acknowledge ments first of all, we would like to express our gratitude to all reviewers: prof. andre w lian, ph.d. senior professor at suranaree university of technology, thailand, prof. d r. patrisius istiarto djiwandono, senior professor at ma c hung university, malang, indonesia, willy ardian renandya, ph.d. senior lecturer at national institute of education, singapore, dr. jati gumawang senior lecturer at institut teknologi bandung, mark feng teng, ma senior lecturer at the department of education studies, hong kong baptist university, hong kong, rouhollah askari b igdelli, ma linguistics postgraduate student, university of otago, new zealand, prof. anita lie, ed.d., prof. d r. veronica l. diptoadi, mateus yumarnamto, ph.d., and siti mina tamah, ph.d. professors and senior lecturers at the english education department, graduate school widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia. the peer reviews they contributed are very significant to maintain both the quality of this online journal and as a feedback for authors. the same thankful expressions also came from authors for the reviewers’ scholarly comments and feedback. and last but not least, our great appreciation goes to all authors for their writings. for those whose manuscripts have not been accepted for this issue, please do not get discouraged. we invite you to do more research and submit articles again. your juniors need vivid examples from you, besides being able to write a good article is a value in itself. wuri soedjatmiko editor in chie javascript:openrtwindow('http://journal.wima.ac.id/index.php/bw/about/editorialteambio/234') 1 acknowledgements on this occasion, i would like to express my gratitude to the reviewers: prof. dr. patrisius istiart djiwandono, professor at ma chung university, malang, indonesia; prof. anita lie, professor at the english education department, graduate school and department of english, faculty of teacher education, widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, indonesia; dr. gumawang jati, ma a senior lecturer at institut teknologi bandung, indonesia, rouhollah askari bigdelli, ma., a senior lecturer at university of otago, new zealand; mark feng teng, ma, a senior lecturer at the hongkong baptist university, and some other anonymous reviewers. the peer reviews they contributed are very significant to maintain the quality of this online journal. the same thankful expressions also came from authors to the reviewers’ for their scholarly comments and feedbacks. big thanks also go to beyond words other editors and technical editors for the for internal reviewing the articles. and last but not least, our great appreciation goes to all authors for their writings. wuri soedjatmiko – editor-in-chief 1 acknowledgements first of all, we would like to express our gratitude to the reviewers: prof. dr. patrisius istiarto djiwandono, a senior professor at ma chung university, malang, indonesia; prof. dr. veronica l. diptoadi, a senior professor at the teacher training faculty, widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, indonesia, dr. ignatius harjanto, dr. v. luluk prijambodo, and mateus yumarnamto, ph.d., siti mina tamah, ph.d. senior lecturers at the department of english education, graduate school widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia; rouhollah askari bigdelli, ma., a senior lecturer at university of otago, new zealand; mark feng teng, ma, a senior lecturer at the hongkong baptist university and some other anonymous reviewers. the peer reviews they contributed are very significant to maintain the quality of this online journal. the same thankful expressions also came from authors for the reviewers’ scholarly comments and feedback. and last but not least, our great appreciation goes to all authors for their writings. i acknowledgements we’d like to express our gratitude to the reviewers: prof. dr. patrisius istiarto djiwandono, professor at ma chung university, malang, indonesia; prof. deepti gupta, ph.d, professor at the department of english, panjab university, chandigarh, india; prof. eugenius sadtono, ph.d., retired professor at the graduate school, malang state university, now professor at ma chung university, malang, indonesia; prof. anita lie, professor at the english education department, graduate school and department of english, faculty of teacher education, widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, indonesia; professor dr. veronica l. diptoadi, professor at the department of english, faculty of teacher education, widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, indonesia; willy ardian renandya, ph.d., a senior lecturer at the ell department, national institute of education, singapore; rouhollah askari bigdelli, ma., a senior lecturer at university of otago, new zealand; mark feng teng, ma, a senior lecturer at the hongkong baptist university; mateus yumarnamto, ph.d. the department of english, faculty of teacher education, widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, indonesia; siti mina tamah, ph.d., a senior lecturer at the department of english, faculty of teacher education, widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, indonesia, and some other anonymous reviewers. the peer reviews they contributed are very significant to maintain the quality of this online journal. the same thankful expressions also came from authors to the reviewers’ for their scholarly comments and feedbacks. and last but not least, our great appreciation goes to all authors for their writings. i acknowledgements first of all, we would like to express our gratitude to all reviewers: prof. andrew lian, ph.d. senior professor at suranaree university of technology, thailand, prof. dr. patrisius istiarto djiwandono, senior professor at ma chung university, malang, indonesia; dr. fransiskus mukarto senior lecturer at the english studies graduate school of sanata dharma university, yogyakarta, indonesia, willy ardian renandya, ph.d. senior lecturer at national institute of education, singapore, dr. jati gumawang senior lecturer at institut teknologi bandung, mark feng teng, ma senior lecturer at the department of education studies, hong kong baptist university, hong kong, rouhollah askari bigdelli, ma linguistics postgraduate student, university of otago, new zealand, mateus yumarnamto, ph.d., dr. hendra tdjasuksmana and siti mina tamah, ph.d. senior lecturers at the english education department, graduate school widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia. the peer reviews they contributed are very significant to maintain both the quality of this online journal and as a feedback for authors. the same thankful expressions also came from authors for the reviewers’ scholarly comments and feedback. and last but not least, our great appreciation goes to all authors for their writings. for those whose manuscripts have not been accepted for this issue, please do not get discouraged. we invite you to do more research and submit articles again. your juniors need vivid examples from you, besides being able to write a good article is a value in itself. javascript:openrtwindow('http://journal.wima.ac.id/index.php/bw/about/editorialteambio/234')� paths to competence in listening comprehension 1 beyond words vol. 6, no. 1. may 2018 paths to competence in listening comprehension 1 stephen krashen university of southern california, usa (emeritus) willy a. renandya nanyang technological university, singapore beniko mason shitennnoji university junior college, japan pratheeba bose kamuraj college of engineering and technology, india abstract we present two paths to increasing listening comprehension ability, one in-class and other in the country where the language is spoken. in both cases, we predict that those with higher reading ability in the second language will progress faster. consider the case of an adult second language acquirer with high competence in reading comprehension, but with substantially lower competence in listening comprehension. such cases are typical of many users of english as a foreign language who have done a great deal of reading but do not live in an english-speaking environment. they have large vocabularies, and have acquired a great deal of grammar, but have difficulty understanding spoken input. this is because they lack competence in phonological aspects of the spoken language, which is made more challenging because speakers often “modify, drop, and add sounds” (renandya and farrell, 2011, p. 53). spoken language also includes intonation and, in some languages, tones, and even a large percentage of the language used in classrooms by university lecturers is “conversational” (biber, 2006). there are two possible paths for improving listening competence for those in this situation. either path, it is hypothesized, will work. both assume that acquirers’ previous english competence gained through reading can help make aural input comprehensible, resulting in rapid improvement in listening. path a: provide aural comprehensible input as part of a language teaching program. such a program could follow the stages described by the conduit hypothesis (krashen, 2018). stage 1: stories, made comprehensible with the use of visual context (e.g., drawings, as in mason and krashen, 2004; mason, vanata, jander, borsch and krashen, 2009) and occasional translations. mason and colleagues have provided consistent evidence supporting the effectiveness and efficiency of this approach. as students become more advanced, include read-alouds, made 2 paths for improving listening competence comprehensible through pictures, discussion and translation (elley, 1989, lee, lee, and krashen, 2014, provide supporting evidence). stage 2: comprehensible recreational listening, in the form of interesting films, videos, and audiobooks (see dressman, lee, and sabaoui, 2016, on the use of youtube videos). stage 3: academic listening, in the form of lectures and academic discussion on topics of personal interest. path b: go to the country where the language is spoken and where aural comprehensible input is plentiful. many acquirers of english as a second or foreign language, especially those with financial means to study in an english-speaking country, can forgo most of path a, and then take path b when convenient. path a never tried, path b rarely studied. according to our experience, extensive and detailed versions of path a have not been set up or evaluated (see renandya and farrell, 2011, for suggested resources). the bulk of l2 listening research has not dealt with the effects of providing extensive aural input, but has instead focused on explanation and training on cognitive and metalinguistic strategies such as prediction (“what do you think is going to happen next?”), comprehension monitoring, and summarizing. renandya (2012) has pointed out that research on the efficacy of teaching such strategies is weak, and that positive correlations between strategy competence and language competence may be the result of higher proficiency resulting in the natural emergence of strategies, rather than strategy use leading to increased proficiency. preparation for path b might include strategy instruction, but of a kind much different from the strategies typically taught to beginning students in classes. we refer here to strategies for finding comprehensible input in the real word and for making “authentic” input more comprehensible. such strategies, in contrast to those discussed earlier, do not require extensive training. in fact, often they need only be mentioned. they include finding a particularly friendly and comprehensible language “parent” (krashen, 2012) and taking advantage of background knowledge through the use of the first language (e.g., first reading about current events in the first language and then following stories in local tv and radio in the second language). path b usually happens accidentally, and its impact on listening comprehension, while informally acknowledged, has not been fully appreciated by the field of language education (but see moyer, 2006). nor has the potential contribution of competence in reading comprehension to listening comprehension been seriously considered. © stephen krashen, dr willy a renandya, pratheeba bose & dr beniko maso stephen krashen is professor emeritus, university of southern california. his research interest is language and literacy acquisition. he is the author of the power of reading (libraries unlimited), and a member of the reading hall of fame. he also holds a black belt in tae kwon do and was the 1977 incline bench press champion of venice beach, california. paths for improving listening competence 3 dr willy a renandya is a language teacher educator currently teaching at the national institute of education, nanyang technological university. his teaching and research interests include l2 acquisition and extensive reading and listening. he manages an online teacher professional development group called teacher voices:https://www.facebook. com/groups/teachervoices/ pratheeba bose teaches esp at kamaraj college of engineering and technology, virudhunagar, india. her areas of interest are reading and english language teaching. she has passed cambridge english (business higher). dr beniko mason is a faculty member at shitennoji university junior college in osaka, japan. her teaching and research interests are primarily in the areas of reading and listening. she has published widely in the area of extensive reading. her publications can be found here: http://beniko-mason.net/publications/ references biber, d. (2006). university language. philadelphia: john benjamins publishing company. dressman, m., lee, j.s. & sabaoui, m.a. (2016). path to english in korea: policies, practices, and outcomes. english language teaching. 28(1),67-78. doi:0.17936/pkelt.2016.28.1.4 elley, w. (1989). vocabulary acquisition from listening to stories. reading research quarterly 24: 174-187. krashen, s. (2012). language parents for second language acquisition. international journal of foreign language education, 7(3):2 krashen, s. (2013). should we teach strategies. the electronic journal of foreign language teaching, 10(1), 35-39. krashen, s. (2018) the conduit hypothesis: how reading leads to academic language competence. language magazine, in press. lao, c. & krashen, s. (2014). language acquisition without speaking and without study. journal of bilingual education research and instruction 16(1), 215-221. lee, m.h., lee, s.y. & krashen, s. (2014). vocabulary acquisition through read-alouds and discussion: a case study. international journal of foreign language teaching 9 (1), 2-6. mason, b. & krashen, s. (2004). is form-focused vocabulary instruction worth-while? relc journal, 35(2), 179-185. mason, b., vanata, m., jander, k., borsch, r., & krashen, s. (2009). the effects and efficiency of hearing stories on vocabulary acquisition by students of german as a second foreign language in japan. the indonesian journal of english language teaching, 5(1), 1-14. moyer, a. (2006). language contact and confidence in second language listening comprehension: a pilot study of advanced learners of german. foreign language annals 39(2): 255-274. renandya, w. & farrell, t. 2011. ‘teacher, the tape is too fast!’ extensive listening in elt. elt journal,65(1), 52-59. doi: 10.10.1093/ elt/ccq015 renandya, w.a. (2012). five reasons why listening strategies might not work with lower proficiency learners. english language teaching world online: voices from the classroom (eltwo), 4, 1-11. (http://blog.nus.edu.sg/eltwo/2012/02/22/fivereasons-why-listening-strategy-instructionmight-not-work-with-lower-proficiencylearners/);also available in (http://hdl.handle. net/10497/4676 ). http://beniko-mason.net/publications/� http://scholar.dkyobobook.co.kr/searchdetail.laf?barcode=4010024824142� http://scholar.dkyobobook.co.kr/searchdetail.laf?barcode=4010024824142� http://blog.nus.edu.sg/eltwo/2012/02/22/five-reasons-why-listening-strategy-instruction-might-not-work-with-lower-proficiency-learners/� http://blog.nus.edu.sg/eltwo/2012/02/22/five-reasons-why-listening-strategy-instruction-might-not-work-with-lower-proficiency-learners/� http://blog.nus.edu.sg/eltwo/2012/02/22/five-reasons-why-listening-strategy-instruction-might-not-work-with-lower-proficiency-learners/� http://blog.nus.edu.sg/eltwo/2012/02/22/five-reasons-why-listening-strategy-instruction-might-not-work-with-lower-proficiency-learners/� pratheeba bose microsoft word beyond words cover-acknowledgements 5.1.docx beyond words (indexed by google scholar)  is published twice a year in may and  november with articles around  english language education,  and applied linguistics.  there are four sections: perspectives,  current issues, research reports, and  book reviews.  beyond words a journal on english language education & applied linguistics vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 online issn 2338-6339 ii  beyond words  chief editor, wuri soedjatmiko  board of editors  lixian jin, university of nottingham, ningbo, china  willy renandya, national institute of education, singapore  mark feng teng,  hong kong baptist university, kowloon, hong kong  reviewers  andrew lian, suranaree university of technology, thailand  andrzej cirocki, anglia ruskin university, uk  anita lie, universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya, indonesia  anna siyanova, victoria university of wellington, new zealand  benedict b. dwijatmoko, universitas sanata dharma, yogyakarta, indonesia  dede oetomo, universitas surabaya, indonesia  deepti gupta, punjab university, india  eugene sadtono, universitas ma chung, malang, indonesia  feng teng, nanning university, china  f.x. mukarto, universitas sanata dharma, yogyakarta, indonesia  gumawang jati, institut teknologi bandung, indonesia  handoyo puji widodo, university of adelaide, australia  helen emery, sultan qaboos university, oman  ignatius harjanto¸universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya, indonesia  juliana widjaja, university of california, berkeley, usa  lesley harbon, university of sydney, australia  mateus yumarnamto, universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya, indonesia  patrisius istiarto djiwandono, universitas ma chung, malang, indonesia  rodney jones, city university of hongkong, hongkong  rouhullah askari bigdelli, yasouj university, iran  siti mina tamah, universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya, indonesia  veronica l. diptoadi, universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya, indonesia  wendy kasten, kent state university, usa  beyond words invites articles that have never been submitted for any other publication  elsewhere. see guidelines for authors.  volume 5 number 1 november 2017  online issn‐2338‐6339  english education department  graduate school  widya mandala catholic university surabaya  surabaya, indonesia  iii table of contents  acknowledgements  vi  research  genre‐based analysis of english and persian research article  abstracts in mining engineering journals   sara farzannia & maryam farnia  learning objectives in esp books based on bloom’s revised  taxonomy    iraj parsaei & mohammad javad alemokhtar & ali rahimi  peer tutoring with quick method vs. task based method on  reading comprehension achievement   sri indrawati  thinking skills in the 12 th  grade english course book in timor  leste   joaninho xavier hei  students’ lived experience of project‐based learning   sandy ferianda & fransiscus xaverius mukarto  challenging existing perspectives of “ideal” characteristics of  teachers of english   marie yeo & roby marlina & george m jacobs  a demonstrative analysis of news articles using fairclough’s  critical discourse analysis framework   roy randy y. briones 1‐13  14‐22  12‐31  32‐45  46‐65  66‐82  83‐97 iv guidelines for authors  the demand of continuous academic improvement has urged scholars to do  research and share knowledge in writing. widya mandala graduate school accommodates  these academic scholarly needs by providing the journal entitled beyond words.  this twice‐a‐year, refereed, journal accepts a wide variety of both theoretical and  practical manuscripts around the following fields:  1. language education 2. applied linguistics 3. curriculum and instruction submission guidelines  1. articles submitted to this journal follow the apa publication manual with specific technical writing standards as follows: a) manuscript must be typed in ms word, using times new roman, 12‐point font.size. b) heading and sub‐headings follow the apa five levels (see table 1). c) a header “running head: the short form of the title” is typed on the first page. on other pages, the header becomes “the short form of the title.” 2. the journal covers four sections: teachers’ voices, current issues, research reports, and book reviews. 3. criteria for acceptance: a) new insights and authenticity; b) no plagiarism and self‐plagiarism c) clarity, significance, and relevance. 4. submission: send your article with a) a cover letter  mentioning the name(s) of the author(s),  title of the manuscript, names and contact info for all authors; b) abstract (200 words); c) manuscript: (a) research reports (5000‐10000 words). (b) perspectives no more than 3000 words, (c) classroom tips and book review no more than 2000 words including tables, figures, references and acknowledgments, if any. for the purpose of a blind review process, please do not write your name or other  identities on the manuscript.  v table 1  five levels for of heading in apa journals  level  format  1  centered, boldface, uppercase and lowercase heading a   2  flushed left, boldface, uppercase and lowercase heading  3  indented, boldface, lowercase paragraph heading  ending with a  period. b   4  indented, boldface, italicized, lowercase paragraph  heading ending with a period.  5  indented, italicized, lowercase paragraph heading  ending with a period.  a this type of capitalization is also called a title case.  b in a lowercase paragraph heading, the first letter of the first word is uppercase and the  remaining words are lowercase.  bibliography  vandenbos, g. r. (ed.). (2012). publication of the american psychological associaton (6th.  ed.). washington, dc: american psychological association.  acknowledgements the current issue is finally published. first of all, we would like to express our gratitude to the reviewers: prof. andrew lian, ph.d., professor of foreign language studies, school of foreign languages, suranaree university of technology, nakhon ratchasima, thailand, professor of postgraduate studies in english language education at ho chi minh city open university and professor emeritus at the university of canberra, australia. he is also president of asia-call, working with computer-assisted language learning (call) and rhizomatic learning to answer the needs of the 21st century demands; prof. dr. patrisius istiarto djiwandono, a senior professor at ma chung university, malang, indonesia; prof. lixian jin, ph.d. and prof. martin cortazzi, ph.d. both professors at the university of nottingham ningbo china; willy ardian renandya, ph.d., a senior lecturer at the ell department, national institute of education, singapore, also a well-known and loved speaker and motivator on extensive reading; franciscus xaverius mukarto, ph.d. a senior lecturer at the graduate program of english language studies, sanata dharma university, yogyakarta, teaching second language acquisition, language teaching methodology, and learning program design. he has published numerous english course books for primary and secondary school students; siti mina tamah, ph.d. and mateus yumarnamto, ph.d., both senior lecturers at the department of english education, graduate school widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia; rouhollah askari bigdelli, ma., a senior lecturer at university of otago, new zealand; mark feng teng, ma, a senior lecturer at the hongkong baptist university and some other anonymous reviewers. the peer reviews they contributed are very significant to maintain the quality of this online journal. the same thankful expressions also came from authors for the reviewers’ scholarly comments and feedback. and last but not least, our great appreciation goes to all authors for their writings. vi 14 collaborative digital storytelling beyond words vol.7, no. 1 (may 2019) pedagogical tasks for collaborative digital storytelling creation: practical design and implementation sandi ferdiansyah sanjazzyn@yahoo.com english education department state islamic university of jember jember, indonesia abstract this article is aimed at presenting a step by step into digital stories creation in a language classroom that teachers may adapt or adopt for their classroom purposes. at the outset, it will explore the nature of digital storytelling and empirical evidence of digital storytelling implementation across levels. additionally, the article proposes ideas on how collaborative learning can be integrated in the making of digital storytelling. the design and implementation of pedagogical task emphasize on giving more opportunities for students to engage in the genre based collaborative digital stories project and foster their critical thinking and creativity. at the end of this article, alternative assessment is promoted to assess the learning process as well as the students’ project of digital storytelling. providing students with scaffold activities, i contend that every language teacher now can empower their learners to become digital storytellers. keywords: collaborative digital storytelling, pedagogical tasks introduction digital storytelling (dst) is an innovation of storytelling practices in this 21st century learning. frazel (2010) states that dst is a multimedia tale, “a modern expression of an ancient art (p.9).” dst, as a means of storytelling, includes elements such as gesture, movement, images (moving or still), sound, and writing (bearne & wolstencroft, 2007). additionally, dst makes use of technology incorporation that enables storytelling to put those elements all together using digital tools, such as windows movie maker, photo story 3 etc. generally speaking, the use of dst has long been documented and discussed in primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of education. although dst is not a new instructional method in language education, particularly in english language teaching (elt), dst is considered more engaging and meaningful than either oral or written storytelling because it provides english learners with the opportunity to learn integrated english skills in a multimodal way. in primary education settings, kervin and mantei (2011) found out that dst enabled pre-primary school students to become multimodal story writers who can write and edit their stories into digital stories. similarly, hur and suh (2012) revealed that dst was effective to facilitate the 3rd and 4th graders of english language learners to learn to write through revisions of text and improve their speaking skills. meanwhile, the implementation of dst in secondary school settings also offers mailto:sanjazzyn@yahoo.com collaborstive digital storytelling 15 beyond words vol.7, no. 1 (may 2019) powerful methodology that mediates students’ learning in language classroom. for examples, chisholm and trent (2013) discovered that dst could empower their 10th grader student’s critical thinking and creativity in multimodal composition project that combined linguistic and visual signs. additionally, niemi and multisilta (2015, p.15) found out that dst was called effective to provide secondary school students with the development of the 21st century skills, such as “problem solving, argumentation, decision-making and cooperation.” grounded in these empirical findings, it can be suggested that both preservice and in-service teachers implement dst in language classroom to allow students to learn language within new literacy practices. the collaboration in the 21st century learning, collaboration becomes one of the top skills for teachers to develop in the classroom and beyond. by employing collaborative learning, teachers can facilitate students to develop their skill in working together with the other members of the group. engaging students in collaborative learning will help them develop strategies on how to solve problems, respect others, and meet the work submission deadline. giving students more opportunity to learn independently can lead to greater learner autonomy (wei, siriyothin, & lian, 2018).contextually speaking, ferdiansyah (2017) states that collaboration on dst projects aims at engaging students in co-constructing story ideas and helping group members to develop their technological skills in more effective and efficient ways. furthermore, tobin (2012) suggests teachers to divide students into major divisions in the collaborative digital storytelling creation so that students can hold a specific job with equal responsibility. adopting tobin’s idea, teachers can divide students into group that consists of 4 to 5 students in each group and then decide the following jobs and their descriptions. an important point to remember is that teacher can still monitor students’ work toensure positive interactions among students (mali, 2016).with minimal help of the teacher, students are expected to work more independently on the project. the intervention is given whenever students request assistance from the teacher for example to check the language, to edit the video etc. 16 collaborative digital storytelling beyond words vol.7, no. 1 (may 2019) pedagogical tasks the design of pedagogical tasks in this article attempts to provide more opportunities for students to engage meaningfully in digital storytelling project. this follows the principle of task that is to mediate learners to express meaning rather than focus on language form (nunan, 2004). the following pedagogical tasks are adapted from genre based approach in language teaching. widodo (2016, p.3) highlights that genre based teaching focuses on “different types of scaffolding or support that enable learners to complete or work on a particular learning task.” the learning supports can be designed to provide students with knowledge development toward digital storytelling creation. building knowledge of the field. in implementing collaborative digital storytelling project, teachers are suggested to start the activities by building students’ knowledge about digital storytelling. to do so, teachers can show the model of digital storytelling so that students can have same perception and understanding on what digital storytelling is. this is important to develop students’ story literacy as well as technology literacy. to do this, teachers can conduct two workshops, namely story writing workshop and working with digital tool workshop. in english as a foreign language, story writing workshop is important because it discusses the genre of personal or historical stories and lexicogrammar features. meanwhile, working with digital tool workshop demonstrates the technical procedures how to work with digital tools to create digital story. drafting and developing story. in this learning stage, teachers continue with determining the story themes. later, students can begin to select their story theme together with their group. when they have agreed with the selected theme, they can pool the ideas to draft the story. while drafting the story, they can draw simple story plot which functions to guide them in writing the story. this story plot helps students significantly when they develop the story. there are three important elements students can consider when developing their story, how the story begins, flows, and ends. in addition to these three elements, they also need to be reminded to double check the lexico-grammar used in their writing. visualizing story and storyboarding. from multimodal perspectives, the use of images in a story helps story writers visualize the story so that it makes the story more alive. in this stage, students work on a project of taking pictures that best represent their story ideas. for example, if they write a story about their school, they can take pictures of the school, classroom, school garden, and its surroundings. the number of photos taken should be adjusted with the story plot. when students have finished taking all the photos, teachers can provide a storyboard worksheet for students so that they can put photos and narration all together in it. the storyboard also serves as template where they can put the story in order and make it more sense. creating digital story. what follow are stages how to put together the images, sound, and transitional effect using digital media. students can use computer software or mobile phone application that students are familiar with. students can use the storyboard to guide them how to arrange the order of the photos as well as the narration of the story. the story narration can be written or spoken. in other words, they can write the narration as caption in the photo or they can record the voiceover. this stage is challenging because they need to adjust the collaborstive digital storytelling 17 beyond words vol.7, no. 1 (may 2019) image transition and its duration so that both of them can appear appropriately. revising. before publishing their digital storytelling, students are encouraged to have a final proofread of their digital story to find out errors on spelling, pronunciation, or grammar that may appear. teachers can design a self-assessment rubric that they can use to reflect on appropriate language use. additionally, they can also consult their english teachers to make sure if they have made their best with the linguistic elements. apart from this technical revision, students need to be aware that their work has to be free from copyright issues, for examples credits of photos, story ideas, and song used in the story must be acknowledged. publishing. finally, students can publish their digital storytelling in this stage. to celebrate it, they can have a classroom conference through which they can share their digital storytelling to other groups. as follow up activities, they can also post it to social media platform so that they can reach wider audience. by sharing and publishing their digital storytelling worldwide, it is expected to foster the development of students’ confidence as digital storytellers and digital story-makers. assessment. anchored in alternative assessment approach, students should be given a greater opportunity to participate actively in assessment. involving students in the process of assessment is a catalyst for a change of assessment practice (cooper, 2015). this article proposes two scoring rubric models that can be used to assess students’ engagement and students’ digital stories (see appendix). first, teachers can design self-assessment template that assesses students’ level of understanding about digital storytelling and their own performance in the project. the use of selfassessment is also aimed at training students to do reflective practice. the area of selfassessment includes participation, understanding, and collaboration. meanwhile, teachers can design scoring rubric that assess students digital stories. brenner (2014) suggests three areas namely academic skills, linguistic abilities, and technical creativity. embarking on the template (see appendix), it is expected that students will understand the area they need to improve and teachers can construct more constructive assessment. conclusion in conclusion, digital storytelling (dst) offers multimodal composition that enables students to learn language by integrating skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking as well as to develop multiple literacy skills, such as technology capacity, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration. engaging students in collaborative digital storytelling (dst) project allows them to share opinion and knowledge about dst. additionally, dividing students into groups with different roles helps them share not only equal responsibility but also area of specialization. with genre based approach, students learn to create digital storytelling through scaffolding process that begins with building knowledge of dst, drafting and developing story, visualizing story, creating digital story, revising, and publishing dst.in implementing dst project, assessment can be made upon the criteria that allow students to reflect on their learning so that they can improve it. 18 collaborative digital storytelling beyond words vol.7, no. 1 (may 2019) © sandi ferdiansyah sandi ferdiansyah is a faculty member at english education department of institut agama islam negeri (iain) jember. his academic interests are elt methodology, technology enhanced language learning, and teacher professional development. he can be contacted at sanjazzyn@yahoo.com reference bearne, e. &wolstencroft, e. (2007). visual approaches to teaching writing. london: paul chapman publishing. brenner, k. (2014). digital stories: a 21st century communication tool for the english language classroom. english teaching forum, number 1, pp. 22 – 29. chisholm, j., s., & trent, b. (2013).digital storytelling in a placed based composition course. journal of adolescent and adult literacy, vol. 57(4), pp. 307-318. cooper, s. (2015). a collaborative assessment of students’ placement learning. assessment & evaluation in higher education, doi: 10.1080/02602938.2015.1083093. ferdiansyah, s. (2017, july). digital storytelling. english teaching professional, 111, p. 52-56. frazel, m. (2010).digital storytelling guide foreducators.washington, dc: international society for technology in education(iste). hur, j., w., &suh, s. (2012).making learning active with interactive whiteboards, podcasts, and digital storytelling in ell classrooms.computers in the schools, 29, pp. 320-338. kervin, l., &mantei, j. (2011). this is me: children teaching us about themselves through digital storytelling. practically primary, vol. 16(1), pp. 4-7. mali, y. c. g. (2016). integrating technology in indonesian efl classrooms: why not? beyond words, vol. 4(1), 17-26. niemi, h., &multisilta, j. (2015).digital storytelling promoting twenty first century skills and students engagement.technology, pedagogy, and education, vol. 25(4), p.451-468. nunan, d. (2004). task-based language teaching.cambridge: cambridge university press. tobin, m., t. (2012). digital storytelling: reinventing literature circles. voices from the middle, 20(2), p. 40 – 48. wei, q., siriyothin, p., &lian, a. p. (2018).chinese university efl students’ perceptions oflearner autonomy in language learning.beyond words, vol. 6(1), 2640. widodo, h., p. (2016). engaging young learners of english in a genre based digital storytelling project. retrieved from: http://languageresearch.cambridge.org/ images/pdf/2015-16_ widodo_cup_trp_final_report.pdf. mailto:sanjazzyn@yahoo.com http://languageresearch.cambridge.org/%20images/pdf/2015-16_%20widodo_cup_trp_final_report.pdf http://languageresearch.cambridge.org/%20images/pdf/2015-16_%20widodo_cup_trp_final_report.pdf http://languageresearch.cambridge.org/%20images/pdf/2015-16_%20widodo_cup_trp_final_report.pdf collaborstive digital storytelling 19 beyond words vol.7, no. 1 (may 2019) table 2. self-assessment description: 60– 46 : i have done a great job 45– 31 : i have done a good job <30 : i need to do better work next time microsoft word bw research 5.1.2.docx 14 learning objectives based on bloom revised taxonomy beyond words vol.5, no. 1, may 2017   learning objectives in esp books based on bloom’s revised taxonomy iraj parsaei * isfahan university of medical sciences isfahan, iran irajparsa4@gmail.com mohammad javad alemokhtar isfahan university of medical sciences isfahan, iran ali rahimi bangkok university, thailand abstract university english books as the chief source of learning english are remarkably important and investigating their content quality can lead to english learning improvement. this study investigates learning objectives in esp books for students of medicine, dentistry, and pharmacology in iums. using bloom’s taxonomy, learning objectives reflected in esp books for students of medicine, dentistry, and pharmacology in iums were investigated in this library research. the frequency of each learning level used was determined. descriptive statistics was used to depict the findings. of all the activities following each lesson in esp books, only %8, %23, and %14 were aiming at improving higher cognitive levels of learning. there was no balance between applications of different learning levels throughout the books. further studies are recommended to shed light on the issue. key words: learning objectives, bloom's revised taxonomy, textbook introduction nowadays learning english is incumbent on students of all fields, professions, and vocations including medicine and engineering. a study conducted in iran (mzlumi, 2008) suggests that from among nine necessary skills for university lecturers in the next 10 years, applied knowledge of english and also computer rank the highest. in another study on factors affecting knowledge production in university lecturers, there was a significant correlation between the author’s english language skill and the number of articles they had published in isi journals (a’zami, 2008; ensafi, 2000; gnji, 2004) 24). the inevitable need for the english mastery combined with low command of english among iranian university students (tajeddin, 20065) indicate there are problems in teaching english in our universities. textbooks are undeniable components of any learning environment in a way that some experts such as litz (2005) reckon that without text books, no english class could be called perfect. investigating textbooks which always play a significant role in making learning objectives, learning environment, teaching methodology, teacher, and learner cohere. this could enhance the success of an educational program through enlightening the probable problems these textbooks might bear. the significance is so huge that some experts like hutchinson and torres (1994) suggested four main roles for textbooks in   learning objectives based on bloom revised taxonomy 21   every educational program: acting as a tool for teacher and student training, supporting teachers by setting a framework, providing a rather precise picture of the program, and providing psychological support for teachers. a closer look shows the first and the third role bear great dependence on the quality of the books. cunningsworth (1984) summarizes the roles of textbooks as: a source of educational material a source for language interaction a reference for answering lexical, grammar, pronunciation problems a source for class activities and class discussions a source for providing lesson plans a source for self-confidence development in unexperienced teachers according to sheldon(1990) there are several reason for investigating textbooks. he believes choosing a certain textbook to be taught in program is a crucial decision reflecting the value of human resources, budgeting, and work force. in other words, by selecting or preparing a textbook, educational policy makers and authorities demonstrate the value they confer upon the course. therefore, regarding the significance of learning english for the students of medical sciences in international interactions, gaining up-to-date knowledge of the fields, and doing their part in knowledge production on one hand and lack of enough research on university english books on the other, provide a strong ground for carrying out more research on the textbooks (rashidi, 2012) . due to various learning theories and their emphasis on a variety of components involved in the learning process in '70, '80, and '90s, various textbook evaluation tools appeared. the behavioristic view, a popular view in the '70s, evaluated textbooks based on their audio-visual features. in the'80s, the communicative properties gained weight, and in the '90s, language learning was seen a more complicated and interactive process and learning a language was considered more than learning the mere learning of language components.(5) in iran, there have been a number of researches english textbooks, mainly on high school english textbooks (toolabi, 2002; amalsaleh, 2004; jahangard, 2007; razmjoo, 2007). several studies have also been conducted on a popular textbook widely used in private language schools (iraji, 2007; zare-moayedi, 2007). these have concentrated on either developing criteria for textbook evaluations or investigated the weak/strong points of the textbooks (ghorbani, 2011). however, little literature could be found about university textbook evaluation and except for tajeddin( 2006) and rashidi and bahrami(2012), no outstanding study is found. the study by tajeddin (2006) suggests: “based on the triple reading strategiesbottom-up, top-down, and interactivethere is no sign of any careful planning for lesson plans, text selection, text order, exercises, reading activities, and objective of reading for special purposes in any university textbooks of english for special purposes published by ‘samt’. moreover, not applying scientific findings on the reading skill, these textbooks not only fail to develop mastery of reading skills and strategies, which in turn, results in failure in developing independent readers but also cannot encourage mastery of reading components (2006).” but the study conducted by rashidi and bahrami on the textbook used in general english courses in iranian universities reaches different results. the study shows 16 learning objectives based on bloom revised taxonomy   although iranian university textbooks bear a number of defects, they also enjoy such considerable strong points that it could be claimed their positive points outnumber their shortcomings(1994). research on english textbooks in iran has mainly been concentrated on high school textbooks with only a few studies by tajeddin(2005) and bahrami and rashidi(2012) on university textbooks. it is probable that since the current english textbooks are a must in iranian universities, language departments do not feel any need to carry out scientific scrutiny of the textbooks. however if these textbooks suffered any flaws, they would be useless or rather harmful to teach. two rare studies conducted on textbooks using bloom’s taxonomy are those of skierso (1991) and chall and conrad (1991). contrary to other studies emphasizing the final learning product, these researchers have focused on mental procedures involved in learning which were proposed in bloom’s revised theory of learning and include six levels namely remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating (2006). their works have opened new horizons in textbook evaluation research. the results of their studies indicate that learning objectives, topics abstraction, the topics, meaningful relation between class activities and exercises and critical thinking development need to be considered in textbook evaluation research. however, considering the importance of textbooks in learning english effectively and enabling students of medicine, dentistry, and pharmacology to use english to keep abreast with the world’s latest medical knowledge and disseminating their research, the present study aimed to investigate english textbooks for special purpose for students of medicine, dentistry, and pharmacology in esfahan university of medical sciences in 2014-015. methods this was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted on english textbooks for special purpose for students of medicine, dentistry, and pharmacology in esfahan university of medical sciences in 2014015. the books were publications of “samt”, a state publication organization publishing books for state educational schools and universities in iran. all the activities namely the exercises in the textbooks were examined in the study. the tool for collecting data was the standard bloom’s revised taxonomy table. the table includes six cognitive learning levels: remembering is the first level; understanding comes second; applying is the third skill; the fourth is analyzing; the fifth evaluating; and the sixth is creating. learning develops as one moves from stage one toward the further stages. therefore, the highest level of learning occurs at creation stage. for learning to happen at each level, a number of definite activities need to be done. these are mentioned in bloom’s taxonomy. firstly, a number was assigned to each activity needed for each learning stage. thus every activity in the textbooks was numbered. next, all the tasks mentioned in the textbooks were examined and classified as related to a corresponding learning stage. data for each textbook was tabulated in separate tables and usage frequency of application of each task was calculated.   learning objectives based on bloom revised taxonomy 21   findings comparison of tabulated data showed activities in the university english textbooks for special purposes appeared in different frequencies ranging from very high to zero. this was a reflection of the learning stage each textbook could help students achieve. the investigation of the english for special purpose for students of medicine, dentistry, and pharmacology revealed that from among the six cognitive learning stages suggested by bloom, five stages have been included in the tasks assigned to the students by the textbooks and but there was no task pertaining to remembering stage in these textbooks. data also showed from the total 9217 exercises in these textbooks, the skill of understanding had the highest frequency with the frequency rate of 4712; the next skill reflected in the exercises was analyzing skill with a frequency rate of 2823; the third on the list was evaluation skill with the rate of 1340 and the fourth skill with the frequency rate of 217 was applying which was only used in the english textbook for students of medicine. and finally the lowest frequency was seen for creation skill, which was only used in the textbook for students of pharmacology and had a frequency of 124. (table 1). comparison of data in table 1 also indicated which textbooks promoted higher level cognitive learning skills (levels 5 and 6 in the taxonomy) (table 1) table 2 also indicates that under-standing skill is the chief skill used in english textbooks for students of medicine and dentistry. however, in the english textbooks for special purposes for the students of pharmacology, the fourth skill namely analyzing skill has been emphasized most. 18 learning objectives based on bloom revised taxonomy   after the skill of remembering which has not been used at all, the second least frequently used skill is the skill of creation with the frequency rate of 4% and only is used in one of the textbooksenglish for students of pharmacology. another little used skill is the skill of evaluating which is used 8%, 23%, and 9% in the english textbooks for the students of medicine, dentistry, and pharmacology, respectively. findings indicate that 8%, 23%, and 14% of the drills and exercise (tasks) in the textbooks for students of medicine, dentistry, and pharmacology, respectively encourage higher levels of learning suggested in bloom taxonomy. these high levels include evaluating and creating levels. of the three textbooks investigated in this study, only the textbook for students of pharmacology contains exercises promoting both evaluating (9%) and creating (4%) levels of learning while in the other two textbooks, creating level has found no room. (table 3) discussion findings of the present study are in line with those of tajeddin (2006). tajeddin mentions poor organization of the textbooks in various parts including arrangement of exercises and drills and reading activities which have not been appropriately chosen. in the present study also, we noticed some learning skills, e.g. creating have been mostly neglected in these textbooks and only in one textbook, namely the one for the students of pharmacology has been employed insufficiently. (4% frequency rate) furthermore, the skill of applying has not been used in two of the textbooks and only in the one for the students of medicine has been used with a frequency rate of 8%. another learning skill which is totally neglected in the textbooks is the skill of remembering. the textbooks investigated bear no sign of remembering skill. in addition, there is no balance in employing different kinds of exercises, tasks, and activities necessary for learning language skills. as it is noticed in table 3, the average usage for the first skill in all three textbooks is 0%, the second skill 51%, the third skill around 3%, the fourth skill 32%, the fifth skill 13%, and the sixth skill 1%. this means only 14% of the activities have been devoted to high levels of learning skills (fifth and sixth levels of bloom’s taxonomy), while 86% of activities are of type one, two, three, and four learning activities which are low levels in bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive learning. since textbooks are undeniable learning materials, their impact on learning is huge.   learning objectives based on bloom revised taxonomy 21   the english textbooks studied lacked coherence in using reading activities promoting learning skills in a way that some skills had been emphasized excessively while some others had been partly, and some completely neglected. this suffers the coherence of the textbooks resulting in inefficient learning of the skills needed. according to chall and conrad (1991), in textbook evaluations, considerable attention must be paid to the existence of a meaningful relation between activities and critical thinking. thus, it appears that lack of coherence in the activities designed in the english textbooks could be a culprit for the low english competence of university students studying medicine, dentistry, and pharmacology (2006). conclusion findings showed high level skills necessary for efficient independent and critical learning were not emphasized as strongly as lower level of leaning in english textbooks for special purposes for students of medicine, dentistry, and pharmacology. since every individual’s learning level is the result of mental activities practiced during learning time (seif,2006), it seems continuing with the present university english textbooks will be of little use. the goal the english language skills necessary for university studentsis being attempted to be achieved through poorly developed tools -the esp books. it will be advisable to stop neglecting the findings of learning psychology and start incorporating more of everything that facilitates learning in our teaching and learning environments. it would also be of prime help if we could adopt a more holistic view of education. this could put an end to the cliché type of teaching with merely a textbook and a piece of chalk. textbooks enriched with activities that nurture efficient learning and annexed by a variety of other learning experiences will probably provide better learning opportunities. therefore it is suggested that appropriate planning for development of more efficient english textbooks be taken into consideration. © iraj parsaei, mohammad javad alemokhtar & ali rahimi learning objectives in esp books based on bloom’s revised taxonomy suggested reference format for the article: parsaei, i., alemokhtar, m. j., & rahimi, a. (2017, may). learning objectives in esp books based on bloom’s revised taxonomy. (w. soedjatmiko, ed.) beyond words, 5(1), 1422. retrieved from journal.wima.ac.id/index.php/bw/index ali rahimi, ph.d., associate professor at bangkok university is the author of 14 books and has worked with cpra, bulgarian elt, bau turkey, korean educational development, linelt, etc. he is a guest editor of elsevier, social and behavioral sciences. he is the editor-in-chief of global journal of foreign language teaching. references amalsaleh, e. (2004). the representation of social actors in the efl textbooks in iran: unpublished doctoral dissertation, shiraz, iran: shiraz university. 20 learning objectives based on bloom revised taxonomy   azami,m.(2008).investigating effective factors on science production by faculty members of kerman university during 2000-2007, library and information science electronic quarterly, autumn 2009, index 51, no. 3,volume 13. chall, j.s. & conrad, s.s (1991). should textbooks challenge students? the case for easier or harder books. new york: teachers college press. communicative language teaching principles in the iranian context?" asian efl journal, 9(4), pp. 126-140. cunningsworth, a. (1984). evaluating and selecting efl teaching materials. london: heinemann educational books. descriptive dictionary of information science/ iranian information processing research center, http://irandoc.ac.ir/odlis/ ensafi, s.(2000). determining basic science articles published in sci by iranian scholars, payame ketabkhanet , 10 ( 4.) ganji, a.(2004). study of science production in academic members of mashhad university of ferdowsi, m.a. thesis,school of behavioral science, ferdowsi university of mashhad. ghorbani, m.r. (2011),quantification and graphic representation of efl textbook evaluation results, theory and practice in language studies, vol. 1, no. 5, pp. 511-520, may 2011 hutchinson and torres. (1994). the textbook as agent of change. elt j.; 48: 315-328. iraji, a. (2007), pragmatic features of new interchange: how communicative and task-based it is, unpublished master’s thesis, shiraz, iran: shiraz university. jahangard, a. (2007), "evaluation of efl/esl materials taught at iranian high schools", asian efl journal, 9(2), pp. 130-150. litz, d. r. a. (2005). textbook evaluation and elt management: a south korean case study. asian efl journal. retrieved from: http://www.asian-efljournal.com/litz_thesis.pdf. mazlumi, s. s.(2008). features of an ideal university teacher: shahid sadughi students’ perspective?sphraseid=4996312. www.irden.com/ amoozesh/nd/129484/ nitko,a.j.(2001), educational assessment and evaluation(3rd edition), new jersey: merrill/prentice-hall rashidi,n.(2012).analytical evaluation of general english textbook, studying research and writing university textbooks,no.25, summer 2012,p.59. razmjoo, a. (2007), "high schools or private institutes textbooks? which fulfill sheldon, l.e. (1988), "evaluating elt textbooks and materials", elt journal, 42, pp. 237246. seif, a.( 2006).learning process, product, and assessment: old and new methods, doran, p.45 skierso, a. (1991). textbook selection and evaluation. in m. celce-murcia (ed.), teaching english as a second or foreign language (pp. 432-453). boston, ma: heinle & heinle publishers. tajeddin, z.( 2006). textual and methodology evaluation of english textbooks for special purposes “samt” based on triple reading strategies, university textbook: information processing and evaluation, research and development center for humanities “ samt”, vol. 2, pp.23652.   learning objectives based on bloom revised taxonomy 21   toolabi, j. (2002), characterization of language functions in the iranian high school english textbooks, unpublished master’s thesis, shiraz, iran: shiraz university. zare-moayedi, i. (2007), an in-depth evaluation of interchange series,3rd ed., unpublished master's thesis, shiraz: shiraz university. 22 learning objectives based on bloom revised taxonomy   taxonomies of bloom taxonomy groups to go off-task 62 why it’s good for groups to go off-task and other lessons from when by daniel pink george m. jacobs daniel pink (pink, 2018) is a bestselling author, popular tedi talk speaker (pink d. , 2009), and tv producerii. much of his work is based on scholarly research on human behaviour. the purpose of the current review is to glean from his most recent book, when,ideas that might be useful for implementing cooperative learning (cl) in language teaching. when is organised in seven chapters, and all but the final and shortest chapter is followed immediately by a companion ‘time hacker’s handbook’ section. this sections lists practical applications of the chapter’s ideas to many aspects of time’s impact on the lives of humans, but this review focuses solely on applications of research to cl in language teaching. thus, if you want to know dan’s advice on such matters as when to exercise or when to get married, you’ll have to read the book. the lessons from whenthat seem most relevant to cl in language teaching can be divided into three areas: restorative breaks, vigilance breaks, and motivation. restorative breaks allow people to get their minds off what they are doing and get their bodies out of static seated postures. in other words, restorative breaks lead people off task. here are some pointers – about half of which i have used and half of which i look forward to trying on how to do restorative breaks in language classes, especially those using cl: 1. even a mini-break is better than no break. for instance, students have a break when i use cl techniques in which some students move from one group to another, such as everyone can explain mobile 2. move – even if it’s doing chair yoga. “one study showed that hourly five-minute walking breaks boosted energy levels, sharpened focus, and ‘improved mood throughout the day and reduced feelings of fatigue in the late afternoon’” (p. 61). the cl technique 7s gets students out of their seats. the seven steps are: • stand (everyone stands up) • stretch (everyone does a stretch) • sip (everyone takes a sip from their water bottle) • slide (in classrooms with the appropriate furniture, students slide their chairs under their desks so as to provide more space for the next step) • stir (students walk around the room without their original group members) • stop (students stop walking and form a pair or threesome with a student from another group) • speak (the pairs discuss whatever topic has been decided upon). 3. include a social aspect – “research in south korean workplaces shows that social breaks—talking with co-workers about something other than work—are more effective at reducing stress and improving mood that either cognitive breaks (answering e-mail) or nutrition breaks (getting a snack)” (p. 62). cl, of course, already adds a social element to learning. 63 groups to go off-task 4. go outside if possible. if it’s not possible, look out the window, at an indoor plant, or at a poster of a nature scene. failing that, imagine being outside, perhaps accompanied by nature sounds. 5. detach fully – taking a walk outside with some groupmates while continuing to discuss the group task is not as beneficial as chatting about how your exercise regimen is going or the new vegan dish at a favourite restaurant. such fully detached behaviour might be seen as “soft, frivolous, and antithetical to the head-down, laptop-up, inbox-zero ethos of the twenty-first century” (p. 63), but some research supports its use, and pink includes 100s of references. sometimes, teachers feel pressure to cover so much material that they take away students’ break time. i try to never do that. 6. eat together–sharing food promotes bonding and performance. drinking water is good, too. i sometimes give students treats, or i allow groups to bring tidbits to share among their members. 7. meditate-http://marc.ucla.edu/mindfull-meditations. 8. take some deep breathes. during breaks, i encourage students to take a few deep breathes. 