, character building seems to be a focus on primary and secondary level. However, tertiary level students also need it. One of the ways to insert good characters to the college students in order to set their cultural awareness or avoid culture shock is by giving cultural issues in their courses. By comparing and contrasting between what they and others have, it is expected high respect and responsibility will be hold persistently in both daily and academic life. In EFL, cross-cultural understanding has become the pivotal part to teach. Communication breakdown happens due to limited knowledge about various communication or culture used by English speaking countries. Therefore, this article presents the theoretical framework, the strengths, and alternative implementation of cultural education in fostering students’ good values in response to the big diversity, especially in the use of non-verbal communication

Penerapan Model Pembelajaran Metaphorming untuk Meningkatkan Kreativitas Mahasiswa PGSD

Hasil observasi awal mahasiswa PGSD kelas A2 semester 3 ditemukan bahwa pada mata kuliah pendidikan IPA SD kelas awal mahasiswa masih belum tampak mengembangkan kreativitas dalam menyelesaikan suatu masalah, terbukti dalam mata kuliah tersebut mahasiswa kurang dapat bisa menyelesaikan suatu masalah. Mahasiswa belum dapat mengungkapkan suatu ide atau gagasan yang melibatkan kelancaran berpikir, keluwesan, originalitas dan elaborasi. Berdasarkan hal tersebut, maka peneliti ingin meningkatkan kreativitas mahasiswa PGSD kelas A2 smester 3 dalam mata kuliah pendidikan IPA SD Kelas awal dengan menggunakan model pembelajaran metaphorming yang dapat digunakan untuk merangsang mahasiswa menumbuhkan kreativitasnya. Tujuan dari penelitian ini untuk mengetahui bagaimana penerapan model pembelajaran metaphorming untuk meningkatkan kreativitas mahasiswa PGSD, dan bagaimana peningkatan hasil kreativitas mahasiswa PGSD setelah penerapan model pembelajaran metaphorming. Dalam penelitian ini menggunakan jenis Penelitian Tindakan Kelas (PTK). Menurut Kemmis & Mc. Taggart (1990), tahapan penelitian tindakan kelas meliputi perencanaan, pelaksanaan dan observasi, refleksi, dan rencana perbaikan. Teknik pengumpulan data meliputi teknik observasi, dokumentasi dan tes kreativitas mahasiswa. Berdasarkan hasil observasi keterlaksanaan perkuliahan dosen pada perkuliah siklus I menunjukkannskor 29 dan prosentasi keberhasilan 90,6% dan siklus II dengan skor 30 dengan prosentase keberhasilan 93,33% dengan kategori keberhasilan sangat baik. Sedangkan hasil analisis data tes kreativitas mahasiswa siklus I menunjukkan rata-rata tes kreativitas mahasiswa sebesar 72,66 dengan prosentase ketuntasan 46,66% dan tidak tuntas 53,33%. Dan hasil kreativitas mahasiswa siklus II rata-rata sebesar 79,33 dengan prosentase ketuntasan 93,33% dan tidak tuntas 6,66%. Peningkatan ketuntasan belajar mahasiswa pada siklus I dan siklus II 46,67%. Dengan demikian penerapan model pembelajaran metaphorming dapat meningkatkan kreativitas mahasiswa PGSD kelas A2 semester 3 pada mata kuliah pendidikan IPA SD kelas awal

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

ANDROID BASED EDUCATIONAL GAME IN INDONESIAN TEYL

Gadgets provide advantages for life. The current world-famous software available is Android. This software is believed to assist teachers in delivering knowledge effectively. In relation to that idea, this study aims to describe the effectiveness of Android based educational game to improve young learners’ ability in learning English vocabulary. The fourth graders of primary school were pointed as the subjects of this research. Pre-experimental design was applied by using (pre- and post-) test as the main instrument. Based on the statistical analysis of the data,the results show that the use of educational game from Android (App Inventor) improved the students’ English competence in learning vocabulary. The students get in-depth understanding about the topic of animal identified from the better score in post test. Furthermore, the game greatly encourages the students in giving active participation during the classroom activities. In brief, using Android based educational game is one of joyful alternative teaching innovations to support the creative young learners’ teachers

Strategies for Effective English Speaking

This book is written as the supplementary materials for English instructors in giving speaking class activities. The materials consist of theory and practice of Communication Strategy (CS) that includes contextual data taken from research funded by KEMENRISTEKDIKTI 2016.This research was conducted in order to know more about the implementation of strategy communication and its effectiveness in overcoming the students’ English speaking problems. We have provided seven chapters that present meaningful information about speaking problems and Communication Strategies (real practice in the examples). We also tried to enhance the students’ critical thinking on the practice session; we name it Students Activities.From these activities, it is expected that the students are not only be able to comprehend the theoretical framework of speaking problems and Communication Strategy, but also to get solution in improving their speaking when performing English conversation. Considering the authentic data and sufficient reference in this book, we believe that the information can be a potential source to enhance the speaking performance for EFL learners. Finally, we realize that there are many drawbacks in this book; therefore, we would be very grateful and welcome for any corrections, comments, and criticism from all readers for our improvement

Instagram post: Writing caption through process approach in developing writing skill

Instagram has some features for supporting English learning process. Posting a picture and adding a caption could be a way for developing writing skill. Instagram users are allowed to write caption through process approach that would guide them to make a good writing. This study aims to find out the effect of Instagram caption through process approach on students’ writing skill in recount text. Quasi-experimental design was implemented to the two classes of Multimedia students at one of Indonesian vocational high schools. Each class participated in this study consisted of thirty students. The data collection was taken from tests, pre-test and post-test. Then, it was analyzed using Independent t-test. The result of this study indicates that Instagram caption through process approach gives positive effect for developing English writing skill. More specifically, the students are able to use their Instagram account as an alternative way to learn English by sharing their experience, strengthen their step in writing skill through editing and revising the draft based on the teacher’s feedback, and publish writing product. This study implies that feature in Instagram gives advantages for English teachers and students, and it can be promoted as an attractive educational technology for writing activities

“WAYS FOR TERTIARY LEVEL STUDENTS IN BUILDING ENGLISH SPEAKING PERFORMANCE”

Abstract: This study aims to find out the strategies used by tertiary level students in performing English communication. This research was a descriptive study involving English Education Study Program students. Data analysis included in-depth transcribing on the students’ speaking performance and the result of interview. The findings show that the communication strategies used in the conversation consisted of avoidance, paraphrase, borrowing, appeal for assistance, and mime. The common strategy lied on mime, while avoidance and paraphrase strategies were not frequently applied. The results show communication strategies were effective in helping the first language students in learning English as their foreign language. Communication strategies give solution to cope with difficulties in learning English. Communication strategies are highly suggested to be socialized to EFL learners as an alternative way to improve speaking performance