9. read, listen to, watch some jokes. there are two types of jokes, planned (such as showing a joke from the internet) and spontaneous (something funny happens in class and everyone laughs). 10. maybe the most interesting idea – and one that fits with the literature on positive psychology – is to take a gratitude break by contacting people to express thanks to them. at the end of a cl activity or a class in which students have worked in groups, i often ask students to thank their partners. even better is when students give each other specific praise. all these ideas for restorative breaks link with what salhberg (2017) advocated about students having regular recess breaks. vigilance breaks are a second type of way to spend time discussed in when. these breaks are similar to what david johnson and his co-authors (e.g., johnson & johnson, n.d.) have defined as an essential component of cl: processing group interaction, i.e., groupmates discussing the future, present, and past of their group’s interaction as they strive to accomplish their shared goals. here are some of pink’s pointers of helping groups monitor their effectiveness. 1. do a “premortem” when groups begin their tasks (p. 107). assume that rather than being at the beginning of the group’s time together, it is the end, and things have gone badly. a premortem involves the group using “prospective hindsight” to figure out what went wrong in this hypothetical situation, and then, make plans to avoid the lurking pitfalls. 2. set interim goals for individuals and groups, and make these goals public within the group and beyond. 3. consider who will be helped if the group meets its goals. this echoes what sharan and sharan (1992) advocated in the group investigation method of cl, that students have the power to choose projects that synch with the students’ own goals. how will students, their families, and others benefit from the students’ increased language proficiency? 4. try for a regular time to meet or at least communicate electronically, i.e., “don’t break the chain” (p. 138). these regular http://marc.ucla.edu/mind-full-meditations http://marc.ucla.edu/mind-full-meditations groups to go off-task 64 meeting should, to the extent possible, be in the target language. 5. use midpoints to assess how the group is functioning. to do this, first, the group needs to be aware of when the midpoint is and then pause to process. language students especially need time to process what they have been studying. 6. schedule time for a postmortem at the end of each session. “on good days, the exercise delivers feelings of completion; on bad days, it often shows me i got more done than i suspected” (p. 172). part of this can include cooperative skills, such as encouraging others to participate and asking for repetition or reasons. these cooperative skills overlap with language functions. 7. when groups are going to disband, i often facilitate an activity in which each member tells/writes to every other member to share with them something that member did to enhance group functioning. the next time i do this activity, i hope to add the following idea from when (p. 164). [t]he core of meaningful endings is one of the most complex emotions humans experience: poignancy [ersner-hershfield, mikels, sullivan, &carstensen, 2008), a mix of happiness and sadness. … adding a small component of sadness to an otherwise happy moment elevates (italics in original) that moment rather than diminishes it. … the best endings don’t leave us happy. instead, they produce something richer—a rush of unexpected insight, a fleeting moment of transcendence, the possibility that by discarding what we wanted we’ve gotten what we need. my favourite chapter was #6, synching fast and slow, a riff on the title of the book thinking fast and slow (kahneman, 2011). one reason i especially enjoyed this chapter is that it is loaded with stories of groups with impeccable timing, including dabbawalas in mumbai, who every day follow a very tight schedule to collect and deliver homemade lunches, and an amateur choir in washington, dc that doesn’t miss a beat. what drives these people to work consistently and well is something that cl strives to incubate in groups of students: a sense of belonging. “belongingness, … , profoundly shapes our thoughts and emotions. its absence leads to ill effect, its presence to health and satisfaction” (p. 189). two of the ways i strive to promote a feeling of belonging is by (1) helping everyone know and use their groupmates’ names; and (2) suggesting that groups might want to choose a group name, motto, logo, handshake, proverb, mascot, etc. pink argued that more cohesion leads to more communication, even if it is chatting and gossiping, which, in turn, leads to more productivity. some of pink’s suggestions for building cohesion resemble johnson, johnson, and holubec’s (2013) suggestions for promoting positive interdependence, e.g., environmental positive interdependence (i.e., groups sitting close together so that they can easily hear each other and see what everyone is doing), group celebration and rewards, unique resources for each group member, and individual, mutually dependent roles. indeed, wheneven has a few paragraphs about jigsaw (aronson, 2018). jigsaw has many variations, but in the basic version: (1) members of a group of four each read a different but related text, e.g., four different texts on what plant-based foods to eat to get various nutrients; (2) students leave 65 groups to go off-task their home group and form expert groups of four with students from different home groups who have the same text, and in the expert groups they collaborate to understand their text and make a plan to teach it to their home group members; (3) students return to their home group and each teaches; and (4) students take a quiz or do a task which requires knowledge from all four texts. in conclusion, when provides an easy to understand and enjoyable to read assortment of suggestions that can help language teachers and students to reach their individual and collective goals in the classroom and beyond. of course, implementing the book’s suggestions will certainly prove more difficult that reading and understanding them. perhaps, cooperation with others can help there. with what other language teachers will you collaborate to improve your timing in education? references ersner-hershfield, h., mikels, j. a., sullivan, s. j., &carstensen, l. l. (2008). poignancy: mixed emotional experience in the face of meaningful endings. journal of personality and social psychology,94(1),158167.doi: 10.1037/0 022-3514.94.1.158 johnson, d. w., & johnson, r. t. (n.d.). an overview of cooperative learning. retrieved from: http://www.co-operation. org/what-is-cooperative-learning johnson, d. w., johnson, r. t., &holubec, e. j. (2013). cooperation in the classroom (8th ed.). edina, mn: interaction book company. kahneman, d. (2011). thinking, fast and slow. new york, ny: macmillan. pink, d. h. (2018). when: the scientific secrets of perfect timing. new york, ny: riverhead books. pink, d. h. (2018). about daniel pink. retrieved from daniel pink: https://www. danpink. com/about pink, d. (2009). the puzzle of motivation. tedglobal2009. retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_ motivation sahlberg, p. (2017). finnished leadership: four big, inexpensive ideas to transform education. thousand oaks, ca: corwin. sharan, y., &sharan, s. (1992). expanding cooperative learning through group investigation. colchester, vt: teachers college press. i ted talk previously refers to a conference in 1984 when technology, entertainment and design were the main joined topics. now that it becomes ted.com, the topics discussed are broad and varied. iie.g., http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/crowd-control https://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.94.1.158 https://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.94.1.158 https://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.94.1.158 http://www.co-operation.org/what-is-cooperative-learning http://www.co-operation.org/what-is-cooperative-learning http://www.co-operation.org/what-is-cooperative-learning https://www.ted/ http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/crowd-control re-defining ‘reading’ in the 21st century 98 beyond words vol.5, no. 2, nov 2017 re-defining ‘reading’ in the 21st alexius chia century: accessing multimodal texts alexius.chia@nie.edu.sg english language & literature academic group national institute of education singapore & caroline chan english language department sembawang primary school singapore abstract the act of reading has been made more complex in the 21st century with the proliferation of multimodal texts. organizations like the ‘partnership for 21st century skills’ and researchers like the new london group (1996), hull & nelson (2005) and kress et al (2006) argue for the need for schools to re-look at the ways our children become literate in this and mediadriven environment. teachers too live with this reality and can appreciate the fact that not everything they learn can be found in the textbook. however, many do not possess the knowledge and skills to harness the media and technological tools for use in the language classroom. in order for teachers and learners to be effective users of texts in the 21st century, we argue that a framework is needed to assist them. hence this article proposes a framework called the 6 semiotic modes (chan & chia, 2014 adapted from anstey and bull, 2010). they include linguistic, audio, spatial, oral, visual and gestural modes and are used as tools to unlock the meaning behind different types of multimodal texts needed for teaching and learning. keywords: multimodal texts, multiliteracy, literacy development, semiotic modes introduction our learners live in a media-saturated world where they are bombarded with images on a daily basis. if teachers are to catch up with the times, then the teaching of reading in any english classroom should move beyond the learners’ engagement with just print text. such a belief is supported by hobbs (2007) and kress and van leeuwen (2006), who emphasized that the process of reading, understanding and meaning-making requires learners to not only have the ability to identify the printed word, but also to read differing patterns, forms and structures within their daily lives and environment. many english syllabuses – i.e. singapore, several states in australia and the philippines to name a few – have in recent years made attempts to move away from a ‘logocentric, book-centered, and essay-driven’ (hull & nelson, 2005) approach. these syllabuses advocate the necessity for learners to have the ability to integrate the reading of the printed word with visual forms in print and non-print modes. put another way, educational policy makers have begun to recognize that being visually literate is a necessary asset for the 21st century learner. teachers too live with this reality but may not have the knowledge and skills to harness the media and technological tools for use in the language classroom. in order for teachers and learners to be effective 99 re-defining ‘reading’ in the 21st century users of texts in the 21st the 6 semiotic modes framework century, a framework that is principled and systematic is needed to support them. any framework which enables the ‘reading’ of a multimodal text presupposes that the text is made up of more than one semiotic mode to communicate meaning. the practice of ‘reading’ a print or non-print multimodal text involves the learner ‘figuring out how the different semiotic modes complement or work against one another’ (chan & chia, 2014). for example, an effective television commercial often employs the use of moving images, speech, music, sound and often traditional texts in the form of words, phrases and sentences. the challenge for teachers is to unpack these different semiotic modes in accessible ways so that their students are able to understand how the commercial is effective in persuading the consumer to buy the product. chan & chia’s (2014) 6 semiotic modes framework outline a number of semiotic modes – linguistic, oral, audio, visual, spatial and gestural (ideas adapted from new london group, 1996; bull and anstey, 2010) – which could be seen as ‘vehicles’ for teachers and learners to read, listen, view and understand different kinds of texts. the framework requires that teachers and learners tap on their ‘senses’ and powers of table 1 descriptions of the 6 semiotic modes with examples (adapted from anstey & bull, 2010; chan & chia, 2014) awareness and observation when analysing a multimodal text (anderson, 1999). technically, they have been purposely defined in an easy-to-understand way to help learners gain confidence as they grasp the reading of multimodal texts. re-defining ‘reading’ in the 21st century 100 pedagogically, they provide teachers with a set of terms for easy application in classrooms. inspired by the work done by researchers like the new london group (1996) and anstey and bull’s (2010) framework of 5 semiotic modes, chan & chia’s (2014) spell out the 6 semiotic modes in greater detail: ‘reading’ multimodal texts framework to reading multimodal texts the figure below shows a schematic representation of how the 6 semiotic modes can be applied to the reading of multimodal texts. figure 1. framework to reading multimodal texts via the 6 semiotic modes (chan & chia, 2014) general analysis the process of analysis begins with the teacher choosing a multimodal text (e.g. a picture book, a television commercial, a youtube video, a brochure or a movie poster, etc.). the teacher then poses the following questions that would guide learners through a general analysis of the multimodal text (chan & chia, 2014; adapted): 101 re-defining ‘reading’ in the 21st century 1. is there a dominant semiotic mode in the multimodal text? what is it? 2. are there secondary semiotic modes present? 3. what do you think is the purpose of each of these semiotic modes? what is the message conveyed? detailed analysis table 2 provides the teacher with specific questions pertaining to particular aspects of each semiotic mode. depending on the semiotic modes identified, the teacher encourages the learners to further probe the text with another set of more pointed questions specific to each of the six modes. table 2 probing questions for each semiotic mode (adapted from anstey & bull, 2010; chan & chia, 2014) re-defining ‘reading’ in the 21st century 102 these sets of questions allow a novice teacher to pre-analyse a text plan ahead; and enable an experienced teacher to delve deeper into textual analysis and interpretation of meaning and intent. extended discussion of text after the detailed ‘reading’ of the multimodal text, the teacher could, for a more extended discussion, pose higher order questions to encourage a more critical reading of the text. this could be done purposefully and systematically by incorporating bloom’s taxonomy of skills and question types. table 3 below outlines some generic stems that the teacher could use to elicit a deeper understanding of the text: table 3 bloom’s taxonomy of skills and question types 103 re-defining ‘reading’ in the 21st century the following list of questions demonstrates how bloom’s taxonomy could be incorporated with questions pertaining to the semiotic modes: • what evidence from specific parts of the multimodal text point to the dominance of one or two semiotic mode(s)? highlight them. • why is this one semiotic mode dominant over others? would the impact be different if another semiotic mode was or other semiotic modes were dominant, instead of the one identified? how so? explain. • describe the relationship between the key dominant semiotic modes in the chosen text. how are they combined? how do they affect or support one another? how do they work together to make meaning for the reader/ viewer? • what are the messages that are brought to the surface in relation to the inter-play between the semiotic modes? • from your (reader/viewer) understanding of the relationship between the key semiotic modes, from whose perspective is this multimodal text constructed? • are there other possible construct-ions from different points of view? • who is the multimodal text pro-duced for? • whose interests are being served by this multimodal text? the target group? explain. • who is excluded or included in this text? are there communities, special groups or individuals who have been marginalised by this text? why? • what assumptions about the target audience(s) of this text have been made? • are there particular beliefs, values, attitudes and ideologies that are foregrounded in this multimodal text? how are they brought to surface? are they surfaced in the first place? • how did you (the reader-viewer) come to the conclusions, messages, insights and make meaning out of the multimodal text? (chan & chia, 2014; adapted) sample analysis this section demonstrates the application of the 6 semiotic modes framework on a multimodal text in the form of a book cover (see https://tinyurl.com/mz9qzjv) entitled papa’s house, mama’s house written by jean patindol (2004): • is there a dominant semiotic mode in the multimodal text? what is it? • yes, linguistic. • are there secondary semiotic modes present? yes, visual. however, some might say that both semiotic modes appear to have equal status and they complement each other. • what do you think is the purpose of each of these semiotic modes? where are the words, letters, phrases, sentences or paragraphs placed? does the vocabulary, generic structure, punctuation, grammar or paragraphing stand out in any particular way? the words ‘papa’s house, mama’s house’ is the title of this book. we know this because it is represented with large and bold fonts and placed right in the middle of the book cover. at first glance, ‘papa’s house, mama’s house’ appears to be an unusual title i.e. a comma separates the two noun phrases ‘papa’s house’ and ‘mama’s house’; and it’s not ‘papa and mama’s house’ neither is it ‘papa’s house and mama’s house’ – which would probably be https://tinyurl.com/mz9qzjv� re-defining ‘reading’ in the 21st century 104 the usual way of referring to the house belonging to one’s parents. • what type of visuals are they? which ones capture your attention? how are the visuals placed in relation to one another? how is the visual framed? what is available to the ‘reader’? what is not available? what colours are used? the visuals that capture the readers’ attention are two very tall houses – linedrawn with intricate details e.g. curtains, blinds, facade designs, etc.. the houses occupy more than three quarters of the length of the book cover. one house is placed on the right of the title and the other on the left. the houses, along with the title, occupy a central position of the book cover. most of the linguistic features and visuals are predominantly in white and they sit in contrast against a bright red background. • what is the message conveyed? what are the implications? what is the significance? what do they imply? the title, read together with the visuals, conveys a sense of separation i.e. papa and mama are separated and hence they live in separate houses. the height of the houses presents a looming presence and probably central to the story. despite the seemingly dire situation of parental separation, the neatness of the houses and their beautiful facades and gardens depict a sense of normalcy unusual in many cases of separation. this juxtaposition piques the readers’ interest to want to open the cover to read more. on top of this, the predominantly red background could be interpreted as the colour of love or passion. but in some cultures, it also represents danger. this further arouses the readers’ curiosity. lastly, what is interesting is that the narrator, whom we assume is the child caught in this separation, is missing from the book cover i.e. no images, no names, no toys, etc. can be seen. conclusion this article started off by making a case for the re-examination of reading in the 21st century classroom. it argued that act of reading has been made more complex in the 21st century with the proliferation of multimodal texts. the 6 semiotic modes – linguistic, oral, audio, visual, spatial and gestural were then introduced and described. general questions were also provided to help teachers guide their learners in their analyses of multimodal texts. for each semiotic mode, a set of questions was presented to help teachers and learners probe texts. bloom’s taxonomy of skills and question types were incorporated with the latter set of questions to encourage a deeper, more critical reading of texts. the article ended off with a demonstration of an analysis of a multimodal book cover. it is hoped that the framework presented here will enable teachers to guide their learners to ‘read’ and access multimodal texts in better and more meaningful ways. © alexius chia & caroline chan. alexius chia is a senior lecturer at the national institute of education, nanyang technological university, singapore. his teaching and research interests are in the areas of literacy, multiliteracies, schooling, gender, curriculum implementation and school reform. 105 re-defining ‘reading’ in the 21st century caroline chan is a senior education officer currently working as sembawang primary school. her interests and research are in the areas of policy interpretation and impact on curriculum development and customization in language teaching and learning and early literacy development references anderson, n. (1999), exploring second language reading: issues and strategies, heinle & heinle publishers, boston, ma. anstey, m. & bull, g. (2010), evolving pedagogies: reading and writing in a multimodal world, education services australia limited, sydney, australia. chan & chia (2014) hobbs, r. (2007), reading the media: media literacy in high school english, teachers’ college press, new york, ny. kress, g. & van leeuwen, t. (2006), reading images (2nd van leeuwen, t. (1993), “genre and field in critical discourse analysis: a synopsis”, discourse and society, vol. 4 no. 2, pp. 1 ed.), routledge, new york, ny. hull, g. a. and nelson, m. e. (2005), “locating the semiotic power of multimodality”, written communication, 22 (2), 224-261. new london group. (1996), pedagogy of multiliteracies: designing social futures. harvard educational review, vol. 66 no. 1, pp. 60-92. patindol, j. l. (2004), papa’s house, mama house, adarna house, quezon city. introduction the 6 semiotic modes framework awareness and observation when analysing a multimodal text (anderson, 1999). technically, they have been purposely defined in an easy-to-understand way to help learners gain confidence as they grasp the reading of multimodal texts. pedagogically, they... ‘reading’ multimodal texts framework to reading multimodal texts general analysis detailed analysis extended discussion of text sample analysis conclusion references microsoft word bw research5.1.3.docx beyond words vol. 5 no. 1. may 2017   peer tutoring with quick method vs. task based method on reading comprehension achievement sri indrawati marysriindrawati@gmail.com petra 3 senior high school surabaya, indonesia abstract this study is a quasi-experimental research analyzing the reading comprehension achievement of the eleventh graders of senior high school in surabaya. this experimental research is comparing the effects of peer tutoring with quick method and task-based method to help the students to increase the students’ reading achievement. besides for increasing the students’ reading achievement, this study has the main purpose to give a variation in teacher’s teaching reading techniques. this study uses independent samples t-test and paired samples t-test to indicate the students’ significant difference in achieving the reading comprehension in peer tutoring with quick method and task based method. keywords: peer tutoring with quick method, task-based method, t-test, reading achievement. introduction reading, one of the four language skills, is important for students to learn.through reading, students can get all information to support their learning process at high school level. casper, catton and westfall (1998) say that the main purpose for reading is to comprehend the ideas in the material. without comprehension, reading would be empty and meaningless. in the implementation of teaching learning activities, the students of senior high school surabaya, who are taught english as a foreign language, always show difficulties to comprehend the reading passages. the writer has also found out that the students can read aloud with good pronunciation but they still cannot comprehend the reading passage well. the gist of the reading passage is difficult to be understood by the students though it is important for students to develop their reading comprehension skill and vocabulary. the writer found students are capable of reading the words, but they have much difficulty in understanding the main ideas or the information of the passages. therefore, they give wrong answers to the reading text. the writer assumed that most of students lack the understanding of the reading passages. armbuster, anderson, armstrong, wise, janish and meyer (1991) have mentioned the two reasons why so many students have trouble with informational text. the first reason is that students do not read much informational text, so they are unfamiliar with the genre. and the second reason is that the instruction does not foster the development of a conceptual understanding and meaningful learning. based on the fact, the writer introduced a new method in teaching reading, peer tutoring with quick method, which was applied in this study. this study is not only focussing on peer tutoring with quick method but also focussing on task based. task based is a teaching reading comprehension method which is usually used in the reading class. this task based is used to be 24                                               quick method vs. task based method on reading        compared to the new method in teaching reading.this study was conducted in the environment where english is spoken as a foreign language (efl). the main purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of peer tutoring with quick method and task based method on the reading achievement of the eleventh grade students. the other purpose was to analyze which teaching reading method gives better effects on students’ reading achievement. therefore, the writer determined a research problem which was formulated in this study: do peer tutoring with quick method and task based method show a significant difference in students’ reading comprehension achievement of the eleventh grade? derived from the statements of the problems, the writer made the hypotheses from the research questions. these hypotheses were based on the purposes of the thesis. alternative hypothesis: there is a significant difference between the reading achievement of grade 11 students who are taught using peer tutoring with quick method and the students who are taught using task based. null hypothesis. there is no significant difference between the reading achievement of grade 11 students who are taught using peer tutoring with quick method and the students who are taught using task based. this study was delimited to intensive reading focusing on reading comprehension skill focusing on the ability of students to comprehend the reading passage and on the ability of students to comprehend the reading comprehension passage and the reading comprehension questions correctly. and this study was also delimited to the students’ levels of knowledge (metacognitive). literature review this part presents the related theories concerning to reading comprehension and reading comprehension methods and some previous studies conducted by other researchers. reading comprehension according to jim cummins (2008), reading comprehension involves activity in understanding the vocabulary and activity the way the words are organized in sentences and paragraphs to produce meaning. chard (2008) added that strategic processing is a necessity for efficient and effective comprehension which involves using strategies to understand text, knowing when to use the various strategies, actively thinking about understanding and engaging the text during the discussions in the classroom. besides the theory of reading comprehension, the writer also put some references supporting the theory of reading comprehension skills. they are: the goal of reading and critical reading. the goal of reading. the goal of reading is to understand a reading passage by solving the decoding text. human resources and social development (2003) emphasized that the ultimate goal of reading is a reading process involving proficient decoding and skillful comprehension. in the process of decoding to attain the goal of reading, duke and pearson (2002) believed that there is a process of good readers which need some great deals about what good readers do when they read. critical reading. critical reading is a technique for discovering information and ideas within a text. critical reading refers to quick method vs. task based method on reading 25        a careful, active, reflective, analytic reading. kurland (2000) presented the goals of critical reading: (1) to recognize an author’s purpose, (2) to understand tone and persuasive elements, (3) to recognize bias. critical reading usually appears before the critical thinking comes. reading comprehension methods. there are two reading comprehension methods which the writer implemented and used in her study: peer tutoring with quick method and task based method. peer tutoring with quick method. peer tutoring involves partners who are the same age or different ages (scruggs, mastropieri, & berkeley, 2010) peer tutoring is designed to increase practice, responses and feedback for students, and peer-tutoring results in increasing students’ motivation and achievement. the writer implemented peer tutoring method based on quick (lague & wilson, 2011) intervention method in the peer tutoring class. the implementation of peer tutoring with quick method in reading, quick provides tutors with a simple effective framework to scaffold reading comprehension. the quick method consists of questioning, understanding new words, imaging, connecting and keeping it all together. 1. questioning. in questioning step, students may ask specific questions and tutors guide students to find the answer in the text, beyond the text, or using their prior knowledge 2. understanding new words. quick method allows students to investigate the context of the sentence to determine the meanings based on the sentence context. 3. imaging. while the tutors read the text loud, the tutees close their eyes to form their mental pictures from the text. 4. connecting. peer tutors make connection models by asking the tutees to think of a time they experienced an event similar to the character and based on students’ prior knowledge. 5. keeping it all together. keep it all together technique is a reminder that comprehension processes are complex and connected. the goal is to understand and gain insight from the text as a whole. task based according to jing and mingjun (2013), task based focuses on the use of authentic language and on asking students to do meaningful tasks using the target language. in the implementation, there are three stages of task process and post task (walker, 2011). pre-task. the pre-task aims to motivate, to prepare and to organize the students for the main task. there are four steps in the pre-task. check and build background knowledge. this step is to measure the learner knowledge of the task topic, to introduce. the activities can be in mind maps, pretest, writing lists, categorizing, sorting, reading a text, listening to a text. main task: task model. through the task model, learners will hear or read the target language and emphasize on how to complete the task through passive modeling (watch, listen and demonstration) and active modeling (discussions, asking questions or taking notes). task instructions. this seems like an obvious task process step when the learners are familiar with the given task process instructions. 26                                               quick method vs. task based method on reading    task planning. learners can plan task content. through content, learners can create in pre-task planning will be used to help them complete the main task. post-task: post-task brings the task process to a close, for example task reflection. task reflection focuses on the content from the main task and gives the learners a chance to employ self-correction. previous studies peer tutoring with quick method. this previous study was presented by tse (2014). tse explored and filled the literature gap of an unexplored field on how child mentors perceive their development in a peer-mentoring program. he used peer tutoring with quick method and he revealed that child mentors had perceived positive development. the connectedness between mentors and mentees were found to be the crucial component contributing to the development of mentors while pro social interactions with the mentees encouraged mentors to share their wealth of experiences, despite the narrow age-gap. task based. this previous study was presented by chia (2007). her study discussed about the cooperative task-based learning approach (ctbl). the purpose of that study was to motivate low achieving readers of english in taiwanese university. her study elicited numerous positive outcomes from the teacher’s and the students’ perspectives and the findings support the positive aspects of application of a ctbl approach to first year university students who have low achievement status with the idea of facilitating their motivations to learn english. this part describes the research method applied in this study. the design of this thesis is a quasi experimental applying a non randomized pretest posttest control group design as proposed by mcmillan (2008). the function of this design is to find the effects of different treatments on the two different samples and to find the effectiveness of the intervention. the population was the senior high school students. the students learn english as a foreign language. the population has been learning english as an integrated course. the samples of this thesis were the eleventh grade students. the writer took two intact classes of four intact classes and the writer used one intact class as the pilot group. each intact class consists of 20 students in each class. the writer took the samples using simple random sampling method (mueller, 1992). the variables of this quasi-experimental study are grouped in two types: independent and dependent variables. the independent variables are the peer tutoring with quick method and task-based method whereas the dependent variable is the students’ reading achievement. there are two different teaching methods implemented in this study: peer tutoring with quick method and task based method. in the implementation, each group had the same teacher and the same material applied in each meeting except the teacher applied peer-tutoring teaching with quick method in the experimental group and taskbased method in the control group. this quick method vs. task based method on reading 27        study needed four meetings of 90 meetings and two meetings of 45 minutes for pretest and posttest. reading tests were used to get the data of the students’ reading achievement. the reading tests were given as a pretest and a posttest. the aim of the writer in giving two tests was to find out if there would be differences in students’ reading achievement before and after the interventions. the test consisted of 20 items with two different reading passages in multiple-choice. for the posttest, the test had been made some changes in sequence of numbers to focus on the reading question and to avoid students to remember their answer in pretest. before conducting the experimental, the writer conducted a tryout. and the findings of the tryout were found that the reliability of the test or kuder-richardson 21 (kr 21) (cooper, pittman, & womack, 2014) was 0.5. this meant the tryout was reliable and was able to use as an instrument for this study because the reliability was consistent, homogenous and correlated. and for the item difficulty, the p-value formula (sabri, 2013) the p-value ranges from 0.0 to 1.00. a high p-value indicates an easy item. and the p value was found that 15% of the test was very easy, 65% of the test was ideal items, and 20% of the test was difficult. according to heaton (1988), the discrimination indices range from +1 to -1. +1 is an item which discriminates perfectly, and through 0 is an item which does not discriminates in any way at all and -1 is an item which discriminates in entirely the wrong way. and ovwigho (2013) has categorized the discrimination indexes for item discrimination evaluation as shown in table 3. in the result of item discrimination, it was found that 40% of the test items were very good, 40% of the test items were marginal items which need the subject to improvement and 20% of the test items were in poor items. based on the result of item discrimination, it can be concluded that this tryout was valid and reliable for the experimental instrument. table 3 presented the result of item discrimination in tryout. findings to analyze and to compare the effects of the two methods, the writer used statistical software of t-test in statistical package for social science 18 (spss 18) program with the significant level of accuracy at the .05 level (α = .05) independent samples t-test independent samples t-test evaluates the difference between means of two samples (horn, 2016). to analyze the difference between means in peer tutoring with quick method group and task based group, the writer used the gain scores of each student in two different groups and classified the gain scores from the two samples, as the independent score (lane, 2016). 28                                               quick method vs. task based method on reading        table 4 showed the different between peer tutoring technique with quick method and task based technique to the students’ reading achievement. in table 4, the mean’s difference of the two samples indicated that the students in task based group had better progress in their reading achievement. the difference between the means of the two samples was 2.75 percent. from the means’ difference, the writer concluded that the null hypothesis was rejected. according to berg (2014), the significance of equal variance was .028 < .05, it means the null hypothesis of equal variance is rejected. the t-test for equality of means indicated the mean difference of two samples was in – 2.750. it meant that the students who learnt using peer tutoring with quick method showed 2.75 percent less progress than the students who learnt using task based method. the finding of independent t-test presented that the alternative hypothesis was -2.750 < .05 or -3.25 percent different between peer tutoring with quick method and task based method. in another word, there is a negative relationship between peer tutoring with quick method and task based method in teaching reading comprehension methods which the result showed that task based method gave better effects than peer tutoring quick method. from the findings in the independent samples t-test and in the paired samples t-test, the writer concluded that task based method and peer tutoring with quick method are significantly different. the result of independent samples t-test presented that task based method gave better effect than peer tutoring with quick method. the result showed that there was a mean difference of the t-test for equality was less than 0; the mean difference of the t-test for equality was in – 2.750. however the ha = -2.75 < .05 indicated that there was a negative relationship between peer tutoring with quick method and task based method in teaching reading comprehension. discussions in the findings, the writer obtained that the students tend to have the english lower level which focuses on the using language to achieve an outcome; the task instructions that the teacher gave to the students help the students familiar to do the tasks. as a result, students accept the task based method better than peer tutoring with quick method. task based method gave a better effect than peer tutoring with quick method because it was supported that the teacher explored the topic of the reading passages with the creative tasks. according to jane willis (1996), it is of great importance for the learners to rely on the model of the tasks which was modified by the teacher creatively. and the teacher gave the tasks which required the students to emphasize on meaning and to attain the objective of the reading achievement. the writer noticed the treatments and found that task-based had scaffolded the students’ performance in affective and cognitive (ellis, 2006).  quick method vs. task based method on reading 29        the writer also discussed why the students in peer tutoring with quick method group showed less progress in students’ reading achievement. the result of independent samples t-test affirmed that the mean difference of peer tutoring with quick method was -2.75. the writer put some reasons why students in peer tutoring with quick method group showed less progress. the first main reason was the teacher just knew the peer tutoring with quick method from the writer. this made the teacher did not master the application of peer tutoring with quick method well. besides, peer tutoring with quick method is a new method for the teacher, the implementation of this study was not enough for students to improve their reading achievement in peer tutoring with quick method. and the third reason is there was a possibility for not every tutor understood the context or the information of the reading text well while the teacher only had limited time to give the tutor small course before the reading class began. conclusion the objective of this study was to compare the difference between peer tutoring with quick method and task based method on students’ reading comprehension achievement. this study showed that task based method gave the eleven graders improvement in reading comprehension achievement. indeed peer tutoring with quick method is quite effective to give the students to scaffold their reading comprehension. the peer tutoring with quick method was able to give the experimental students to be critical in reading and more critical in thinking (paul & elder, 2006). the finding of the independent t-test presented that the alternative hypothesis was -2.75 < .05 and this value showed a negative relationship between peer tutoring with quick method and task based method. the findings proved that task based method gave better effects than peer tutoring with quick method. based on the findings of independent samples t-test, the reason of peer tutoring with quick method showed less progress than task based method; it was because the peer tutoring with quick method was conducted for the first time. the reason why task based method showed better effects on students’ reading achievement is because the creative tasks developed the students’ attention and the students’ language development. through creative tasks, students are supported to scaffold their cognitive and their affective competences since the students focus on the teacher’s instructions. © sri indrawati peer tutoring with quick method vs. task based method on reading comprehension achievement suggested reference format for the article: sri indrawati started her career in teaching english for high school in 2001. she loves teaching. in 2004, she was nominated and became the winner of the instructional media competition conducted by microsoft indonesia. in 2012, she took her master degree and graduated in 2016. now she teaches english for senior high school in petra 3. 30                                               quick method vs. task based method on reading        references armbuster, b., anderson, 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(1996). a framework for taskbased learning. london: longman.     three types of corrective feedback three types of corrective feedback 106 three types of corrective feedback on higher education students’ academic writing finita dewi universitas pendidikan indonesia purwakarta, indonesia & anuncius gumawang jati gumawang.jati@gmail.com institut teknologi bandung indonesia abstract this present study compared three different types of corrective feedback – peer corrective feedback, teacher-written corrective feedback and video-based corrective feedback – to investigate which mode was more beneficial for students’ academic writing skill. the participants were 120 first-semester university students taking the academic writing course. an analysis of variance (anova) was performed to determine the relationship between students’ academic writing performance and the types of corrective feedback they experienced with. in addition, a post hoc tukey’s hsd test was conducted to explore the differences among the corrective feedback given to the students. the result shows that corrective feedbacks provided by teachers – written and video-based – were statistically significant in assisting students’ academic writing performance. in addition, based on the result of this study, it seems that teacher-written feedback could be the most beneficial mode of feedback for students’ writing. keywords: corrective feedback, academic writing introduction the idea of providing corrective feedback for second language learners’ writing has created some debates on whether or not it will be beneficial for students’ learning outcome. some scholars believe that feedback as one of the major components in the writing process is an essential element in supporting students to develop their writing skill. written corrective feedback in writing instruction received strong support from some researchers (bitchener & ferris, 2012; ferris, 1999). feedback contains information given to students regarding their performance of the learning task (ur, 2008). the mode of feedback which is commonly used is written feedback, be it paper-based or online-based, or oral feedback through conversation with teachers (brick & holmes, 2008). in the academic setting, written feedback becomes the dominant mode of providing feedback (hyland & hyland, 2006). in contrast, some other scholars believe that providing corrective feedback is not useful for the learners. krashen (1985) stated that there is no role of corrective feedback in helping learners to develop their acquired knowledge. he emphasized that there is no value for acquisition in the learning that 107 three types of corrective feedback results from instruction and corrective feedback. second to krashen, truscott (1999) specified that in teaching writing, giving feedback in the form of grammar correction is not useful and counterproductive for foreign or second language learners. truscott’s statement was regarded as controversial and resulted in heated discussions and debates (ferris, 1999). up to now, research result cannot find the confirmation of this debate due to the fact that researches were conducted in a short time and there is no long term effect that can be investigated (van beuningen, de jong, & kuiken, 2008). this present study is intended to contribute to the ongoing debate on corrective feedback. purpose of the study this study is intended to investigate the effect of three different modes of corrective feedback, among others are peer corrective feedback, teacher-written corrective feedback and video-based corrective feedback, towards the students’ academic writing performance. this study will look at whether or not there is any influence of corrective feedback towards students’ academic writing performance. in addition, this study will also try to find out which corrective feedback benefitted the students most. hypothesis h0 – there is no significance difference in using corrective feedbacks towards the students’ academic writing performance. literature review feedback can be a valuable component in students’ learning process (orsmond & merry, 2011) and can be an influential factor which affects students’ achievement (hattie & timperley, 2007). effective assessment feedback provides more than a number or letter grade to students (joint information systems committee [jisc], 2010). in spite of the fact that literature confirmed that assessment feedback has become important art of the learning process, some also highlights that many students only paid attention to grades they obtained, ignoring the feedback given to them (bailey & garner, 2010; orsmond & merry, 2011). in regard to this matter, many researchers have started to pay attention to different types of feedback in order to improve the quality of feedback provided by teachers. written feedback, student-teacher conference, peer feedback, and video corrective feedback are some types of feedback which are considered beneficial for students’ learning. many studies have been conducted to examine the power of different types of feedback toward students’ writing skills. written feedback and student-teacher conference can be beneficial to level up students’ accuracy in their writing (bitchener, young, & cameron, 2005). as for large class setting, in which time becomes the constraint for individual student-teacher corrective feedback, recent recent researchers have shown some interests in looking at peer-to-peer feedback to assist learning. kuiken & vedder's (2002) study in examining the effect of peer interaction show that it is a promising technique to help learners acquire grammatical knowledge. with the advancement of technology, the use of video feedback has also been recognized by some researchers in response to some facts that written comments can lead to ambiguity while face to face feedback might be highly depend on the students’ memory (henderson & phillips, 2014). three types of corrective feedback 108 the different type of feedbacks given to students are relevance to the notion of zone of proximal development (zpd) proposed by vygotsky, which refers to the gap between a learner’s current development level and the learner’s potential level of development with assistance. as the educational implication of zpd, wood, bruner, & ross (1976) introduced the term “scaffolding” to describe how learners’ could perform task which they cannot do alone through some aids provided by others. the concepts of zpd and scaffolding show that social interaction and collaboration may facilitate students’ learning process. teacher-written corrective feedback in helping efl/esl writers, marginal comments, request for clarification, and comments on grammatical issues provided by teachers are proven to be effective. students expect teachers to comment on those areas and feel frustrated when they do not received any of them (bitchener & ferris, 2012). grammar feedback has been regarded as helpful and useful by college level els students (srichanyachon, 2012). in addition, students also want the teachers to comment on the content and idea in their writing. teacher-written corrective feedback on global issues (i.e. content, organization, and purposes) and local issues (i.e. sentence structure, word choice and grammar) are desirable by the students (straub, 1997 in srichanyachon, 2012). video-based corrective feedback traditionally speaking, feedback for writing is given to students in written form through paper based or email, or in oral form through face-to-face conference. some of the challenges in giving or receiving feedback are related to the vagueness of the feedback (mathisen, 2012). as a result, students become confused and do not know what to correct or improve (crawford, 1997 in mathisen, 2012). the advancement of digital technology has made it possible for user to record the screen on the computer and add voice using a screen capture software. in relation to giving feedback, teachers can use the software to record their on-screen action and their spoken comment while creating feedback, and save it in the form of video file. the video can be distributed to the students either through file sharing or online streaming. students can watch the video of their tutor giving comments, highlighting, amending and discussing their writing (stannard, 2007). peer corrective feedback peer review or peer corrective feedback has been widely used in writing class as some researches show that it contributes to students’ writing skill development in both process and product (bijami, kashef, & nejad, 2013; lee, 2009). peer feedback can be defined as “use of learners as sources of information and interactants for each other in such a way that learners assume roles and responsibilities normally taken on by a formally trained teacher, tutor, or editor in commenting on and critiquing each other’s draft in both written and oral formats in the process of writing” (liu and hansen, 2002, in bijami, kashef, & nejad, 2013). in the absence of teachers’ knowledge and authority, peer feedback usually provides insights which have more focus on the content, organization and vocabulary, and lead to more reticence of students in accepting a peer’s judgment (gielen, peeters, dochy, onghena&struyven, 2010). three types of corrective feedback 109 method participants a total of 120 first-semester students, from a state university in bandung, west java, enrolling in three classes of academic writing course were involved in this study. each class consisted 40 students with intermediate level of english proficiency. at the beginning of the semester they have undergone a placement test using paperbased toefl-like test. the result shows that their levels of english proficiency are somewhat similar, with the toefl scores ranging from 400-450. design of the study this experimental research investigated three groups of students receiving three different types of corrective feedbacks. since there are there classes of academic writing, each class was randomly assigned to get different types of feedback for their writing assignments. class a received peer corrective feedback, class b received teacher-written corrective feedback, and class c received video-based corrective feedback. the research was conducted for three months. each week they have face to face meetings for ninety minutes. at the first month, the students learned how to write an annotation from a short article. having read the article, the students were to work in a group of four or five and discuss the content of the article. then, they were asked to individually write a short annotation based on the reading passage. at the second month, the students learned how to write a short summary from a reading passage. this time, they were also asked to work in group, brainstorm the main i ssues of the passage, and create mind map. then they were asked to write and individual summary of the passage. in the last month, students learned how to write a short paragraph. they were asked to choose one out of five topics given by the lecturer. drawing from the chosen topic, they were asked to brainstorm and create a mind map on some points they are going to write, and finally write a short passage about the topic. at the end of each task, students’ writings three types of corrective feedback 110 were given corrective feedback based on the pre-designed groups. after the three months period, as the final writing task, students were asked to write another short paragraph based a guidance given by the lecturer (see table1). students were given ninety minutes to finish the writing task. the students’ result were evaluated and scored by the teacher and the researcher using a writing evaluation rubric (see table 2). when some disagreement in regards to the correction of the writing result, the teacher and the researcher would discuss it to meet the mutual agreement on the final decision. table 1. writing evaluation rubric 10% 40% 30% 20% 1. writing formatting checklists (hook, thesis, topic sentences, supporting ideas, refutation). 2. relevance with the topic. 3. genre awareness. 1. originality 2. critical response 3. analysis & synthesis 4. use of relevant information 5. exploring details unity & coherence 1. rhetoric (e.g. diction, tone, voice) 2. mechanics (e.g. sentence structures, tenses, punctuations) data analysis to determine the relationship between students’ academic writing performance and the mode of corrective feedback that they experienced with, a one way analysis of variance (anova) was performed based on the result of their final writing task. a post hoc test using tukey’s hsd was conducted to explore the differences among the corrective feedbacks given to the students. the result of the post hoc test was obtained to provide specific information on which corrective feedback is significantly different from each other. tukey’s hsd was used because this procedure accurately maintains alpha levels at the intended values. in addition, tukey’s hsd was designed for a situation with equal sample sizes per group (stevens, 1999). all analytical procedures were conducted using spss version 16.0. pairwise comparisons between groups were made using one-way analysis of variance with significance was set at the p < .05 level for all comparisons. limitation of the study 1. the time period is three months, which consist of a-ninety-minute-meeting per week. additionally, for the group with video-based corrective feedback, they have to access the online class for at least 30 minutes for each video-based corrective feedback. 2. a test given after the three-month period was limited to writing a short passage. 3. although the evaluation of the students’ writing was based on a rubric for writing (see table 2), the data used in the analysis was taken from the overall writing score. therefore, the analysis cannot look at each individual item from the rubric. result and discussion three types of corrective feedback 111 the influence of corrective feedbacks this test is intended to reveal whether or not there is any influence of corrective feedback towards students’ academic writing performance. the result of anova, as presented in table 3, shows that the value of f statistic is 12.148, and the value of f table is 3.0178. the value of f table was obtained from the f distribution table, in which the value of df1 is 2 and the value of df2 is 117. because in the f distribution table there is no f table value for df2 117, so the closest value for df2 is 120. the rule stated that if f statistic is greater than f table, then h0 is rejected. therefore, in this study ho is rejected because f statistic (12.148) is greater than f table (3.0178). thus, the result of anova revealed that there is a significant difference of the corrective feedback towards the students’ academic writing performance. in addition, the rejection of h0 can also be seen from the p value (sig.) which value is .000 which is smaller than the alpha value which is .05. table 2 analysis of variance for academic writing test sum of squares df mean square f sig. between groups 1232.467 2 616.233 12.148 .000* within groups 5935.000 117 50.726 total 7167.467 119 drawing from the result above, it is obvious that corrective feedback does play important roles in developing students’ academic writing (ferris, 1999). regardless of the types of the corrective feedback, students benefitted from obtaining feedbacks be it from their peers or their teachers. encouragement, positive comment and critique are still needed by the students throughout the writing course (lee, 2009). the significant differences among the three types of corrective feedbacks. table 4 shows the result of post hoc tukey’s hsd test. this test is intended to investigate which corrective feedback is significantly different from each other. the mean difference is significant at the level of 0.05. the statistical significant differences will occur when the sig value is greater than 0.05. looking at the sig. column in table 4, it can be seen that the sig. value for the comparison of peer corrective feedback and teacher-written corrective feedback is .000. the sig. value for the comparison of peer corrective feedback and video-based feedback is .003. both sig. values are smaller than 0.05. thus, from the comparison, it can be concluded that there is a statistical significant difference between peer corrective feedback and teacher-written corrective feedback. in addition, there is also a statistical significant difference between peer corrective feedback and video-based corrective feedback. however, when looking at the sig. value of the comparison between the teacher-written corrective feedback and the video-based corrective feedback, the sig. value is .322 which is greater than 0.05. from this result, it can be concluded that there is no statistical significant difference between teacher-written feedback and video-based written feedback. three types of corrective feedback 112 the result of the study obviously shows that teacher still play an important role for students learning. constructive comments from teachers when involving peers to give comments on other students’ writing, teachers are supposed to give training in order to develop students’ confidence and skills for peer review (lee, 2009). table 5 also shows the result of post hoc tukey’s hsd test. this table shows which corrective feedback is regarded to be the best one of all corrective feedbacks being compare in this study. the value for peer corrective feedback is 74.60, the value for video-based feedback is 79, 95 and the value for teacher-written feedback is 82.25. thus it can be concluded that the best corrective feedback is the teacherwritten feedback. table 3. result of post hoc tukey's hsd test 2 corrective feedback n subset for alpha = 0.05 1 2 peer 40 74.60 vbased 40 79.95 twritten 40 82.25 sig. 1.000 .322 conclusion the results of the study indicate that corrective feedback, regardless of the types, plays an important role in assisting efl learners in writing academic english. students experiencing peer correction do not show significant improvement compare 113 three types of corrective feedback to those experiencing video-based and teacher-written feedback. the teacher prompted, video-based and teacher-written feedbacks have assisted learners in improving their writing performance. the study also indicates that scaffolding provided by teachers outperformed the one provided through peer interaction. in addition, it can be drawn from this study that the sophisticated technology (videofeedback) still cannot exceed the potential value of traditional teacher-written feedback. however, further study still need to be conducted to investigate which components of writing provided in the writing evaluation rubric have been developed most by certain types of corrective feedback. © finita dewi & anuncius gumawang jati funita dewi holds a b.a. in english literature and an m.a. in tesol studies. finita is an english lecturer at indonesia education university. her expertise is in call, efl teaching method and technology integration. in addition, finita is also a teacher trainer who has collaborated with some educational institutions such as british council, seaqil, seamolec. dr. gumawang jati, m.a is an english senior lecturer teaching critical reading and academic writing at faculty of arts and design itb. he also teaches call for post graduate students at uin syarif hidayatullah, jakarta. his s1 degree came from ikip sanata dharma in 1987, his m.a. degree from university of warwick in 1989 specilizing in call, and his doctorate degree from indonesia education university in 2010 specilizing in education and ict. other than his formal education, in 1992 he joined a short course on management in elt at university of leeds. he is the ceo of pt bandung talentsource, a training centre for telecommunication and e-learning, from 2008present. he has conducted workshops and actively participated in many seminars in the area od ict and education. he is a british council indonesia consultant for vtsn, school leadership and other projects, and a consultant for elt management, call, e-learning, material development and digital self-access centre for several universities in indonesia. references bailey, r., & garner, m. 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(2008). using screen capture software for student feedback: towards a methodology. in iadis celda 2008 (pp. 339–342). retrieved from https://curve.coventry.ac.uk/open/file/5baa d20d-1c6f-3a98-b380three types of corrective feedback 114 02167e5d1cd4/1/brickiadis.pdf ferris, d. (1999). the case for grammar correction in l2 writing classes: a response to truscott (1996). journal of second language writing, 8(1), 1–11. http://doi.org/10.1016/s10603743(99)80110-6 gielen, s., peeters, e., dochy, f., onghena, p., & struyven, k. (2010). improving the effectiveness of peer feedback for learning. learning and instruction, 20(4), 304–315. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2009.0 8.007 hattie, j. a., & timperley, h. (2007). the power of feedback. review of educatioanal research, 77(1), 81–112. henderson, m., & phillips, m. (2014). technology enhanced feedback on assessment. in the australian computers in education conference 2014 (pp. 228– 238). adelaide, sa. hyland, k., & hyland, f. (2006). interpersonal aspects of response: constructing and interpreting teacher written feedback. in feedback in second language writing: contexts and issues (pp. 206–224). cambridge: cambridge university press. joint information systems committee [jisc]. (2010). effective assessment in a digital age. retrieved september 10, 2017, from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/pro grammes/elearning/digiassass_eada.pdf krashen, s. d. (1985). the input hypothesis: issues and implications. london: longman. kuiken, & vedder. (2002). the effect of interaction in acquiring the grammar of a second language. international journal of education research, (37), 343–358. lee, n. s. (2009). written peer feedback by efl students : praise , criticism and suggestion. komaba journal of english education, 129–139. mathisen, p. 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(1999). the case for “the case for grammar correction in l2 writing classes”: a response to ferris. journal of second language writing, 8(2), 111–122. ur, p. (2008). a course in language teaching: practice and theory (cambridge). cambridge: cambridge university press. http://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cb o9780511732928.011 van beuningen, c. g., de jong, n. h., & kuiken, f. (2008). the effect of direct and indirect corrective feedback on l2 learners’ written accuracy. itl international jour-nal of applied linguistics, 156, 279–296. http://doi.org/10.2143/itl.156.0.2034439 wood, d., bruner, j., & ross, g. (1976). the role of tutoring in problem solving. journal of child psychology and psychiatry, 17, 89–100. introduction purpose of the study hypothesis literature review teacher-written corrective feedback video-based corrective feedback peer corrective feedback method participants design of the study data analysis limitation of the study result and discussion the influence of corrective feedbacks the significant differences among the three types of corrective feedbacks. conclusion references acknowledgements first of all, huge thanks to all reviewers: prof. andrew lian, ph.d. senior professor at suranaree university of technology, thailand, prof. dr. patrisiusistiartodjiwandono, senior professor at ma chung university, malang, indonesia, prof. larry dwanchong, ph.d., professor at gyeongju, south korea,and founder of asia call. willy ardianrenandya, ph.d. senior lecturer at national institute of education, singapore, dr. jatigumawangsenior lecturer at institutteknologi bandung, dr. helena agustien, dr. benedict dwijatmoko, senior lecturer at the graduate school of sanata dharma university, yogyakarta, indonesia, mark feng teng, ma senior lecturer at the department of education studies, hong kong baptist university, hong kong, rouhollah askari bigdelli, ma linguistics postgraduate student, university of otago, new zealand, prof. anita lie, ed.d., prof. dr. veronica l. diptoadi, mateus yumarnamto, ph.d., and siti mina tamah, ph.d. , professors andsenior lecturers at the english education department, graduate school widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia. the peer reviews have contributed very significantly to maintain both the quality of this online journal and as a feedback for authors. the same thankful expressions also came from authors for their scholarly comments and feedback. and last but not least, our great appreciation goes to all authors for their writings. for those whose manuscripts have not been accepted for this issue, please do not get discouraged. we invite you to do more research and submit articles again. your juniors need vivid examples from you, besides, being able to write a good article is a value in itself. javascript:openrtwindow('http://journal.wima.ac.id/index.php/bw/about/editorialteambio/234')� grammatical subjects in method section 41 beyond words vol. 6, no. 1, may 2018 grammatical subjects in method section of psychology and chemistry research articles seyed foad ebrahimi seyedfoade@gmail.com english department, shadegan branch, islamic azad university, shadegan, iran & chan swee heng chansweeheng@gmail.com faculty of modern languages and communication, university putra malaysia, malaysia abstract this study intends to investigate the realizations and functions of grammatical subject in the method section of research articles across disciplines from hard and soft sciences. to this end, 20 method sections of research articles from two disciplines, namely psychology and chemistry, were selected and analyzed. the data were selected from high impact journals indexed in thompson and reuters and published by elsevier. the data were analyzed based on ebrahimi’s recent analytical framework for the analysis of grammatical subject. the results highlighted noticeable disciplinary differences concerning realizations of the research-related and selfmention grammatical subjects. the results of this study could act as a guide to aid novice writers, especially non-native novice writers from these two disciplines with regard to the use of grammatical subject which serves as an important point in the navigation of subsequent ideas in a message. the findings also stressed that writers need to consider the writing style of their disciplines in realizing linguistic features, such as grammatical subject functionally. keywords: method section, research article, grammatical subject, genre introduction as a rhetorical section of a research article, the method gives salient and sufficient details to describe how a study is conducted. a primary function of the section is to establish data validity and contributes to the need of researchers in the systematic verification of methodological procedures when deemed necessary. the method section comprises pertinent information with regard to: a) participant, b) instrument, and c) procedure (jalilifar, 2009). participants’ information elaborates on the characteristics, selection and number of participants, often taking note f demographic in relation to gender, age, level of education and instructional affiliation, economic status and geographic location. regarding instruments, standard procedural information, which could include the use of tests, interviews, survey questionnaires, inventories or observations, is given. following the description on the method of data collection and the details of its mailto:seyedfoade@gmail.com� 42 grammatical subjects in method section execution, another feature is the methods used for analyzing the data. compared with other sections of a research article, it has been claimed by many researchers that this section has received relatively less attention (bruce, 1983, 2008; swales, 1990; lim, 2006; gollin-kies, 2014). one definite aspect that could be further worked is the grammatical subject (gs) in the discourse of method section. a review of work on gs uncovers works concerning the realizations of gs in different genres (gosden, 1993; lores, 2004; borsinger, 2003; and ebrahimi and chan, 2015). lores (2004) analyzed 36 research article abstracts from four highly reputed journals in the field of linguistics –the journal of pragmatics, linguistics, journal of linguistics, and applied linguistics. nine abstracts were extracted from each journal. she initially scrutinized the corpus for the rhetorical structure and to trace the use of gs, she drew on davies’ (1988) subcategorization of the grammatical subject. davies’ (1988) sub-categorizations include the dominance of the following domains: participant, discourse, hypothesized and objectified, and real-world. the result also showed that the gs used in the introduction fell mostly within the discourse domain. within the method, result, and discussion moves, the real-world domain was more dominant. this dominance supported a “transition from more text-related perspective to more objective, external-world related views” in the text (lores, 2004, p. 295). she finally concluded that the structuring of the gss in research article abstracts is not a random occurrence. in addition, borsinger (2003) studied the gs in novice and expert research writing. she compared the published drafts of research papers written by doctoral students in physics and expert physicists respectively. the gs was analyzed based on the four domains: participant, discourse, conventional, and instantial. her analysis included only the main clauses in the primary organization of a text which is deemed to give a clearer representation of significant gss found in the text. secondary gss were ignored as they were viewed as distracting and interfering with the core message. she found that both categories of writers used conventional class frequently (encompassing three quarters of the gss analyzed), which suggested a deliberate avoidance of the interpersonal feature in text development. with regards to the other classes, the writers showed different tendencies towards the participants and discourse domains. the participant received greater attention from the expert writer–twice as often compared to the novice writers. the focus in use was the first person plural pronoun ‘we’. the expert writer did not use the discourse domain much, thus showing a reluctance to refer directly to results and figures, and the research outcomes. rather, the analysis pointed to the use of the instantial gs which occurred three times as often compared to the novice writer. on the other hand, the discourse function of the gs in a corpus of 36 research articles was investigated by gosden (1993). these research articles were selected from the three disciplines of physics, chemistry, and biological sciences. the research articles were extracted from 12 international academic journals, which were written by grammatical subjects in method section 43 native writers and published at universities in the u.k., u.s., and canada. these journals are widely read in these three disciplines and are popular publication targets for disciplinary research writings. to analyze the data, he used davies’ (1988) of the gs in terms of discourse functions which are a) the participant domain, b) the discourse domain, c) the hypothesized and objectified domain, and d) the real-world domain. initial results indicated that the writers had used the gs in starting two thirds of the total sentences found. this would mean that the writers in all three disciplines had selected the gs as a major point of departure with the dominance of the real-world domain. gosden (1993) explained that this predominance emphasizes the empirical content of the scientific research articles. the greater use of the real-world domain resulted from the significant presence of self-evidence in the writings. he also concluded that the rhetorical development of the gs is manifested differently as revealed by the patterns of the thematic structures. more recently, ebrahimi and chan (2015) analyzed the discourse functions of the gs in research article abstracts from two disciplines, namely, applied linguistics and economics. the corpus consisted of 60 research article abstracts (30 from each discipline) extracted from 2010 and 2011 issues of the journals of applied linguistics and oxford economic papers. the analysis of the corpus was based on the classification of discourse functions of gss suggested by gosden (1993) which also included the four mentioned domains. findings revealed disciplinary differences in relation to the discourse functions of the gs enactments in both groups of ra abstracts. disciplinary differences appeared to be determined by a conscious how the writers mapped and balanced the use of these four domains in their ra abstracts. in other words, the findings fundamentally stressed the claim that “academic writing is shaped by the writer’s disciplinary background”, with reference to particularized use of the gs in text development. the literature review showed that little attention was accorded to the study of the gs in the method section of research articles. in addition, due to the importance of gs slot in the comprehension and understandings of information stated in rest of the sentence, the present study aims to functionally analyze the realizations of gs in the method section of research articles (ram) from two divergent disciplines, namely psychology and chemistry. method design this study employed a mixed method design that includes both qualitative and quantitative tools. the quantitative analysis presented the frequency of realizations of gs types used in the ram sections from the two disciplines (psychology and chemistry). the qualitative analysis presented the discourse functions of the gs types used and projected viable explanations for their use. sampling procedure to collect the data for analysis, the researcher went through the following procedures. first, the researcher selected two 44 grammatical subjects in method section disciplines which could represent the writings of social science and hard science based on becher’s (1994) taxonomy, which offered a reasonable criterion for the selection of disciplines. following the selection of the disciplines, the next step was to ensure content validity and exemplary writing. the thompson and reuters index was used as the benchmark and verified by reference to an established publisher, elsevier. for this purpose three journals from each discipline were selected (see appendix 1). the third step was to select ras from which the ram sections could be extracted. to this end, 20 ras (10 from each discipline) were selected based on the following criteria: a) the ras should have the macro structure of introduction, method, result, and discussion (imrd) as proposed by swales (1990). this criterion was set due to the fact that it has been successfully employed by researchers investigating texts in many disciplines, such as applied sciences, psychology, and hard sciences’ disciplines (jalilifar, 2006, p. 147). adhering to the same macro structure across the corpus enabled the researcher to develop a better frame of reference for the analysis of the micro structure level features, among which was the gs. b) the ras selected had to be databased. there were three reasons for limiting the focus to data-based ras. the first was related to the consideration of swales’ (2004) caution that ra may not be a single genre, but rather it could comprise three genres – experimental (data based) ra, theoretical ra, and the review ra. second, there are many data-based research articles that lend themselves well to the analysis of the imrd structure and, third, there is a high inclination towards the publication of data-based ra (jalilifar, 2009). to give currency to the publications, the selected ra was published between 2008 and 2012 (two ra sets from each year). this helped to moderate changes that may occur in style preference, as some journals do modify their requirements as an update. framework of analysis this study employed the framework put forth by ebrahimi (2014). this was motivated by two points: first, it has been tested for use as a conceptual framework for the analysis of sentence initial elements in academic writing genres such as the ra; second, it is a recent comprehensive framework that has been developed after a survey of earlier available frameworks. the framework is illustrated as follows: procedure to analyze the gs types and discourse functions, the analytical procedures were as follows: first, 10 data-based ra from each discipline were extracted from the target journals following which ram sections were extracted and converted into a word file. second, after establishing the data, the 20 rams were carefully scrutinized and analyzed, the main clauses were identified. after having identified the main clauses, the gs of each main clause was isolated and counted. third, the detected gs were subject to analysis by using ebrahimi’s (2014) framework to narrow down the gs types and discourse functions. during this step, the data grammatical subjects in method section 45 table 1 gs types and functions 46 grammatical subjects in method section was ‘cleaned’ several times by means of repeated reviews to mitigate any ambiguous detection of the discourse functions. this was especially vital in the analysis of discourse functions of gs in the psychology and chemistry rams, as the topics covered in these rams were specifically not in the language studies discipline of which the current researchers are aligned to. as a result, in doubtful cases, the researchers sought confirmation with an m.a. or phd candidate who was conducting research in the pyschology and chemistry disciplines. fourth, having analyzed all of the gs for the types and discourse functions, the researcher increased the reliability of his analysis by seeking confirmation on the initial analysis of 80 rams from three phd candidates in applied linguistics who had experience in researching and publishing on topics quite similar to the present article. finally, the frequency and occurrence of the gs types and discourse functions were recorded and tabulated for the rams to be discussed across the disciplines. results and discussion research-related object the results of data analysis concerning the frequencies and functions of gs types and functions are presented in table 2 and 3. the results are discussed in the following subsections. the results of the data analysis indicated the predominance of the research-related object gs over other gss (see table 2 and 3). the employment of this gs fluctuated between 73% in chemistry to 84% in psychology rams. this finding might well suggest that psychology writers have a greater tendency to elaborate on the materials, data, and objects dealt with in the articles compared to their counterparts in chemistry. a plausible reason for this elaboration might be related to the need for more explanation in psychology studies as they are related to human phenomena. as such, the comprehensive descriptions of such resources is likely to entail more details to ensure that the reader is clear about the data and will be convinced about the method feature. these descriptions would have a bearing on objective reporting and the significance of the results that emerges from the descriptions of the object under study. table 2: frequency and percentage of the gs in ram *others include gss that did not reach 5% occurrence in at least one discipline. grammatical subjects in method section 47 as for the discourse function, this gs was used specifically to identify, explain, and define the participants or materials on which the study was based (see table 3). this discourse function was evident in the two sets of rams (example 1-2). this discourse function might support the results of the move and step analysis of ram put forth by lim (2006). he indicated that, with regard to moves 1(describing data collection procedures) and 2 (describing procedures for measuring variables) of the ram, writers need to describe, define, and explain the characteristics of the sample, data, participants and variables. therefore, to describe these steps explicitly, writers need to thematise the sample, data, participant, and variables in the form of clearly stated gs and thereupon elaborated on accordingly. table 3 discourse functions of the gs in ram example 1: the controls were recruited at the university campus through advertisements and included if they ever experienced an overwhelmingly frightful experience that had occurred at least one month ago, of which its which trauma-nature was checked by two questions referring to the dsm-iv a1 and a2 trauma criteria. (psychology 3) example 2: hence, in this study, tedlar bags the two examples above illustrate the extent of description employed thus substantiating that the research-related object as the focused gs had deserved greater attention in the psychology discipline. thus it appears that there is a greater obligation to identify, explain and define the sample, participants, materials and variables on which the study is based in this discipline. research-related process a clear disciplinary difference also emerged from the data analysis concerning the employment of the research-related process gs (see table 2). the chemistry writers were found to use this type of gs more which could stem from the experimentbased nature of chemistry as a hard science discipline. are used as a storage media of voc for both pure gaseous standards and real samples. (chemistry 3) as for the discourse function, this gs was used to identify, explain, and define the processes adopted when conducting data collection, analysis and measurements (see table 3). following lim (2006), in this 48 grammatical subjects in method section rhetorical section, writers need to state the processes used to carry out the study and, more specifically, the three moves of data collection, measurement, and analysis. detailing these processes could help readers who wish to carry out similar experiments using the same processes. it could be inferred that chemistry writers give greater focus on process related subject to convey the message in the ram leading to the possibility that such a gs is a more effective manner of conveying the message in chemistry ram compared to that in psychology. it could also be inferred that there is greater weight laid on replication of research in hard science. with regard to these studies, writers needed to provide a detailed explanation of the processes followed when conducting an experiment with regard to these studies, in the ram section, writers needed to provide a detailed explanation of the processes followed when conducting an experiment. this was not the case in the soft science rams, where writers preferred to discuss the materials in greater detail than the processes adopted. this, in turn, required writers to make more reference to the objects or materials in the thematic position. example 3 and 4 illustrate the realizations of the discourse functions in two sets of rams. example 3: ratings were summed for various domains and for all items to yield a total score, with higher scores being indicative of higher levels of disgust sensitivity. (psychology 2) example 4: the titration processes were repeated until there was no change in the spectra for at least four times titrations indicating binding saturation had been achieved. (chemistry 2) self mention as shown by the figures in table 2, both groups of writers were not inclined towards the use of the self mention gs. this finding indicated that the nature of the chemistry and psychology rams are less interactional. it also showed that chemistry and psychology writers do not prefer to express their viewpoints and stances via self mention gs concerning the research process to their community members. in relation to the discourse functions served by the use of the self mention, the results illustrated certain disciplinary differences (see table 3). the main discourse function served by this gs was describing the process or procedure (example 5-6). the use of the self mention to serve this discourse function could be justified on the grounds that writers need to explicitly describe the processes or the procedures in the ram. for lim (2006 p. 294), the use of self mention in this manner could “further the objective of vigorous, direct, clear and concise communication” in the ram. additional support for this use came from tang and john (1999), kuo (1999) and harwood (2005), who insisted on the use of self mention to serve this discourse function and to provide the reader with adequate information concerning the processes and procedures of research. example 5: we used amos’s missing data estimation procedure to account for minor missing data, which was less than 5% in both samples, with the exception of the state anxiety measures, for which 8 participants were missing due to refusal to give the speech. (psychology 4) grammatical subjects in method section 49 example 6: we another discourse function enacted by the use of the self mention was highlighting a researcher’s contribution to the existing disciplinary-based knowledge. this discourse function was more markedly found in the psychology rams (example 7). for harwood (2005), this discourse function helps writers in terms of “advertising their works as researchers” (p. 1213). this contribution was also found to be helpful in signalling the innovativeness of the procedures and processes undertaken. in this regard, kuo (1999) pointed out that the writers seek confirmation of their contribution to discipline-based knowledge. this contribution could also be in terms of overcoming a methodological difficulty (harwood, 2005). selected 46 sediment samples (from 12 vibro-cores and 3 boxcores; fig. 1) from the ones analyzed by xrf and further analyzed them by means of epxma [16] five months after the cruise. (chemistry 4) example 7: to individualize the iap, we conclusion this focused study investigated the realizations and functions of gs in the writing of the method sections in research articles from two disciplines, namely psychology and chemistry which illustrate the social and hard science division respectively. developed a girl and a boy version of the task and the first letter of the child’s first name was used as one of the me stimuli. (psychology 1) the data were analyzed, and results showed that the use of the research article object was prioritized, followed very much less by the research article process gs and finally quite negligibly by the self-mention gs. in fact, the research article object gs had three quarters of the total gs occurrence. this figure showed a very strong preference among writers in gs manifestation. given this preference, it is to be expected that much of the writings are developed in connection with this gs. this means that much attention is given to the elaboration of the object or material. thus much thematic development evolves from this gs and writers could be made aware of the nature of writing development governed by the gs. the rhetorical matters would stay in synch with the gs focus and in this way, writers learn about clarity of writing that plays its part in total coherence. the results also point to a greater inclination of psychology writing in pursuing the use of research-related gs compared to chemistry writing. on the other hand, the process-related gs is preferred by chemistry writers. overall, the ram section in a research article heavily characterized by the objectrelated gs and as mentioned, the results indicate the significant influence of rhetorical functions of the method section itself in how the writers would elaborate their gss. the results of this study could have implications for novice writers when developing the research article method section. indeed, these novice writers, who possibly lack knowledge of genre writing, are likely to find information on gs choice and development useful in general. specifically, an awareness of discourse functions of the gs could add to meaningful practice in sentence 50 grammatical subjects in method section formation and subsequent effective paragraph development in the method section. © seyed foad ebrahimi & chan swee heng seyed foad ebrahimi is assistant professor of applied linguistics in islamic azad university, shadegan branch, in iran. he teaches courses related to linguistics and applied linguistics. he has published more than 40 research articles in international journals and participated in more than 20 national and international conferences. his research interest is academic writings and genre studies. chan swee heng was professor of applied linguistics in universiti putra malaysia . currently, she teaches courses related to english studies using both online and off-line platforms. her academic interests are in the area of academic writing, language testing and teacher training. references becher, t. (1994). the significance of disciplinary differences. studies in higher education, 19(2), 151-161. borsinger, a. m. (2003). a comparison of the thematic options in novice and expert’s ? research writings. estudios de linguistica aplicada journal, 21(7), 37-51. bruce, n. j. (1983, august). rhetorical constraints on information structure in medical research report writing. paper presented at the esp in the arab world conference, university of aston, uk. bruce, i. (2008). cognitive genre structures in methods sections of research articles: a corpus study. journal of english for academic purposes, 7(1), 38-54. davies, f. (1988). reading between the lines: thematic choices as a device for presenting writers viewpoint in academic discourse. especialist, 9, 173-200. ebrahimi, s. f. (2014). thematicity in english academic research articles across disciplines in hard and soft sciences, unpublished phd thesis, upm, malaysia. ebrahimi, s. f., & chan, s. h. (2015). research article abstracts in applied linguistics and economics: functional analysis of the grammatical subject. australian journal of linguistics, 35(4), 381-397. gollin-kies, s. (2014). methods reported in esp research articles: a comparative survey of two leading journals. english for specific purposes, 36, 27-34. gosden, h. (1993). discourse functions of subject in scientific research articles. applied linguistics, 14(1), 56-75. harwood, n. (2005). ‘nowhere has anyone attempted… in this article i aim to do just that’: a corpus-based study of selfpromotional i and we in academic writing across four disciplines. journal of pragmatics, 37(8), 1207-1231. jalilifar, a. r. (2006). a comparative generic analysis of english theses and dissertation abstracts: variations across disciplines and cultures. unpublished doctoral thesis. isfahan: university of isfahan. jalilifar, a. r. (2009). research article in applied linguistics: a gender-based writing guide. ahwaz: shahid chamran university press. grammatical subjects in method section 51 kuo, ch. (1999). the use of personal pronouns: role relationships in scientific journal articles. english for specific purposes. 18(2), 121–138. lim, j. m. h. (2006). method sections of management research articles: a pedagogically motivated qualitative study. english for specific purposes, 25(3), 282-309. lores, r. (2004). on ra abstracts: from rhetorical structure to thematic organization. journal of english for specific purposes, 23, 280-302. mauranen, a. (1996). discourse competences-evidence from thematic development in native and non-native texts. in e. ventola & a. mauranen (eds.), academic writing: intercultural and textual issues (pp. 195-230). amsterdam: benjamins. ruiying, y., & allison, d. (2003). research articles in applied linguistics: moving from results to conclusion. journal of english for specific purposes, 22 (4), 103-123. swales, j. m. (1990). genre analysis: english in academic and research setting. cambridge: cambridge university press. swales, j. (2004). research genres: explorations and applications. ernst klett sprachen. tang, r., & john, s. (1999). the ‘i’ in identity: exploring writer identity in student academic writing through the first person pronoun. english for specific purposes, 18, 23-39. tarantino, m. (1991). english for science and technology: a quest for legitimacy. english for specific purposes, 10(1), 4760. appendix a journal from which the corpus was extracted. psychology 1. behaviour research and therapy 2. journal of experimental child psychology 3. journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry chemistry 1. microchemical journal 2. european polymer journal 3. journal of molecular structure microsoft word bw research 5.1.7.docx 83 using fairclough’s cda framework on news articles       beyond words vol.5, no. 1, may 2017 a demonstrative analysis of news articles using fairclough’s critical discourse analysis framework roy randy y. briones randybriones@gmail.com qatar university university of birmingham doha, state of qatar birmingham, the united kingdom abstract this paper attempts to demonstrate norman fairclough’s critical discourse analysis (cda) framework by conducting internal and external level analyses on two online news articles that report on the moro islamic liberation front’s (milf) submission of its findings on the “mamasapano incident” that happened in the philippines in 2015. in performing analyses using this framework, the social context and background for these texts, as well as the relationship between the internal discourse features and the external social practices and structures in which the texts were produced are thoroughly examined. as a result, it can be noted that from the texts’ internal discourse features, the news articles portray ideological and social distinctions among social actors such as the philippine senate, the saf troopers, the milf, the milf fighters, and the civilians. moreover, from the viewpoint of the texts as being external social practices, the texts maintain institutional identities as news reports, but they also reveal some evaluative stance as exemplified by the adjectival phrases that the writers employed. having both the internal and external features examined, it can be said that the way these texts were written seems to portray power relations that exist between the philippine government and the milf. key words: critical discourse analysis, discourse analysis, news articles, social practices, social structures, power relations introduction literature review caldas-coulthard (2015) explains that critical discourse analysis (cda) was developed in the 1980s and 1990s to examine language within the framework of politics and ideology. historically, cda is rooted in the works of saussure who analyzed language in terms of its “parole” or instance of language use and “langue” which is language used as a sign system. halliday (1978) posits that language is a social semiotic system that allows people to make meaning based on their interactions with each other. fairclough and wodak (1997) as cited in wodak and meyer (2002) explain cda as “language practice”. cda practitioners agree that discourse is a social practice influenced by the relationship between discourse and human life. it is this relationship between discourse and human interaction where cda gets the term “critical” because cda is not just about the analysis of discourse, but is also about the discourse’s prominence in the social relations and power structures where the discourse originates (caldascoulthard, 2015). using fairclough’s cda framework on news articles 84       with social structures and power relations, fairclough (2003), who advocates a “relational approach” to cda, explains that discourse is analyzed by looking at a text’s internal and external levels and then looking at how these levels relate to each other. internally, a text has action, representational, and identification meanings. action meanings refer to the use of language as a means of interaction. this posits that action meanings are analyzed in terms of speech functions such as making offers, giving suggestions, asking questions, or creating statements and from there, grammatical moods are identified in terms of the nature of the clauses in the text: interrogative, imperative, or declarative. as such, a text that functions as “making an offer” can be examined as either having an interrogative grammatical mood or even perhaps a declarative grammatical mood. representational meanings, on the other hand, refer to “the use of language to say things about the world” (coulthard, 2015). according to bernstein (1990) and van leeuwen (1993), as cited in coulthard (2015), representational meanings are created when language is used to “recontextualize” events. we recontextualize language in terms of how we represent elements of the world. for example, we represent a certain group of people or “social actors”, according to fairclough, through proper names, or job titles, or through their characteristics. externally, a text occurs as a social event within a social practice that works inside the larger framework of a social structure. a third level (i.e. discourse level) is considered as the relation between the internal and external levels because it examines a text as a genre, as a discourse, and in terms of its style. figure 1 above presents the fairclough (2003) framework while figure 2 presents a framework for analyzing the representation of social actors in texts (van leeuwen, 2008). 85 using fairclough’s cda framework on news articles       beyond words vol.5, no. 1, may 2017 given the theoretical framework discussed above, this paper is founded on the primary research objective of demonstrating that social relations of power in philippine society can be portrayed in texts like news articles. in the case of this research which performs analysis of two news articles as a way to demonstrate this portrayal of power relations, this research features more specific underlying objectives. these are analyzing the internal properties of these news articles using fairclough’s (2003) cda framework, analyzing the external properties of these aforementioned texts, conducting discourse level analysis of these texts and from these, proposing generalizations on how the internal and external properties of these texts contribute to demonstrations of power relations in the philippines. context and background the focus of the two texts (see appendix) is the “mamasapano incident” which happened on january 25, 2015. this incident stems from a military operation that using fairclough’s cda framework on news articles 86       was conducted in mamasapano, mindanao, philippines. its aim was to kill the malaysian terrorist zulkifli bin hir – one of the us federal bureau of investigation’s (fbi) most wanted terrorists. the operation, named oplan exodus, was initially a success as philippine troops were able to kill zulkifli bin hir. however, it ultimately resulted in an encounter between philippine troops and muslim fighters and this has resulted in the deaths of 44 philippine soldiers and 18 muslim fighters who are purportedly known as moro islamic liberation front (milf) members. this incident draws its broader significance because of an important precursory event which is the submission of the draft bangsamoro basic law (bbl) in 2014. this law, which was personally submitted by the philippine president to congress, is significant because its ratification can pave the way for peace and development in the prevalently muslim southern island of mindanao. however, because of the mamasapano incident, it is now feared that the bbl might be suspended (merueñas, 2015). such implication is relevant to this analysis as it backgrounds the power relations that occur between the philippine government and the milf – the primary proponent of the bbl. in view of this paper’s research objectives which are previously mentioned, the relationship between the internal and external properties of the texts were identified and the texts’ contribution to social relations of power was examined by conducting the following: 1. internal level analysis by identifying the speech functions and grammatical mode of the texts 2. identifying the social actors and analyzing the resources that were used to represent these social actors and identifying the process types that created the texts’ representational meaning 3. identifying the modalities and stance that were taken to create identification meaning 4. conducting of external level analysis by analyzing the social practice and social structure within the texts 5. conducting discourse level analysis by looking at the texts’ genre, discourse, and styles. as a result of this critical discourse analysis on the two sample online news articles, a number of generalizations regarding the relation of the internal and external properties of the texts and how these texts contribute to existing power relations in philippine society are discussed. methods both fairclough’s (2003) and van leeuwen’s (2008) frameworks for conducting cda were applied on two online news articles. text 1 is titled, “milf submits own mamasapano report to senate” and was written by ernie reyes from interaksyon. com, the online news portal of studio 5, a privately owned philippine television network. text 2 is titled, “read: milf report on mamasapano incident”, and was published in sunstar, a privately owned philippine online news portal. in completing this research, the texts’ action, representational, and identification meanings which are analyzed at the internal levels were evaluated and then related to the text’s external levels. the texts were then examined at discourse level to identify the genre, the discourse, and the accompanying styles. ultimately, this paper discussed how the texts contribute to social relations of power in philippine society. furthermore, in as much as this research demonstrates these power relations using fairclough’s cda framework on news articles 87       through the texts that were analyzed, it can be worth noting that this research is merely demonstrative in its attempt. as such, this research is meant to demonstrate the social phenomenon of power relations, as it is depicted in the cda-based analyses of two news articles. hence, with the admission that this research might be limited in its scope, the author, nonetheless hopes that this paper will have motivated researchers interested in critical discourse analysis to conduct related research that covers more extensive corpora. results and discussion internal level analyses using fairclough’s cda framework (2003), from an internal analytic perspective, the texts function as statements with declarative grammatical moods. the texts present two primary social actors: the milf and the philippine senate, with the former assuming an active function and the latter assuming the role of “beneficiary” of the action. these textual representations in view of power relations in the philippines are significant as they can imply that the milf, despite being a revolutionary muslim group, is showing a certain level of commitment towards the resolution of the incident and that it was cooperating with the philippine senate’s request for an investigation. moreover, such representations may be important because of a more important political consideration, i.e. the passing of the bangsamoro basic law (medina, 2015). additionally, the texts featured epistemic assertive statements that indicated “knowledge exchange” and evaluative statements that provided the texts’ positive stance towards the quality of the milf’s report. such positive “stance” is seen in phrases like “full report”, “officially submitted”, and “helpful” in text 1 and “35page investigation report” in text 2. action meanings of texts 1 and 2 table 1 below presents the texts’ internal level analyses. sentences 1 to 6 reflect the declarative grammatical mode. however, sentence number 7 in text 1 and sentence number 3 in text 2, while still following a declarative grammatical mode through the verb phrase, “…iqbal said”, are different from the other sentences because they also assume an optative grammatical mode (palmer, 1986) by virtue of the speaker’s expression of a wish which is evidenced by the speaker’s statement of “we trust…, and we hope…”. representational meaning analyses fairclough (2003) adds that representational meanings are also examined in the text’s internal level analysis. representational meanings refer to how language is used to say things about the world. bernstein (1990) and van leeuwen (1993) refer to this as the recontextualization of events using language. fairclough (2003) explains that recontextualization is manifested in the following elements: the people or social actors and the things that people do or the process types. in analyzing representational meanings, “social actors” are examined based on how they are represented in the text. van leeuwen (2008) expands this by analyzing if social actors are “included” or “excluded” from the text and then delves more deeply into representation details as figure 2 above reveals. tables 2 and 3 below identify the social actors in the texts and then detail the representations that are created for these social actors. 88 using fairclough’s cda framework on news articles       beyond words vol.5, no. 1, may 2017 89 using fairclough’s cda framework on news articles       beyond words vol.5, no. 1, may 2017 the following observations on how the social actors are represented in text 1 can then be drawn: 1. all the social actors are included in that they are recognized and expressed. 2. the senate committees headed by senators ferdinand marcos, jr. and grace poe are represented according to their nominations and functions. 3. zulkifli bin hir, the senate committees, and the head of mission are all categorized. zulkifli bin hir is categorized for his identification as a malaysian terrorist while the others are categorized for their functions. 4. zulkifli bin hir, the saf, the milf fighters, and the civilians are differentiated through the use of labels (i.e. malaysian terrorist, police commandos, milf fighters, and civilians). 5. the milf and mohagher iqbal are activated to show that they are the performers of the activity (i.e. the submitting of the incident report) while the senate, the senate committees, the identified senators, and the head of the mission are portrayed as passive participants who “benefit” from the submission of the report. 6. lastly, zulkifli bin hir and the saf, the milf fighters, and the civilians are also represented as passive participants, but they differ from those in item 5 above because they were the “subjects” who were “fatally” affected by the incident. looking at these representations vis-à-vis the social structure of philippine media, it can be derived that politicians are typically identified by their positions in government and by what they do in those positions. also, philippine media can create ideological distinctions based on the nominations that are provided as exemplified in how philippine troops and muslim fighters are labelled. using fairclough’s cda framework on news articles 90       on the other hand, how the social actors in text 2 are represented is detailed below: 1. all the social actors are included in that they are recognized and expressed. 2. senator ferdinand marcos is activated as the “agent” who performs the receiving of the mamasapano report. 3. senator grace poe is passivized as the channel through which the report was submitted. 4. senator grace poe and milf chairman mohagher iqbal are differentiated through their nominations (i.e. senator poe as leading “the senate’s investigation on the tragedy” and mohagher iqbal as the milf chairman). 5. the members of the milf and the bangsamoro islamic armed force were “beneficialized” as being absolved from any liability. looking at the above observations from both texts, a common relationship with the larger social patterns and power relations in philippine society is discussed below. in the same manner that marcos, jr. and poe are represented as senators and functionalized as senate committee chair and head, respectively, the practice of nominating philippine politicians according to their position and/or function in government is prevalent in philippine media. in that these texts differentiate and nominalize the other social actors, namely the “police commandos”, “milf fighters”, “members of the milf”, and the “bangsamoro islamic armed force”, this representation is also evident in the philippine social pattern of distinguishing between ideological inclinations. for instance, media often nominate forces allied with the government as “forces”, “commandos” , “troopers”, and “soldiers” while rebel forces are typically named as “fighters”, “insurgents”, “militants”, and “terrorists” (afp, 2014); (legaspi, 2015). with these reflections on the relation between the text and the philippine media, it can be observed that news reporting is often affected by political and ideological biases (cmfr philippines, 2013). how philippine media in general can be politically and ideologically inclined can be evident on how philippine politicians, government troops, muslim fighters, and civilians are often represented through varying nominations and functionalizations. power relations in philippine society, as the texts reveal, are also often characterized by media’s way of employing “key symbols” to articulate social structure relationships (pertierra, 2012). philippine media is a revelation of how “key” political personalities can either be foregrounded or backgrounded depending on how the “symbol” will benefit. philippine news reporting nominates and functionalizes philippine politicians in that these people can enjoy either positive or negative exposure. in the case of the two texts, nominating and functionalizing senators marcos and poe as senate committee chairpersons can mean positive exposure for them. the same can be observed with mohagher iqbal whose nomination as milf chairman and agent in the submission of the report can positively portray him and the milf as willing parties in the resolution of the incident. such representations may be significant in the power relations that exist between the electorate and government because as defensor-santiago (2012) asserts, “in our democracy, the principal using fairclough’s cda framework on news articles 91       source of political information is the mass media…” and how positive or negative politicians are represented in mass media will affect existing and subsequent issues of power. in the previous analyses, the social actors in the texts were identified and related vis-à-vis the larger social patterns and power relations. however, the process types within the texts must also be analyzed to achieve a fuller understanding of these representations (halliday, 1994). from these, fairclough (2003) identifies the categories of process types: a. material; b. verbal, c. mental, d. relational, and e. existential 92 using fairclough’s cda framework on news articles       beyond words vol.5, no. 1, may 2017 as can be examined, the dominant process types in the texts are material, verbal, relational, behavioral, and mental. the different categories of process types and the bold-faced examples in each sentence in the texts are enumerated below. the analysis of which follows thereafter. from these, the majority of the texts reveal material processes that identify the milf as the “agent” in the submission of the report. this “submission of the report” is important in establishing the milf’s relation with the larger social pattern and the power relations in the philippines. historically, mendoza (2014) reports that the milf has been instrumental in signing the framework agreement on the bangsamoro (the precursor of the bangsamoro basic law) in 2012 and the eventual ratification of the bbl can pave the way for the cessation of the fourdecades old conflict between the philippine government and the milf. hence, knowing that a much bigger issue is at stake, (i.e. the ratification of the bbl), it was of utmost importance that the milf cooperate with the philippine government in their compliance with the senate’s request that a report on the incident is submitted. likewise, other material processes that were identified reveal that the relevant senate committees are deliberating on the proposed bbl as a result of the incident and that the incident has also had effects on the combatants who were involved. with this, larger power relations come in as media has reported that the mamasapano clash might negatively affect the peace pact (i.e. the bangsamoro basic law) and even future investments (abs-cbn news, 2015), (merueñas, 2015), and (gma network, 2015). in the event that philippine congress fails to ratify the bbl because of the mamasapano incident, the ability of muslim groups to form their own autonomous government will also be stymied. identification meanings fairclough (2003) explains identification meanings by looking at modality and evaluation. table 5 presents the modalities of the texts. from table 5, both texts demonstrate an assertive epistemic modality. both texts featured reported speech like “the senate report… described…,”, “mohagher… said…,” “he added…,”, and “we trust…” to support the statements that have been mentioned. in looking at how these modalities relate to the larger social practices and structures, parks (2014) explains that news reports are a form of knowledge exchange where news reporters or writers commit to the presentation of facts as they are narrated from the source. this explains why the texts show statements that reveal facts surrounding the milf’s submission of the report. moreover, it is important that a balanced coverage is achieved and the texts do this by reporting the event as epistemic assertive statements from the milf’s side (i.e. them acting as agent) and by reporting how the senate describes the incident as a “massacre”. text 1, in particular, also modalizes its reportage of marwan, being “…said to have been killed”. lastly, the texts also include reported speech from mohagher iqbal. all these are in consonance with practices in media where journalists are asked to be transparent with their sources and methods and that facts are professionally assembled and verified (kovak and rosenstiel, 2007). using fairclough’s cda framework on news articles 93       from table 6, many of the sentences feature evaluative identification meanings. evaluative statements express the desirability or undesirability of the contents. the texts, from the writers’ stance, are filled with adjectives and participial adjectives that convey the quality of the report (i.e. as “full”, “special”, “submitted”, “helpful”), the evaluative magnitude of the incident (i.e. as “deadly”, as a “massacre”), the incident’s effects on the social actors who were directly implicated in the incident (i.e. as “killed”, “dead”, “absolved”) and the incident’s possible implications to the proposed bangsamoro basic law (i.e. as “hanging”). from the point of view of waterhouse (cited in cole, 2008), adjectives in journalistic writing “should not be allowed unless they have something to say...” and “if they add relevantly to the information being provided, they can stay.” in the case of the texts, the writers used evaluative elements for the report saying it is “full” and “special”, in addition to the reported speech of mohagher iqbal which used words like “officially submitted” and “helpful” to lend credence to the quality of the report and to underscore the compliance of the milf. this acts as a counter-balance to descriptors that depicted the incident as a “massacre” and the secondary social actors as “killed” and “dead”. from the media social structure, using evaluative and descriptive elements in news writing adds “color” to the news although it is advised that these elements are used sparingly. considering that broader power relations depicting the importance of ratifying the bbl lies at the background of the mamasapano incident, it may have been necessary for the texts to feature evaluative and descriptive elements to positively present the milf as having complied with the requirement of submitting the incident report, regardless of the descriptive gravity of the incident. using fairclough’s cda framework on news articles 94       external level analysis external level analysis focuses on the social practice where the texts are situated and the social structure that encompasses the social practice. in identifying social practice, fairclough (2003) identifies the one who “performed” the text and the field where the text is coming from. in this case, the “performers” or the writers are mr. ernie reyes who works as a reporter for studio 5 and an anonymous author who works for sunstar. the texts function within the social practice of news reporting and all these (i.e. the performer and the field) work together within a larger social structure which, in this case are privately owned media companies. externally, the texts were written within the social practice of news reporting which typically works within a social structure, (i.e. the media). despite being private media companies (studio 5 and sunstar), news agencies will typically feature reports that present the government as either the initiator of social reforms or as the recipient of compliance from nongovernment groups. this assertion is underscored in tatad’s (1978) (as cited in gonzales, 2003) declaration that press freedom has always yielded to higher considerations such as the security of the state and the right and duty of the state to provide for the well-being of its citizens, among others. hartley (1982) adds that government is one of two most important agencies in news production. in this case, it is clear that when the texts presented the government as recipient of the milf’s report, the texts were indirectly representing the government and the security of the state as having primacy and this is evidenced in the milf’s need to concede to the government’s request for an investigation (as stated in text 1). conclusion from fairclough’s (2003) and van leeuwen’s (2008) frameworks for analyzing texts at the internal and external levels, and relating these to the social structure and power relations in philippine society, this paper is able to present the following conclusions: at discourse level analysis, the texts function as online news reports that assume a declarative function because they provide information regarding the milf’s submission of the report to the senate. representational meanings generally reveal the activated inclusion of the milf and mohagher iqbal as the primary “performers” of the “submitting” of “the report”, whereas the senate and the relevant senators “act” as passive “beneficiaries” of the report. this shifting between the activated and passivized social actors occurs amidst the nomination, categorization, and functionalization that happen among other social actors (the milf, the senate, the saf troopers, the milf fighters, the civilians) aims to create ideological and social distinctions. the texts also feature an institutional identity. this is because news reports as a genre belong to a speech community that shares communicative norms. these are reflected in their unique linguistic behavior (paltridge, 2006). bhatia (1993) explains that a genre is governed by a mutually defined and agreed communicative purpose which in this case is hard news reporting. as with news reports, these are generally epistemic statements in their modalities and sometimes evaluative in their stance. hence, while the texts maintain institutional identities as news reports that are characterized by straight-forward presentation of facts, these texts also reveal using fairclough’s cda framework on news articles 95       some evaluative stance as exemplified by the adjectival phrases that the writers employed. from these relations between the texts’ internal properties (action, representational, and identification meanings) and the external properties (social practice of news reporting and the media social structure), the way these texts were written seems to portray power relations that exist between the philippine government and the milf. this is evident when the texts underscore the milf’s cooperation with the philippine government’s request for the former’s submission of the report. with the milf being a revolutionary armed group, their representation as the active performer of the submission of the report portrays them as willing and cooperative parties in the investigation of the incident, in particular, and as interested parties who are aiming for the passing of the bangsamoro basic law which is the larger issue that not only influences the incident, but also the peace and the welfare of the muslims in mindanao. © roy randy y. briones roy randy y. briones currently works as an english lecturer at the foundation program of qatar university. he has also taught at the yanbu industrial college and jubail technical institute in saudi arabia and at the university of santo tomas and de la salle university in the philippines. he earned his first ma in teaching english language from de la salle university and is currently working on his second ma in the area of applied linguistics at the university of birmingham. he has published papers in a number of refereed international journals and has presented papers on english language teaching in conferences held in the philippines, cambodia, qatar, oman, and saudi arabia. he is interested in doing research in corpus linguistics, move analysis, critical discourse analysis, systemic functional linguistics, and error analysis. references abs-cbn news. (2015). how mama-sapano clash affects mindanao peace pact. retrieved from http://www. abscbnnews.com/video/ nation/ regions/ 02/16/15/how-mama-sapano-clash-affectsmindanao-peace-pact associated free press. (2014). fifteen killed as soldiers, insurgents clash in philippines. retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/articl e-2834945/fifteen-killed-soldiersinsurgents-clash-philippines.html bernstein, b. (1990). the structuring of pedagogic discourse: class, codes & control, volume iv. london: routledge. bhatia, v. k. (1993). analysing genre: language use in professional settings. london: longman. cmfr philippines. (2013). the philippine press and media. retrieved from https://prezi.com/lxxyh94skpnr/thephilippine-press-and-media/. cole, p. (2008). news writing. retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/ books/2008/sep/25/writing.journalism.news defensor-santiago, m. (2012). the problem with elections. retrieved from http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/20 12/1122_santiago1.asp. fairclough, n. (2003). analysing discourse: textual analysis for social research. london: routledge. gonzales, p. (2003). philippine mass media today. retrieved from http://www. tigweb.org/youthmedia/panorama/ article.html?contentid=2010&print=true. using fairclough’s cda framework on news articles 96       halliday, m. a. k. (1978). language as social semiotic. london: edward arnold. halliday, m. a. k. (1994). an introduction to functional grammar. london: edward arnold. hartley, j. (1982) understanding news. london: methuen. kovak, b. and rosenstiel, t. (2007). the elements of journalism: what newspeople should know and the public should expect. new york: three rivers press. legaspi, a. (2015). cayetano: mama-sapano clash happened because milf shot at govt forces. retrieved from http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/4 34847/news/nation/cayetano-mamasapano-clash-happened-because-milf-shotat-govt-forces medina, a. (2015, february 21). bang-samoro law ‘rightful answer’ for peace in mindanao, sulu solon says. retrieved from gma news: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/4 41687/news/nation/bangsamoro-law rightful-answer-for-peace-in-mindanao sulu-solon-says mendoza, f. (2014). the bangsamoro basic law is a historic opportunity for indigenous women. retrieved from http://www.c-r.org/comment/bangsa-morobasic-law-historic-opportunity-indigenouswomen#sthash. garnxjwy .dpuf merueñas, m. like domino effect: de lima fears delay in own probe of mamasapano clash. retrieved from http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/4 49337/news/nation/like-domino-effect-delima-fears-delay-in-own-probe-ofmamasapano-clash palmer, f. r. (2001). mood and modality (2nd ed.). new york: cambridge university press. paltridge, b. (2006). discourse analysis: an introduction. new york: continuum. parks, b. (2014, march 10). william parks, adjunct instructor. retrieved from ohlonecollege: http://www.ohlone. edu/people/bparks/ pertierra, r. (2012). the new media, society & politics in the philippines. berlin: fesmedia asia rivera, d.o. (2015). mamasapano clash raises uncertainty for investments in bangsamoro area, says neda chief. retrieved from http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/4 20000/economy/business/mamasapanoclash-raises-uncertainty-for-investments-inbangsamoro-area-says-neda-chief. van leeuwen, t. (1993). language and representation: the recontextualisation of participants, activities and reactions. unpublished phd thesis, university of sydney, sydney, australia. retrieved from http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/1 615 van leeuwen, t. (2008). discourse and practice: new tools for critical discourse analysis. new york: oxford university press. wodak, r., & meyer, m. (eds.). (2001). methods of critical discourse analysis. london: sage publications. using fairclough’s cda framework on news articles 97       appendices text 1 milf submits own mamasapano report to senate by: ernie reyes, interaksyon.com march 24, 2015 1:45 pm http://www.interaksyon.com/article/107564/milf-submits-own-mamasapano-report-to-senate manila, philippines -(update 2:24 p.m.) the moro islamic liberation front has submitted to the senate the full report of its special investigation commission on the january 25 mamasapano incident. copies of the report were handed to the committees on local government chaired by senator ferdinand marcos jr., which is deliberating the proposed bangsamoro basic law, and on public order and dangerous drugs headed by senator grace poe, which spearheaded the senate probe into the deadly special action force mission to get malaysian terrorist zulkifli bin hir, alias "marwan." while marwan is said to have been killed, the mission also left 44 police commandos, 18 milf fighters, and at least five civilians dead, and the mindanao peace process hanging in the balance. the senate report on its probe described the mamasapano incident as a "massacre." in identical cover letters to marcos and poe, mohagher iqbal, chairman of the milf negotiating panel and chairman of the bangsamoro transition commission, said: “i respectfully submit herewith a copy of the full report of the moro islamic liberation front investigation on the mamasapano incident, in response to your request for said transmittal in your letter dated march 9, 2015.” he added that the report had also been officially submitted to the head of mission of the international monitoring team in cotabato city on march 22. “we trust that this report is treated with fairness, and we hope that all the information provided herein will be helpful in your evaluation of the incident,” iqbal said. text 2 read: milf report on mamasapano incident http://www.sunstar.com.ph/breaking-news/2015/03/24/read-milf-report-mamasapanoincident-399171 senator ferdinand marcos jr., chair senate committee on local government, received on tuesday the 35-page investigation report of the moro islamic liberation front (milf) on the mamasapano incident last january 25. the report, which was submitted through senator grace poe who led the senate's investigation on the tragedy, was signed by milf chairman mohagher iqbal. "we trust that this report is treated with fairness and we hope that all information provided therein will be helpful in your evaluation of the incident," iqbal said in a letter dated march 23. the report, which absolved members of the milf and the bangsamoro islamic armed force of any liability, was also submitted to the head of mission of the international monitoring team in cotabato city. 52 english noun postmodifiers beyond words vol. 6, no. 1, may 2018 the variations of the english noun postmodifiers in the undergraduate students’ compositions seto ariwibowo surabaya & hendra tedjasuksmana english education department graduate school widya mandala catholic university surabaya abstract this study investigated the acquisition of english noun post-modifiers in the compositions written by writing iii students of the english department of widya mandala catholic university surabaya. it sought to discover the variations of english noun postmodification constructions, their complexity level, their accuracy, and their efficiency found in the end-ofterm compositions of the students of widya mandala catholic university surabaya. the types of noun postmodifications, their complexity level, their accuracy, and efficiency of use may reflect the students’ level acquisition of the structures of the english noun postmodifications. the result showed eight of the nine types of postmodifiers were present, while one type was absent. the preposition phrase was the most dominant type postmodifier with 65.235% of occurrences. the embedding of the postmodified nouns was dominated by the zero embedding, while the rate of the single postmodification was also significantly high. such dominances of preposition phrase, the zero embedding, and single postmodification, and the presence of such cases of lengthy and ambiguous structures noun postmodification indicate the students’ level of complexity of the structure of english noun postmodification, accuracy, and efficiency of the english noun postmodifications. keywords: postmodifiers, embedding, writing introduction the study is aimed at investigating the acquisition of the structure of postmodification in the compositions of english department students, which may be reflected on the variability of the types of postmodifiers of english nouns, the complexity level of the structure of english noun postmodification (abbreviated np), the accuracy level of the structure of english noun postmodification, and the efficiency level of the structure of english noun postmodification in the writing iii class end-of-term test compositions. according to quirk, greenbaum, leech, and svartvik (1985), postmodifiers can be of phrasal postmodifiers and clausal postmodifiers. the phrasal postmodifiers include such phrases of preposition, adjective, adverb, and noun. preposition phrases enable writers to pack textual information in such a dense manner (biber, johansson, leech, conrad, and finegan, 1999). quirk et al. (1985) stated that an english noun postmodifiers 53 adverb phrase in a postmodification position represents time or place. adverb phrases and adjective phrases as well can be used to provide more concise structure of finite clauses. this conciseness of structure resembles that of preposition phrases. on the other hand, the clausal postmodifiers include nonfinite and finite postmodifying clauses. the use of nonfinite clauses is for economy; they use fewer words to deliver significantly the same meaning as finite clauses do (quirk et al., 1985; neman, 1989; biber et al., 1999). the nonfinite is further subdivided into such postmodifying clauses of present participle, past participle and to-infinitive. quirk et al. (1985) state that present participle clauses correspond with active voice, while past participle clauses are firmly linked with passive voice, and to-infinitive clauses may take active or passive voice to describe tense such as future tenses, or modality. the finite postmodifying clauses are subdivided into restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses. the finite clauses or relative clauses may help minimize or even remove ambiguity that could result from the use of a preposition phrase (bwritingiber et al., 1999). restrictive clause is a clause which gives additional information about a noun or noun phrase in a sentence and restricts or defines the meaning of the noun. such clause is not separated with a comma and usually begins with who, whose, that, which, why, when, or where (richards, platt, and platt, 1992). nonrestrictive clause is a clause which gives additional information about a noun or noun phrase in a sentence but does not restrict or define the noun or noun phrase. such a clause is separated with a comma and usually begins with who, whose, that, which, why, when, or where. sånglöf (2014) in his research on the use of preand post-modification in nps in bilingual learners of english in sweden found that prepositional phrases are mostly used in the np constructions, followed by finite clauses, and nonfinite clauses. sharndama (2015) emphasized the importance of the noun phrase as it appears in such functions as subject, object, subject complement, or complement of a preposition. in his qualitative study, sharndama analyzed the structure of noun phrases in professional legal texts. the texts revealed dominant complex postmodifying elements functioning as attributes of the noun head. in legal contexts, postmodifiers are useful to avoid ambiguity in interpretation to achieve effectiveness in meaning delivery. on the other hand, such effort to avoid ambiguity in interpretation may result in lengthy noun phrases. in his study, sharndama found that lengthy postmodified noun phrases contain predominantly finite clauses as postmodifiers. further, the premodifiers, which were mostly adjective phrases, served as the given information, while the postmodifiers, which were preposition phrases, served as the new information. hutter (2015) found that noun modifications occur differently in patterns in such parts of scientific articles as introduction, method, result, and discussion in the forms of attributive adjectives, premodifying nouns, and prepositional phrases. however, relative clauses, -ing clause postmodifiers, or -ed clause postmodifiers showed insignificant differences in use. undergraduate english department students have a lot of chances to write; however, what types of postmodifiers and how they use them are still unknown as far as the writers have learned. therefore, the writers would like to investigate to what extent the undergraduate students are able to 54 english noun postmodifiers use postmodifiers in their sentential constructions. thus, the current study strives to discover and reveal the types of postmodifiers along with their variability of occurrences, complexity of structures, accuracy, and efficiency the english department undergraduate students’ use in their end-of-term compositions . methods the subjects of the study were 36 students out of 54 joining writing iii class of the english department of widya mandala catholic university surabaya. furthermore, writing iii students were chosen due to their completion of structure i, structure ii, and structure iii, which mainly covered tenses, phrases, clauses and sentences. four steps of documents analysis were conducted to reveal the students’ acquisition of noun postmodification of the simplicity or complexity level. the four steps were frequency analysis, complexity analysis, accuracy analysis, and efficiency analysis. the writers did the frequency analysis to check on the variability of occurrences of the types of noun postmodifiers. noun phrases containing postmodifiers were analyzed to attain the number of the occurrences of the types of noun postmodifiers. the analysis would reveal the presence or absence of noun postmodifiers. the complexity analysis was used to reveal the kinds of postmodifiers that cooccurred and post-modified a noun head, which would suggest the complexity level of a noun phrase. this complexity analysis analyzed the embedded phrases and the single or multiple postmodification structures. the accuracy analysis was done by counting the postmodified nouns having no ambiguity and those having ambiguity. the efficiency analysis was done by counting the postmodified nouns having no proper conciseness and those having proper conciseness. in this study, a lecturer who has been teaching english for about 10 years became the triangulator to recheck the accuracy of the noun phrase constructions made by the students under this study. findings out of nine possibilities of postmodified nps, eight were found in the students’ compositions as in the following table 1: english noun postmodifiers 55 such imbalance of the distribution between preposition phrase and the other types of postmodifiers may suggest a low variety of the patterns of noun phrases with postmodifiers. this might indicate the students’ insufficient acquisition of noun postmodifiers. the next analysis process was done through the complexity analysis involving the discovery of the embedding of noun phrases and the cooccurrence of postmodification. the result of the analysis is shown in table 2 below: the above data suggests the very high percentage of non-embedding noun phrases. in other words, the complexity level of the post-modified noun is low, which confirmed a more obvious degree of simplicity of the structure of noun postmodification. the next complexity analysis was focused on the single or multiple postmodification structure cooccurrence in a noun phrase. the result of the analysis is shown in the following table 3 below: 56 english noun postmodifiers this analysis result shows another extreme dominance of one against another, between single and multiple noun postmodification. the noun with one postmodifier outnumbers the nouns with two postmodifiers with 488 occurrences (99.998%) against one (0.002%). such short length of noun phrases and noun postmodifiers of low level complexity in combinations may be interpreted that the students might be incompetent of using complex postmodifiers. another analysis is the accuracy analysis. the analysis was done by classifying the ambiguous and unambiguous noun phrases and counting them and presenting them into table 4 below. table 4 shows the high dominance of postmodified nouns having no ambiguity with 486 (99.387%) occurrences against the three (0.613%) occurrences of postmodified nouns having ambiguity. this may suggest a positive level of accuracy of the structures of noun postmodification since there were more unambiguous noun phrases than the ambiguous ones. to get the final confirmation on the acquisition level of the structure of noun postmodifications, one more process of analysis was employed, focusing on the efficiency of the postmodification structure found in the analyzed compositions. this analysis was provided in table 5 below: english noun postmodifiers 57 table 5 above shows a significant dominance of postmodified nouns having proper conciseness with 480 (98.160%) occurrences against the nine (1.840%) occurrences of postmodified nouns having no proper conciseness. such dominance is another positive indication of a good level of acquisition of noun postmodification in terms of efficiency. thus, we can now confirm such levels of the variability, the complexity, the accuracy, and the efficiency. the types of noun postmodifiers were now confirmed that there were eight of nine types discovered i.e. preposition phrase, adverb phrase, noun phrase, present participle clause, past participle clause, to-infinitive clause, restrictive clause, and non-restrictive clause. the complexity level showed low complexity due to the dominant embedded noun phrases with postmodifiers and single postmodification, while the accuracy level and the efficiency level indicated positive findings with only few data of ambiguous and inefficient noun phrases. discussion based on the findings in the analyzed compositions, the writing iii students’ level of the acquisition of the english noun postmodification suggests decent variations in the structure of noun postmodification with the occurrences of eight types of noun postmodifiers as seen in table 1. the results show the immense predominance of preposition phrase of all types of postmodifiers with up to 65.235% against the other types. another sharp difference also showed the zero embedding of postmodified noun phrase with 88.753% against the 10.838% of single and 0.409% of double embeddings as seen in table 2. the last barely comparable comparison is between the single noun postmodification with 99.998 % against 0.002% of multiple postmodifications as seen in table 3. the variability of noun postmodifiers the high predominance of the preposition phrase may be caused by compactness of ideas or information or description that enables the students to express their ideas more concisely and effectively. such simplicity of idea structuring seemed to be dominantly favoured, for example: the [speed] <of the [connection] <of social media>>… the combined numbers of frequency and percentages of restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses make up 111 (23%) occurrences of finite clauses as seen in table 1. both non-finite and finite clauses matter in that they help prevent ambiguity in the noun being post-modified by a preposition phrase (quirk et al., 1985: 1243). finite and non-finite clauses may be 58 english noun postmodifiers less efficient in terms of compactness of information or the number of words being used but are helpful in a more effective delivery of the message. for example: …[advantages] <on people’s social life>. the head noun advantages may still be postmodified to provide a clearer meaning of what kind of advantages that social media bring on people’s social life. the postmodifier that set more open-mindedness to promote more tolerance may set a more explicit meaning. thus, the sentence now would read so, in the end, social media really bring [advantages] <on people’s social life> <that set more openmindedness to promote more tolerance >. the least dominant postmodifiers include those achieving very low numbers of frequency and percentage (see table 1). postmodifying to-infinitive clauses are commonly used to express messages, among others, plans or future actions (biber et al., 1999). besides, to-infinitive clauses can be used to express passive or active voice (quirk et al., 1985), for example: … the [ones] <who will make indonesian people become better through.>. the square-bracketed head noun ones is postmodified by a non-finite clause who will make indonesian people become better through…. as the noun phrase expresses a future action or possibility, the rephrased postmodification would be the [ones] <to make indonesian people become better through …> post-modifying past participle clauses were of only six occurrences (1.227%) as seen in table 1. one reason is that the passive voice requires a restructured clause, which is a complex order variation (biber et al., 1999). thus, a more complex phrase restructuring seemed to be avoided. six post-modifying clauses could actually be rephrased with the use of past participle phrases to create a denser post-modifying structure. for example: …a [language]<which can be used to talk to anyone> the noun phrase may be rephrased with a [language] <used to talk to anyone>. the present participle clause occurred only twice as seen in table 1; however, some post-modifying finite clauses which were found could be rephrased with postmodifying non-finite clauses, in this case the present participle clause. for example: [applications] <which allow us to do it>… by rephrasing the postmodifying finite clause with allowing us to do it, we now have [applications] <allowing us to do it>... the students tend to use the finite clauses to post-modify the head nouns since present participle clauses were possibly considered to be more difficult or unknown. this implies that they did not understand the principle of conciseness in writing. post-modifying noun phrases were present with 14 (2.863%) occurrences. the post-modifying noun phrases found were dominant to provide the background information about people as the head noun. the complexity of noun postmodification structures. the complexity of the structures of noun postmodification found in the analyzed compositions were not satisfactory. the dominance of complex noun phrases with zero embedding and the dominance of single postmodification were a sign of low complexity. the embedding of noun phrases. zero embedding is a case where a noun phrase contains only a pair of a head noun and a postmodifier out of 434 zero embedded english noun postmodifiers 59 noun phrases were found. the students used only a head noun with a preposition phrase being the postmodifier. again, this seems to be the patterns mostly recognized by the students. the cooccurrence of noun phrase postmodifiers. the single noun postmodification greatly outnumbered the multiple one with 488 (99.998%) occurrences against one (0.002%) occurrence respectively. the students might avoid using the multiple postmodification as it is more difficult to construct in order to express their ideas clearly. quirk et al. (1985) stated that multiple modification can actually provide explicitness in meaning delivery, but at the same time, it may cause ambiguity if not properly structured. the accuracy of noun postmodification structures. the accuracy was also confirmed that there were some instances of inaccuracy throughout the 36 analyzed compositions. thus, the accuracy of constructing the structures of the noun postmodification still needed to be learned by the students. in writing, especially when using multiple postmodification, the students should be able to construct concisely and clearly to get readers’ attention. the ambiguity problem was found on some single and multiple embedded phrases that look generally fine, but logically confusing, such as the following example: … the [disadvantages] <of the [social media] <used by teenagers>>. the example may structurally look perfectly constructed but there was actually one flaw that made the postmodification imperfect semantically. we can see that the head noun disadvantages was modified by the preposition phrase of the social media used by teenagers. this was where the flaw was revealed because the postmodifying preposition phrase did not specify explicitly of how or when such disadvantages would arise. a little modification could be done by rephrasing the past participle clause used by teenagers that postmodified the embedded head noun social media with a finite clause beginning with the relative pronoun, also termed relativizer (biber et all, 1999), when. thus, the rephrased noun phrase would read these are the [disadvantages] <of the [social media] <when (it is) used negatively by teenagers>>. then, the sentence was clear that disadvantages happen when social media is negatively used. such a piece of inaccuracy was not the only one, which, again, showed the degree of the acquisition of the structure of the noun postmodification. the efficiency of noun postmodification structures. the efficiency was also an issue despite its single occurrence. the following example taken from the analyzed data showed such a special finding. universal language here means that it is a [language] <which can be used to talk to anyone>, and a [language] <which anyone has to master in order to be able to communicate with [people] <that do not speak the same language as they do.>>. the two long bolded, postmodified noun phrases were actually condensable into just a single noun phrase. both noun phrases actually refer to the same discussion of head noun language. thus, we simply may rephrase them with a [language] <which can be used to talk to anyone and mastered in order to be able to communicate with [people] <that do not speak the same language as they do>>. thus, the four factors of (1) the low variability of the types of postmodifiers with the dominance of preposition phrase compared, (2) the low complexity of the 58 english noun postmodifiers noun postmodification with the dominance of zero embedding and the zero percentage of multiple postmodification, (3) the accuracy of the structures of noun postmodification with the dominance of the postmodified nouns without ambiguity, and (4) the efficiency of the structures of noun postmodification with the dominance of the postmodified nouns with decent conciseness suggest mixed levels of the acquisition of varied, concise, unambiguous, and efficient noun postmodification structures. conclusion and the implications for pedagogy the results of the frequency and complexity analyses revealed some issues of the imperfections of structures in terms of variability, complexity, accuracy, and efficiency found in the compositions of the english department students when they constructed noun phrases with their postmodifiers. thus, based on the result of the study, the writer proposed that all aforementioned issues of english noun postmodification structures may be solved by substitution and meaningful exercises. such exercises, the substitution and meaningful drills, should enable students to practice with different types of noun postmodification structures in their contextual meaning. in substitution and meaningful exercises, students are provided with more chances to practice in written forms with different types of postmodifiers to enable them to create more variable, complex, accurate, and efficient structures of postmodifications. despite the shared similar function, substitution and meaningful exercises differ in the difficulty levels and variations of exercises. in substitution exercises, students are simply assigned to replace a phrase, or a clause that postmodifies a head noun. substitution exercises are used for a beginner learner because of its simpler task of replacing some phrases or clauses. for example, the students are expected to replace the italicized part of the sentence with the one in parentheses. variability: facebook and twitter are social media that are popular among teenagers. (popular among teenagers)  facebook and twitter are social media popular among teenagers complexity: the first reason why social medias bring good impact is because it is useful. (why social medias bring good impact to human life)  the first reason why social medias bring good impact to human life is because it is useful. accuracy: parents need to avoid the disadvantages of the social media used by teenagers. (used negatively by teenagers)  parents need to avoid the disadvantages of the social media used negatively by teenagers. efficiency: they need to learn a language that helps them to communicate and a language that enables them to survive when they travel abroad. (that helps them to communicate and to survive when they travel abroad)  they need to learn a language that helps them to communicate and enables them to survive when they travel abroad. in meaningful exercises, students are assigned to combine sentences into one sentence. meaningful exercises are used for learners who have mastered the basic english constructions because combining sentences require a higher understanding of english structures. for example, the english noun postmodifiers 61 students are asked to combine sentences in accordance to the instructions stated in parentheses. the following example shows students’ ability to construct sentences well. they can show their skills to vary their sentence which is complex, but accurate and efficient. joko is a teacher. he teaches english. he loves his job much. he lives next door.  joko, who is a teacher of english, loves his job much and lives next door.  joko, who lives next door, is a teacher of english and loves his job much.  joko, living next door, is a teacher of english and loves his job much.  joko, being a teacher of english and living next door, loves his job much. the future study is expected to reveal students’ acquisition of english noun phrase constructions with not only the postmodification structures but also the premodification ones. with this it is expected that comprehensive solutions for the improvement will be better devised, proposed, and implemented through better syllabi and lesson plans. © seto ariwibowo & hendra tedjasuksmana seto ariwibowo is a graduate of the master’s program in english language education at widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia. his interest is linguistics, especially syntax and tefl. dr. hendra tedjasuksmana is a senior lecturer at the english department and the head of english language education department, graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia. he teaches applied linguistics, english skills, discourse analysis, linguistics and integrated course. his research interests include language acquisition and use, and discourse. references biber, d., johansson, s., leech, g., conrad, s., & finegan, e. (1999). longman grammar of spoken and written english. harlow, england: longman. hutter, j. a. (2015). a corpus based analysis of noun modification in empirical research articles in applied linguistics. portland: portland state university neman, b. s. (1989). writing effectively. new york: harper & row, publishers, inc. quirk, r., greenbaum, s., leech, g., & svartvik, j. (1985). a comprehensive grammar of the english language. harlow, england: longman. richards, j. c., platt, j., & platt, h. (1992). dictionary of language teaching & applied linguistics. harlow, england: longman. sånglöf, s. (2014). pre-and postmodification in noun phrases: a comparison of monolingual, bilingual and multilingual male learners of english in sweden. unpublished manuscript, department of education, uppsala university, uppsala, sweden. sharndama, e. c. (2015). a comparative study of the structure of the nominal group/noun phrase in professional and popularized legal texts. valley international journals, 2(8), 1483-1490. tf_template_word_windows_2003 100 developing students’ english language rubrics developing english rubrics for describing the student’s basic language skill competence in student’s report card johannes metekohy johnnymete@gmail.com santa maria catholic senior high school surabaya, indonesia abstract article history the recent learning trend in language education has been so complex that requires extra administration beside the learning activity itself. the challenge for many language schools and administrators is then, how to establish a proper organizational management to the rising number of educational institutions which administer efl learning. the issue becomes significant due to the feedback obtained from various surveys regarding the quality of language schools or educational institutions administering efl learning. the results show a considerable amount of organizational management existence which requires improvement to optimize the efl learning administration. the study is going to map a pattern of organizational management be applied in the educational institution. the findings are to contribute the pattern of efl learning administration in any educational institutions, especially in south east asia. locus of this research are three institution in widya mandala surabaya foundation. the faculty of teachers training and education (fkip) shows that the best score is relationship variabel. the second institution is widya mandala secretarial academy surabaya (akse ukwms). the result shows that attitude towards change has the best score. the third institution is widya mandala language institute. the result shows that the variable purposes has the best score. received: 23/06/2020 reviewed: 09/10/2021 revised: 16/04/2022 accepted: 01/11/2021 keywords: educational institution; efl; efl learning administration; organizational management doi https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i2.2531 introduction in the school teaching and learning activities, there are some matters that should be conducted by the teacher and institution toward the students and stakeholders. one thing that quite being a centre of interest for them is the report of the student’s assessment. the report covers numerical score and descriptive explanation as the qualitative report. (education, 2010). the result reported in the student’s card report should be supportive to have another consideration for the next step taken (abedi, 2010). the proficiency should be clear enough, objectively and subjectively. based on the writer’s experience as a teacher, there arose a problem when parents that are quite careful to their child’s report ask for more descriptive explanation about the result in the student’s report card in the matter of english as a subject taught in senior high school. some of them are quite sure that their child is quite capable enough in having https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i2.2531 developing english rubric for describing 101 a conversation in english as they practice it together at home. they believe there should be a satisfying or at least objective explanation about the single score printed in the report card. the verbal descriptive as the subjective qualification is not enough. from the problem elaborated in the previous paragraph, the writer tries to discuss the gap between what the corresponding sides concerns and the government leading standards in qualifying the student’s proficiency. as for a teacher, there are some limitations and guides from the government to do the teaching activities and assess the student’s proficiency. especially, there is a statement mention in the guidance for evaluation by educator and educational institution in senior high school (panduan penilaian oleh pendidik dan satuan pendidikan sma. 2017) that “description covers the learner’s best achievement of the competence and/or the competence need to improve”(muhammad, 2017). it doesn’t seem enough to put the description only from the guide aforementioned, considering that english teaching should cover at least based on the language skills taught in class. to deal with the matter mentioned above, it can be implied that there are two issues needed to be concerned for; (1) what is the evaluation model like in the students’ report cards, especially in the english subject? (2) how should the student’s proficiency of the basic competence in the english language be described in the student’s report card? in this case, teacher as the agent can give a feedback as information of a student learning experience regarding the performance or understanding (hattie & timperley, 2007) covering all language skills given during the learning process. this feedback, later on, can be used for the sustainable development of a student in the next stage of the education year. in the matter of assessing the students’ results, teacher should rely their scoring on the assessment process and the indicators determined in the preliminary process of the school year activities. there should also be a minimum passing grade as a consensus under the school policy. to apply all of these aspects, a rubric that complies all of the required assessment is also important to generate. the rubric should measure a set of performances of a student learning (brookhart, 2005). this research starts from the fact that a student only manages to get their single score of their achievement together with a very limited and somewhat lack of descriptive explanation about the score itself. in fact, a student that gets a score of, let us say, 80, may have different qualification with another student having the same score. the presence of a rubric may eliminate an oversimplification, equivocation or begging the question fallacies to the intended reader (anderson, 2005). literature review the underlying theory used in this research is theories of assessment (abedi, 2010; brookhart, 2005; and l'anson, 2014). assessment itself is where a teacher can give a feedback from, either to the student or himself (wiesnerová, 2012). the way teaching and learning are connected through assessment is one important thing. it is expected to lead all the activities of gathering information, deliver the report of giving instructions and the result of the intended target based on them (william, 2013). language assessment is not merely relied upon one aspect of language skill. the 102 developing students’ english language rubrics skill taught during the learning process should encompass the basic four language skills that can be divided into two cycles; receptive (listening and reading) and productive (speaking and writing). this plan is already set basically by the government. the standard of measurement is called competency base. all the assessment should not be driven away from the competencies affirmed legally. these competencies are broken down into indicators to make the learning activities narrowed into acceptable measured activities. since the result of all assessment is reported into single card report, and it is done once in a semester, then it becomes a summative report. this assessment usually is executed few weeks in the end of a term (surgenor, 2010). the assessment gathered and measures the student’s final result of subject learned of a term, so it is a little bit accredited result. another aspect put into consideration is about language learning itself. the nature of it is quite obvious as a mean of communication in some ways or, in this case, the language skill conducted. the skill are listening, speaking, reading and writing. the teaching learning experience will become more comprehensive, and can be applied for real-life setting as the language use for daily communication. in fact, the ability of com municating in english may involve at least a combination of two or three skills, in some cases it needs all of them (listening, speaking, reading and writing) reasonably (power, 2010). considering the previous consideration, a rubric with each description of the proficiency assessed can be designed. the rubric can be set up as eclectically form of any kinds of rubric. it should notice the structure of the rubric itself that accommodates the need of developing the aspects of each section of the rubric. according to carla (center for advanced research on language acquisition), a rubric can be a more objective qualification on student’s achievement to decide the quality and judge the gap between expectation and the achievement (ayhan & türkyılmaz, 2015). in short, the theory of assessment, evaluation construction, four language skill and rubric design are some important elements to pay attention for. by combining these, this research can create a tool with a user-friendly interface to support a teacher with a communicative score and the descript-tion as a useful feedback or even feed forward. method this research was done preliminarily by assessment development case study design. by selecting the argumentation in which the examined material is an original text of a student’s report, the research tried to find the gap between what was already applied and the expectation of an explainable result. the steps covered formulating the research questions to be answered, selecting the sample to be analysed, defining the categories to be applied, outlining the coding, implementing the coding, determining the reliability, and analysing the results of the coding process (hsiu-fang hsieh, 2005). the study also used a likert scale questionnaire to ponder the gathered authentic responses from the stake holders accordingly (table 1). the data sources in this research were the students’ scores on english subject, the verbal description of the scores and the questionnaire results obtain from the colleagues. one of the critical points related to this research is the rules related to the describing the student’s achievement qualitatively that described “the learner’s best achievement of developing english rubric for describing 103 the competence and/or the competence need to improve”(muhammad, 2017). close and open-ended questions were used in the semistructured questionnaire to acquire experts’ responses to start the analysis. it can be observed in table 1. table 1 questionnaire for the stake-holders and experts question 1 2 3 4 1. does the scoring describe the student’s english proficiency in detail specifically? very clear clear less clear unclear 2. is it required to have a rubric describing the details of student’s score for each language skill? very important important less important unimportant 3. rubric as an attachment describing the student’s proficiency in language skill based on the basic competence in the student’s report card . very useful useful less useful not useful 4.the description of student’s proficiency in the report card is adequate to describe precisely the student’s progress. adequate: (give a reason !) __________________________________________________ inadequate: (suggestion?)____________________________________________________ 5. suggestions about the rubric content or description: _____________________________ this research was done using the data from santa maria senior high school by the names of language class program and scores. based on the school policy, this research divided the scores range, the descriptive remark for each score range of each indicator as well. the following figure may illustrate them: table 2 rubric for qualitative description finding and discussion the score given in the student’s report book may not be adequate to show on what skill and what competence they are successful or vice versa, since it is only delivered as one score for all. most of the collaborative teachers find it important and useful to have describing details in a certain form to show what area they managed to achieve and how far they get the intended ability as it is stated in the achievement indicators for a certain competence (ipk). the result of the questionnaire in table 1 is 3.1 90-100 85-89 80-84 75-79 72-74 3.1.1 excellent! you managed to find the text structure of self introduction and get all the information well with barely no mistakes very good! you managed to find the text structure of self introduction and get some of the information fairly by having a few mistakes good! you managed to find the text structure of self introduction and get quite a lot of the information fairly by having some mistakes adequate! you managed to find the text structure of self introduction and get the information acceptably by having several mistakes fail! you didn't managed to get most of the material given and have difficulties in presenting them indicator descriptive remark score range listening and reading 104 developing students’ english language rubrics described as follows: for question no 1: 3 out of 10 interpret the scoring is clear enough to describe the student’s english proficiency in detail specifically. the rest of them think that the scoring is less clear. for question no 2: mostly all of them consider that it is important to have a rubric describing the details of student’s score for each language skill. for question no 3: all of them agree to insert the rubric as an attachment describing the student’s proficiency in language skill based on the basic competence in the students’ report card. for question no 4: they find it should be adequate enough to show the progress of the student, in any circumstances. for question no 5: the suggestion for the rubric is more to the criteria to show the student’s achievement clearly and explanatory head or title to let the student knows the usage of the rubric inserted into the report card. based on the previous result, it is helpful to have such an instrument to deal with student’s achievement in some competences broken down into some indicators as a rubric with different descriptor in each aspect. based on that leading indicator, it is needed a scoring rubric with the scoring system as well that respectfully showing the achievement of the students performance. each part of the rubric is deliberately composed based on the student’s achievement including the score range that, in this case, adjusted into the school policy that limits the lowest score into 72 to apply for the report card print out. it is shown in the table 3 and 4. table 3. rubric for receptive cycle 3.1 90-100 85-89 80-84 75-79 72-74 3.1.1 excellent! you managed to find the text structure of self-introduction and get all the information well with barely no mistakes very good! you managed to find the text structure of self-introduction and get some of the information fairly by having a few mistakes good! you managed to find the text structure of self-introduction and get quite a lot of the information fairly by having some mistakes adequate! you managed to find the text structure of self-introduction and get the information acceptably by having several mistakes poor! you haven't managed to accomplish the instruction 3.1.2 excellent! you managed to find the social function of self-introduction and get all the information well with barely no mistakes very good! you managed to find the social function of self-introduction and get some the information fairly by having a few mistakes good! you managed to find the social function of self-introduction and get quite a lot of the information fairly by having some mistakes adequate you managed to find the social function of self-introduction and get the information acceptably by having several mistakes poor! you haven't managed to accomplish the instruction 3.1.3 excellent! you managed to identify the language features of self introduction and get all the information well with barely no mistakes very good! you managed to identify the language features of self introduction and get some the information fairly by having a few mistakes good! you managed to identify the language features of self introduction and get quite a lot of the information fairly by having some mistakes adequate you managed to identify the language features of self introduction and get the information acceptably by having several mistakes poor! you haven't managed to accomplish the instruction developing english rubric for describing 105 the score is inadequate just by scoring range directly, it should be started by giving the score independently that can automatically include the score itself into the scoring range under some automation instructions that can help the teacher in the scoring cycle by giving a tool to process the score such as the following table 5; table 5. score input for receptive cycle table 4 rubric for productive cycle 4.1 86-100 66-85 76-79 72-75 4.1.1 excellent! you managed to complete selfintroduction grammatically correct and meaningfully acceptable very good! you managed to complete selfintroduction by having a very slight mistake in grammar and coherent sentence structure good! you have a few difficulties to complete selfintroduction using grammar and coherent sentence structure properly adequate! you showed some difficulties to complete selfintroduction fluently using grammar and coherent sentence structure properly poor! you haven't managed to accomplish the instruction 4.1.2 excellent! you managed to create text about selfintroduction grammatically correct and meaningfully acceptable very good! you managed to create text about selfintroduction by having a very slight mistake in grammar and coherent sentence structure good! you have a few difficulties to create text about selfintroduction using grammar and coherent sentence structure properly adequate! you showed some difficulties to create text about selfintroduction fluently using grammar and coherent sentence structure poor! you haven't managed to accomplish the instruction 106 developing students’ english language rubrics table 6. score input for productive cycle (note: if we click the cell in dark s circle, it will show the score of intended kd (red circle). it applies for both cycles.) both figures above are displayed in one file concisely. the scores themselves can be encompassed into one score in the school data technician file to fill in the school report and to create a specific report on the english subject. conclusion as the conclusion to this study, the use of such an instrument can be very supportive for the users (teacher, student, parents and the other stakeholders) in having concise information started from the worst until the best indicator of a certain competency released by the government. the tool is designed thoroughly relied on some aspects covering the language skill measured. the end product of this tool is a report that showing what and how a student has already achieved a designated indicator under a competence, both cycle, receptive and productive. the following figures will show them all. figure 1. initial interface developing english rubric for describing 107 figure 2. identity interface figure 3. student’s name and number interface figure 4. receptive score interface 108 developing students’ english language rubrics figure 5. productive cycle interface figure 6. attitude score interfac developing english rubric for describing 109 references abedi, j. (2010). performance assessments for english language learners. stanford center for opportunity policy in education , 2. anderson, m. (2005). key to successful writing. pearson education inc. ayhan, ü., & türkyılmaz, u. m. (2015). key of language assessment: rubrics and rubric design. international journal of language and linguistics . brookhart, s. m. (2005). assessment theory for college. new directions for teaching and learning , p. 6. education, o. m. (2010). reporting student learning: guideline for effective teacher-parent-student communication. ontario: queen's printer for ontario. hattie, j., & timperley, h. (2007). the power of feedback. review of educational research , 81. hsiu-fang hsieh, s. e. (2005). three approaches to qualitative content analysis. qualitative health research, vol. 15 no. 9 . l'anson, s. (2014, september 15). using descriptive feedback as part of formative assessment. retrieved june 14, 2016, from interactive achievement: retrieved from http://interactive achieve ment.com/formativeassessment/descript ive-feedback muhammad, m. p. (2017). panduan penilaian oleh pendidik dan satuan pendidikan untuk sekolah. (p. 57). direktorat pembinaan sma ditjen pendidikan dasar dan menengah. power, d. e. (2010). the case for a comprehensive, four-skills assessment of english language proficiency. educational testing service . surgenor, p. (2010). teaching toolkit. ucd teaching and learning (resources) . wiesnerová, d. (2012). benefits of selfassessment in english classes at elementary schools. william, d. (2013). assessment: the bridge between teaching and learning. voices from the middle author’s bio johannes metekohy, m.pd. got his master degree from master of english language education department, graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university. he has been a teacher of smak santa maria surabaya (santa maria catholic senior high school ) before he studied at the master program. he loves teaching and has been committed to find teaching-learning strategies that motivates students, especially during the pandemic era. 91 teaching english vocabulary to young learners via augmented reality learning media dias agata diasagata@pens.ac.id master in tefl politeknik elektronika negeri surabaya heny yuniarti heny@pens.ac.id master in electronics engineering politeknik elektronika negeri surabaya & ahmelia ayu pratiwi adison ameliadison@ce.student.pens.ac.id bachelor of applied science in computer engineering politeknik elektronika negeri surabaya article history submited: 21-10-2020 reviewed: 30-04-2021 revised: 20-11-2021 accepted: 26-11-2021 keywords: young learners; vocabulary; augmented reality. doi https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i2.2772 abstract this research aims to investigate the effect of teaching english vocabulary to young learners via augmented reality learning media. the subject of this research was 12 students of grade 1 elementary school. due to strict health protocols during covid-19 outbreak, the testing phase was done in students' respective homes accompanied by their parents using cell phones. vocabulary illustrated in 30 three-dimensional objects and their written form were generated through cell phone’s scanning. a quiz consisted of 54 multiple choice questions was provided after the interactive learning experience. both the vocabulary and quiz were refer to thematic english exploration for grade 1 book. the results showed that learning vocabulary using ar application was able to increase the mean evaluation score by 0.77%. this application is effective in helping students improve their english language skills as approved by 76% of parents. the ar application was also approved by 59% of parents that it was easy to use. the ar application is proven to be convenience for students to learn english vocabulary interactively and feasible to be used as learning media. introduction since corona virus disease 2019 (covid-19) was declared a pandemic by the world health organization (who) as of march 11, 2020, there are many habits that have to be changed worldwide. who and local government started to establish strict health protocols, limit the number of activities that involve large numbers of people, apply social distancing and physical distancing as well as establish policy to mailto:diasagata@pens.ac.id mailto:heny@pens.ac.id mailto:ameliadison@ce.student.pens.ac.id https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i2.2772 92 augmented reality for young learners learn from home. the indonesian government through the ministry of education and culture has established the decree of the minister of education and culture of the republic of indonesia number 719/p/ 2020 about guidelines for implementing the curriculum in education units in special conditions which set the rules of online learning system from home during covid-19 outbreak in indonesia published on march 2020. implementing learn from home (lfh) requires extra cooperation and attention from the school and parents. especially lfh for young learners. bruner (1996) reported the hierarchy of children's learning modes; the first is enactive which means depending on physical activity, the second is iconic which represents residual mental images resulting from the contacts with material entities, and the third is symbolic which is obtained through symbolic medium, one of them is language learning. in order to facilitate young learners learning from home, an interactive learning media has to be provided. the term "young learner" covers a large age span from 3 years old to 15 (nunan, 2010). this wide age range made the researchers set limits to only focus on young learners at the early elementary school age, six to eight years old. learning english for young learners in elementary schools in indonesia is basically just an introduction to english. the material taught is in accordance with the 2013 curriculum. the development of the english curriculum can be prepared by the students and the school's environment. pinter (2017) wrote about the characteristics of young learners in learning english as a second language. students considered as young learners if they are in the first year of preschool or primary school, they have not mastered the ability to write and read, and better learning using fantasy, imagination and movement. one way to create interactive learning experiences for young learners is by using the augmented reality (ar) technology system. ar is a technology that combines two-dimensional or three-dimensional virtual objects with the real world in real time (indriani, et. al., 2016). in contrast to vr (virtual reality) which completely replaces a reality, ar simply adds an object to a real state. various fields have implemented ar to facilitate the work, including the fields of medical, military training, entertainment, machine design, as well as education. ar in education has the advantage of stimulating students' interaction and making it easier for students to learn foreign languages (vate-u-lan, 2012). this is because ar is applied to an application that provides many options for students compared to those who use only passive way to learn. ar is a technology that can be applied to computers and mobile devices, so that it can be accessed anywhere and at anytime. ar has been implemented to improve language skills, such as learning english in the form of three-dimensional pop-up books (vate-ulan, 2012), vocabulary learning, and as a storytelling medium through the pokemon go application (godwin -jones, 2016). dolkar, et. al. (2016) reported that a learning media has to meet some requirements: (1) the ability to make students focus on the material being studied, (2) interesting content, (3) features that can facilitate the learning process, and (4) other additional options to facilitate underachieving students. the learning augmented reality for young learners 93 media created in this research is named "learning english with ar for grade 1". the main reference in making the learning media is thematic english exploration book 1 which is containing english material for grade 1 elementary school written by djoko semedi and refers to the 2013 curriculum (k-13). "learning english with ar for grade 1" is an android application made by utilizing ar technology. this study focuses on analyzing the results of the application of "learning english with ar for grade 1" for young learners. research question the purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of teaching english vocabulary to young learners by using augmented reality learning media. the interactive english learning media with augmented reality (learning english with ar for grade 1) has been created on the android platform (agata, et.al. 2020), and the current research is focusing on the analysis of the effects of teaching english vocabulary to young learners using augmented reality learning media. in accordance with the purpose of the study, the following research question was formulated: how is the effect of teaching english vocabulary to young learners using augmented reality learning media? literature review young learners young learners are children who learn with age span from 3 to 15 years old (nunan, 2010). they have a distinctive characteristic in learning. when they learn a language, they can understand the meaning of the message but cannot analyze the language. they are very limited in terms of reading and writing skills. they are also still in the stage of caring more about themselves than their environment and in the learning process, they will prefer movement, fantasy and imagination (pinter, 2017). there are five major challenges teacher of young learners encounter: cognitive development, motivation, attention span, multilevel groups and assessment (nunan, 2010). to overcome the challenges, teacher's role is needed to clarify learning objectives, selectively choose content that facilitate young learners to learn, encourage collaborative learning, vary learning activities and comprehend the special needs of young learners. young learner’s vocabulary size vocabulary is one of the most essential components of competence in foreign language learning (nikolov, 2009). the result of research conducted by orozs in hungary (2003) quoted by nikolov (2009) shows that after four years of english language learning, young learners have an active knowledge of 600, and an additional passive knowledge of 250 vocabulary items. the development of young learners in learning second language involves three dynamic processes: cognitive development, ongoing development of the first language, and a relatively new process related to the second language acquisition. augmented reality augmented reality (ar) is a technology that combines the real and artificial worlds using a computer. artificial objects that are combined into the real world 94 augmented reality for young learners can be two-dimensional or threedimensional objects (indriani, et. al., 2016). the architecture of ar according to indriani, et.al. (2016) includes: (1) input in the form of images, the magnitude of the vibration sensor, the magnitude of the location sensor, and the magnitude of the vibration sensor. (2) a camera or other sensor that functions as a receiving device and makes it an information which will be processed by the processor. (3) a processor that functions to process information received by cameras and sensors to make it as output (4) output that displays the results of information that has been processed from the processor section. results can be seen on monitors, cellphone screens, and so on. learning english with augmented reality for grade 1 this study will investigate the effect of interactive learning media named “learning english with augmented reality for grade 1” which is the product of a result conducted by agata, et.al (2020) on improving the english ability of grade 1 elementary school students. teaching materials and exercises or evaluations adopted for interactive learning media come from a book used by grade 1 elementary school students entitled thematic english exploration 1 compiled by djoko semedi which refers to k-13. this interactive learning media can be accessed using an android phone. before this learning media is used, students need to prepare an android phone with the application "learning english with augmented reality for grade 1" which has been uploaded to the cellphone. then students can start scanning the pictures in the module book whose contents match the material from the reference book. as the result as shown in fig.1., students will get a scanned object image in the form of a threedimensional object and the name of the object written. the results of this study have been able to generate 23 three-dimensional ar objects and 7 two-dimensional ar objects. fig.1. three-dimensional objects as the results of scanning after learning vocabulary using interactive learning media "learning english with augmented reality for grade 1", students can also test their comprehension independently by taking the evaluation provided in the application. evaluation aims to measure students' understanding of learning vocabulary that has been done before. the evaluation was adjusted to the contents of the reference book, which contains 54 questions. the evaluation display was designed interactively as shown in fig. 2 and fig.3. there will be notification for correct answer (happy smiley) and notification for incorrect answer (sad smiley). fig.2. notification for correct answer fig.3. notification for incorrect answer augmented reality for young learners 95 a measured investigation is needed to determine the impact of using this application (agata, et.al., 2020) on improving young learners' english skills. likert scale likert scale is a scale that aims to measure opinions, attitudes, and the level of satisfaction of a person or group of people and is commonly used for scales in questionnaires. the levels on the likert scale are a gradation from negative to positive answers (budiaji, 2013). this study uses a likert scale which has a gradation of 5 levels, which at each level of gradation there are values 1 to 5. value 1 for "strongly disagree" response, value 2 for "disagree" response, value 3 for "neutral" response, value 4 for "agree" response, and value 5 for "strongly agree" response. method the testing phase began by distributing a digital version of manual book containing the steps before installing the learning english with ar application and procedures after the application was installed on the cellphone. this is necessary because during the trial process, researchers could not meet with the respondents (students) and their parents due to health protocols related to the covid-19 outbreak. the test implementation stage is depicted in fig.4 below. as illustrated in fig. 4, the implementation phase was first carried out on 12 students with qualification of first grade in elementary school. the implementation was done in their respective homes accompanied by their parents using cell phones. the ar application is uploaded to google drive and then the link from the ar application is shared with the parents along with the manual and module in digital form. in the second stage, students were learning english vocabulary with the ar application which contains 30 three-dimensional objects and their written form that can be scanned using cell phones. then, after studying the english vocabulary via the ar application, students were doing a quiz for evaluation. the quiz consists of 54 multiple choice questions adopted from thematic english exploration for grade 1 book. after a series of interactive learning processes using the ar application and the quiz had been completed by the students, parents filled out a questionnaire with a likert scale prepared to measure the following points: (1) the relevance of manuals and modules with ar applications, (2) the effectiveness of ar application in improving students' english proficiency (especially vocabulary), (3) the convenience of using ar application by students. 96 augmented reality for young learners results and analysis before implementing the application in students' learning activity, previously students were asked to learn vocabulary in course book conventionally and worked on questions on quizzes in course book without using the ar application as a learning media. the quiz scores obtained by the students before using ar were then compared with the students' scores after learning vocabulary using ar application and doing quizzes with the ar application. table 1 below shows the results of student scores before and after using the ar application. the results of the comparisons in table 1 depicted that there are 7 students or 58% of the total respondents whose scores are remaining, both before and after using the ar application. 1 student or 9% of the total respondents got lower score after using the ar application and 4 students or 33% of the total respondents got higher scores after learning and filling out quizzes using the ar application. this is consistent with what pinter (2017) reports that young learners enjoy a learning atmosphere that involves fantasy, which in the ar application, this fantasy can be represented by threedimensional objects generated by the ar application. there is a mean increase of 0.77% from the score before and after using ar. the increase is insignificant, but it is enough to prove that ar in education has the advantage of stimulating students' interaction and making it easier for students to learn foreign languages (vate-u-lan, 2012). there were three statements that 12 parents from 12 students need to respond to on a likert scale (strongly agree to strongly disagree) in the questionnaire. the statements are: (1) manuals and modules are relevant to ar applications, (2) ar applications are effective in helping improve students' english proficiency, (3) ar applications are easy for students to use. table 2 summarizes the results of the parents' responses to the questionnaire. table 1. score comparison before and after using ar application augmented reality for young learners 97 table 2 questionnaire responses from parents statement number of responses strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree (1) 0 2 3 2 5 (2) 0 1 2 5 4 (3) 0 3 2 5 2 table 2 illustrates that of all the statements in the questionnaire, no one responded to strongly disagree. 59% of parents agree and strongly agree that manuals and modules are relevant to ar applications, meanwhile 25% of parents say they are neutral and 16% or as many as 2 parents disagree with this statement. seventy-six% of parents agree and strongly agree that ar applications are effective in helping improve students' english proficiency, some parents admitted that the ar application was helpful to become a learning medium at home because it can facilitate their children who are not adept yet at writing and reading. this corresponds to pinter (2017) statement that one of the characteristics of young learners is that they are not yet proficient in reading and writing so they require interactive learning media. more than half of respondents or parents (59%) agree and strongly agree that ar applications are easy for students to use. parents can easily facilitate children to use ar applications on cellphones. parents also gave suggestions to add a feature to spell the names of the objects displayed in the ar application to enrich students' understanding of vocabulary. the constructive input can be considered for the application development in further research. the overall positive responses obtained from parents make it all clear that this ar application is a feasible application to be used in the interactive learning process as one solutions of learning media during lfh period. conclusion the effect of teaching english vocabulary to young learners using augmented reality learning media is the increase in the average score of 0.77% from the score before and after using the ar application. it was enough to prove that ar in education has the advantage of stimulating students' interaction and making it easier for students to learn foreign languages. based on the responses of parents who assist students in learning using the ar application, it was revealed that 59% of parents agree that manuals and modules are relevant to ar applications. 76% parents also agree that ar applications are effective in helping improve students' english proficiency, and 59% of parents agree that the ar application was easy to use. these positive responses support that the ar application was evidently feasible to be used as one of learning media for young learners. 98 augmented reality for young learners references agata, d. yuniarti, h. adison, a. (2020). android based english learning media and quiz using augmented reality. proceedings of international conference on applied science and technology, padang: oct. 24-25, 2020. bruner, j. (1996). the culture of education. cambridge, massachusetts: harvard university press. budiaji, w. (2013). skala pengukuran dan jumlah respon skala likert. jurnal ilmu pertanian dan perikanan, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 127-133, 2013. dolkar, k. bidha, c. tshering, s. thinley, d. dhungyel, p. (2017). interactive dzongkha learning apps for kids. phuentsholing: royal university of bhutan rinchending. godwin-jones, r. (2016). augmented reality and languange learning: from annotated vocabulary to place-based mobile games. language learning & technology, vol. 20, no. 3, hh 9-19. indriani, r. sugiarto, b. purwanto, a. (2016). pembuatan augmented reality tentang pengenalan hewan untuk anak usia dini berbasis android menggunakan metode image tracking vuforia. yogyakarta: seminar nasional teknologi informasi dan multimedia. nikolov, m. (2009). early learning of modern foreign languages: processes and outcomes. bristol: multilingual matters. nunan, d. (2010). teaching english to young learners. california: anaheim university press. pinter, a. (2017). teaching young language learners, second edition. oxford: oxford university press. vate-u-lan, p. (2012). an augmented reality 3d pop-up book: the development of a multimedia for english language teaching. bangkok: university of thailand. authors’ bio dias agata dias agata, s.s., m.pd. is a lecturer at computer engineering study program at politeknik elektronika negeri surabaya (pens), where she teaches english, communication skills and entrepreneurships. she is experienced in pedagogy, public speaking and an entrepreneurship enthusiast. dias recently serves as secretary of pens international cooperation office and provides access for students, lecturers and researchers to broaden and strengthen their collaborations with overseas partners. please email diasagata@pens.ac.id to contact dias. heny yuniarti heny yuniarti, s.st., m.t. is a lecturer at computer engineering study program, politeknik elektronika negeri surabaya, where she teaches sensor and actuator, electronic circuit and electrical measurement. she is experienced in electro biomedic hardware. heny has successfully supervised computer engineering students in pkm to go to pimnas. please email heny@pens.ac.id to contact heny. augmented reality for young learners 99 ahmelia ayu pratiwi adison ahmelia ayu pratiwi adison is an alumni of computer engineering study program, politeknik elektronika negeri surabaya. ahmelia is currently focusing on her project about creating augmented reality learning media to teach english. please email ameliadison@ce.student.pens.ac.id to contact ahmelia. 36 higher order thinking questions higher order thinking questions in teaching reading in a private primary school1 rosalinda mintre rosalinda.mintre@xinzhong.sch.id xin zhong primary school & anita lie anita@ukwms.ac.id english language teaching, graduate school widya mandala catholic university surabaya indonesia abstract critical thinking skill is one of the twenty-first century skills which need to be fostered in class. english teachers could integrate their lessons with critical thinking skills by eliciting students’ responses through higher order thinking (hot) questions in teaching reading. this study attempts to see the questioning strategies used in grade 5 reading classes in a private primary school in surabaya by thoroughly looking at (1) the structure of the teacher’s questions, (2) the types of the teacher’s questions, and (3) the students’ responses. the new bloom’s taxonomy was used as the main basis of the study to classify the types of questions and the students’ responses. with four class observations, four teacher’s interviews and two students’ focus group discussions, this study found that most of the questions used in the classroom were hot questions. the data showed that 65.15% of the total of 66 questions used by the teacher in the classroom were hot questions, dominated by new bloom’s 'analyze' questions with 37.88% of the total questions. hot questions were mostly addressed during the whilst-instructional activities, and the answers to these questions were of various forms: oral answers, dramatizations and presentations. the students’ responses reached the same thinking level as the questions. the teacher, moreover, was pleased with his students’ responses even though he sometimes needed to rephrase his questions in order to obtain students’ appropriate responses. keywords: critical thinking, higher order thinking skills, reading introduction to equip learners with critical thinking and problem-solving skills in facing the 21st century, schools need to cover these four elements proposed by stobie (2013): ways of thinking, ways of working, tools for working, and skills for living in the world. critical thinking itself comprises: (1) awareness of a set of interrelated critical questions, (2) ability to ask and answer critical questions at appropriate times, and (3) the desire to 1 this article has been accepted to be published in beyond words vol. 8 no. 1. may 2020 doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v8i1.2092 actively use the critical questions (browne & keeley, 2007, p. 2). in english teaching, learners’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills can be fostered through the use of higher order thinking or hot questions in teaching reading. meaningful reading requires at least four components of knowledge including knowledge of words, knowledge of language, background knowledge of the higher order thinking questions 37 reader `and the context knowledge of the reading (morrow, 2005 as quoted by sunggingwati & nguyen, 2013, p. 81). in addition, it needs to integrate cultural and ethic differences (sunggingwati & nguyen, 2013). to help learners develop their critical reading, teachers can ask different kinds of questions. furthermore, teachers’ questioning strategies in reading can trigger students to think more critically and understand the text more deeply (jacobsen, et al., 1999; kligner, et al., 2007, as cited by sunggingwati & nguyen, 2013). to this point, renaud & murray (2007, p. 319) state that the frequency of higher-order questions can be a valid process indicator as it is related to gains in students' critical thinking skills. bapan (2016) made a research on questioning strategies in a class consisting of 25 seventh graders in a junior high school. he focused on these four segments: (1) the types of questions, (2) the frequency of the questions types, (3) the reasons teacher addressed the high frequency questions and (4) learners’ responses to the teacher’s questions. his study revealed that referential questions were more frequently asked than display questions. during the interview, the teacher asserted that referential questions elicit more information and build interaction with the students, which made them favorable to be used by him. he added that referential questions livened up his teaching. referential questions, on the other hand, also trigger students' more complex responses. sunggiwati & nguyen (2013) conducted a study on questioning strategies used by the teachers in three senior secondary state schools in samarinda, indonesia. they observed the practices of the teachers in teaching reading in those schools. this study found out that the teachers relied on the questions in textbooks for teaching reading; as a result, they faced some challenges in generating high-level questions and required assistance in formulating hot questions (sunggingwati & nguyen, 2013, p. 80). another research on questioning strategies was done by ndun (2012). ndun observed and analyzed the questioning strategies used by the junior high school teachers in their classroom in soe, south central timor, indonesia. this study was based on these three research questions: (1) what types of questions do the teachers tend to use in the daily practices of teaching in the efl classroom?, (2) what are the functions of the questions asked by the teacher?, and (3) how do the students respond to the questions?. this study revealed that the teachers mostly used display questions or lower order thinking questions (92%) and less referential questions or higher order thinking questions (8%). tamah (2003) initiated a research about questioning strategies by investigating the inquiry process in efl classes. her study revealed that display questions were frequently used; on the other hand, referential and comprehension questions were the least. the indonesian ministry of education and culture (moec) is aware of the importance of incorporating higher order thinking skills (hots) in education. as hots items are inserted in the national exam, indonesian moec requires teachers to integrate critical thinking in their teaching (indonesian ministry of education and culture, 2019). consequently, teacher’s competence in enhancing their students’ critical thinking through effective questioning strategies becomes crucial. the present study, therefore, aims to discover more on the implementation of the teacher’s questioning strategies in reading classes in a private primary school in surabaya. in addition, this study would also like to analyze whether the teacher adequately used hot questions in his reading classes. 38 higher order thinking questions literature review critical thinking there are various definitions of critical thinking proposed by experts. masduqi (2011) believes that critical thinking means observing, experiencing, reflecting, reasoning or communicating to believe or act. larsson (2017) conducted an empirical study regarding critical thinking topic. his research limited critical thinking in four qualities of a person: 1. identify conclusions, reasons and assumptions 2. judge the quality of an argument, including the acceptability of its reasons, assumptions and evidence 3. develop and defend a position on an issue 4. draw conclusions when warranted, but with caution bailin, case, coombs, & daniels (1999) argue that critical thinkers should have qualities which include (1) respect for reasons and truth, (2) respect for high-quality products and performances, (3) an inquiring attitude, (4) open-mindedness, (5) fairmindedness, (6) independent-mindedness, (7) respect for others in group inquiry and deliberation, (8) respect for legitimate intellectual authority, and (9) an intellectual work-ethic. in helping students to be critical thinkers, brown (2001) argues that teachers should apply these four principles to fully respect the values and beliefs of the students: (1) allow students to express themselves openly be sensitive to power relationships, encourage candid expression; (2) genuinely respect students’ points of view seek to understand their cherished beliefs and traditions; (3) encourage both/many sides of an issue--welcome all seriously offered statements, opinions, and beliefs; and (4) don’t force students to think just like you delay or withhold your own opinion. moreover, teachers should involve these three components in their teaching: (1) students’ engagement in tasks which require reasoned judgement or assessment, (2) intellectual resources for tasks and (3) critical thinking environment which values and encourages students to be involved in critical discussions (bailin, case, coombs, & daniels, 1999). higher order thinking is defined in three categories transfer, critical thinking and problem solving (brookhart, 2010: 3). this study will be more specific on critical thinking. critical thinking is reasonable, reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do (norris & ennis, 1989 as cited by brookhart, 2010). brookhart (2010) further states that students can apply wise judgment or produce a reasoned critique. the characteristics of critical thinking, according to barahal (2008, as cited by brookhart, 2010) are triggering reasoning, questioning and investigating, observing and describing, comparing and connecting, finding complexity, and exploring viewpoints. the purpose of critical thinking is to equip learners with the ability to reason, reflect, and make sound decisions without being assisted by teachers or assignments (brookhart, 2010: 6). the new bloom’s taxonomy reading is one of the receptive skills needed in language acquisition. furthermore, reading is much emphasized in schools in indonesia since it enables students to develop their comprehension skills. however, reading comprehension skill is surely not enough to prepare students for the challenges in the future; other skills are needed, and one of which is critical thinking. higher order thinking questions 39 there are many implementations of critical thinking skills in teaching reading, one of which is by using questioning strategies. critical thinking skills should be taught by using questioning techniques in the classroom since they help students to comprehend the text. in line with this, duron & waugh (2006) believe that questions can be used to stimulate interaction between teacher and learner and to challenge the learner to defend his or her position, (i.e., to think critically). teachers, therefore, should consider the purpose of each question and then develop the appropriate level and type of question to accomplish the goal (duron & waugh, 2006). there are some taxonomies that are organized based on the cognitive processes; this study uses the new version of bloom’s taxonomy. bloom’s taxonomy is almost 60 years old, and it has been redefined. the new version of bloom's taxonomy is concerned about the criticisms delivered on the previous bloom’s taxonomy (wilson, 2016). there are six levels of the new bloom’s taxonomy (anderson and krathwohl, 2001 as cited by brookhart, 2010: 40-41): remember. this level involves recognizing or recalling facts and concepts. the example of the question is “where and when did the story take place?”. understand. this level involves basic comprehension, understood in light of newer theories of learning that emphasize students constructing their own meaning. the example of the question is “can you list the five major events in the story in the correct order?” apply. apply refers to executing or implementing a procedure to solve a problem. the example of the question is “if you were in a problem situation like one in the book, how would you have acted?” analyze. analyze refers to breaking information into its parts, and determining how the parts are related to each other and to the overall whole. the example of the question is “what motive did the main character have for behaving in the way they did?” evaluate. evaluate means judging the value of material and methods for given purposes, based on criteria. the example of the question is “do you agree with the actions of the main character?” create. create refers to putting disparate elements together to form a new whole, or reorganizing existing elements to build a new structure. the example of the question is “if you could only save one character from the book in the event of a disaster, which one would it be and why?” questions in teaching reading questioning strategies in the classroom are needed in order to create an active learning atmosphere. an active learning class enforces students to think about what they are doing (bonwell and eison, 1991 cited by duron & waugh, 2006). fink (2003 in duron & waugh, 2006) mentions that students learn more and retain knowledge longer if they acquire it in an active rather than passive manner. to create an active learning class, interactions in class, especially between teachers and students, are highly needed. by so doing, teachers' talk can be minimized in the classroom. interactions between teachers and students can be triggered through questioning strategies in class. brown and edmonson (cited in çakmak, 2009; hamiloglu & temiz, 2012) mentions the following goals of teacher’s questions: a. to arouse interest and curiosity concerning a topic, b. to focus attention on a particular issue or concept, 40 higher order thinking questions c. to develop an active approach to learning, d. to stimulate pupils to ask questions to themselves and others, e. to diagnose specific difficulties inhibiting pupil learning, f. to express a genuine interest in the ideas and feelings of the pupils, and g. to provide an opportunity for pupils to assimilate and reflect upon information. besides, as quoted in sunggingwati & nguyen (2013), questioning strategies are applied (a) to make readers aware of the important points of a reading passage (day & bamford, 1998; vandermeij, 1994), (b) to check comprehension (gerot, 2000; nutall, 1982), (c) to extend the topic, (d) to link the passage to previous knowledge and experience to improve comprehension (handsfield & jienez, 2008; walker, 2000), and (e) to serve as assessment about whether students understand what they have been taught (kintsch, 2005). method this is a qualitative study specified in a case study. it investigated how oral questions in reading classes were addressed by the teacher. this study was conducted in a private primary school in surabaya, indonesia. the participants of this study were an english teacher teaching in grade 5 and his twentyfour grade 5 students. fig.1. below describes the flow of the study: fig. 1. the framework of the study instruments for data collection prior to the observation of the researched class, a rubric and a classroom observation protocol were prepared. the bloom's revised taxonomy rubric was used to classify the questions in their correct category; meanwhile, the classroom observation protocol served as an aid to note the objectives of the lesson, materials used and flow of the class. during the classroom observation, both rubric and classroom observation protocol were used, accompanied by a field note which was used to record the students' responses towards the oral questions given by the teacher. besides, the lesson was cam-recorded and audiorecorded. following the class observation, a semistructured interview with the teacher was conducted to clarify some points of the teaching. afterwards, a focus group discussion was conducted with randomlyselected five students in order to triangulate the existing data. the focus group discussions were held after the first and third classroom observations. these stages were repeated four times since there were four observations conducted in this study. data source and unit of analysis using bloom’s revised taxonomy as the base, this study was expected to discover the types of questions used, which were then classified as lower order thinking (or lot) questions and higher order thinking (or hot) questions, the delivery of the questions and the students’ responses towards the teacher’s questions. the research data were collected from the classroom observation, teacher’s interviews and students’ interviews. the higher order thinking questions 41 class observation was conducted four times in three months in order to collect the data of the oral questions used by the teacher in teaching reading. the oral questions were then categorized into two: lot questions (remember, understand and apply) and hot questions (analyze, evaluate and create). the structure of the questions’ delivery was noted as well as the students’ responses towards the questions. the unit of analysis in this study is sentences in the form of questions uttered by the teacher and responses from the students to the teacher’s questions. the questions related to the reading text were analyzed in this study; meanwhile, the other questions which had no relation with the reading text were ignored. students’ responses were scrutinized according to the wait time and the expected answer. findings and discussion the data analysis above is discussed in three main points: (1) the flow of the lesson, (2) the types of questions used and (3) the structure of questions used. the flow of the lesson interactions between teacher and students were clearly seen. from the beginning to the end of each class meeting, the teacher actively gave questions to his students. the teacher always started his reading lesson by reviewing the previous lesson and pre-teaching the related vocabulary. during the first and second observations, the teacher unlocked the vocabulary through games; during the third and fourth observations however, the teacher unlocked the meaning of the sentences which were taken from the texts. in the fourth observation, the teacher also assigned the students to work in groups to interpret the lines taken from a poem. the teacher set the cornerstone before building students’ comprehension in the reading texts. in fact, the fourth observed class was quite different from the other class meetings since the teacher provided an introduction in which he asked the students to imagine what they were going to be in the future. the teacher even put his students under his suggestive influence by giving a monologue asking them to think about their future. during the interview, the teacher asserted that the monologue helped him to give a smooth transition from the preliminary to the main lesson. there are various forms of reading activities presented in these four observations. in the first and fourth observations, the teacher conducted a reading-aloud activity whereas in the second and third observations, the students were just reading the text silently. the teacher presented himself as the model of a reader reading the text aloud during the first and fourth observations. after that, his students were also asked to read the text aloud. next, the teacher asked the students some oral questions, ranging from lot levels to hot levels. he also assigned the students to work in groups to answer certain hot questions in the first and second observations. interestingly, the students were allowed to answer the hot questions in various forms: oral answers, presentation and dramatization. it was quite different from the third and fourth observations in which the teacher preferred to have a classroom discussion. in addition, in the fourth observation, he asked the students to sing the poem. most of the students seemed to be enthusiastic during the lesson. in the first focus group discussion (fgd), they even stated that the teacher’s lesson would always be the most fun and exciting lesson in school. besides, fewer students were sleepy and 42 higher order thinking questions drowsy during the observation. however, the students admitted that the teacher rarely addressed questions to them during reading. the result was quite consistent with the second fgd which implies that the teacher sometimes asked questions to the students during reading. the structure of the questions used based on the four observations undertaken, the reading activities mostly started with hot questions addressed by the teacher. they served as triggering questions which activated the students’ background knowledge so that they could be engaged with the reading. the following questions exemplify the hot questions used in the preinstructional activities: 1. is it good to brag the possessions that we have? why or why not? 2. have you been a victim of these gossipers or have you been gossipers sometimes? 3. is it good to gossip really to one's life? everybody? however, during the second observed class, the teacher began the pre-reading activities by asking two lower order thinking questions, that is definition questions. the following lower order thinking questions were addressed in the second observation: 1. (teacher showed a definition on the slide and asked the students to write the answers on the small boards.) definition: it refers to the timely issues or current events that we usually see and hear on television and radio respectively. (this implies that the teacher asked a question "what does the definition refer to?") 2. (teacher showed a description on the slide and asked the students to write the answers on the small boards.) definition: a complete name of surabaya mayor who was the reason why the city was shortlisted in the guangzhou international award last year for having a good waste management system. (this implies that the teacher asked a question "who is the mayor of surabaya?") during the whilst-instructional activities, the teacher mostly addressed questions from lot levels to hot levels. however, he might go back and forth among the levels in higher order thinking questions. for example, during the third observation, the teacher addressed lower order thinking questions ranging from two ‘remember’ questions and two ‘understand’ questions. subsequently, he went deeper to higher order thinking, beginning with six ‘analyze’ questions and one ‘evaluate’ question. nevertheless, the teacher went down to ‘analyze’, then went up to ‘evaluate’. afterwards, he went back to ‘apply’, rose to ‘create’ and moved backward to ‘evaluate’. as post-instructional activities, during the first and fourth observed classes, the teacher inquired higher order thinking questions to end the reading session; on the other hand, in the second and third observed classes, he went on with grammar lessons. during the post-interview, the teacher asserted that he planned the questions ahead of time. there are several reasons: (1) he could refine his questions before being asked to the students, and (2) he could set the expected answers from his students. along with the flow of his teaching, he might create more questions, either to help the students answer the main questions or to address more challenging questions to the students. the types of questions used from these four observations, it can be concluded that the hot questions were the most frequently used in the classroom. they dominated the questions used by 65.15%. the bloom’s analyze questions contributed the most, addressed twenty-five times out of sixty-six. on the other hand, the lot questions, despite being less frequently used, higher order thinking questions 43 were responsible for 34.85% of the total number of the questions used in these four observations. the table below concludes the findings. table 1 the percentages of the questions classified in the new bloom’s taxonomy question level total questions percentage the new bloom's taxonomy classification total questions percentage lower order thinking questions 23 34.85% remember 10 15.15% understand 10 15.15% apply 3 4.55% higher order thinking questions 43 65.15% analyze 25 37.88% evaluate 14 21.21% create 4 6.06% total 66 100.00% total 66 100.00% table 2 below shows the numbers of the lot and hot questions based on the stages of teaching. it displays the stage when the hot questions were addressed the most; it was during whilst-instructional activities. besides, it illustrates that the least number of the hot questions were addressed in the last stage: post-instructional activities. table 2 the percentages of hot and lot questions based on the teaching stages stage obs 1 obs 2 obs 3 obs 4 total lot hot lot hot lot hot lot hot lot hot lot hot preinstructional activities 0 1 2 0 4 4 0 6 6 11 9.09% 16.67% whilstinstructional activities 2 3 4 3 5 17 5 7 16 30 24.24% 45.45% postinstructional activities 1 1 0 1 1 2 1.52% 3.03% total 3 5 6 3 9 21 5 14 23 43 34.85% 65.15% the result of the study is in line with the previous research conducted by bapan (2016). based on the three observations conducted, he found that referential questions and display questions were used as the questioning strategies; nevertheless, referential questions were the most frequently addressed. display questions, 44 higher order thinking questions classified as lot, are inquiries structured to test learner’s understanding of the language structures and items; meanwhile, referential questions, known as hot, are used to elicit students’ critical opinion, explanation and clarification towards the content of the language (bapan, 2016). besides, he also claimed that the teacher posed referential questions to dig more information and build lively interaction with the students, which is similar to the teacher’s perspective in this present study. the findings of the present study are entirely different from sunggiwati & ngunyen’s study (2013). in sunggiwati & nguyen’s study, the teacher relied mostly on the questions given in the reading textbook. it was found that among 75 questions found in total, with raphael’s taxonomy, 71 right there questions, 2 think and search questions and 2 author and me questions were discovered. converting them to the new bloom’s taxonomy, right there and think and search questions belong to lot questions whereas author and me and on my own questions represent hot questions. thus, 73 questions or 97.4% of the total questions were lot questions while, 2 questions or 2.7% of the total questions were hot questions. the result clearly implies that the teacher mostly uses hot questions in his teaching. in the interview, the teacher explained that his students were quite advanced; therefore, lot questions would be boring since the answers are obvious. moreover, hot questions are more engaging than lot questions. in order to answer hot questions, the teacher frequently assigned the students to work in groups. there are several reasons asserted by the teacher: (1) group work makes students enjoy learning because every member is involved in the discussion; (2) group work fosters collaborative skills since the students have to conclude and come to the same agreement and conclusion about the activity; (3) group work facilitates high achievers to assist the low achievers so that they can develop themselves; and (4) group work can cover each other’s flaw. the students’ responses the research findings show that the answers of the hot questions were mostly in line with the thinking skill taxonomy. besides, the students' answers varied. some hot questions required the students to answer them orally whereas certain quite challenging hot questions were answered in groups through performance. overall, the teacher was satisfied with his students’ responses. based on the qualities of critical thinkers mentioned by bailin et al. (1999), the four observations show that the students demonstrated “respect for reasons and truth”, “respect for high-quality products and performances”, “open-mindedness”, “fairminded-ness”, “independent-mindedness”, “respect for others in group inquiry and deliberation” and “respect for legitimate intellectual authority”. in the four class observations, hardly any students undermined other students’ answers unless the answer was irrelevant and out of context. mostly, they were receptive to new ideas and thoughts about the questions. the same way happened in group work activities. no conflict was found during their group discussion or their group presentation. however, almost no students asked questions to the teacher. the quality of “an inquiring attitude” as stated by bailin, case, coombs, & daniels (1999) was hardly seen in the observation. there were some possible causes: (1) the students were afraid if their questions might have challenged the teacher and resulted in the group point deduction, (2) higher order thinking questions 45 the students did not understand the question completely, (3) the wait-time given by the teacher was too short for the students to compose questions, and (4) the students were not conditioned to ask questions to the authority to be regarded as well-mannered students in the indonesian culture. looking back at the characteristics of critical thinking proposed by barahal (2008) as cited by brookhart (2010: 4) namely triggering reasoning, questioning and investigating, observing and describing, comparing and connecting, finding complexity, and exploring viewpoints, students in the class meetings relied hard on the questions of the teacher in order to be active. they reasoned, investigated and described according to the questions presented by the teacher. it is still understandable that the fifth graders did not show all the qualities that critical thinkers should have since they were still at the concrete operational stage where they could give logical reasoning to an issue as long as it was applied to concrete examples (piaget, 1952 as cited by santrock, 2011 p. 288). it was not surprising that the students could give elaborate answers during the third observation when they were asked about their life experience against bullying. the cases presented on that day were concrete issues they commonly faced at school. conclusion and suggestions english teachers need to master questioning skills. questioning strategies are required not only to help students develop their critical thinking skills but also to liven up the atmosphere of the teaching and learning process. in order to apply the questioning strategies smoothly, teachers need to prepare the questions ahead of time. some workshops or training are also required for english teachers to sharpen their questioning strategies. this study also found out that students hardly ever gave questions to the teacher. this might happen because of their insecure feeling. the precise reasons why students lack questioning skills, however, need to be researched further. it can be an interesting topic for future researchers. © mintre, rosalinda & lie, anita. (2020). rosalinda mintre, m.pd. is an english teacher at xin zhong primary school, surabaya. she graduated from the english department of widya mandala catholic university surabaya in 2016 and completed her master’s degree in elt from the graduate school of the same university in 2019. her research interest is on developing students’ hot skills. prof. anita lie, ed.d. is professor at widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, indonesia. her areas of research are teacher professional development, english education and heritage language learning. she was ms. mintre’s master thesis advisor, and continued co-authoring the thesis into this article. references bailin, s., case, r., coombs, j. r., & daniels, l. b. (1999). conceptualizing critical thinking. journal of curriculum studies 31, 285-302. bapan, d. n. (2016). teacher questions in junior high school classroom. surabaya: english education department graduate school widya mandala catholic university. barahal, s. l. (2008). thinking about thinking. phi delta kappan 90.4, 298302. 46 higher order thinking questions brookhart, s. m. (2010). how to assess higher order thinking skills in your classroom. usa: ascd. brown, h. d. (2001). teaching by principles an interactive approach to language pedagogy. new york: pearson education. browne, m. n., & keeley, s. m. (2007). asking the right questions: a guide to critical thinking. new jersey: pearson education. duron, r., & waugh, b. l. (2006). critical thinking framework for any discipline. international journal of teaching and learning in higher education, 160-166. hamiloglu, k., & temiz, g. (2012). the impact of teacher questions on student learning in efl. journal of educational and instructional studies in the world, 1-8. indonesian ministry of education and culture. (2014). konsep dan implementasi kurikulum 2013. paparan wakil pendidikan dan kebudayan r.i bidang pendidikan (p. 118). jakarta: indonesian ministry of education and culture. indonesian ministry of education and culture. (2019, april 22). ujian nasional. retrieved from bsnp: http://bsnpindonesia.org/category/uasbn-dan-un/ larsson, k. (2017). understanding and teaching critical thinking a new approach. international journal of educational research 84, 32-42. masduqi, h. (2011). critical thinking skills and meaning in english language teaching. teflin, 185-200. ndun, l. n. (2012). teachers' questions in a junior high school english classroom. yogyakarta: the graduate program, english language studies, sanata dharma university. papafragou, a., li, p., choi, y., & han, c.h. (2007). evidentiality in language and cognition. cognition 103, 253-299. renaud, r. d., & murray, h. g. (2007). the validity of higher-order questions as a process indicator of educational quality. research in higher education, 319-350. santrock, j. w. (2011). life-span development thirteenth edition. new york: mcgraw hill. stobie, t. (2013). implementing the curriculum with cambridge: a guide for school leaders. london: cambridge international examinations. retrieved from www. cie. org. uk/images/134557implementing-the-curriculum-withcambridge. pdf sunggingwati, d., & nguyen, h. t. (2013). teachers' questioning in reading lessons: a case study in indonesia. electronic journal of foreign language teaching, 80-95. tamah, s. m. (2003). teacher questions in efl classes. seameo regional language centre singapore. wilson, l. o. (2016). anderson and krathwohl – bloom’s taxonomy revised. retrieved from the second principle: https://thesecondprinciple.com/teaching -essentials/beyond-bloom-cognitivetaxonomy-revised/ microsoft word bw research 5.1.4.docx 32 thinking skills in the english course book beyond words vol. 5 no. 1. may 2017 beyond words vol.5, no. 1, may 2017   thinking skills in the 12th grade english course book in timor leste joaninho xavier hei hjoaninhoxavier@yahoo.com universidade da paz timor leste abstract this study aims to analyze the english course book of (manual do aluno inglês 12.o ano de escolaridade/students’ english manual for 12th year schooling) in timor leste. the activities in the reading and listening sections of the course book were performed to determine whether they emphasized on lower or higher levels of cognitive process. the study attempted to answer the following question: do the cognitive levels of the activities that relate to the focus on reading and listening in the 12th grade english course book sufficiently represent all the six levels of the new bloom taxonomy of thinking skills? the objective of this analysis was to discover the reading and listening activities that can sufficiently promote the levels of cognitive process. the activities determined as the criteria for analysis were: wh-questions, true/false question, yes/no question, multiple choice question, complete the sentence phrase, a chart, matching questions, statement question, and a key word request question. the activities of the questions were gathered, listed with the total numbers of 161 questions and analyzed according to the six levels of new bloom’s taxonomy. the results showed that 98 activities emphasized mostly on lower levels cognitive order while only 63 activities emphasized the higher levels of thinking skills. so, the course book mentioned above targeted as a resource for students to learn the language, not as a resource for students to develop thinking skills because it fails to equip learners with the activities requiring higher levels of thinking order. by implication, for the teacher/syllabus designer can be aware to modify their own learning material by integrating more higher-order questions to achieve higher levels of thinking skills. keywords: course book activities analysis, and new bloom’s taxonomy introduction the essential materials for teaching and learning process that play a fundamental role are course books. course books are considered essential for teaching and learning instructions especially for countries where english is used as a foreign language. there are many elt course books that consider relevance with the settings but unfortunately some of them are not associated with the learners’ background, and expectation/needs (davidson, 2005; carol & kupcyzk-romanczus, 2007; meycs, 2007). an english course book that can assist the learners to be capable in communication should reflect on the syllabus objectives so as in the content of its activities which can equilibrate the learners thinking skills. hence, to support the educational system, most of the developing countries all over the world including timor leste recognize the importance of using the course books as the instructional materials. tomlinson, b. (1998) states that “a course book is a textbook that provides the basic materials for a course and it serves as the only book thinking skills in english course book 33   used by the learners during a course. it usually covers work on grammar vocabulary, pronunciation, functions and the four skills.” hutchinson and torres (1994: 327) describe a textbook as “an important means of satisfying the range of needs that emerge from the classroom and its wider context”. timor leste distinguishes the significance of english as the preferred language in international communication, and so as for the educational field, and assuming the working language status in the timorese constitution. therefore, the first constitutional government of timor leste through its ministry of education has developed its first curriculum in 2004 after adapting some curriculum as well as coursebooks such as from indonesia, portugal, brazil and australia. nevertheless, the first curriculum developed and course books adaptation were criticized by the stakeholders because they did not correspond with the learning environment. for that reason, some revisions were made by the fourth constitutional government of timor leste which then published the new curriculum in 2011 that is currently used in timor leste. recognition the importance of english as the preferred language in international communication, science and higher education, even assuming the working language status in the timorese constitution, justifies its inclusion as a compulsory subject in the curriculum of general secondary education for timor-leste. used as a lingua franca in the region, the english language was established as an important element of the timorese people’s multilingualism, promoting capacity building at the personal and social level, contributing to the socio-economic development of east timor. through the english discipline, level of continuation, english language learning is intended to contribute, in coordination with the other subjects in the curriculum, to the integral formation of the students and promote the development of linguisticcultural skills of young timorese. in this perspective, learning a foreign language, especially english, and plays a key role in expanding the horizons of young people’s communication, constitutes an essential element for the deepening of civic education, democratic and humanistic. (ministerio da educação de timor leste planocurricular, 2011, 19). and in 2014 the 1st edition of the students’ manual for 12nd grade english course book for secondary school in timor leste was published based on the linguistic theories that a course book will reveal the levels of comprehension skills in oral and written expression, and knowledge of linguistic, culture, and explore the range of communication channels that can provide resources for the learners to use english as a tool of communication purposes and dialogue in everyday life. as a matter of fact, the content that is going to enhance students thinking skills is from the activities in the course book itself. therefore, the researcher curiously would like to analyze this students’ manual for 12th grade english course book that reflects the syllabus objectives with the reading and listening activities which can promote students’ cognitive domain. this analysis will determine whether the 12th grade english course book only makes students memorize or actually encourages and enhances their ability to analyze, evaluate, and create. the significant findings of previous studies dealt with questions similar to those conducted by (andre, t. 1979; black r. 34 thinking skills in english course book   thomas, 1980; and hoeppel, 1980; robertson, j. 1988; ibtihal assaly & abdul kareem igbaria, 2014) and bloom have proposed various taxonomies. these taxonomies clarify the levels of three educational objectives by which activities are categorized: cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. most of these studies used bloom’s original taxonomy to analyze the textbook content of activities. there are merely few studies that used new bloom’s taxonomy such as (amin, 2004; mosallanejad, 2008; and gordani 2008; and gholamreza zareian, & mohammad davoudi, 2015). table 1. the revised bloom’s taxonomy, anderson et al. (2001) as below: learning objectives definitions create (level 6): combining elements together to form a coherent or functional whole: we organize elements into a new pattern or structure. evaluate (level 5): making judgments based on criteria or standard. analyze (level 4): breaking down material into parts and determine how they relate. apply (level 3): knowing when to apply or use a procedure in a given situation, recognizing patterns to transfer to situations that are new. understand (level 2): constructing or interpret meaning from instructional message, including oral, written and graphic communication long term memory. remember (level 1): identifying or describe relevant knowledge from long-term memory. one of the crucial issues in the content of the course books is the questions containing activities. these questions are studied in this research in order to distinguish the activities in the course book which can reflect various thinking skills as stated in bloom's revised taxonomy learning objectives. because those questions from the course book have powerful influences towards students’ cognitive development. as edward and bowman (1996) stated, questions are vital components of the course books as they aim at creating an interest in the subject. hence, this analysis will justify whether the course book places emphasis upon higher levels of thinking processes, such as, analyzing, evaluating, and creating or whether the activities merely encourage lower levels of understanding, understanding, and applying. the content of the 12th grade english course book should correspond with specification of learning objectives. as stated by aviles (2000) that bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives is a tool that can be used in the wider context of education to help both new and experienced educators to think more precisely about what it means to teach and test for critical thinking. "content analysis is a multipurpose research method developed specifically for investigating thinking levels from the thinking skills in english course book 45   reading and listening sections’ activities serves as basis for inference" (holsti, 1969, p 2). it is a systematic, replicable technique for compressing extensive and large amounts of text into smaller, more manageable content categories based on explicit rules of coding. the resulting inferences can then be collaborated using other methods of data collection (krippendorff, 1980). the analysis serves as a tool to determine whether the activities should be saved, changed, or modified. some of the related literature has revealed that teachers tend to pay more heed on lower order cognitive skills. it means there is a lack of higher level learning objectives and concomitant lower-level cognitive activities in most course books (houghton, 2004; cited in forehand, 2005). as the studies conducted by hoeppel (1980), analyzing the question in the reading skills, amin (2004), examined the learning domains of general persian textbook, exams, and college teachers’ views. both analyses were using bloom taxonomy, the findings showed that those course books focused on lower levels of cognitive domain. (cited from www.ijern.com). the purpose of the study the aims of this study is to analyze the activities in reading and listening sections of the students’ manual for 12th grade english course book in order to identify whether the course book represents all the six levels of cognitive domain such as remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating in accordance with bloom’s revised taxonomy, anderson et al. (2001). the analysis will focus on the activities consist of questions such as: a wh-questions, true/false question, yes/no question, multiple choice question, complete the sentence phrase, a chart, matching questions, statement question, and a key word request question. literature review huitt, w. (2011) explained that the beginning of 1948, a group of educators undertook the task of classifying education goals and objectives. the intent was to develop a classification system for three domains: the cognitive, the affective, and the psychomotor. work on the cognitive domain was completed in the 1950s and is commonly referred to as bloom's taxonomy of the cognitive domain (bloom, englehart, furst, hill, & krathwohl, 1956). others have developed taxonomies for the affective and psychomotor domains. the major idea of the taxonomy is that what educators want students to know (encompassed in statements of educational objectives) can be arranged in a hierarchy from less to more complex. the levels are understood to be successive, so that one level must be mastered before the next level can be reached. the original levels by bloom et al. (1956) were ordered as follows: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. 44 thinking skills in english course book   anderson, l. d. and krathwohl, d. (eds.) (2001). revised bloom's taxonomy to fit the more outcome-focused modern education objectives, including switching the names of the levels from nouns to active verbs, and reversing the order of the highest two levels (see krathwohl, 2002 for an overview). the lowest-order level (knowledge) became remembering, in which the student is asked to recall or remember information. comprehension, became understanding, in which the student would explain or describe concepts. application became applying, or using the information in some new way, such as choosing, writing, or interpreting. analysis was revised to become analyzing, requiring the student to differentiate between different components or relationships, demonstrating the ability to compare and contrast. these four levels remain the same as bloom et al.’s (1956) original hierarchy. in general, research over the last 40 years has confirmed these levels as a hierarchy (anderson & krathwohl). in addition to revising the taxonomy, anderson and krathwohl added a conceptualization of knowledge dimensions within which these processing levels are used (factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognition). the role of course books in english language teaching. a course book is always used as suitable teaching and learning instruction materials in elt especially in the settings where english is used as a foreign language. “they are best seen as a resource in achieving aims and objectives that have already been set concerning learners’ needs”, (cunningsworth, 1995). course books are overriding principle for teaching and learning process. they have prime roles as the manual that provide clear instructions for teachers and students they design and organize to promote certain objectives for the learners within certain level of needs. course book defined here as textbook refers to as a published book especially designed to help language learners to improve their linguistic and communicative abilities (sheldon, 1987). and also textbooks are used as supporting teaching instruments (o’neil 1987, ur 1996). hutchinson, t. and torres, e. (1994) argue that textbook have very important and a positive parts to play in teaching and learning english. hutchinson and torres describe course books (using the terms textbooks) as suitable teaching materials that provide lessons, instructions, and exercises/activities for the students in order to acquire knowledge. however, textbooks are sometimes purchased without careful analysis (green 1926, mukundan 2007). frequently, a textbook selection is not based on its intrinsic pedagogical value, but of the perceived prestige of the authors and of the publisher (green 1926, mcgrath 2002), or skillful marketing by the publishers (mcgrath 2002). ibtihal assaly, abdul k. i. (2014) summarized ibrahim (1998), an iraqi researcher who analyzed questions in a 6thgrade history book according to the cognitive domain in bloom’s taxonomy. his thinking skills in english course book 45   sample, which included 87 questions, revealed 72% knowledge questions, 25.4% comprehension questions, and only 2.2% evaluation questions, while no questions addressed the levels of synthesis or analysis. (p.28). on the other hand, riazi and mosalanejad (2010) carried out a content analysis of iranian senior high school and pre-university english language textbooks to investigate the types of learning objectives represented in these textbooks using bloom's new taxonomy of learning objectives. the findings revealed that in all grades lower-order cognitive skills were more common than higher-order ones. in addition, the difference between the seniorhigh schools at the pre-university textbooks in terms of the levels of the taxonomy was significant since the pre-university textbook used some degrees of high-order learning objectives. furthermore, zamani, g. & rezvani, r. (2015) investigated three iranian university english textbooks that attempt to evaluate higher order thinking skills pertaining to the specialized courses; that is, methodology, language testing, and linguistics. the researchers based on anderson and krathwohl, (2001) new bloom taxonomy of the cognitive domain. the exercises and activities of the textbooks were codified and the frequencies and percentages of occurrence of different thinking processes were calculated. the most important finding emerging from this study is that in all the textbooks lower-order thinking skills were more frequently targeted and represented than higher-order ones. ibtihal assaly, abdul k. i. (2014) conducted a content analysis of the reading and listening activities in the efl textbook of master class in israel, stated that the results show that the author of master class placed emphasis on the lower thinking processes of comprehension. this is acceptable since the activities relate to the two sections of mastering reading and listening. these results do not contradict with the goals of the new curriculum that attempts to offer students opportunities to obtain and make use of information from a variety of sources and media. on the other hand, the author has increased the number of activities that deal with higher thinking processes. the activities that work on the three levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation constitute about one third of the total number of activities that appear in the sections of mastering reading and listening in the six units. this implies that the author has also succeeded in adapting activities to the objectives of the new curriculum gholamreza zareian, & mohammad davoudi, (2015), investigating the types and levels of questions available in two esp coursebooks, namely, english for the students of sciences and english for the students of engineering taught in iranian universities based on bloom’s new taxonomy of learning objectives. the overall findings of this study was that the most prevalent learning objectives pursued in the above-mentioned course books in iran were lower-order cognitive processes, that is, remembering, understanding and applying. in other words, the majority of the questions assessed the three lower level cognitive domains and only few questions were found to address higher cognitive processes among the six levels of bloom’s new taxonomy. therefore, it can be concluded that, based on the results of this research, the main objectives of the two esp course books were the development of lower-order cognitive skills. hence, it is 44 thinking skills in english course book   suggested that in order to improve the content of the course books and make a balance between lower-order questions and higher-order ones, multilevel questions should be devised and incorporated at the end of each passage. research method this study aims at analyzing the cognitive levels of reading and listening activities containing questions in the 12th grade english course book in timor leste. the questions were: wh-questions, true/false question, yes/no question, multiple choice question, complete the sentence phrase, a chart, matching questions, statement question, and a key word request question. the data for this study would be analyzed in accordance with the six levels of cognitive domain, bloom’s revised taxonomy anderson et al. (2001). the qualitative method was employed to help explain the how and why and a quantitative method were also employed merely to generate the frequencies and percentages with no depth information, using holsti’s equation (holsti, 1969). procedure and data analysis the data for this study was collected in two stages. during the first stage, the researcher gathered the activities from the two sections, reading and listening from the 12th grade english course book. then, he listed the questions from unit one till unit nine in a serial order into the four-column table. then, in the second stage, the researcher classified all the numbers of instructions activities and labelled them into levels of cognitive domain and then calculated them using research tool of bloom’s revised taxonomy. the numbers of activities from labelling the level of frequency appeared were then calculated in order to determine the level of percentages from the activities in each unit. in order to analyze the collected data, as the first step, all the comprehension questions from the reading and listening sections in the 12th grade english course 44 thinking skills in english course book   book was classified, analyzed, and codified by two raters according to the six levels of new bloom’s taxonomy 2001 in order to examine to which levels of thinking skills were represented. the coding classified the first three as the lower levels of thinking skills (1) remembering, (2) understanding, (3) applying, and the other three (4) analyzing, (5) evaluating, and (6) creating categorized as the higher levels of thinking skills. each coding category consists of action verbs for each level as well as key words that represent thinking skills. afterwards, the frequency and percentage of the thinking levels on the basis of cognitive domain in bloom’s revised taxonomy were calculated. in order to foster the intra-rater reliability, a random sample of 54 questions out of 161 were selected. the consistency ratio was 96.29% that was found to be reliable, established using the holsti’s equation (holsti, 1969). findings and discussion the research tool of new bloom’s taxonomy was used to aid the researcher to answer this research question: do the cognitive levels of the activities that relate to the focus on reading and listening questions in the 12th grade english coursebook represent all the six levels of the new bloom taxonomy of thinking skills? findings in this section, the researcher presents the findings which were analyzed from the reading and listening activities of 161 questions that represent the six levels of cognitive domain in accordance with new bloom’s taxonomy as follows: table 2. level of activities frequencies and percentages of the questions in the six levels of cognitive domain in the brt, focusing on the reading and listening sections in each of the nine units of the 12th grade english course book as following: the finding indicates that the numbers of questions which were dealing with the 44 thinking skills in english course book   lower levels at remembering is ranging with the frequencies from 3 – 11 and the percentages ranging from 20% 45%. the activities of cognitive level of understanding comes up with the frequencies are at 1 -7 and percentages ranging at 6.25% 43.75%. the cognitive level of applying is the other lower level of cognitive domain with the frequencies are ranging at 1 -5 and the percentages from 4.16% 31.25%. activities that deal with the higher levels of thinking processes are (analyzing, evaluating and creating). the activities that deal with cognitive process of analyzing with the frequencies at 0 – 6 and the percentages are ranging at 0% 33.33%. one unit does not have any activities in this level. the questions that deal with evaluating got the percentages of 0% 20% and its frequencies ranging at 0 – 3. one unit does not have activities in this level as well. the level of creating comes up with the frequencies ranging at 1-4 and the percentages ranging at 6.25% 23.52%. the activities between the two levels lower and higher levels of thinking order which got the highest percentages is the lower level of understanding of cognitive domain that got the highest of all the six levels of thinking skills in the activities of the reading and listening section from the nine units with the percentages ranging at 20%-45.83%. then, the activities that deal with higher levels of thinking skills that got the highest percentages is the cognitive level of analyzing with the percentages at 0% 33.33 table 2 shows the frequencies and percentages of all nine units with the level of the cognitive domain based on bloom’s revised taxonomy. it shows the frequencies from the lowest till the highest which are 15 – 47. and the percentages ranging from the lowest as well as the highest which are 9.31% 29.19%. the level of understanding repeatedly appeared in every units mostly with the frequency ranging at 47 and its percentages ranging at 29.19%. this is consistent with the findings of the previous studies ibtihal assaly, abdul kareem igbaria, (2014) that understanding is supplied mostly in several units in order to check the learners’ comprehension about the lesson. the activities of cognitive level of remembering is the second most frequently appeared among all the nine units after understanding with the frequencies at 31 and its percentages ranging at 19.25%. the following activities are of the higher level of thinking skills. this study finds that the higher level of thinking process analyzing, evaluating and creating appeared to be the least distributed in this course book. as a result, the three higher thinking skills are the lowest. as a matter of fact, there were merely 63 activities that put emphasis on the higher levels of thinking process. thinking skills in the english course book 41 beyond words vol. 5 no. 1. may 2017 beyond words vol.5, no. 1, may 2017 figure 3. the frequencies and percentages of the questions. figure 3 shows the summary of the percentages of the two distinguished levels of lower and higher level of cognitive domain within the six levels of new bloom’s taxonomy across the activities of the nine units of reading and listening sections. generally, it indicates that the highest percentages of both lower and higher levels is the level of understanding with the frequencies of 47 and its percentages ranging at 29.19%. the activities in this level of cognition are dominated by understanding because it supplies comprehension questions for learners to adapt, and survive before facing the more challenging questions. remembering gets the second highest percentage of 19.25% and its frequencies ranging at 31. and analyzing is one of the higher thinking order that occupied the third place which is the percentages ranging at 18.63% and the frequencies are at 18.63. the activities of applying is in the fourth place with the frequencies of 20 and its percentages at 12.42%. discussion as it was displayed in the findings in table 1, the lower level of thinking skills of understanding was repeatedly appeared in all the nine units of the 12th grade english course book among the other cognitive levels of bloom’s revised taxonomy with the percentages of 29.19%. in addition, the lower level of remembering occupied the second highest place among the other cognitive levels with the percentages ranging at 19.25%. however, the cognitive level of applying got the fourth place with the percentages was ranging at 12.42%. the activities of higher order thinking skills of analyzing, evaluating, and creating were less represented in all the units. however, an interesting result of this finding is that one of the higher thinking skills of the cognitive level of analyzing got the third place of the highest of all the other three cognitive levels with the percentages at 18.63%. the other two higher cognitive level of the thinking skills were the lowest with the percentages ranging at 11.18% for creating and evaluating was the lowest of all with the percentages ranging at 9.31%. as a matter of fact, as can be seen in the indication displayed in chart 1, the lower order thinking skills are dominant in this course book. this findings are consistent with the previous findings of riazi and mosalanejad, (2010) who carried remembering understanding applying  analyzing  evaluating  creating  frequencies  31 47 20 30 15 18 percentages  19.25 29.19 12.42 18.63 9.31 11.18 31 47 20 30 15 1819.25 29.19 12.42 18.63 9.31 11.18 level of thinking skills  frequencies  percentages  44 thinking skills in english course book   out a content analysis of iranian senior high school and pre-university english textbooks. the findings revealed that in all grades lower-order cognitive skills were more common than higher-order ones and gerannaz zamani & reza rezvani (2015) investigated three iranian university english textbooks based on new bloom’s taxonomy. the most important finding emerging that in all the textbooks lowerorder thinking skills were more frequently targeted and represented than higher-order ones. moreover, gordani (2008) found that lower levels of cognitive skills were more dominant in guidance school english course book. the findings indicated that overall of this study which was based on the activities from the reading and listening sections presented all six levels of cognitive domain. however, the lower order thinking skills were more represented than higher order ones. so, the course book mentioned above targeted as a resource for students to learn the language, not as a resource for students to develop thinking skills because it fails to equip learners with the activities requiring higher levels of thinking order. by implication, for the teachers (syllabus designers) can be aware to modify their own learning material by substituting the weaknesses in the sections of this course book through integrating more higher-order questions in such a way to achieve higher levels of thinking skills. conclusions and recommendations conclusion the results of this study show that the authors of this 12th grade english course book emphasize on the lower level of cognitive process which is understanding. so, this course book targeted as a resource for students to learn the language not as a resource for students to develop thinking skills because it fails to equip sufficient activities requiring higher levels of thinking order. this finding is consistent with the previous findings of ibtihal assaly, abdul k. i., (2014) who conducted a content analysis of the reading and listening activities in the efl textbook of master class in israel. the findings also support the specific english program goals which are the competence of using english language activities such as understanding and interpretation in listening/reading with the variety of sources to sharpen their knowledge. learners are taught to understand and interpret with critical and reflective way, information conveyed by different media, and produce diversified texts in english as stated in the curriculum objectives. this 12th grade english course book that was prepared by the timor leste’s government and its counterparts for the 12 graders of secondary school contains a wealth of beneficial activities in the nine units of reading and listening sections. the authors have solved the puzzle by providing the activities for both levels, lower and higher order thinking skills, not only to grasp the meanings but also to strive beyond the knowledge. to conclude, this 12th grade english course book is appropriate for the learners to compete in the examination and matriculation in the higher education. special credit should be given to the authors gillian moreira, paula fonseca, susana pinto, and tim oswald who provide this outstanding english course book. recommendations as this study is limited to only two sections of reading and listening activities of the 12th 44 thinking skills in english course book   grade english course book based on the thinking skills, the following recommendations are given. the questions of reading and listening sections investigated in this study should be given more attention on both levels-lower order and higher order thinking skills. this research finds that the learning objectives of cognitive levels of lower order thinking were represented in these two sections. however, the higher order of thinking skills is not emphasized in the reading and listening activities. by implication, the writers should pay more attention to emphasize the cognitive levels of higher thinking skills. then, for the teachers (syllabus designers) can be aware to modify their own learning material by integrating more higher-order questions in order to achieve higher levels of thinking skills. the last, the future researcher is recommended to investigate the following part: 1. external and internal (cover of the book, introduction, and the language components and the skills) of this course book. 2. the remaining sections of the course book, the 12th grade english course book 3. the teacher’s guide and the workbook.   © joaninho xavier hei joaninho xavier hei is an english lecturer in international relations department of universidade da paz, timor leste. he was born in manuimpena, on may 2nd, 1980. he graduated from santo antonio high school in 2001, and in 2012, he graduated from universidade da paz with bachelor of arts in social science. he then continued his study in widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, indonesia with a master degree in teaching english as foreign language. references amin, a. 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(2015). ‘hots’ in iran's official textbooks: implications for material design and student learning. journal of applied linguistics and language research. vol.2, issue 5, 2015, pp. 138-151. retrieved from www.researchgate.net/profile/geranna z_zamani. microsoft word bw research 5.1.1.docx genre-based analysis of english & persian abstracts 1 beyond words vol.5. no. 1. may 2017 genre-based analysis of english and persian research article abstracts in mining engineering journals sara farzannia sarafarzan.nia@gmail.com amin institute of higher education, fooladshahr (esfahan), iran & maryam farnia mfarnia@nj.isfpnu.ac.ir payame noor university iran abstract the current research aimed to explore the rhetorical moves in abstracts of english and persian mining engineering research articles. for this purpose, 60 abstracts written by native speakers of english and persian were analyzed based on hyland’s (2000) model of five rhetorical moves to explore the pattern of moves in abstract sections. findings suggested that there were four conventional moves in abstracts in the english corpus (pmprc), while there were five conventional moves in abstracts in the persian corpus (ipmprc). results of statistical analyses show that there was a statistically significant difference in purpose move in the two dataset.however, there were not any significance differences in the use of other moves such as product, method, and conclusion moves in the corpora. keyword: abstract, genre, move pattern, mining engineering introduction the work of genre is to intercede between social contexts and the texts that react strategically to the exigencies of those contexts (swales, 2009). as frow (2006) indicates, when texts are well conceived and well formulated, they performthe genre. when these performances propagate, genres incline to go through time and geographical space, partially inherently and partially due to intertextual acceptances and rejections. genre analysts’ work is to find and record thesetextual regularities and irregularities and describe them with regard to the pertinent and relevant social circumstances and the rhetorical demands they bring about.therefore,they can become more clearto those who would need or desire to become better producers or consumers of textual patterns in the targeted genre or genres(swales, 2009). in this regard, hyland (2013) indicated that genre analysis has been proved as one of the most popularand productive frameworks for the evaluation of specialized communication in scholarly, institutional, and professional settings.the genre has also been explained as the evaluation ofestablished linguistic behavior in institutionalized scholarly or professional context (bhatia,1997). the rational beyond such acceptance among applied linguists is perhaps due to its considerable pedagogic suggestions for the practitioners in the communicative esp and eap classroom (brett, 1994). acquainting students or neophyte researchers with suitable 2 genre-based analysis of english & persian abstracts   disciplinary norms like the appropriate linguistic points of communicative functions are an illustration of such suggestions. much research has been carried out on how to write different sections of research articles (hence, ras) from the perspective of generic structure. several cross-cultural and cross-linguistic studies on different sections of research articles written by iranian writers in english and persian including abstract sections (e.g., abarghooinezhad and simin, 2015; behnam and zamanian, 2013; ghasempoor and farnia, forthcoming; hasrati and gheituri, 2010; marefat and mohammadzadeh, 2013; talebzadeh, ghafar samar, kiany and akbari, 2013), introduction sections (e.g., khani and tazik, 2010; omidi and farnia, 2016; rahimi and farnia, forthcoming), method sections (e.g., asam and farnia, 2017), and result sections (e.g., atai and fallah, 2004), conclusion sections (e.g., jahangard, rajabi-kondlaji and khalaji, 2014; vazifehdan and amjadiparvar, 2016) and discussion sections (e.g., attai and fallah, 2004; dobakhti, 2016; ershadi and farnia, 2015; hashemi and gohari moghaddam, 2016; khorammdel and farnia, 2017; salmani nodoushan, 2012) were carried out. despite the substantial literature on genre studies, the abstracts sections of ra in the field of mining engineering remain unexplored. as such, we were led into investigation of how abstract sections of ra in this field are rhetorically organized in english ra articles written by native and non-native writers. review of literature according to hyland (2005), abstracts are typically the readers’ initial encounter with a text and often the stage where they decide whether to study the accompanying paper, or to dismiss it. to quote pho (2008), “acquiring the skills of writing an abstract is therefore important for novice writers to enter the discourse community of their discipline” (p. 231). hartley and betts (2009, p. 2015) state that, “it is possible that more papers might be read in detail if the abstracts were more informative.” what follows is an introduction to genre and genre studies and the empirical studies on the abstract sections of ras. genre definition swales (1990) declares that “a genre comprises a class of communicative events (p.58).” according to swales, “a communicative event is one in whichlanguage plays both a significant and an indispensable role (p.45).” he likewise stresses that the communicative event is a complex concept, consist of not only of thediscourse itself but also of theposition of the discourse and the environment and cultureencompassing it. bhatia (1993) introduces the concept of “nonfictional genre” in genre analysis field.the first explanation made by bhatia is that the essence of a genre ‘is primarily characterised bythe communicative purpose(s) that it is intended to fulfil’ (bhatia, 1993, p. 13). the communicative purpose(s) will regulate the structure of the genre; if the purpose(s) change in an important way, the genre would be different. bhatia continues his explanation with the consideration that ‘communicative purpose is a fairly reliable criterion to identify anddistinguish sub-genres’ (bhatia, 1993, p.14). bhatia remarks onconventionsand structure in the sense that‘specialist members of any professional or academic community are generally creditedwith the knowledge of not only the communicative goals of their community but alsothe structure of the genres in which they genre-based analysis of english & persian abstracts 3      regularly participate as part of their dailywork’ (bhatia, 1993.p.14). berkenkotter and huckin (1995) state that, “genres are intimately linked to a discipline’s methodology, and they packageinformation in ways that conform to a discipline’s norms, values, and ideology. understanding the genres of written communication in one’s field is, therefore, essentialto professional success (p.1).” based on this statement, genres could be viewed in a distinct perspective from the onespreviously explained. methodology has been stated before but the very comprehensiveconcepts of‘norms, values, and ideology’ are new in this debate. genre analysis interpreting the convention of the genre-text is a matter of regarding the way in whichinformation is stated. bhatia declares in his explanation:‘specialist writers seem to be fairly consistent in the way they organize their overall message in a particular genre’(bhatia, 1993, p. 29). for instance, bhatia refers to a study accomplished by swales which shows thatarticle introductions (seen as a genre) generally follow a specific structure of four rhetorical ‘moves’. each move comprisesa new kind of information and, therefore, satisfies a newcommunicative purpose. for each move there may be several distinct strategies to follow. inthis way it is shown that each move has its own communicative intention performing as an element of theoveral purpose of the genre-text (bhatia, 1993). likewise, the communicativepurpose is an important aspect of any genre and, therefore, explaining a feasible particular communicative structure in the genre-text would aid the analyst in his concluding upon hisresults. as a comment on the above statement on specialist writers by bhatia, it must bestressed that the more compatible these specialist writers are, the more obviously their genrecan beexplained . so accordingly, it is a central issue for the analyst to try to explore some specificstructure or organisation of the genre-text in question. swales (2004) describes move in genre analysis as “a discoursal or rhetorical unit that performs a coherent communicative function in a written or spoken discourse” (swales, 2004, p. 29). as swales (2004) indicated, a move, at one end, can be recognized by a clause; at the other by various sentences. it is a functional not a formal constituent. ding also suggested that writing genres can be explained as a functional constituent in a text, being pertinent to the whole task, which is applied to recognize the textual regularities in specific genres of writing (ding, 2007). based on what he said, moves can have various lengths from one proposition to several paragraphs. furthermore, nwogu (1997) describes move as "a text segment made up of a bundle of linguistic features (lexical meaning, propositional meanings, illocutionary forces, etc.) which give the segment a uniform orientation and signal the content of discourse in it" (p. 122). each structural move can be perceived via a number of smaller rhetorical sections noted as ‘steps’ by swales (1990) or ‘strategies’ by bhatia (1994). according to samraj (2005) both moves and steps are functional elements and can be compulsory or noncompulsory in a genre (as cited in li 2011).this body of work includes swales(1990), bhatia (1993), santos (1996), hyland (2000) and many others. in his innovator study on move-analysis, swales (1990) offered cars model (create aresearch space), so as to appear to be a three-move system. the cars model had thepower toeffect multitudinous later 4 genre-based analysis of english & persian abstracts   research on the pattern of the introduction in addition to abstracts (bhatia, 1997; samraj, 2002, 2005). genre analysis is known for its different educational suggestions. kay and dudley-evans (1998) stated that genre is a “very powerful pedagogic tool” because it defines the sorts of discourse the students need to be capale to construct, and likewise—considering its social setting and purpose—it can describe “why a discourse is the way it is” (p. 310). iranian scholars as nonnative speakers of english may also have such difficulties, therefore, several studies have been carried out to illuminate the nature of the medical, applied linguistics, and engineering ras (abarghooeinezhad and simin 2015, ahmadi 2009, marefat and mohammadzadeh, 2013; saboori and hashemi, 2013; talebinezhad and arbabi, 2012) to help iranian scholars to be aware of the conventions of each genre and the way native scholars write. a number of these studies are discussed in the following section. empirical studies busch-lauer (1995) compares the move patterns of 40 german abstracts and their english equivalents in the field of medical science to investigate the rhetorical moves and s/he indicated thatthe move ‘background information’ predominated in thestructure of the studied german nonnative speaker abstracts, whereas ‘purpose of study’ and ‘conclusions’ were not obviously stated. martín (2003) in a study ona total of 160 ra abstracts in social scinces written in english and spanish found that spanish abstracts in experimental social sciences conform to the imrc (introduction, method, results and conclusion) structure of the article itself, but that the frequencies of occurrence of the results and the introduction moves were significantly different. martín indicated that the abstracts written in englishfor international journals in the experimental social sciences more closely reflect swales’s (1990) model as regards the use of the three moves, whereas the spanish abstracts in the same field are less rhetorically complex. in the context of iran, ahmadi (2009) evaluated 60 research article abstracts from the biological sciences. he indicated that moves described by bhatia (1994) can more or less be traced in all abstracts analyzed in that study. findings revealedthat describing previous research was generally used with much less frequently byiranians than by english-speaking writers. also englishspeaking authors were far more detailed in their accounts of their conclusion anddiscussion of the implications of their work. talebinezhad, arbabi, taki and akhlaghi (2012) investigated 64 medical article abstracts (32 in international journals, 32 in iranianjournals) on the basis of swales’ model (1990).the data demonstrated that the translated abstracts from persian into english in research medical articles conform to the determined criteria for scientific writing while the original ones often neglectthe criteria, although theywere linguistically superior to the original english ones. however, they indicated that the superiority of the translated abstracts could be owing to several factors such as exposing iranian specialists in medicalsciences to instruction of essay writing; using educated translatorswho are knowledgeable in academic writing and in medical sciences simultaneously.in addition, they showed that there was a significant difference in method chapter. genre-based analysis of english & persian abstracts 5      marefat and mohammadzadeh (2013) analyzed 90 english and persian abstracts written in the discipline of literature, by english and persian native speakers, based on the imrd and cars models. the findings revealed that literature ra writers typically focus on introduction and results, ignore method and discussion, and do not mention the niche in previous pertinent work; secondly, although none of the models were useful, literature abstracts typically matched cars more than imrd (concerning the sequence of moves, only 13% of the abstracts manifested the i-m-rd sequence). esfandiari (2014) explored the rhetorical moves of 32 abstracts in the fields of artificial intelligence and architecture(two influential subfields in computer sciences) based on hyland’s (2000) fiverhetorical move model. the findings showed that there were four conventional moves and one optional move in abstracts in both related disciplines. the findings further corroborate the five-move model proposed by hyland (2000). he indicated that hyland’s model is more powerful to be applied to research article abstracts in artificial architecture and intelligence in so far as the subfields are concerned. more recently, abarghooinezhad and simin (2015) examined50 abstracts of english articles (25 were written by native writers of english and 25 written by iranian non-native writers of english) in the field of electronic engineering. the analytical model proposed by santos (1996) was adopted. the result revealed that abstract section moves used by both groups do not completely correspond to the model proposed by santos (1996). the results of chi square analyses further showed that there were no significant differences regarding the frequency of each movebetween two groups. following this line of research, the main purpose of this study was to find dissimilaritiesand similarities in classification and frequency of move structure of research article abstracts written by english native and nonnative (iranian) students in the field of mining engineering.the results of the current study can be helpful to eap, esp and efl teachersto instruct their neophyte students these schematic structures and students, in turn, can apply thediscovered model in their abstract writing. objectives of the study this research aims to examine the rhetorical moves of iranian and english mining engineering ras abstracts. thus the following objectives are formulated: 1. to investigate the move structures in the abstract sections of english and persian mining engineering research articles. 2. to examine whether there is any significant difference between persian and english rhetorical movesthat represent the generic structure of abstract sections of mining engineering research articles. method corpus for the purpose of this study, 60 articles were randomly selected from mining engeering leading journals written by english native and iranian non-native speakers in english (30 in each corpus) published from 2013 to 2015. the randomly selected journals are international journal of mining science and technology, international journal of damage and mechanics, international journal of rock mechanics and geotechnical engineering, and international journal of rock mechanics and mining sciences. 6 genre-based analysis of english & persian abstracts   data analysis hyland's (2000) five-move model were adopted as the framework for move analysis of the abstracts in the present study. apposed to the imrd model, this frame differentiates theabstract’s aim from the introduction, because it has an unlike role from the introduction’s usual aim of preparing a confirmation for the study. in this frame, a product move is regarded as analternative to the result move, as hyland (2000) interpreted this move can more thoroughlyilluminate abstracts from the social science fields, which occasionally contain not only adeclaration of practical results but also a declaration of the claim. this model still differs inintroduction move from bhatia model. for hyland, ra abstracts composers apply theintroduction move to rationalize their research and create the appropriate context. santos’ (1996) model was extracted from 94 abstracts in the discipline of applied linguistics, though hyland’s (2000) model was derived from 800 abstracts covering 8 disciplines, sociology, philosophy, biology, physics, electrical engineering, marketing, mechanical engineering, and appliedlinguistics, therefore, hyland’s (2000) model covered both of the hard and soft sciences and was selected as the framework for data analysis in the current study. hyland’s (2000) model is illustrated in table 1. for the purpose of this study, the frequency of occurrence of each move was statisticallycalculated and tallied. following previous studies (e. g. kanoksilapatham, 2005), a move was regarded compulsory if its frequency was no less than 60% of the corpus in each field. on the other hand, if a move occurred less than 60% of the corpus, it was regarded non-compulsory. result the frequencies of structural moves appliance by persian and english writers in the abstracts chapters in the field of mining engineering are illustrated in table 2.a number of notable features were discovered to be shared by the abstracts of the two groups. one was that the most frequent moves for the two groups were purpose, genre-based analysis of english & persian abstracts 7      method, and product moves. however, introduction move was the less frequent move in english group. considering the persian corpora, conclusion and introduction moves were theleast frequent with equal frequency.thus, according to kanoksilapatham (2005), introduction move in english group was optional and allother moves were consideredobligatory because theirfrequency were not less than 60%. as illustrated in table 3, the english writers have higher tendency to use moves in more complex patternthat are not compatible with hyland (2000)framework. note: i: introduction, p: purpose, m: method, pr: product, c: conclusion the ipmprc and pmprc was the most frequent pattern in the persian and english groups respectively. generally, abstracts in the persian group were more compatible with hyland’s five move model than the english group.the appliance of ipmprc pattern in the persian group was approximately 30 percent while theenglish group totally have ipmprc pattern around 26 percent. chi-square results results of chi-sqaure analysis are presented in table 4. the results of chi-square tests computed for move1move5 are shown in table 4. the following table illustrates that the dissimilarities between the frequencies 8 genre-based analysis of english & persian abstracts   of the two groups' applications of levels of significance for move1 is 0,436, for move2 is 0.038, for move3 is 0.076, for move 4 is 0.554, and for move 5 is 0.791 percent. for move2 theasymp.sign was less than the p value demonstrating that there is a significant difference in purposemove between groups.however, in other movs there were not any significantdifferences between the groups because the level of significance was greater than the p value(asymp.sig> p value). . disscussion the findings show that iranian writers tended to use more intorudcitoin moves than english writers. in other words, that iranian scholars have more tendency to apply introduction move. this finding contrasted with ahmadi’s (2009) of biological science and abargooeinzhad and simin’s (2015) study of moves in electronic engineering, in which the researchers found that the english group applies introduction move more than their iranian counterparts. according to ahmadi (2009), iranian writers “were more succinct in their accounts of previous research (p.116).” however, in this study, the researcher found that english writerswere more precise in indicating previous research and introduction move in english group was considered non-compulsory, this is in line with saboori and hashemi (2013) in theircross disciplinary study, found that the introductionwas less frequent move in three english groups in three disciplines: applied economics, applied linguistics, and mechanical engineering. they reported that most frequent move pattern in these three fields was pmprc pattern. in this study pmprc was also the most frequent move pattern in english group (40 percent). in conclusion move, the writer has the opportunity of discussing the study by evaluating thediscoveries and associating the reported research back to the wide research field. similar to ahmadi(2009), abarghooi (2015) and many other studies in addition to the present study, iranian writers apply the conclusion move less than english writers or write the conclusion move very briefly. the main rhetorical dissimilarity, on the other hand, was that the english group had the most variety of move patterns. the english group was relatively heterogeneous in this regard (table 3). talebinzhad, arbaby, taki and akhlaghi (2012) in their study of medicine also found that iranian abstracts observed the imrc sequence in all the cases, while english ones demonstrated genre-based analysis of english & persian abstracts 9      imrc, irc, mrc and rc sequences. the persian group inthe miningengineering field were morehomogeneous and specifically develop the ipmprc and ipmpr pattern as illustrated in table 3. however,there were similarities between the groups. purpose, method, and product moveswere clearly stated in both groups and the most frequent move in thepersian group was purpose move with 100% frequency,disclosed that iranian writers areaware of the considerable significance of presenting the study by indicating major features andpurposes of the research.mining engineering abstracts written by persian native speakers were not entirely under theeffect of either persian or english societies, hence they finely follow hyland(2000) model.marefat and mohamadzadeh (2013) research in literature also discovered that literature abstracts written by persian native speakers are not completely under the impact of either persian orenglish communities, but specify a norm of their own. marefat and mohamadzadealso evaluated the hypothesis introduced by, among others, martin (2003) and tahririan and jalilifar (2004) that the way scholars compose is under the pressure ofsociocultural factors, by displaying how the abstracts by persian-speaking literature academiccomposing in english depart from those by english-speaking writers. nonetheless, in current study persian groups developed hyland (2000) model better than english group. it may be due to the explicit instruction about the norms and conventions of abstract writing. the influencing elementis not the native language, but rather the standards of the society for which the academics write. this study illustrated that there were similarities in two groups such as having high frequency in move 2, 3, and 4 (above 90%) and both groups write method, purpose, and product movestraightforwardly and clearly. there was a significant difference in purpose move as illustratedby chi square computation,indicating that iranian writers have more tendency to write the exactpurpose of study. however conclusion in english journals werelengthier and more informative than in persian journals. pedagogical implication the findings of genre analysis usually have significant pedagogical implications for the specialist in esp and eap fields. genre analysis could acquaint students with the explicit knowledge of genre standards and the proficiency of genre knowledge would aid students become members of their disciplinary community and discover and create more complex genres (bhatia, 1997; hyland, 2002; loi and evans, 2010). moreover, realization of genre practices would help students to take advantage of comprehensive understanding of particular texts and would direct them in developing academic discourse following the required standards and therefore would enhance their opportunities for publication and persuasively engagement in international scientific discourse communities. the findings of the present study would assist students of esp courses in general and engineering students in particular to be familiar with the linguistic differences and the use of rhetorical structures used by native and non-native writers in developing a research article in english. 10 genre-based analysis of english & persian abstracts   conclusion this study for the first time sought to discover the rhetorical move operation frequencies in theabstract chapter of persian and english groups in the field of mining engineering. thisresearch was conducted to discover what move structures could be found in this section and toexplore dissimilarities and similarities between the two groups. the description of moves was carried out using hyland’s (2000) model. based on the above mentioned discussion except purpose move no significant difference was found between two groups under investigation. both groups, especially persian group generally followedthe hyland (2000) move patterns. abarghooeinezhad and simin (2015) found that santo’s model was disabled to predict abstract’s rhetorical moves in engineering disciplines. however esfandyari(2014) reported hyland’smodel is more competent to be applied to research article abstracts in computer engineering. thesefindings in addition to the result of the present study, indicated the comprehensiveness ofhyland’s model, therefore the hyland' five-move pattern in abstract writing could be the norm for abstract writing in the field of engineering. future research should be conducted on a larger corpus regarding more disciplines. in addition, while the present research included only written discourse analysis, future research can take one step further by conducting interviews with the authors in order to investigate the socio-cultural items more comprehensively. © sara farzannia & maryam farnia. genre-based analysis of english and persian research article abstracts in mining engineering journals suggested reference format for the article: farzannia, s., & farnia, m. (2017). genre-based analysis of english and persian research article abstracts in mining engineering journals. (w. soedjatmiko, ed.) beyond words, 5 (1), 1-13. sara farzannia is an ma student in english language teaching at amin institute of higher education, fooladshahr (esfahan). her areas of interest are pedagogy and english languages teaching and learning. maryam farnia, phd in applied linguistics, is assistant professor at the department of foreign languages and linguistics, payame noor university, najafabad, iran. her areas of research include genre analysis, interlanguage pragmatics, humor, im/politeness and speech act studies. reference abarghooeinezhad, m., and simin, s. (2015).a structural move analysis of abstract in electronic engineering articles. international journal of research studies in language learning, 4(4), 69-80 atai, m. r. and fallah, s. 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(2016). a generic analysis of the conclusion section of research articles in the field of sociology: a comparative study. journal of language and translation, 6(2), 63-77. 122 teaching english for specific purposes beyond words vol 7, no. 2 november 2019 teaching english for specific purposes: content language acquisition vs. general language acquisition eric sulindra eric@aksewms.ac.id widya mandala secretarial academy surabaya, indonesia abstract content language integrated learning (clil), an approach to english for specific purposes (esp) teaching and learning, has been subjects for studies. the approach has been proven successful in learning languages. the language learning outcomes in clil are usually made contextual, functional and communicative. in this study, it is found that the students regarded clil as relevant and to deliver the english language teaching in their field. meanwhile, the general language learning has been providing support up to the extent of explaining the language grammatical points (using the terms such as complex, compound, subject, predicate, objects). then, authentic learning materials are regarded as being relevant to their interest and the subject matter. the clil approach is recommended to be applied under constant observation and evaluation since the esp world is various and multi-context. this approach is to be adjusted with the local environment and students’ interest, according to the standard esp need analysis to arrange the lesson plan. further research on how clil is able to influence the students’ language mastery in a specific field is suggested. key terms: content language integrated learning (clil); the general language learning; english for specific purposes (esp) introduction as a major trend nowadays in south east asia regions, due to the recent asean economic community practice, foreign language learning, especially english, is getting more attention from the citizens so that they can engage in the multi lingual community in south east asia. various field of sciences and vocational educations have made use a big variety of learning materials in english since many of the references and resources are in english. then, the new branch of english language teaching (elt) has emerged, the english for specific purposes (esp). dudley-evans and st. john (dudleyevans & john, 1998) register five major roles for the esp practitioner: teacher, course designer and materials provider, collaborator, researcher, and evaluator. some key issues about esp are then identified as constant and variable characteristics; variety of esp; traits of esp courses. in terms of providing the appropriate course design and materials, there are a great tendency of the esp practitioners to combine the teaching with the authentic material from the related field in which english is being studied. the issue then becomes a sharp division between content language acquisitions versus general language acquisition. content language acquisition is addressed with the approach teaching english for specific purposes 123 called clil (content language integrated learning). this study was to find the factors of a decent esp learning administration using content language integrated learning and apply them in a proper teaching model. therefore the study was to answer the question: how to describe classroom management of esp teaching and learning in indonesia using ‘clil’. the purpose of the study was to find a decent model of esp learning approach, give recommendations for esp learning administrations using clil, and to improve the performance of any esp learning administrations applying the recommended model. the study was conducted in two theoretical frameworks, english language teaching (elt) and english for specific purposes (esp). the english language teaching point of view, there are some theories on efl teaching principles and the components affecting the learning success of efl and from the esp point of view, the approach of content language integrated learning applied in the teaching and learning activity. previous studies the study by yang (2018), compared and contrasted the english learning strategies used by chinese speakers under the clil approach in two different contexts, taiwan and hong kong. the strategy inventory for language learning (sill) was used as the instrument to identify the students’ strategy preferences. the results showed that both taiwanese and hong kong clil learners used language learning strategies (lls) moderately, but the former deployed lls more often than the later. taiwanese learners had the tendency to use indirect strategies more frequently than direct strategies, on the contrary to the hong kong students. according to the researcher, offering additional courses in esp or english for academics purposes (eap) to support learners with necessary language skills before dealing with the subject matter is recommended in the contexts in which clil is going to be implemented. nickerson (2018) discussed a business english course for undergraduate students in the gulf region with three areas of focus, that addressed this concern: (i) it combined a flipped classroom approach and a project-based learning approach, (ii) it presented students with a series of mobile learning tasks that focused on a set of three interdependent instructional goals, i.e. interaction, production and reflection. the achieving of the three goals required an extensive usage of content language integrated learning. the emergence of esp hutchinson and waters (1987) noted two important periods bringing esp into further expansion. first, the end of world war ii brought with it an " ... age of enormous and unprecedented expansion in scientific, technical and economic activity on an international scale for various reasons, most notably the economic power of the united states in the post-war world, the role [of international language] fell to english" (p. 6). second, the early 1970s oil crisis resulted in western money and knowledge marching into the oil-rich countries. the language of this knowledge was english. the overall effect of all this ‘new language needs’ was to give pressure on the language teaching profession to deliver the required learning teaching english for specific purposes 124 material. english then became subject to the needs and demands of people outside the language teachers group (hutchinson & waters, 1987). the main reason noted as giving a significance impact on the emergence of esp was a huge change in linguistics. traditional linguists described the features of language; the modern ones began to focus on how language has been used in authentic communication. hutchinson and waters (1987) argued that new crucial discovery was in the production (spoken and written english). in brief, when the specific context in which english is used changes, the variant of english will also change. therefore, tailoring language instruction to meet the needs of learners in specific contexts was then becoming one necessary area in elt, called english for specific purposes (esp). the other reason hutchinson and waters in khoey (2003) pointed as having influenced the emergence of esp is related with the ways learners acquire language and the differences in the ways language is acquired. learners are perceived to employ specific learning strategies, skills, learning schemata, and be motivated by specific needs and interests. therefore, designing specific courses to better meet the ‘specific’ individual needs was a natural extension of the ‘approach’, the esp approach. absolute and variable characteristics of esp dudley-evans and st john (dudleyevans, 2003) at a 1997 japan conference on esp, proposed a concept regarding absolute and variable characteristics of esp as follows: i. absolute characteristics: esp is defined to meet specific needs of the learner; esp makes use of the underlying methodology and activities of the discipline it serves; esp is focused on the language (grammar, lexis, registers), skills, discourse and genres appropriate to these activities. ii. variable characteristics: esp can be related to or designed for specific disciplines; esp may use, in specific teaching situations, a different methodology from that of general english; esp is likely to be designed for adult learners, either at a tertiary level institution or in a professional work situation. it could, however, be for learners at secondary school level; esp is generall designed for intermediate or advanced students; most esp courses assume some basic knowledge of the language system, but it can be used with beginners (dudleyevans & john, 1998). as for a broader definition of esp, hutchinson and waters in khoey (2003) mentioned, "esp is an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learner's reason for learning”. esp and clil(content language integrated learning) by synchronizing language and cognitive development, clil can counter the defect of relevance in language teaching based on grammatical basecurriculum and hopefully improve learners’ motivation (lasagabaster, 2009 in harrop, 2012). therefore, clil gives learners with a more authentic context that reinforces language acquisition and learning, and directs to greater fluency in learners of all abilities (lyster, 2007; krashen,1985; lightbown and spada, 2006 in harrop, 2012). logically, clil is teaching english for specific purposes 125 an interesting and effective alternative to approach the learners of esp. as learners increase their language competences, they are capable to handle more complex topics; therefore, teaching and learning material has to offer learners a challenging subject matter that is step by step improved in level of comprehension and difficulties. clil, where language and subject teachers work together, has the potential to support learners acquire subject knowledge and expertise in language development simultaneously (harrop, 2012). the increasing significance of clil in language education is best described by this statement: enriching the content of language learning and teaching makes it more interesting and more challenging. language learning, focusing only on linguistic development, is not able to develop pragmatic and sociolinguistic competences at the same pace; the cognitive challenges offered by good clil teaching contain the potential to accommodate intellectual growth (harrop, 2012). one of the key challenges in clil is how to balance both language and subject teaching. for instance, if physics or mathematics or a science is taught in a foreign language, how can we be sure that the learning is as effective as it would be if the subject were taught in the learners’ first language? how can language progress be optimized when the main concentration is on the content of lessons? both of these have an impact on the selection and training of teachers for clil (harrop, 2012). more challenge of clil is in the teaching methodologies including the questioning, the uses of paraphrase, to make learners easy to absorb information in a language in which their fluency is limited (harrop, 2012). understanding and skills (competences in clil after being exposed to a learning in a clil context, students are expected to acquire: ● multilingual competence in a specific field of knowledge or science to include understanding of how information is managed, conceptualised, and communicated in the target languages/l2s in the specific academic and professional domain. ● understanding of the specific dimension of the science in the field, including cultural differences and their own cultural, academic and professional representations, how these are manifested in the target languages/l2s. ● knowledge and understanding of how multilingual and multicultural networks and communities operate and which interpersonal and intercultural skills, linguistic and non-linguistic, are operating. ● awareness and understanding of communication conventions in the field and profession in the target languages/l2s, such as discourse and diction/ vocabulary conventions, also sensitivity to appropriate style used in academic, professional and social contexts. furthermore, students who have obtained such understanding are expected to show: ● receptive and productive skills to process and evaluate information in the field of study, to share information, and to identify, analyse and solve problems in specific settings of the field. ● interpersonal communication in the target languages/l2s to interact in specific teaching english for specific purposes 126 academic contexts, networks and communities, as well as in social contexts. ● using verbal and non-verbal communication in target languages/l2s in the specific academic field and and social contexts, including communicating with different audiences. teaching and learning as clil requires new kinds of ‘teaching-learning methodology’, it is also required that interdisciplinary meanings have to be agreed for the role of language in knowledge building and sharing. in summary, the language learning outcomes in clil are considered contextual, functional and communicative, which is in line with the descriptors of the common european framework of reference for languages (cef) (https://www.lanqua.eu, 2018). this means interactive educational approaches and carefully made learning materials, as well as support systems for both students and teachers. assessment all forms of assessment used in clil varieties are: (https://www.lanqua.eu, 2018): formative assessment (project‐based, continuous individual or class work), summative assessment (oral and written exams), self‐assessment and peer‐assessment. assessment rang es from individual assessment of language and content to group assessment. it is suggested that the progress of students is also considered in the evaluation process. the assessment procedure needs to employ both language and content, as the student is to develop subject matter competence as well as language competence in clil teaching and learning program. methods the research was qualitative with limited use of numbers and figures only for describing tools. the design of the study was classroom action research which commonly used for a research to improve classroom teaching and learning performance. the pattern of the research was planning, acting, developing, and reflecting. the cycle of the classroom action research is described as the following spiral of action research cycles (coghlan & brannick, 2010 in divina m. edralin, 2015). figure 1. cycles of an action research 127 teaching english for specific purposes beyond words vol 7, no. 2 november 2019 this study investigated some methods in correspond to teaching english for specific purposes (esp) according to content language integrated learning (clil) and analyzed them. to conduct the research on investigating those research questions, the following steps of classroom action research methodology were conducted: planning, acting, developing, and reflecting. however, these steps were modified to adjust with the result of reflection after the teaching and learning process of one session to another. planning means identifying the topic, gathering preliminary information, reviewing related literature (mertler, 2009) and an additional steps: designing an action plan, arranging a set of observation tools, and preparing class log/ notes for the classes and test items for students’ evaluation (mid and final tests). developing an action plan was carried out after doing these two steps. step one covered these elements: implementing the action plan, collecting the data through the research tools (observation tools, and preparing class log/ notes for the classes, and taking student scores (keeping the scores record)). step two was the analysis and the interpretation of the data. after the data analysis and interpretation, an important outcome: the findings, was used to develop the next action plan for developing and improving the teaching methodology. this developed action plan was the important goal of any exploratory research since this developed action plan was the tools to describe the result of the research. reflecting the whole process of the existing research was the last step of the research cycle. the research was conducted in three cycles. each cycle was ended with a reflection, a tool to prepare the next cycle. one cycle covered two meetings, with one additional last meeting after the three cycles were conducted. the participants in the research were the students of food technology faculty taking the english subject in their second year in widya mandala catholic university surabaya. the students were put in two classes, namely class f and g. there were 58 students of class f and fifty three (53) students of class g. the teaching and learning were conducted in seven meetings for each class. the duration of each meeting was three credit hours or one hundred and fifty (150) minutes. due to the nature of qualitative study, the objective of the study was to give recommendation on the teaching and learning of english in specific purposes context. the research instrument was the writer. the writer observed the administration of teaching english for specific purposes (esp), recorded the observation, and analyzed the data. the result of the observation and class log were triangulated together with the result of the mid and final tests, to give insight on the teaching of esp. the data collected were in two types: qualitative data and quantitative data. the qualitative data were from the result of the observations and class log. the second type of data collected was the quantitative data. this data was gained from the tests and evaluation results, in the form of scores. the scores were calculated and put in graphs to see tendencies and teaching english for specific purposes 128 patterns. however, the research did not process the quantitative data using inferential statistics formulas because the nature of the research was not quantitative. the quantitative data served for descriptive purpose, to support the findings gained through the observations. the data analysis was conducted for the two types of data. the observations results were grouped, and then interpreted using categories, and patterns. the class log notes were also categorized and grouped, seeing if there were similar patterns occurring or similar categories appear. the researchers then triangulated the result of previous data analysis with the analysis result of the tests/ evaluation scores calculation. findings and discussion the research data were the qualitative data from the result of the observations and class log and the data collected was the quantitative data gained from the tests and evaluation results, in the form of scores. the scores were calculated and put in graphs to see tendencies and patterns. here is the list of activities based on the course outline prepared on the basis of content language integrated-learning altogether with the cycle division. table 1. class course outline the first and the second meetings were grouped into the first cycle, the third and the fourth were the second cycle, then, the fifth and the sixth were the third cycle. all the cycles were closed with one additional one meeting. for each cycle, there were indicators to measure the students’ achievement towards the learning outcome. teaching english for specific purposes 129 1. students are able to explain the concept a sentence in english. (cycle 1) 2. students are able to identify the components of a sentence (subject, predicate, object, complement). (cycle 1) 3. students are able to memorize, understand and use the repeated phrases in scientific articles. (cycle 1) 4. students are able to understand why a particular tense is used in a particular context in a scientific article. (cycle 2) 5. students are able to create scientific sentences with the correct tense. (cycle 2) 6. students are able to show differences between compound sentence and complex sentence. (cycle 2) 7. students are able to create scientific sentences in compound or complex sentences. (cycle 2) 8. students are able to use compound and complex scientific sentences in a topical paragraph. (cycle 3) 9. students are able to conduct a presentation in the topic of food technology in english. (cycle 3) 10. students are able to write a paragraph of a topic in food and technology and also able to present the topic. (additional review meeting) in the first cycle, the use of general english language covered about 60 percent and 40 percent is the contextual english. in the second cycle, the general english usage was slightly decreased, replaced by more scientific context english language, about 50 percent for each category. the amount of scientific context language was increased to about 70 percent and left general english with only 30 percent in the third cycle. the content language specific to the subject matter increased gradually and naturally as the cycles progressed. seeing the lesson materials, this progression made senses a lot since the initial cycles dealt mainly with general teaching english for specific purposes 130 concept of english language production, the concept of sentences and the components. general language were naturally taking place at this stage. stepping into the second cycle, the content material became more specific to the subject matter of where english was used, the compound and complex sentences of english in scientific articles. phrases of scientific english which is specific to the field (food technology) were learnt, memorized, and used in a meaningful context (paragraphs of articles). the last (third) cycle was the peak of where english was used specifically in the field, to produce oral presentation and written paragraphs of the subject matter (food technology). in the three-cycle of action research, it was clearly seen that clil (content language integrated learning) approach was used collaboratively with the general language. the general language was needed to explain the basic concept of the language such as the components of a sentence, tenses, compound and complex sentences theoretical knowledge. clil came along gradually when the discussion and topic became more related to the subject matter (presentation and paragraph production, which required a significant amount of specific vocabulary and language style which was in academic and technological context (food technology). 131 teaching english for specific purposes beyond words vol 7, no. 2 november 2019 figure 3. an excerpt of a class log teaching english for specific purposes 132 there are few important notes concluded from the excerpt after the teaching learning activities related to the students’ perception toward the clil vs general language approach in teaching the english language for their subject matter: 1. clil is perceived as relevant and ‘down to earth’ to deliver the english language teaching in the context of their field. 2. general language has a benefit up to the extent of explaining the basic concept of the language grammatical points (using the terms such as complex, compound, subject, predicate, objects) 3. authentic materials for delivering the lesson are regarded as being relevant to their interest and context of the subject matter. in the later part of the report, the students’ scores are presented (from the assignment scores to the mid test scores), along with the discussion towards the findings. the following tables (table 1, table 2, table 3, table 4) are the summary of findings for the study. teaching english for specific purposes 133 in the series of assignment score-quiz score-examination score, there is a clear impression that the set of scores tend to be constant with little variation of increasing and decreasing scores (less than 3.00 (three point double zero) score points), except the difference between group g’s assignment and quiz scores as well as the difference of the group’s quiz and examination scores. the quiz average scores scored 6.55 (six point fifty five) lower than the assignment average scores. the examination’s average scores scored 5.53 (five point fifty three) points higher than the quiz average scores. here are some remarks regarding the deviating phenomena: 1. the quiz, seen from the description in table 4.4, was an oral presentation which required more spontaneous usage of english language production. the preparation levels of group g and f in terms of oral language presentation must have been different, which causing the different result of the average quizzes average scores between them. 2. both groups resulted in increased average scores from the quiz average scores to the examination average scores. since the examination compiled all the necessary skills related to scientific english language production, it can be concluded that the teaching and learning process which were utilized clil approach had brought significant and positive changes to the students. whether the changes are reliable and stable after longer time period, it requires further research in the same area and topic. 3. the set of scores which tend to be constant with little variation of increasing and decreasing scores implied that the approach generally had showed positive impact to the learning and teaching process of esp in the groups. teaching english for specific purposes 134 if it is observed, the final stage of the assignment average scores for both groups had slightly increased compared to the ones in the initial stage. however, there was an interesting point happened in assignment 4 average scores, where for group f, the scores were quite higher compared to the previous assignment (see table 4.2) while the other group experienced the opposite (group g). according to some students in class g during the classroom observation, some of them did not know that the sentences in assignment 4 should be scientific, even though the lecturer already gave the announcement regarding how to do the assignment. as the result, some of their sentences were not scientific, which affected their scores. teaching english for specific purposes 135 table 5. description of quiz and examination conclusion and suggestion as an approach to english for specific purposes teaching and learning, content language integrated learning (clil) has been proven useful by both the instructor and the learners to comprehend the learning materials. various researches and studies under the same general topic, clil, have brought similar conclusion, that the approach has worked well and brought the learners forward from the previous stage. the language learning outcomes in clil are made contextual, functional and communicative, in line with the descriptors of the common european framework of reference for languages (cef) (https://www.lanqua.eu, 2018). all these principles imply interactive learning approaches and carefully constructed learning materials, also sufficient support systems for both students and teachers. in this study, the students perceived clil as relevant and ‘down to earth’ to deliver the english language teaching in the context of their field, while general language has an advantage up to the extent of explaining the basic concept of the language grammatical points (using the terms such as complex, compound, subject, predicate, objects). the clil approach are recommended to be applied continually under constant control, observation and evaluation since the esp world is various and multi-context. this approach supposed to be adjusted with the local environment, students’ interest, and according to the need analysis before tailoring the lesson plan. further research in how clil is able to influence the students’ language mastery in a specific field with various context is subject to be systematically conducted. 136 teaching english for specific purposes beyond words vol 7, no. 2 november 2019 © eric sulindra eric sulindra, m.pd. is a lecturer of business english correspondence and business english communication at widya mandala secretarial academy surabaya references (2018, 25 september 2018, 11:37 am, tuesday). retrieved from https://www.ecml.at/thematicareas/contentandlanguageintegratedlearning (2018, 25 september 2018, 11:40 am, tuesday). retrieved from https://www.lanqua.eu: https://www.lanqua.eu/theme/content-language-integrated-learning-clil/ (2018, 26 september 2018, 02:04 pm, wednesday). retrieved from www.britishcouncil.org: https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/ten-trends-innovations-englishlanguage-teaching-2018 (2018, 26 september 2018, 02:57 pm, wednesday). lifelong learning program: clil guide book. (2018). retrieved from http://languages.dk/clil4u/ divina m. edralin, m. v. (2015). initiating women empowerment and youth development through involvement in non formal education in three selected parishes: an action research on poverty alleviation . dlsu business & economics review 24, 2., 108-123. dudley-evans, t. and m.j. st. john (1998) developments in english for specific purposes cambridge: cambridge university press. dudley-evans, t. (2003). genre analysis: a key to a theory of esp. oxford: oxford university press harrop, e. (2012). content and language integrated learning: limitations and possibilities. encuentro 21, 57-70. hutchinson, t., & waters, a. (1987). english for specific purposes. cambridge: cambridge university press. khoey, k. g. (2003). esp curriculum development. the internet tesl journal. (2003, 5 january, 2003, 02:57 am) retrieved from www.khae-service.com mertler, craig a. (2009). action research: teachers as researchers in the classroom: 2nd (second) edition. sage publications. machmud, k. (2018). technology integrated esp instruction: the engineering students' perspectives. the asian esp journal, 434-439. ministry of education, science and technology, government of sierra leone. (2018). esp 2018-2020: implementation plan; meeting commitment-giving hope. nickerson, c. (2018). mobile and multidimensional: flipping the business english classroom. esp today: journal of english for specific purposes at tertiary level. yang, w. (2018). the development of english learning in clil approach: a comparison study of hong kong and taiwanese students at tertiary level. esp today: journal of english for specific purposes at tertiary level. introduction esp and clil(content language integrated learning) methods findings and discussion mertler, craig a. (2009). action research: teachers as researchers in the classroom: 2nd (second) edition. sage publications. computer-based timeline media 31 beyond words vol.7 no.1 (may 2019) using computer-based timeline media to teach english tenses susana teopilus susanateopilus@ukwms.ac.id & hendra tedjasuksmana hendra@ukwms.ac.id english department faculty of teacher training and education widya mandala catholic university surabaya surabaya, indonesia & diana lestariningsih dlestariningsih@yahoo.com electric engineering faculty of engineering widya mandala catholic university surabaya surabaya, indonesia abstract the difference between english and indonesian in the aspect of verb forms poses a big problem to indonesian learners in learning the english tenses. indonesian learners are often unaware of the english time concept which affects verb forms. to overcome the problem, in this three-year research, teopilus et al. have developed computer-based timeline media to teach the english tenses. to find out the effectiveness of the developed media, 251 students from 4 (four) different senior high schools were given the instructions of the english tense(s) using the timeline media. these subjects were given a pretest prior to the instruction and a posttest after it. the pretest scores and the posttest scores were statistically compared using the t-test formula. to obtain the users’ opinions on the developed media, a questionnaire was distributed to 7 (seven) english teachers. the results of the data analysis yield the following findings: (1) there is a significant increase from the average of the subjects’ pre-test scores to their post-test scores, and (2) the results of the users’ questionnaires also give positive responses to the developed timeline media. this implies that the computer-based timeline media developed in this research helps indonesian learners comprehend the english tenses better keywords: timeline media, english tense, computer-based introduction the difference between english and indonesian in the aspect of verb forms poses a big problem to indonesian learners in learning english, especially the english tenses. english verbs have several forms: infinitive form, present participle, preterite, and past mailto:susanateopilus@ukwms.ac.id mailto:dlestariningsih@yahoo.com 32 computer-based timeline media beyond words, vol.7 no. 1. participle; in addition, the tense and mode used to express an activity determines which verb form is used. indonesian language, however, does not recognize these verb changes. the findings of the previous research entitled “problems in applying english tenses faced by the students of the english education study program as shown by their thinking aloud protocols” indicate that many students of the english education study program, having completed all the structure classes offered, still made mistakes in using english tenses; one of the causes is their inability to understand the time concept of the english tenses (teopilus and winarlim, 2008). this three-year research entitled ‘developing computer-based timeline media to teach english tenses’, therefore, aimed at finding a solution to the problems experienced by most indonesian learners in learning and mastering english tenses. to do so, teopilus et al. in the first two years of the research, developed the computer-based timeline media to teach twelve english tenses. the developed timeline media are equipped with pictures, animation and sound to visualize the abstract time concept of the english tenses and to make it easy for the indonesian learners to understand the functions of the english tense(s) taught. the developed timeline media were then tried out in the english classes. the third year of the research was devoted to disseminating the media to a number of english teachers so that they could also use them in their classes. the present research report, therefore, discusses the results of the implementation of the developed timeline media, called ‘timeline media for english tenses’, to teach english tenses in some english classes at the senior high school level. the analyzed results prove the effectiveness of the media in helping indonesian learners comprehend the english tenses. this paper starts by briefly discussing the background of the research, and the underlying theories used to support it. next, it describes what has been done during the three-year journey of the research. then, it elaborates the findings of the implementation of the developed timeline media in several high schools, followed by the results of the questionnaires from the users, in this case some senior high school teachers of english. timeline media for english tenses many english grammar books give timeline graphs in their sections of english tenses. rees (2005) states that timelines are diagrams that illustrate the reference to time made by a given piece of language. they are used to show how a particular language item (often a verb in a particular tense and aspect) places particular events or situations in time and in relation to other events. in english language teaching, particularly in the teaching of english tenses, a timeline is a diagram which describes the time reference showing how an event or happening is placed in the timeline in relation to another event or happening. computer-based timeline media 33 beyond words vol.7 no.1 (may 2019) in assigning the time zones in the timeline media, the area on the left of the vertical line represents the past time, the vertical line refers to the present time, and the area on the right of the vertical line refers to the future time. the concept of time or tense in english is used to refer to past, present, or future. in each of the tense categories, there are subcategories called aspects, which refer to the duration of an event. in english, there are four aspects, namely simple, progressive, perfect, and perfect progressive. the simple aspect does not show the beginning or the ending of an event, but it only shows whether an event happens or not. the perfect aspect shows that the ending of the event is known and is used to emphasize that the event is over. the progressive aspect indicates that an event is in progress. the perfect progressive aspect shows that an event has/had been and is/was in progress at a certain time. the timeline media developed in this research consists of 14 modules and are equipped with animation and sound. the use of the timeline media gives the following benefits in helping indonesian learners to comprehend the english tenses: (1) timeline media simplifies the abstract explanation about the past time, present time and future tense, and (2) timeline media clearly visualizes the three time zones: past, present, and future; indonesian learners will, therefore, immediately see which time zone is referred to in the action expressed in the sentence and what english tense is correctly used to do so (teopilus et al, 2014). teaching english tenses to learners there are two approaches to teaching english grammar: deductive and inductive approaches. nunan (2005) states that there are two basic ways to introduce a new grammar item, deductively and inductively. in a deductive approach, the teacher presents the grammar rules and then gives students exercises in which they apply the rule. in an inductive approach, the teacher presents samples of language, and the students have to come to an intuitive understanding of the rule. in relation to the teaching of english tenses, when the deductive approach is used, a teacher will start with the explanation of the verb forms or usage and functions or uses, and after that he or she will give the students more examples and exercises so that they can use the tense correctly. the inductive approach is used when the teacher starts with examples of the verb forms to be taught, and students are guided to discover their conclusion of the verb forms. more examples and exercises are given to them so that they can use the verb forms correctly. in teaching english tenses, teachers can adopt either the deductive or inductive approach, depending on the complexity of the time concepts and functions of the tense. for the simpler concepts, the inductive approach can be used; for the more complex ones, the deductive approach is recommended. the timeline media developed can be integrated in both of these approaches. once the concepts have been understood by the learners, the teachers should give them meaningful exercises that will encourage them to apply the newly-obtained knowledge into practice so that it stays in their long term memory. the key to the successful teaching of the english tenses is implanting the concept and providing the opportunity for the learners to frequently use them meaningfully in context so that they can use it correctly. for this 34 computer-based timeline media beyond words, vol.7 no. 1. purpose, learners need to do a lot of exercises. to this point, nunan (2005) argues that research has shown that a grammatical item will be more successfully mastered by one’s practicing 15 minutes over four days than by an hour’s practice on a single day. this does indicate that repeating or revisiting a grammatical item several times will result in a better mastery. learning styles conner (2007) argues that learning styles classify different ways people learn and how they approach information. nunan (2015) states that a learning style is the natural, habitual way that we go about learning. learning styles have been classified in various ways. christison (2003, in nunan, 2015) distinguishes between cognitive styles, sensory styles, and personality styles. with reference to the different learning styles based on their sensory styles, students can be classified into 3 types: visual learning style, auditory learning style, and kinesthetic learning style. visual style is learning by seeing. students with this learning style benefit greatly from teaching that utilizes illustrations, charts, diagrams, videos, etc. auditory learning style is learning by hearing. students with this learning style benefits the lecture or oral explanation delivered in the classroom environment, as they are able to comprehend, process and retain the information provided. kinesthetic style is learning by doing. students with this style benefit from hands-on learning experience. students use a combination of all these three learning channels to receive and process information; one or more of these three styles is, however, more dominantly preferred and used in learning a new task. this dominant learning style is the best way for the respective students. in order that the teaching of english tenses can work effectively, it should accommodate the students’ different learning styles. the computerized timeline media designed and developed in this research have the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic features. the visual feature is seen from the writing, pictures and animation used; the auditory feature is obtained from the voice and background music in the media; and the kinesthetic feature is also embedded in the animation used and the use of the navigation buttons when doing the independent study with the cd rom. the computerized timeline media designed here are, therefore, expected to be able to accommodate all these different learning styles. multimodal texts in teaching tenses the present learners in senior high schools belong to generation z, who grows up with highly sophisticated social media and computer technology. wikipedia states that this generation is generally defined with birth years ranging from the mid or late 1990s through the 2010s or starting from the early 2000s. generation z learners are now living in an era where multimodal texts combine words, sounds, images, and movement. this implies that generation z learners are used to getting exposed to multimodal texts too. the digital era has brought massive changes to their life styles, and they become less interested in text-based materials having no visuals and sounds. computer-based timeline media 35 beyond words vol.7 no.1 (may 2019) in english language teaching and learning, this type of learners will be more motivated and interested to learn the language when they are given explanations with multimodal texts which combine words, sounds, images, and movement. walker and white (2013) state that learning is multimodal, and one of the special things with computer technology is it allows learners and teachers to combine modes such as sound, text and image in the classroom instruction. technology plays roles in education; it can be a learning resource, delivery system and productivity. students can use computer programs, for example, to scaffold themselves with their needs, to acquire knowledge, and to create learning experience (lee, waxman, wu, michko, and lin, 2013). with such programs they can find kinds of learning resources to improve their capacity, and they can experience with kinds of materials that they enjoy learning. what is more is they can use the programs for self-study. thus, technology can be used as student-centered learning. technological resources can also be used outside the classroom; that is why students should be encouraged by the teachers to language concepts that they have difficulty to actively use technological resources in their self-directed learning. when doing this, students engage themselves to develop their capacity effectively (lai, 2015). technology that is used in class is supposed to provide to process as in comprehending the time zone in learning the english tenses. mannan (2005) states that visual aids help the teacher accurately present the abstract concepts real and meaningful. therefore, students will students with ease the understanding of easily understand the concepts more concrete so that learning is effective, meaningful and inspirational. audio visuals can make the learners easy to understand concepts, specifically in this study the grammatical concepts, that is the concepts of the english tenses. audio visual media enhance students’ comprehension and learning; they enable students to holistically understand what words cannot convey. audio visuals provide students with tools to make thought and organization processes visible. complex concepts can be made simple and meaningful. audio visuals assist students synthetically and analytically process and restructure ideas and information. fig. 2 modified addie model of instructional desin 36 computer-based timeline media beyond words, vol.7 no. 1. the use of audio-visual aids in the teaching and learning processes has been researched by many scholars; most of the research results indicate benefits of such uses for learners. these research results have confirmed educators that learners will learn better in the classroom where teachers use teaching aids, which accommodate two or more sensory channels. mayer (2011), in his research on multimedia instruction hypothesis, explored the question of whether adding visualizations to words in instruction messages can improve student learning, and his research finding points to the potential value of adding visualization to verbalinstruction. finally, boneva and mihova (2012) believe learning that is experienced through two or more senses is much more likely to be retained by students. in teaching english tenses, teachers are, therefore, encouraged to make use of multisensory channels that can stimulate multimodal learning. a three-year journey development basing on the findings of the previous research (teopilus & winarlim, 2008), which served as the needs analysis to justify the research objective, teopilus et al developed the computer-based timeline media to teach english tenses to indonesian learners. the addie model of instructional development is adopted and adapted in developing the instructional modules of the computer-based timeline media to teach english tenses in this research. the following diagram illustrates the design sequence of the present module development. the first four steps (steps 1-4) are related to the developing of the modules; step 5 is related to the implementation of the modules; and step 6 is related to the evaluation of the effectiveness of the modules after they are implemented. steps 1-4 are conducted in the first and second years of the research. steps 56, which are related to the implementation of the computer-based timeline media developed for teaching english tenses in the classrooms and the evaluation of the effectiveness of the media, are conducted in the third year of the research. in the first year of the research (2014), teopilus et al develop the modules of teaching the first english tenses using computer-based timeline media, covering simple present tense, present progressive tense, simple past tense, past progressive tense, simple future tense, and future progressive tense. these six modules are preceded with a module of introduction to time concept in english tenses. there are, therefore 7 modules altogether that have been developed and tried-out and tested in the first year of research. the result of the try-out indicates that these modules are proved to be able to increase the subjects’ knowledge of the related english tenses significantly. in the second year (2015), six more modules of teaching the next six english tenses (namely present perfect tense, perfect progressive tense, past perfect tense, past perfect progressive tense, future perfect tense, and future perfect progressive tense) are developed. the module of overall review of english tenses is developed to summarize the previous twelve modules. on the whole, there are 7 modules that have been developed in the second year. these modules are also tried out and tested, and the findings also show that they significantly enhance the subjects’ knowledge of the english tenses. in the third year (2016), all the fourteen modules are refined and compiled together computer-based timeline media 37 beyond words vol.7 no.1 (may 2019) into one dvd entitled ‘timeline media for english tenses’. next, it is disseminated to 18 english teachers of 10 senior high schools in surabaya and 26 english teachers of 10 senior high schools in mojokerto. following the dissemination, class observations of eight teachers using these media in teaching english tense(s) to their students are conducted. there are 6 classes in 2 schools in surabaya and 2 classes in 2 schools in mojokerto which have been observed. the remaining section of this paper discusses the results of the implementation of the developed timeline media done by these english teachers research method participants to find out the effectiveness of the developed timeline media, this research, a pretestposttest design, used 251 senior high school students (grade x to grade xii) as the research subjects. these subjects were from 4 different senior high schools, two of which were located in surabaya, a big city in east java and the other two were located in mojokerto, a small city in east java. these four schools were randomly chosen from 20 (twenty) schools which had sent their teachers to join the research dissemination of the use of the computer-based timeline media to teach english tenses. these schools used the national curriculum in the teaching and learning processes, and the medium of instruction was indonesian. as all of the subjects were in the senior high school levels, they had got english lessons in the classrooms for at least 10 years. in fact, they had been taught most of the afore-mentioned twelve english tenses before receiving the instruction of the english tense using the developed timeline media in this research. in addition to finding out the effectiveness of the developed timeline media, the research also aimed at obtaining opinions from the english teachers who used the media in teaching the english tense(s) to their students in their classes. to do so, the developed questionnaire was distributed to 8 (eight) users, who were english teachers in high schools, and 7 (seven) of whom returned the completed questionnaire. research instruments there are 2 instruments used in this research: (1) a test on english tenses, and (2) a questionnaire. the english tense(s). the test, serving as the pretest and post test, is to measure the subjects’ knowledge of the english tense(s) taught. as the implementation was done in senior high schools, it was the school english teachers who did the teaching using the developed media. it is a common practice for school teachers to give a pretest prior to his/her instruction, and a posttest after his/her instruction. the respective teacher is assumed to know what learning outcome(s) to be achieved in his or her lesson and what level of achievement to be included in the test for his/her students based on the english syllabi of the national curriculum. in this research, therefore, the test given to the subjects of a certain class was made by the respective english teacher who taught the class. the questionnaire. this was used to find out the opinions of the english teachers, or the users of the timeline media developed. the questionnaire consisted of six questions asking about the users’ opinions on (a) the benefit of the ‘timeline media for english 38 computer-based timeline media beyond words, vol.7 no. 1. tenses’ to help the students to comprehend the time concept in english tenses, (b) the layout of the pictures and the animation in the timeline media to help the students to comprehend the time concept of the english tense taught, (c) the clearness of the native speaker’s voice in the media to help the students understand the time concept of the english tense taught, (d) the students’ interest to learn english tenses using the computer-based timeline media developed, (e) the ease of using the developed timeline media, and (f) the role of the developed computer-based timeline media in enhancing the students’ understanding the english tense(s) taught. procedure the participants were in their intact classes (referred to as class a to class h). each of the english sessions lasted for 90 minutes, and the time was allocated as follows: • pretest: 20 minutes • instruction: 50 minutes • posttest: 20 minutes prior to receiving their teacher’s instruction of english tense(s) using the developed timeline media, the subjects of each class were given a pretest to do. the pretest was related to the english tense(s) to be taught by the respective teacher. after the instruction, they were given a post test to do. then the scores of the pretest were statistically compared to the scores of the posttest using the t-test formula to find out whether there was any significant difference between them or not. results table 1 results of t-test calculation computer-based timeline media 39 beyond words vol.7 no.1 (may 2019) the results of the t-test calculation (of the subjects’ pretest and posttest scores) of all the eight classes are presented in the above table 1. while the results of the t-test calculation of all the classes indicate that there is a significant difference between the subjects’ pretest scores and their posttest scores. this proves that the timeline media developed in this research, to some extent, have effectively increased the learners’ knowledge of the english tenses taught. the results of the questionnaire analysis are presented in the table below. table 2 results of questionnaire analysis the results of the questionnaire analysis indicate the positive responses of these teachers after using the media in their classes. they gave very good responses (43%) and good responses (57%) to the questions asking about the benefit, very good responses (71%) and good responses (29%) to the layout of the pictures and animation, very good responses (71%) and good responses (29%) to native speaker’s voice, very good responses (29%) and good responses (71%) to students’ interest, very good responses (57%) and good responses (43%) to the ease of operating the media, and very good responses (57%) and good responses (43%) to the role of the media to enhance their students’ understanding of the english tense(s) taught. discussion in general, the developed timeline media can enhance the learners’ understanding of the english tenses. this has been proved by the increase in the their posttest scores, which shows a significant gain score obtained after they have been given the instruction using the computer-based timeline media developed. in the classroom instruction, the developed timeline media can simplify the abstract explanation about the time concept; furthermore, the timeline media, along with the voice, pictures, and animation, help to clearly visualize the activities or happenings illustrated in the three time zones. the learners can, therefore, immediately see which time zone is referred to in the action expressed in the sentence and what english tense is used to express it correctly. with this timeline media, learners are made accustomed to ‘seeing’ actions or events depicted in the related time zone. gradually, they are brought to the 40 computer-based timeline media beyond words, vol.7 no. 1. understanding that actions or events happening in the past time zone are to be expressed using the past tenses, such as simple past tense, past progressive tense, past perfect tense, or past perfect progressive tense. when events or actions take place in the present time zone, meaning that they are related to the present time, these events are to be expressed using the present tenses, such as simple present tense, present progressive tense, present perfect tense, or present perfect progressive tense. finally, when events or actions occur in the future time zone, these events or actions need to be expressed using the future tenses, such as simple future tense, future progressive tense, future perfect tense, or future perfect progressive tense. when learners are aware of the importance of understanding the time concept in english tenses, they will be able to use the correct verb forms to express actions or events based on the time zones where they happen. thus, they will not use an english past tense to express a present happening or vice versa. besides, the addition of sound in the developed media, the native speaker’s voice and the background music, also helps the subjects retrieve the learned concept easily. thus, the pictures and animation in the media accompanied with the sound facilitate the retaining process of the learned knowledge in the subjects’ long-term memory, making it possible for them to remember it when they need to use it. this is just in line with boneva & mihova (2012) who argue that learning which is experienced through two or more senses is much more likely to be retained by students. in this study, though there is improvement in the subjects’ knowledge of the english tenses taught, many of their post test scores are still considered insufficient. this happens because they were not given any time to do any related exercises. their post test scores would have been much higher if they had done some related exercises. once the time concept of the english tense(s) is understood, learners should be given meaningful exercises related to the tenses taught to retain the knowledge in their longterm memory. after all, the key to the successful teaching of the english tenses is implanting the time concept and providing the opportunity for the learners to frequently use them meaningfully in context as what nunan (2005) argues that a grammatical item will be more successfully mastered by one’s practicing 15 minutes over four days than by an hour’s practice on a single day. repeating or revisiting a grammatical item several times will result in a better mastery. these research findings prove that the subjects’ knowledge of the english tenses improves after they have been given instruction of the english tense using the developed timeline media. with these findings, it can be concluded that the use of the computer-based timeline media developed in this research (timeline media for english tenses) will be able to help indonesian learners comprehend the twelve english tenses more effectively. the series of the research activities conducted in three years have yielded the following conclusions: • the teaching of english, in this case english tenses, needs to be supported with teaching media that can accommodate students’ needs, interest, and learning styles. computer-based timeline media 41 beyond words vol.7 no.1 (may 2019) in the digital era, the use of computer technology, such as the developed computerbased timeline media, is recommended as it fulfills their needs, interest, and learning styles. • indonesian learners need to be guided in understanding the time concept (with the three time zones: past, present, and future), which is very crucial for english tenses. • the developed timeline media show the time zones. the media, equipped with the animation and voice, can visualize the time concept of the twelve english tenses; thus learners are helped to use the correct verb forms to express the events. • the timeline media developed in this research can enhance the learners’ understanding of the english tenses presented. this is proved by the t-test calculation, which shows a significant increase from the pretest scores to the posttest scores. © susana teopilus, hendra tedjasuksmana & diana lestariningsih. susana teopilus is a senior lecturer at the english language teaching department, faculty of teacher training and education, widya mandala catholic university surabaya. she teaches english language teaching methodology, writing, and teaching english to young learners. she has conducted research related to the courses taught and the classroom language of in-service teacher development. hendra tedjasuksmana is a senior lecturer at the english language teaching department as well as at the master’s program in elt, widya mandala catholic university surabaya. he teaches applied linguistics, syntax, discoursesis and english skills. his research interests include language acquisition and use, and discourse. diana lestariningsih is a full-time lecturer at the electrical engineering department, faculty of engineering, widya mandala catholic university surabaya. she teaches electronic circuit, analog electronic, anatomy and phisiology for biomedical engineering, computer application for biomedical engineering.she has conducted research related to the courses taught and aid tools for blind & deaf people. references boneva, boneva, d., & mihova, e. 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(2001). the use of technology for second language learning and teaching: a retrospective. the modern language journal, vol. 85, no. 1, 39-56. tedjasuksmana, h.; teopilus, s. (2016). the progressive aspects in the grammatical comptence of first semester students of the english department. 5th eltlt international conference 2016. semarang: state university of semarang. teopilus, s.; winarlim, h.s. & antonia, d.l . (2014). developing computer-based timeline media to teach egnlish tenses . the 8th depisa international conference 2014. jakarta: state university of jakarta. teopilus, s.; tedjasuksmana, h. (2016). the indonesian learners’ grammatical competence of english perfect tenses. conference proceedings. the 63rd teflin international conference 2016. surabaya: university of pgri adi buana surabaya. . teopilus, s.; tedjasuksmana, h., & antonia, d.l. 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(2016, april 06). retrieved from the free encyclopedia: https://en. wikipedia.org/ wiki/generation_z 102 efl authentic learning showcase a showcase of authentic learning activities in an english as a foreign language classi martha nandarisantoso martha.nandari@staff.uksw.edu faculty of language and arts universitas kristen satyawacana salatiga, indonesia abstract one of the major constraints of the teaching of english as a foreign language (efl) is the deficient opportunities to apply the lessons students learn in the classroom in a meaningful context. students may have a lot of knowledge about the language but may not be able to apply the knowledge in real life communication. students who study efl inconventional classrooms will suffer the most.this article discusses a practical framework for teachers of efl who would like to alter their traditional classes, which mostly happen in the classroom, to authentic learning activities or activities that promote real-life applications of knowledge, which happen in realworld situations. i showcased in detail the implementation of the framework in one efl course at the english education program of a private university in indonesia. i also discussed the drawbacks, possible solutions as well as the pedagogical implications with some students’ excerpts of their reflectionstoward the activities to support the discussion. keywords: authentic learning; english as a foreign language class introduction learners who study english in an english as a foreign language (efl) setting, a setting where people do not use english as a medium for communication outside the classroom, are challenged by the fact that they may not have sufficient opportunity to apply the language lessons they learn in the classroom in a meaningful real-life situation communication and that the lessons they have in the classroom may lack authenticity (ozverir, herrington, & osam, 2016).lessons in the classroom which do provide enough context may result in students being knowledgeable about the target language, but unable to use it in real life situations (brown, collins, & duguid, 1989; ozverir, osam, & herrington, 2017).real life communication may have many kinds of linguistic structures in many different situations which are likely to be new and different from the structured practices they experience in the classroom (ozverir et al., 2016; ozverir et al., 2017). one important solution is by providing activities or simulations that resemble real-life problems and situations known as authentic learning, that is a learning approach that develops “authentic tasks--real-world problems and simulations that are closely related to the field under study” (nicaise, gibney, & crane, 2000, p.80 ). with authentic learning, students are enabled to have learning activities that bridge the mailto:martha.nandari@staff.uksw.edu� efl authentic learning showcase 103 distance between classroom and reality (ozverir et al., 2017). this article describes the principles of authentic learning and the implementation of the principles in one efl class called: speaking for social purposes (sfsp) which was conducted ata private university in indonesia. the discussion covers theories of authentic learning, examples of authentic learning employed in sfsp, how the activities used in sfsp class mirror the major characteristics of authentic learning, the drawbacks encountered, and the possible solutions. i also provided some students’ excerpts from their reflections to support the discussion. the article loses with the summary of the main ideas, and some thoughts on the pedagogical implications. what is authentic learning? the notion of authenticity based on doyle cited in andersson and andersson (2004) can be seen from three dimensions: the learners, the subject and the “situated learning”. for the learners, authenticity means we have to emphasize the needs and perspectives of the learners. learners must find the learning useful for their real life. from the subject, it means that the activities must be in line with what the students’ actual learning,and from the “situated learning” the learning must be in a context where activities are just like the practice in real situations. in essence, there are some principles of authentic learning activities. one important principle is that they must relate to real-world situations (diamond, middleton, & mather, 2011; lombardi, 2007; nicaise et al., 2000; rule, 2006).brown et al. (1989) describe authentic activities in explicit teaching and learning situations as those resembling activities practiced by people in the real world beyond the classroom, but the aspects that would obstruct the learners from learning are eliminated. rule (2006) as a journal of authentic learning editor whoanalyzed 45 journal articles that exemplify the use of authentic learning in various disciplines, concludes in her analysis that authentic learning involves problems of real-life situation, continuous inquiry, and thinking skills, interactions with a learning community beyond the classroom and learners taking initiatives of their learning. she explains further that “the community of learners who scaffold learning for each other during discussions along with the audience beyond those learners who set the context for the problem both form important components of authentic learning” (p.6). some researchers also discussed other dimensions of authentic learning. lave and winger (1991) argue authentic learning activities as learning activities that are done by students within real communities of practice. learning happens as students learn from the more expert members in the community. in other words, learning is through practice rather than from instructional teaching. this view is in line with the views of heath and mclaughlin (1994, p.487) who regard an authentic learning activity as “learning from experience.” in another research, this is called the process of discovery in authentic learning activities (schank, 1994). lombardi (2007) and nicaise et al.(2000) add that the aspect of collaborative learning among the students, 104 efl authentic learning showcase mentors and the community should be present in authentic learning activities. authentic learning activities happen in situations when there is an encounter between the students’ situated experience and the disciplinary intentions supervised by a more knowledgeable and skilled member who practices the activity in genuine real-life situations (mims, 2003; tonchon, 2000). in this sense, it is important to have the presence of more expert members in the relevant fieldto provide insights to the students in doing the authentic learning activities. heath and mclaughlin (1994, p.485) however, argue that “cross-age communities of practice enhance everyone's role since everyone has an opportunity to be both apprentice and expert, teacher and learner.” so, in this perspective, within a community of learners, not only could the juniors learn from the seniors, but the seniors could also learn from the juniors. fitzsimmons and lanphar(2011) put forward the importance of emotional attachment in the students learning which the two authors believe to be present in authentic learning activities. the two authors further mention that when the students feel good about what they are doing, it will lead them to explore new things and gain new abilities. problem-solving skills are also trained during the implementation of authentic learning activities (risko, osterman, &schusster, cited in kocyigit, &cembat, 2013). two major activities employed the afternoon soiree (as). a soiree is a fancy evening party (merriam-webster dictionary). the afternoon soiree that is a fancy party conducted in the afternoon was basically a role play and simulation – an activity that is considered to be activities included in authentic learning (diamond, middleton, &mather, 2011). the people involved in this activity were all the students taking the sfsp class (a hundred and ten students), committee members who consisted of the more senior students who had taken this class before (twenty senior students) and all their lecturers (eight lecturers). figure 1. the afternoon soiree efl authentic learning showcase 105 beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) students were given a role as a famous person in the world of their own choice. then students did a literature review about the famous person, studied the personality, collected properties as usually were worn or that marked the personality they played, practiced their role with feedback from their friends as they were reviewing the language functions they had learned in the classroom. the eight lecturers did the same preparing themselves as famous people for they would altogether with the students participate in the party. the event organizers (eos) were their seniors who had taken the course before. the eos would prepare the venue, the refreshment, the invitation cards, the decoration,and properties needed. they also prepared a task card for every student. the task card containedwhat each student had to do during the party, such as whom to find and talk to. several senior students were prepared to function as police officers who would give a fine to the students who were found speaking in languages other than english. on the d-day, students who consisted of all students in six parallel classes totally about a hundred and ten students came, and all dressed up just like the personality they had to play. each student represented a famous person familiar to the students. they had to first of all register themselves at the registration desks attended by their seniors. as they were supposed to find and talk to a particular person as his/her task card said, they had to be active introducing, greeting and talking one another. they were engaged in this activity for about three hours. during the party, the committee members who were their seniors and who had passed this course before, also took part conversing with them while serving snacks and drinks. the lecturers who also dressed up as famous persons took part in the party, andhad chats with the students as they also participated fully in the party. (see fig. 1). the english funfair (ef). the english funfair was a bigger authentic learning activity which needed four to six weeks of preparation. students had booths to display what they would sell. the audience came from the surrounding community including the lecturers, school students and their english teachers, senior students from the english language education program, and students from various other departments. since the ef was a final project, this was the time when students could apply all the lessons they had learned in the classroom and outside the classroom throughout the semester. the preparation of the ef took about six weeks. students were informed about the ef at the beginning of the course and six weeks before the actual event they were divided into groups of five where they would work together to think about a theme and create activities or produce something related to their theme to sell to the audience during the ef. students, lecturers and the senior students who served as the committee, planned the setting and layout of the ef which took place in the open space in the university area. they also made the budget, prepared the properties needed such as tents, tables, chairs, a stage with the sound system, tickets for the audience, promoted the event to the school students and english teachers in town and two weeks before the d-day, they would start selling tickets to their friends and the surrounding community. as a promotional tool, some english school teachers were given some free tickets to spend in the ef. a 106 efl authentic learning showcase student group band was also prepared to play during the ef. in this event, several senior students were also prepared to function as police officers who would give a fine to the students who were found speaking in languages other than english. figure 2. the english funfair during the actual performance, there were twenty-two groups of students. each grouphad a booth to display their products. they decorated their booth according to their theme. some had a photo booth for the audience to take pictures, some provided games for the audience to play, and various snacks and drinks for sale. students from this class as well as from the other classes were engaged talking as they were visiting their booths, buying snacks and drinks or playing their games. audiences did not only consist of students but also their lecturers, school english teachers, and the community in nearby places. (see figure 2). authenticity principles, drawbacks and possible solutions this section discusses in what way the as and ef described above mirrored the major characteristics of authentic learning activities, the drawbacks encountered, and the possible solutions. i provided some excerpts of the students’ reflections to support the discussion. the students’ reflections on the sfsp class were in a form of digital video recording, and they were submitted at the end of the semester. however, since the students had to reflect on the whole sfsp materials and class activities in about five minutes in the digital video recording, they could not say much about the as and ef. so afterward, i also asked the students to voluntarilywrite reflections in indonesian specifically on the two authentic activities they had: the afternoon soiree and the english funfair. five students out of sixteen students in my class submitted their written reflections on the as and ef. i used the excerpts of the students’ writtenreflections that i translated in english to support the discussion in this paper. i used initials of the students’ names in the excerpts. authenticity principles in the as and ef real-world relevance. unlike inclassrole-playing, where students plan a party efl authentic learning showcase 107 that is never done or give a direction in a city that does not exist (littlewood, 2011) the as and the ef were real. the students planned, made a budget, prepared all the properties, and did attend a party. they conducted a real funfair, which was attended by real audience, who used the targetlanguage for real transactions and communication. tasks that have real-world relevance are said to be one important element of authentic activities (doyle, cited in andersson&andersson., 2004; lombardi, 2007; mather, 2011; rule, 2006). students of sfsp practiced speaking in english outside the classroom, in a real life situation with a lot of people including foreigners during the as and ef. the activity provided a life situation for the students to apply the knowledge or lessons they had received or practiced in the classroom, but this time the practice was not structured as the ones they had in the classroom, but many would come up as new, unpredictable situations just like they are in genuine communication in real life. for example, one student commented:in the classroom, we practiced speaking in english with our friends only, but in the ef, we communicated with a lot of people including foreigners, in situations that were different from the ones in the classroom. (reflection, student tvw). usefulness another important element of authentic learning activities is their usefulness; whether or not students find the activities meaningful for their life and in line with their actual learning (doyle, cited in andersson&andersson, 2004). the as and ef were forums where students had the opportunities to use english in a meaningful way. during the preparation and during the actual event which lasted for six weeks, students used english for meaningful communication with their friends, lecturers and their senior students who served as their eos. they also used emails and whatsapp group for quite intense communication as they were preparing the ef. one student mentioned the value of the activities because outside the classroom they were not usually able to use english for english is a foreign language in indonesia. we do not live in a community who speak english, so the activities increased my speaking opportunities. (reflection, student yo). involving the community and more knowledgeable people the involvement of the community and more knowledgeable people is one of the important elements in authentic learning activities (tonchon, 2000). the presence of the lecturers, the expatriates in town, the school english teachers, the senior students, and the community in the surrounding area, all constitute the involvement of the learning community and more expert people. they helped scaffold one another. students were challenged to speak with the more proficient speakers (the lecturers, the senior students, the school english teachers, and the expatriates) as well as the less proficient speakers (the surrounding community who might speak very limited english). in one hand students were engaged in a more sophisticated communication, and on the other hand, they would need to use speaking strategies to get their meaning across to the less proficient speakers. this experience enabled them to experiment and to construct knowledge by themselves (mehlinger, cited in kocyigit and zembat, 2013). the uses of 108 efl authentic learning showcase simplified language and gestures or facial expressions are two speaking strategies that are useful for speaking especially between people of different language proficiencies (carbrera& martinez, 2001). from experience, students may experiment and be aware that in the actual communication, people need to use strategies to understand and to be understood. two students mentioned strategies they used, “i had to speak very simple english when speaking with children whose english was still limited.” (reflection, student mp). “i was rather nervous when i spoke to the more senior people, and suddenly i could not remember the appropriate vocabulary to continue my sentence. in that situation, i used gestures to explain what i meant.”(reflection, student kct). the involvement of the senior students, lecturers and the community, including some foreigners in the town as a community of learning made learning enriched. two students mentioned, “speaking with the lecturers and senior students encouraged me to improve my english.” (reflection, student ap). i gained new vocabularies when speaking with the lecturers and senior students (reflection, student tvw) with this experience, there was a learning process through discovery (heath & mclaughlin, 1994; schank, 1994). this experience has opened their horizon to continue to inquire more and more and to study more and more which is another aspect of authentic learning (rule, 2006).for example, two students commented, “i realized that i have to improve my pronunciation.” (reflection, student mp) some people didn’t understand what i said. i think it was because of my bad grammar. (reflection, student tvw). collaborative learning to succeed in the course as well as to succeed in real life situations, people need to work with other people (lombardi, 2007). in doing the as and ef students surely needed collaborative learning with their working group as well as with their lecturers and senior students who helped them as eos. collaborative learning is an integral part of the activities. affective learning an important part of authentic learning activities is the enjoyment in doing them. when students enjoy their learning, they will be motivated to do and explore more which results in their capability building (fitzsimmons &lanphar, 2011). the as and ef seemed to be interesting for the students of sfsp. for example, one student suggested the same activities be conducted for the junior students, “the activities were interesting; they were not boring, and i recommend these activities again for the junior students.” (reflection, student kct). other language skills and soft skills the use of authentic learning activities enables students to learn many other skills including soft skills. during the as and ef, students practiced speaking and at the same time listening. one student indicated, “i used my listening skills in these activities. (reflection, student yo). two students mentioned that she also learned grammar such as in the following excerpts, “besides speaking, i also learn how to use the appropriate grammar.” (reflection, student kct).“i learned how to apply the appropriate grammar, especially when efl authentic learning showcase 109 speaking to foreigners. when i spoke to them, and my grammar was messy, they did not understand me.” (reflection, student tvw). besides listening and grammar, students seemed to learn vocabulary as well. two students indicated, “when senior students and the lecturers came, i learned new vocabulary.” (reflection, student tvw). “besides speaking, i practiced) vocabulary.” (reflection, student ap). students’ engagement in the activities also built their soft skills. speaking with a variety of people during the as and ef in a relatively relaxed and informal setting such as in the as and ef seemed to improve their confidence.for example, one student said, “i had to have the courage to speak with confidence to the people, although i did not know them yet or (although) they had better english than me. (reflection, student kct). when preparing the as and ef, students who worked in groups as well as with the senior students who served as the eos, gave the students more practice in developing their teamwork skills. students mentioned that their teamwork developed such as in the following excerpts, “other skills i learned from the activities were … and teamwork.” (reflection, student mp). “when we had to prepare the ef, the task trained us to work well in a team. we divided the job, without thinking about who did more or who did less.” (reflection, student tvw). during the activity, students were conditioned to develop their entrepreneurship skills as well. they tried hard to make something to sell. many students made attractive snacks and drinks with unique names such as ‘tofu island’, ‘banana o’nana’, ‘belly’s charger’ and various games to play. almost all the stalls were sold out, and the students made some profits. one student indicated: “i developed my entrepreneurship skills to make money. my team and i thought hard to make our booth attractive for the visitors.” (reflection, student mp). the activities also gave them some practice on time management. one student stated, “my problem was with time. fortunately, all friends helped, and we managed to do things on time.” (reflection, student yo) the drawbacks and solutions what to sell. one of the difficulties in conducting the as and ef for the students was that they had to think creatively to prepare the content of the activities. one student mentioned her difficulty in ‘what to sell’ in the ef and the solution her group had made. “i found difficulties in preparing what to display and sell in the fair. my team solution was to make simple snacks and drinks from bananas that we could make by ourselves.” (reflection, student kct). dealing with the properties besides the content of the activity, students had to prepare the properties as well, and this seemed to be one of the difficulties as well. for example, one student mentioned her difficulty in preparing the properties to wear for the character that she had to play during the as by saying, “when i prepared the as, i didn’t know what properties i had to wear for the character that i would play.” (reflection, student tvw).but in fact, what the students wore did not affect their performance. so this aspect was not emphasized in the activity. 110 efl authentic learning showcase dealing with lazy students one of the weaknesses in group work is that sometimes there are students who do not contribute enough for the task. one student mentioned her difficulty working with one of their friends in the group as he/she did not want to work hard, ”my difficulty was when one of my friends did not want to work hard so that i had to work harder to complete the task.” (reflection, student yo).for such a problem, i provided a peer evaluation sheet for every member of the group to evaluate their friends’ participation. the peer evaluation was on a scale of 1-3. a student was scored one by their friends in the group if he/she showed very little participation, two for enough participation and three for full participation. in this way, equal participation from each group member was encouraged. marketing skills to succeed in the ef, students also need marketing skills. if a few people only visited their booths, they might lose some money. this challenge was considered positive, though rather than negative because they would try hard to be creative. some students gave free food samples to the audience, some gave a bonus to those who bought more than one piece, and some went round approaching the audiences instead of standing passively near their booths only. for helping the students not to suffer a loss, the faculty prepared some subsidy for each group. conclusion and pedagogical implications the use of authentic learning activities for efl learning seems to be enlightening. two authentic learning activities exemplified in this paper: the afternoon soiree where students were engaged in communication in a fancy party,and the english funfair where students had booths for selling to real customers, have shown more benefits than drawbacks. the two activities reflected reallife situations and were not just planned but were realized in a real party and a real funfair with real participants. during the activities, students had the opportunities to practice speaking in english in a meaningful way just like communication in the real world setting. for students in an efl setting, where language practice cannot be done outside the classroom or in every-day life, genuine communication such as those in the as and ef help students apply the language rules they have learned in the classroom, in real life communication. the process seemed to prove to help students construct knowledge through their experiment in applying their language knowledge in many new situations which are likely to be different from the structured practices in the classroom. besides developing language skills, the as and ef activities also built the students' confidence, and ability to work in a team, solve problems, manage time, and develop entrepreneurship skills. one of the weaknesses of group activities like the as and ef is that there may be ‘freeriders’ or students who do not work as hard as the others which may cause unfairness to the students. the other weakness of such activities are related to the time and energy needed because, during the planning and preparation, students did not only study and review the english language skills, but they had to prepare the properties, create games or make some refreshments, decorate their booths, make the budget, and other nonlinguistic preparation. however, in the end, in fact, through such preparation, students efl authentic learning showcase 111 developed their teamwork, leadership, creativity, problem-solving, entrepreneurship, time management,and money management skills – things that they need in facing realworld problems. so, the benefits still outweigh the complexity of the preparation. for teachers of english who would like to try authentic learning activities in their efl classes, without being burdened by the nonlinguistic business, they may embed the activities with the extra-curricular activities organized by the student body organization so that the activities may be more time, energy and cost efficient. acknowledgment many thanks to frances sinanu, m.a, a senior lecturer at the english language education, faculty of language and arts, universitas kristen satyawacana (uksw), salatiga, indonesia, who coordinated the six parallel classes of the speaking for social purposes course in semester 2/ 2017-2018 at uksw. she also helped tremendously in organizing the af and ef. references anderson, j. 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(2004). incorporating authentic learning experienceswithin a university course. studies in higher education. 29 (2),239257. retrieved september 27, 2018 fromhttps://www.researchgate.net/public ation/43505418_incorporating_authentic _learnning_experiences_within_a_niver sity_course tillitt, b., &bruder, m.n. (1985).speaking naturally: communication skills in american english (vol. 1). cambridge university press. tonchon, f. v. (2000). when authentic experiences are ‘enminded’ into disciplineary genre: crossing biographic and situated knowledge. learning and instruction 10 (4), 331-359. retrieved october 8, 2018, from https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu. documents/37805669/tochon_disciplina ry_genres_learn_instr_2000.pdf?aws accesskeyid=akiaiwowyygz2y53 ul3a&expires=1538990989&signature =afdyfz5t8wgpufp0sincdeyg2qc%3 d&responsecontentdisposition=inline%3b%20filena me%3dwhen_authentic_experiences_are _enminded.pdf ithis paper has been presented at the international english language teachers and lecturers (ineltal) conference 2018, organized by the department of english, faculty of letters, universitasnegeri malang, october 27th – 28th, 2018. https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/37805669/tochon_disciplinary_genres_learn_instr_2000.pdf?awsaccesskeyid=akiaiwowyygz2y53ul3a&expires=1538990989&signature=afdyfz5t8wgpufp0sincdeyg2qc%3d&response-content� 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https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/37805669/tochon_disciplinary_genres_learn_instr_2000.pdf?awsaccesskeyid=akiaiwowyygz2y53ul3a&expires=1538990989&signature=afdyfz5t8wgpufp0sincdeyg2qc%3d&response-content� https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/37805669/tochon_disciplinary_genres_learn_instr_2000.pdf?awsaccesskeyid=akiaiwowyygz2y53ul3a&expires=1538990989&signature=afdyfz5t8wgpufp0sincdeyg2qc%3d&response-content� https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/37805669/tochon_disciplinary_genres_learn_instr_2000.pdf?awsaccesskeyid=akiaiwowyygz2y53ul3a&expires=1538990989&signature=afdyfz5t8wgpufp0sincdeyg2qc%3d&response-content� acknowledgements first of all, on behal of all beyond words editors, i want to send our huge thanks to all reviewers: prof. andrew lian, ph.d. senior professor at suranaree university of technology, thailand, prof. dr. patrisius istiarto djiwandono, senior professor at ma chung university, malang, indonesia, prof. larry dwan chong, ph.d., professor at gyeongju, south korea, and founder of asia call. dr. jati gumawang senior lecturer at institut teknologi bandung, dr. helena agustien, dean of fakultas keguruan dan pendidikan universitas nasional karagturi semarang, dr. benedict dwijatmoko, and dr. fx mukarto, senior lecturers at the graduate school of sanata dharma university, yogyakarta, indonesia, mark feng teng, ma senior lecturer at the department of education studies, hong kong baptist university, hong kong, rouhollah askari bigdelli, ph.d., a fresh-graduate from university of otago, new zealand, prof. anita lie, ed.d., prof. dr. veronica l. diptoadi, mateus yumarnamto, ph.d., and siti mina tamah, ph.d. , dede oetomo, ph.d., professors and senior lecturers at the english education department, graduate school widya mandala surabaya catholic university, indonesia. the peer reviews have contributed very significantly to maintain both the quality of this online journal and as a feedback for authors. the same thankful expressions also came from authors for the reviewers’ scholarly comments and feedback. and last but not least, our great appreciation goes to all authors for their writings. for those whose manuscripts have not been accepted for this issue, please do not get discouraged. we invite you to do more research and submit articles again. your juniors need vivid examples from you, besides, being able to write a good article is a value in itself. beyond words editors javascript:openrtwindow('http://journal.wima.ac.id/index.php/bw/about/editorialteambio/234') 124 metacognitive strategy in teaching reading metacognitive strategy in teaching reading to primary students diana tandean diana.tandean@gmail.com primary school mawar sharon christian scool surabaya, indonesia article history abstract in raising young learners’ awareness of their own reading comprehension, educators can implement metacognitive strategy as one of the solutions. therefore this study aims to know the effectiveness of metacognitive strategy in teaching reading to primary students. the grand theory employed in this study is the six sequential reading strategies proposed by brown, palinscar and armbruster’s (1984). the research method is pre-experimental study with three groups of third graders as the subjects. the researcher designed a reading assignment for each treatment, as well as a reading test as the research instrument. the pre-test and post-test data was analyzed using paired t-test. the data shows a significant difference between pre-test and post-test scores among all three groups. received: 01/23/2020 reviewed: 06/10/2020 accepted: 09/30/2020 keywords: metacognitive strategies, reading comprehension, young learners doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v8i2.2320 introduction throughout the years indonesian government has strived to improve the education quality in terms of cognitive, affective and psychomotor aspects. the latest development would be k-13 curriculum which employs thematic learning which enables more holistic strategies of learning. what is lacking from the current education system is the ability of learners to regulate their own learning. if we look at the constraints of the curriculum, there is little to no time provided for doing metacognitive reflection. all of the lessons time is allocated to teach and learn the materials. it is likely going to be a challenge for teachers to implement metacognitive strategies when the curriculum is not flexible enough for it. most schools still heavily employ teacher centered strategies where the teachers will guide the students to conduct their learning without necessarily telling the reason why should they learn about it, thus paralyzing the students’ potential to regulate their own study. this is when metacognitive strategies become crucial in triggering students’ thinking skill and deepening their level of their thinking. students should not passively receive information from the teachers but they are supposed to make use of the information according to their needs and monitor their progress. this kind of process should start as early as possible since it requires a relatively long time to master. that is why the researcher chose primary students mailto:diana.tandean@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v8i2.2320 metacognitive strategy in teaching reading 125 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya as the subject of the research in hope that metacognitive strategies will be implemented since early years of education. reading skill in this matter can be quite challenging for efl students to master. many researches have shown that most efl learners utilized few to no strategies in handling academic reading demands. the common problems are the lack of knowledge of the learner’s own thinking process (maasum & maarof, 2012) and vocabularies comprehension. teachers, on the other side, tend to directly teach the reading passage without activation of schemata. metacognitive strategy is one of the answers to develop reading skill as it helps students to make connection between past knowledge and new information from the reading passage (collins & smith, 2008). metacognitive strategies should be introduced since primary level so that students will train themselves to regulate their knowledge since early childhood phase. they also need to be able to monitor their own progress and make concious effort to deepen reading comprehension, thus making them “active and constructively responsive readers” (sheorey and mokhtari, 2001). moreover, many studies have shown that the success of reading strategy was dependent on the way the strategy is employed, whether metacognitively or not (jimenez et al., 1996). that means, knowing reading strategies is not enough. students also need to be able to employ them metacognitively. in fact, poor readers might know reading strategies cognitively but unable to implement them metacognitively. literature review reading reading is no longer a quiet, private and rather passive model. the definition of reading has evolved towards a more dynamic interaction between readers’ background knowledge, information provided by the written language and the context of the reading situation in order to form meaning, as what dutcher (1990) suggested. so reading is a complex and multidimensional process which requires vocabularies knowledge, phonological knowledge, content related knowledge and reading strategies. metacognition metacognition consists of two words, which are “meta” and “cognition”. according to shirley larkin (2010), meta refers to “going beyond” something or moving to the next level, while cognition refers to our faculty of knowing or thinking. so, metacognition is basically the deeper level of cognition where one is aware of the ongoing thinking process and has the ability of to reflect upon it. this is the second level of thinking, referred as “thinking about thinking” or “learning to learn”. the purpose of implementing metacognition is so that learners will be able to make wise and thoughtful life decisions as well as to comprehend and learn better in formal educational settings. (flavel 1979, p.910). components of metacognition there are two basic components of metacognition initiated by brown (1978). they are knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition. knowledge of cognition is how much the learners know about their memories and the way they learn. knowledge of cognition can be divided into three distinct areas which are: 1. declarative knowledge. declarative knowledge is the knowledge about description or attributes of the matter in hand. 126 metacognitive strategy in teaching reading 2. conditional knowledge. conditional knowledge refers to knowledge about conditions. 3. necessary to carry out a certain activity. regulation of cognition is what the learners do with their knowledge of cognition. regulation of cognition also contains several subcomponents such as planning, selecting, monitoring, evaluating and debugging. in implementing metacognitive strategies, both of these components should always work together in coherence. knowledge of cognition will not bring its foremost benefits to the owner unless it is accompanied by the knowledge of how to utilize it, so called as regulation of cognition and vice versa. principles of metacognition the process happening between components of metacognition can be understood through the principles of metacognition. as described in the model made by thomas o. nelson and louis narens (1990) there are three abstract principles of metacognition. this clearly describes the correlation between cognition and metacognition, as well as the ongoing process between them. first, there are two interrelated levels in our mind, which are meta-level and object-level. second, the meta-level contains a dynamic model (e.g., a mental stimulation) of the object-level. meta-level is one’s mental perception of the object being learned. meta-level and object-level are simultaneously affecting one another throughout the thinking process. third, there are two dominance relations, called "control" and “monitoring," which are defined in terms of the direction of the flow of information between the meta-level and the object-level. control is the ability of meta-level to modify the object-level, or in other words, it is the regulation of cognition at work, as mentioned above. monitoring is the process of providing information by the object-level to give feedback to the meta-level as introspection material. this process is optimizing the use of knowledge of cognition. both levels have to be activated in one’s mind, so that the controlling and monitoring processes might happen. meta-level is one’s mental perception of the object being learned. meta-level and object-level are simultaneously affecting one another throughout the thinking process. third, there are two dominance relations, called "control" and “monitoring," which is defined in terms of the direction of the flow of information between the meta-level and the object-level. control is the ability of meta-level to modify the object-level, or in other words, it is the regulation of cognition at work, as mentioned above. monitoring is the process of providing information by the object-level to give feedback to the meta-level as introspection material. this process is optimizing the use of knowledge of cognition. both levels have to be activated in one’s mind, so that metacognitive strategy in teaching reading 127 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya the controlling and monitoring processes might happen. based on the principles of meta-cognition, in order to implement metacognitive strategies in academic context, one has to be able to modify his cognitive knowledge to produce an output which meets the expected result. for example, a grade 2 student is trying to write about his holiday last summer in an english reading lesson. given his limited vocabularies and literacy level, when he tries to describe something he has never seen before, he has to find a way to describe the object by its appearance without knowing the object’s name. he has to activate his meta level in order to find a strategy in overcoming his problem. he then will revisit his existing knowledge of vocabulary and construct the words that he knows to describe the object. afterwards, a student with activated metacognition will monitor the result of his work by examining his reading, whether it is correct according to his existing knowledge or not. the strategy used to tackle the problem is a metacognitive strategy previously stored in one’s mind, possibly due to previous problems. kostons & van der werf (2015) demonstrated the positive correlation between metacognition and learning by comparing the effects of prior topic knowledge and prior metacognitive knowledge on performance in a task. therefore, we can possibly develop metacognitive strategies in one’s mind by giving constant exposure to various problems. however, metacognitive development also depends on many other factors such as self-motivation, self-perception and external supports. metacognition in primary students metacognitive development is available to all periods of developmental stages. it does not necessarily develop in line with the orders of thinking skill. adults are not always better in exercising metacognitive strategies compared to young children. according to piaget, naturally, most children will develop the skill to think from other people’s point of view which is called “de-centering”, where the child is no longer only focused on herself but can see things from another perspective (piaget & inhelder, 1969). this is the birthing point of metacognition in young children. according to shirley larkin (2010) there are pre-cursor theories which can be used to assess children’s metacognitive development, which are meta-memory and meta knowing. meta-memory involves knowledge of one’s own memory, how it works, what factors may influence it, what strategies may be useful in helping us to remember things as well as ongoing control and monitoring of our memory (flavell, 1971; flavell& wellman,1977) this means children are aware of what they know, how they store memories and how they can integrate new memories to the existing one. in order to assess this particular capability, researchers can conduct series of tests such as false belief test, memory tests, etc. interview is also a crucial instrument to give a hint of a child’s thinking process. while meta-knowing is defined as awareness and understanding of one’s own cognitive functions and those of others. (deanna kuhn 2000). children with metaknowledge are aware of how well they know about something and how much their friends know compared to their knowledge. in classroom context, usually children will be able to identify who are the smart ones and who are the less knowledgeable. meta knowing are differentiated into two stages, “knowing that” which is knowing something as a matter of fact and “knowing how” which relates to 128 metacognitive strategy in teaching reading meta-strategies. meta-memory and metaknowing develop during early childhood, while meta-strategies develop much later. it is crucial for children not just to be aware of how much they know, but also how can they fill in the gap by conducting some strategies. otherwise, children will start to label themselves and stop developing their thinking skill beyond the arbitrary limit they create for themselves. in order to assess the development of children’s meta-strategies, several tests can be held, such as the marshmallow test. delayed gratification may lead children to develop meta-strategies in order to get better result. method research design this research employed preexperimental design, three groups with pretest and post –test. the english teacher taught all subjects in three different groups. the result of the post test was compared to the pretest in order to show the significance of metacognitive reading strategy in enhancing students’ comprehension. research setting the research was conducted in a bilingual school in surabaya. the school employs both cambridge and national curriculum. the research treatment was held for 4 weeks, in august 2019. the reasearch treatment was conducted once a week, started with pretest in the first week, ended with postest in the sixth week. subject the subjects of this research are sixty six third graders of esl learners in a bilingual school. there are four classes, each of them has twenty four students. one class served as the pilot class, the other three as the subjects. the researcher used three classes to ensure the consistency of the result in all classes, since the number of subjects in each class in relatively low. most subjects are from middle up class families, nine to ten years old. they prefer to use english in their daily conversation at school and indonesian, their mother tongue, at home. all subjects have learned english since they were in the pre-school. research treatment all the subjects in the group received the same treatment. the treatment is designed based on brown, palinscar and armbruster’s (1984) six strategies of reading which are (1) understanding the purpose of the text, (2) activate background knowledge, (3) allocate attention to main ideas, (4) monitor comprehension, (5) critical evaluation and (6) drawing inferences. the teacher guided the subjects from the first to the last step throughout the treatment, since the subjects were not yet familiar with the treatment. the ultimate advantage of implementing metacognitive strategies in the long run is transference from other regulation to selfregulation, according to brown (1987) & vygotsky (1978). this can only happen when the teachers or parents gradually decrease their support in order to let the children face their problems and find their own strategies to overcome. according to paris and winograd (1990) there are three aspects of self-regulated learning: awareness of thinking, use of strategies and sustained motivation. awareness of thinking and use of strategies pretty much sum up metacognition in general, while sustained motivation relates to self-perception and the reason why children must achieve something. metacognitive teaching strategies traditionally, assessments employ more convergent questions than divergent ones. in order to boost students’ metacognition, more metacognitive strategy in teaching reading 129 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya divergent questions, especially reflective and evaluative ones are highly recommended (haidar & al naqabi, 2008). the number of both convergent and divergent questions should be balanced in order to develop both students’ metacognition and cognition. as stated before, metacognition is a rather long internalization process; therefore it requires constant and repetitive practice, especially for primary students. scharlach (2008) suggests teaching metacognitive strategies, such as making predictions, visualizing, and summarizing all across subjects repetitively. in terms of teaching metacognitive strategies, kistner et al., (2010) suggested teachers to do it more deliberately and explicitly. this will boost more strategy usage among the students and their awareness about the strategies they are using. not just strategies, teachers also should post thoughtful questions to help the students verbalize their thoughts and think out loud. guiding the students to find the right strategy for each problem is also important to develop their metacognition. metacognitive strategies in teaching reading as stated above, there are three types of cognitive knowledge according to brown (1978), they are declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and conditional knowledge. jacob & paris (1987) define declarative knowledge in terms of reading as propositional information that readers have in doing a certain task, such as ‘knowing’ that conducting post-reading strategy will help readers to reflect upon their reading ability. while procedural knowledge in this context means how one actually carries out the strategy he / she knows. as for conditional knowledge, it talks about the awareness about factors that might affect one’s success in learning, such as knowing what conditions should be achieved in order to implement post reading strategy. these are the three types of knowledge that teachers need to share to their students in teaching reading. in order to teach the three types of knowledge, teachers can implement six startegies proposed by brown, palinscar and armbruster’s (1984) to enhance student’s comprehension of text: (1) understanding the purpose of reading, (2) activating relevant background knowledge, (3) allocating attention to main ideas, (4) critically evaluating, (5) monitoring comprehension, and (6) drawing inferences. these six metacognitive strategies of teaching reading are what the researcher going to implement in this study understanding the purpose of reading. before starting to read it is important for readers to know what to expect from their reading. it will help them to set the goals of the reading activity and eventually achieve them. therefore in this first step, teachers must give understanding to their students what kind of text they are going to read, what will they learn from the text and what strategies can they use to achieve the goal. 1. activating background knowledge. activating relevant background knowledge is a metacognitive activity where students connect their previous knowledge to the current knowledge they are learning. this process happens in the meta-level of one’s mind, as it relates the student’s perception about what is being read and the reading itself. students who are able to connect their background knowledge to the text tend to comprehend the text better than those who do not relate the text to their background knowledge or those who do 130 metacognitive strategy in teaching reading not have sufficient background knowledge related to the text. 2. allocating attention to main ideas. identifying the main idea of each paragraph will help students to eventually determine the main idea of the whole text. especially for students who experience difficulties in finding the main ideas, doing it in smaller chunks will help them to draw conclusion about the big idea more easily. 3. critical evaluation. gaining comprehension about the main ideas is not enough. students need to go further by critically evaluating the content of their reading. they need to think of critical questions like, “what is the author trying to say? what is important for readers to understand? do i agree with the writer’s argument?”, etc. these critical questions will help students to digest what they have read and make the knowledge their own. 4. monitoring comprehension. students need to be aware whether they truly comprehend every part of the text. they need to notice if there is any confusing part or something new that they have never heard of before. harvey and goudvis (2007) suggested “stop, think and react” strategy to help students monitor their comprehension. in this context, the best response to reading is to simply talk about it. that is why studentto-student conversation during reading process is greatly encouraged. another way students can do to respond to the text is to write comments or draw pictures that express what they have in mind about the text. drawing is especially suitable for younger children or children with problems in expressing their thoughts into words. teachers should give time for students to give response to the text as this ensures better reading comprehension. 5. drawing inferences. by the end of reading process, students need to come to a conclusion of what they have just read. not only that, they also need to identify what they have learned from the text and incorporate the new knowledge with the existing one. this is a metacognitive process where the meta–level is modified by the object–level of one’s mind. when new knowledge is stored in one’s memory, it will become the schema for the upcoming information. drawing appropriate conclusion becomes a crucial skill students must possess so that they can expand their knowledge and have wide range of resources as their schemata. previous studies zhussupova & kazbekova (2016) did a small-scale quasi experimental study which examined the effectiveness of metacognitive strategies to reading comprehension. the study was done in the frame of a metacognitive pedagogical model that included 3 stages: a) preparation, b) active work, c) analysis. the setting of the study was at the eurasian national university with 2nd year students who were tаught englіsh аs а foreign language for 15 weeks. as a result of this research, the authors formulated a teacher’s manual called “guide to using metacognitive strategies in teaching reading comprehension. the study also provided a sample of lesson plan based on the teacher’s manual. this research shows that metacognitive strategies significantly improved young learners’ reading comprehension. on the other hand, nash-ditzel (2010) conducted a case study which explores the impact of metacognitive reading strategies. the subjects (five college students) joined developmental courses to self-regulate while metacognitive strategy in teaching reading 131 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya reading. there were six reading instructions used in this study, adapted from the research of pearson and gallagher’s (1983). this study showed the positive impact of metacognitive reading strategies on college students’ ability to self-regulate while reading. at the beginning of the study, some students’ comments about the text were out of context and they were not aware of it. later on, after repeated treatment, the subjects could stay on track better. the six reading instructions are very similar to the six steps implemented in the current study.the instructions, however, will be simplified and scaffolded to meet the needs of primary students. in order to know the use of metacognitive reading strategies in children with learning disabilities, nicolielo-carrilho & hage (2017) conducted an experimental study on 30 children, aged 8 to 12 years, of both genders. the subjects were divided into experimental group (eg)--15 children with learning disabilities; and control group (cg) 15 children without disability. all subjects were determined to take reading strategies scale test and prolec text comprehension subtest. the result of this study showed children with learning disabilities demonstrated deficits in the use of metacognitive reading strategies when compared to children without learning disabilities. when subjects of the study utilize reading strategies better, the better textual comprehension they will get and vice versa. this result suggests that metacognitive reading skills contribute to reading comprehension. in the current study, the researcher would like to implement treatment towards subjects with no apparent learning disabilities in a bilingual school in surabaya and see whether it will show the same significance. table 1 research treatment table pre-reading , whilst-reading and post-reading activities pre-reading 1. understanding the purpose of the text. the teacher told the student the purpose of reading the text, such as to gain information from the text or to know the desription of something. 2. activate background knowledge. the teacher asked the students to skim the text (read only the first sentence of each paragraph) and asked the students to predict what is the text about. the teacher gave triggering questions related to the text. whilst-reading 1. allocate attention to main ideas. after giving triggering questions, teacher and the students read aloud in turns. after reading every one paragraph, teacher gave a short pause and asked the student to seek for the main idea of the paragraph. 2. monitoring comprehension. the teacher asked the students to respond to each paragraph they have read. they could respond by writing parts of the text they do not understand. they could also give comments or draw something about what the text reminds them of. post-reading 1. critical evaluation. the teacher asked the students higher order thinking questions related to the text, such as “what is the author trying to say?, what is important for the readers to understand?” 2. drawing inferences. after critical evaluation, students were required to draw conclusion of what the text is all about. they had to write their conclusion on the conclusion box. 132 metacognitive strategy in teaching reading in order to facilitate monitoring the comprehension process in the treatment, the researcher has designed a reading assignment completed with a comment column and comprehension box, as shown in the figure 2 below. naturally, active responses are given orally and spontaneously by reading participants. however, since this research was conducted in a classroom context, so comment column and conclusion box are necessary to ensure all participants’ active response to each paragraph. they can write their comment or draw a picture that they think relates to the paragraph they are reading. each assignment will have a different title every week. fig 2. comment column (in blue) and conclusion box (in red) table 2 research timeline table week research treatment week 1 pre-test : reading comprehension test week 2 treatment 1 week 3 treatment 2 week 4 treatment 3 week 5 treatment 4 week 6 post test: reading comprehension test data collection procedures first of all, the researcher collected the previous english mean score of all subjects. the data was taken from the previous students’ ledgers. these mean scores were important for researchers to determine whether all the participant have relatively metacognitive strategy in teaching reading 133 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya equal english proficiency or not. after that, the researcher also collected the data through pretest and posttest. the purpose of conducting the pre-test is to know the paticipants’ prior reading skill before the research is conducted. the pre-test and posttest was designed by the researcher in order to test the subjects reading comprehension and to minimize cultural gap often occuring in standardized tests usage. the research instrument consists of multiple choice questions out of four reading passages. most questions were designed in higher order thinking fashion which requires the subjects to fully comprehend the text before they can answer correctly. all of the answers were not explicitly stated in the reading passages. as for the research treatment, subjects were given reading assignments in order to monitor their reading comprehension and the reading strategy used by the subjects. technique of data analysis first, the researcher analyzed the mean score of previous english score from each class using one way anova homogenity test in order to find if there is any significant difference in terms of their english proficiency between four classes. if there is no significant difference, one class will be randomly chosen as the pilot class. afterwards, data will be taken from the three other classes. after all scores were compiled by the researcher, the data was analyzed and compared using anova paired t-test. the researcher tried to find whether there is a significant difference between pre-test result and post-test result. this would help the researcher to see if there is any growth in subjects’ ability to implement the metacognitive strategy in their reading activities. findings before implementing the research treatment, there were several steps of statistical analysis that the researcher took. first, the rearcher seeks to know if there is any significant difference between the four groups of subjects, especially in terms of their english skill. so the researcher compiled the english ledger from the previous grade. after collecting the previous ledger, the researcher did a homogeinity test using one way anova to analyze whether there is any significant difference between each group .the result shows that the value of sig. 0.758 > 0.005 which means that there is no significant difference between groups. since all groups have relatively equal english skill, that means the research can be implemented among the current subjects. the next step the researcher took was testing the validity of each item in the research instrument. the researcher randomly chose the fourth group to be treated as the pilot test group. the fourth group was given a reading comprehension test that consists of 25 multiple choice questions. the researcher then analyzed the result using pearson formula in microsoft excel. the result shows that out of 25 items, 20 items show higher t-count value than the t-table (1,7341). that means only 20 items are valid to be used as the research instrument. therefore, the researcher eliminated the 5 invalid items and used the remaining 20 items as the pretest and posttest material. the researcher then did a reliability test over the remaining 20 items. the reliability of research instrument was tested using cronbach’s alpha reliability test. the reliability statistics table shows that cronbach’s alpha value 0.864 > 0.6 which means the test is reliable. item-total statistics table further shows the reliability of 134 metacognitive strategy in teaching reading the instrument if any item is deleted. the last column of the table shows relatively constant reliability throughout the test if any item is deleted from the instrument. therefore it is safe to say that the research instrument is valid and reliable, thus eligible to be used in this research. eventually, the pre-test, treatment and post test are conducted among the remaining groups (group 1-3). some subjects, however, did not complete both pre-test and post-test due to their unavailabilty, so the following analysis will eliminate subjects who did not manage to do both tests. the remaining subjects are: group 1 = 22, group 2 = 23 and group 3= 21. before the researcher can analyze the data further, the researcher needs to analyze whether the data distribution of the finding is normal. the researcher used normality test: one sample kolmogorov–smirnov test. the analysis result shows that the test distribution is normal, therefore the researcher continued the analysis using paired t-test to find whether metacognitive strategies used in this research significantly improved subjects’ reading comprehension. the analysis result is shown in the paired samples statistics table below. table 3 paired samples statistics table table 4 paired samples statistics table metacognitive strategy in teaching reading 135 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya table 5 paired samples test table the sig (2-tailed) column shows that each group’s significant value is less than 0.005; pair 1: 0.002< α = 0.05, pair 2: 0.00< α =0.05, pair 3: 0.003< α =0.05. while the t value of each pair is bigger than ttable value; pair 1: 3.490> 1.717, pair 2: 6.017>1.714, pair 3: 3.383>1.721. this result shows that the usage of metacognitive strategy in this research significantly improved the subjects’ reading comprehension. so the research hypothesis is accepted (ha): there is a significant difference between the reading achievement of grade three students before and after treatment, is accepted. while the null hypothesis (ho): there is no significant difference between the reading achievement of grade three students before and after treatment, is rejected. however, it is worthy to note that the standard deviation value is relatively high which means there is a considerable gap between the high achievers and the low achievers in each group. during the weeks of treatment, the researcher also found out that most subjects have the tendency to draw pictures in the comment box rather than expressing their thoughts in words. even when they comprehended the text, most of them still found it difficult to create a response to the text, probably it was because they are not used to giving active responses to reading passages. another possible reason is the subjects’ limited vocabularies in expressing their thoughts. some subjects find it hard to express their thoughts simply because they do not have the words to express them. therefore, the teacher had to give prompting questions to help the subjects in creating comments throughout the treatment. discussions metacognitive strategy implemented in this research is still not very common among educators in surabaya, indonesia. in fact most teachers in the school where this research was conducted, are not familiar with the term “metacognitive”. so the treatment carried out in this research was relatively new to the subjects. based on the subjects previous experience, most reading activities are heavily guided by the teacher, without allowing sufficient space for the students to respond to the text independently. usually the teacher will guide the students on how to think about the text and give intructions on how to do the reading assessment afterwards. that is why, at the first week of treatment, 136 metacognitive strategy in teaching reading some of the subjects found difficulty in giving comments to the text because they are not used to come up with their own thoughts. in the same way, the subjects experienced difficulties in making inferences so the teacher had to give oral prompting questions all along the treatment in order to help activate the subjects’ schemata. these prompting questions are in line with the suggestion of haidar & al naqabi (2008) in using more divergent questions such as evaluative and reflective questions. by using metacognitive strategies, subjects are trained to think independently and try to comprehend the text by themselves. if the subjects do not comprehend the text, then it would be impossible for them to give relevant comment on the comment column. therefore this strategy conditions the subjects to comprehend the meaning of a paragraph before moving on to the next paragraph. sometimes the subjects commented that thay do not know what to say in the comment column mostly because their mind is not trained to repsond to the text actively. after weeks of treatment where the subjects had to make active responses to the text, the post test result shows significant improvement in their reading comprehension skill . this is in line with the statement of sheorey and mokhtari (2001); being “active and contructively responsive readers” will enhance the readers’ reading comprehension. the reason behind this improvement is because the subjects correlated the reading text with their activated schemata thus improving their comprehension about how they can relate to the text (kostons & van der werf , 2015), (collins & smith, 2008). they also need to stop, think and react to each paragraph. this stop, think and react procedure will make sure the readers understand every part of the passage and the researcher can examine the subjects’ comprehension on every paragraph. the subjects were also encouraged to utilize the six steps of metacognitive strategy whenever they read. as what nicolielo-carrilho & hage (2017) claimed, better utilization of reading strategies leads to better textual comprehension. hopefully, by doing so, in the long term subjects can be self regulated learners where they do not always acquire teachers’ help in comprehending the text. (paris and winograd, 1990). conclusions based on the data analysis and discussion in the previous chapter, there are several conclusions that can be drawn from this research. first, the mean score of each pair increases after the treatment which means the subjects have a good potential to implement metacognitive strategy as long as they are given the right directions. however, researcher had to give a lot of guidance in the form of prompting questions throughout the treatment. if this were conducted in the long term, supposedly the guidance could be gradually decreased and the subjects would be able to do the strategy more independently. since the significance of this strategy is shown through the result, we can say that the six steps proposed by brown, palinscar and armbruster’s (1984) is effective in enhancing the subjects’ comprehension. it encourages the readers to ponder upon what they are reading and to give reaction, such as comments or drawings. this will help young learners to be more aware of their comprehension and not just skim through the text but fully comprehend what they are reading. .all in all, metacognitive strategy is very crucial to develop young learners’ way of thinking. it will help them to draw conclusion metacognitive strategy in teaching reading 137 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya from the lessons they experience thus enabling them to enhance their own knowledge. in the long run, hopefully learners will be able to make “wise and thoughtful life decisions” as flavel (1979, p. 910) has stated. so that they will not only be able to perform better academically, but also able to achieve their life goals beyong the academic walls. suggestions based on the finding of this research, there are several suggesstions which might be benefitial for academic practitioners or non academic alike. below are the suggestions that this research could be beneficial to: curriculum designers curriculum designers, especially who work in the curriculum department of the school where this research was conducted, need to consider the length of duration for each lesson in relation to the students’ mastery level. if a certain material is not yet fully comprehended by most students then the next objective should be put on hold. the quality of comprehension, instead of the quantity of the materials, should be the first priority in designing curriculum. especially if metacognitive strategy is going to be implemented, it will take rather longer duration to teach the strategy than the regular lesson hours. in the end, if we aim for quality, we have to sacrifice the quantity. the more material covered is not always the better. the better curriculum is when most students have in depth understanding of what being taught and are able to monitor their development. teachers implementing metacognitive strategy in reading may be relatively hard and require a lot of work as well as longer teaching sessions in the beginning. yet in the long term, it will be very benefitial for the teacher since the main objective of implementing this strategy is to create self regulated learners. teachers will only act as facilitators during reading sessions and students will be able to monitor their own reading progress. it will be possible if teachers are willing to try this strategy, implement the steps in every reading session, then sooner or later, the desired result should be achieved. students students who implement this strategy are encouraged to be more actively involved in the reading session. they are encouraged to speak out their voice which might remain hidden during usual reading session. thinking aloud is very benefitial for students in a way that it promotes higher order thinking skill. students are conditioned to activate their background knowledge and to relate the text with their schema, thus analyzing the text. students should know this benefit if they want to consistently train their metacognitive strategy in reading. it is not just about merely improving their english reading scores, it is about improving the way they see their problems in life and how they respond to it. government in establishing the national curriculum, the government should take a more studentcentered approach rather than teacher centered. metacognitive strategy is a very suitable option in terms of student centered approach. not only that, this strategy should be implemented since very early phase of education which is preschool. if metacognitive strategy is taught in higher grades than it will be harder for educators to change the mindset of the students. it will be even better if the government employs metacog138 metacognitive strategy in teaching reading nitive strategy throughout the curriculum of other subjects, not only english language. this thorough implementation will enhance the speed of students’ metacognitive development. future research metacognitive strategy is still relatively new among educators in surabaya. therefore this topic has a great potential to be a research topic, especially when conducted among young learners. since most of the reasearches available online are conducted among adult learners. future researchers might also conduct this research with different participants from higher or lower grade. researchers may also invent and try out new treatment based on the same theory. not only in reading subject, research on metacognitive strategies can also be implemented in other subjects such as mathematics, science,etc. © diana tandean diana tandean is a character building coordinator and global perspective teacher at mawar sharon christian school. she obtained her bachelor's degree in architecture from petra christian university and master's degree in english education from widya mandala surabaya catholic university. she's been interested in educational psychology, specifically, metacognition among young children and its implementation in reading lessons. references larkin, s. (2010). metacognition in young children. oxon: routledge. nelson, t. o., & narens, l. (1990). metamemory: a theoretical framework and new findings. the psychology of learning and motivation. phillips, s. (1993). primary students. oxford university press. creswell, j. w. (2012). collecting qualitative data. educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. fourth ed. boston: pearson, 204-35. dutcher, p. (1990). authentic reading assessment. eric digest (ed328607). clearinghouse on tests, measurement, and evaluation, washington, dc; american institutes for research, washington, dc. flavell, j. (1979). metacognition and cognitive monitoring: a new area of cognitive developmental inquiry. american psychologist vol.24, no.10 , 906-911 haidar, a. h., & al naqabi, a. k. (2008). emiratii high school students' understandings of stoichiometry and the influence of metacognition on their understanding. research in science & technological education, 26(2), 215237. hartman, h.j. (2001b). teaching metacognitively. in h.j. hartman (ed.), metacognition in learning and instruction: theory, research and practice (pp. 149172). boston: kluwer academic. kistner, s., rakoczy, k., otto, b., dignathvan ewijk, c., buttner, g., &klieme, e. (2010). promotion of self-regulated learning in classrooms: investigating frequency, quality, and consequences for student performance. metacognition and learning, 5(2), 157-171. maasum, t. n. r. t. m., & maarof, n. (2012). empowering esl readers with metacognitive reading strategies. pr0cedia-social and behavioral sciences, 69, 1250-1258. metacognitive strategy in teaching reading 139 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya mokhtari, k., & sheorey, r. (2002). measuring esl students' awareness of reading strategies. journal of developmental education, 25(3), 2-11. barnett, m. a. (1989). reading as a process. the french review, 63(1), 31-44 nash-ditzel, s. (2010). metacognitive reading strategies can improve self-regulation. journal of college reading and learning, 40(2), 45-63. nicolielo-carrilho, a. p., & hage, s. r. d. v. (2017). metacognitive reading strategies of children with learning disabilities. in codas (vol. 29, no. 3). sociedade brasileira de fonoaudiologia. scharlach, t. (2008). start comprehending: students and teachers actively reading text. reading teacher, 62(1), 20-31. sheorey, r., & mokhtari, k. (2001). differences in the metacognitive aware-ness of reading strategies among native and non-native readers. system, 29(4), 431-449. woolley, g. (2011). reading comprehension. in reading comprehension (pp. 15-34). springer, dordrecht. zhussupova, r., & kazbekova, m. (2016). metacognitive strategies as points in teaching reading comprehension. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 228, 593-600. 184 exploring the relationship between beyond words vol 5 no. 2 exploring the relationship between learning styles and strategies for secondary school students in thailand irina mihaela stanescu irina.m.stanescu@gmail.com chiang mai payap university thailand the study explores the meaning of learning styles and strategies and attempts to find a relationship between the two in the context of english language learning. the research is conducted in thailand with 22 grade six students and it examines some of the definitions and characteristics of learning strategies and learning styles as described by scholars in the field of sla. the results gathered using qualitative and quantitative data, show that that the majority of the students are visual style learners and multi-modal learners. based on the data collected, there is no concrete relationship between learning style and the use of learning strategies. even so, the topic leaves many areas open for exploration, in particular, the learner’s metacognitive awareness of learning style and conscious learning strategy use and how this may improve his second language acquisition. the research also sheds a light on the learning strategies used by secondary school students in their l2 classroom as described by data collected through interviews. background and rationale finding the meaning of learning styles and strategies as well as the relationship between the two constructs, represents a great part of sla research. although there is not much conclusive, compelling research on the relationship between learning styles and learning strategies, there has been extensive research conducted about the importance of learning strategies in sla. we can also find scholarly writing that discusses the theory of learning styles and how they impact the learning and acquisition of a second language. i will discuss the two areas: strategies and styles, separately and then explore their connection as it has been presented in current literature in the field of tesol. learning strategies in order to begin a discussion about learning strategies, we must first describe them. what is a learning strategy? as ellis (2004) points out, there is no widely accepted definition for learning strategies (p. 558). although learning strategies can be defined in many ways as pertinent to each writer’s school of thought, there are some definitions that are worth mentioning and exploring in relation to this study. a learning strategy is defined as a “mental or behavioral activity related to some specific stage in the overall process of language acquisition or language use” (ellis, 2004, p. 529) but also looks at learning strategies as “an attempt to develop linguistic and sociolinguistic competence in exploring the relationship between 185 the target language” (2004, p. 530). he describes the way in which theorists in the field see them as conscious and intentional processes while others qualify them as subconscious processes (p. 531). this tension in the definitions of learning strategies can be observed by comparing ellis’ definition to selinger's (1984) description of strategies as “ basic abstract categories of processing by which information perceived in the outside world is organized and categorized into cognitive structures as part of a conceptual network ”( p.4). here, selinger does not see strategies as conscious choices but as processing categories that are part of a cognitive function. this definition is in contrast to ellis’ use of the word ‘attempt’(2004, p.530) that offers awareness and intention on the part of the learner. similar to the contrast between conscious and unconscious choices, ellis also mentions the difference being made between the term “tactic” and the term strategy and he says that what may start out as a conscious “tactic”, can evolve into a subconscious strategy (2004, p. 532). some strategies are behavioral and directly observable while others are mental and not observable. perhaps one singular definition of learning strategies would not have offered such a thorough description of what they are, by examining the discrepancies between these descriptions, we gain a broader understanding about the meaning and function of learning strategies. previous studies and theories also suggest that there are many factors that can influence a learner’s choice of strategies. individual learner differences are a good example of such factors. more specifically, difference in beliefs, affective states, and previous learning experience all determine the learner’s choice of strategies (ellis, 2004, p. 529). these, in turn, influence the rate of acquisition and ultimate level of achievement for the students in a second language. ellis adds that strategy use varies considerably based on task and individual learner preferences i.e. learning styles (2004, p. 533). oxford and nyikos (1989) state that“the degree of expressed motivation was the single most powerful influence on the choice of language learning strategies”( p. 294) and they also add that the type of strategy the learners use is dependent on learning setting and environment. in conclusion, there are many factors that can influence the choice of learning strategies. while learning styles is mentioned among the factors that influence learning strategy choice, it is by no means agreed upon among scholars that learning styles alone have a strong influence on choice of learning strategies. cook (2008) concludes our exploration of learning strategies by splitting them into categories and ranking the most often used category of learning strategies as reported by esl students. according to cook, the three types of learning strategies are metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, and social strategies. metacognitive strategies are the ones that help students plan, think about their learning, and monitor their speaking and writing as well as monitoring their own progress, they are used about 30% of the time by learners. cognitive strategies are the majority of strategies used (53%) and they represent a “conscious way of tackling learning”(cook, 2008, p. 115); they involve note-taking, using resources, and relating newly encountered information to previous 186 exploring the relationship between schema. the last category of strategies mentioned by cook is that of social learning where students learn by interacting with others, doing peer work and asking their teachers and instructors for help. this further breaking down of learning strategies gives the reader a better understanding of the many aspects to consider when it comes to the study of learning strategies. learning styles turning our attention to learning styles, we begin with gass and selinker’s (2008) definition:“preferences that an individual has of obtaining, processing, and retaining information” and “how individuals approach the task of learning”( p.432). unlike learning strategies, learning styles are highly interrelated to personality. personality research in sla discusses many aspects of the learner such as extroversion/introversion (there isn't any compelling evidence yet as to which of these two may be better for sla), risk taking, which can increase success in second language learning or make the learner more likely to participate in social settings, field dependent/independent learners (g&s, 2008, p. 433). thus we can look at learning styles as preferences that are influenced by out personality and that, like our personality traits are unlikely to change from task to task. fleming and miles (1992) define four sensory ways of learning: visual, auditory, read-write, and kinesthetic. according to fleming and miles, visual learners prefer the use of diagrams and symbols like graphs, flow charts, models, etc. read-write learners prefer printed words and texts, lists, textbooks, notes, and worksheets. auditory learners like information they can hear, better and enjoy discussions, lectures, and tutorials when they learn new information.. kinesthetic learners prefer real practices and experiences, field trips, case studies, real-life examples, role-plays, to help them learn and understand new concepts. however, gass and selinker (2008), state that the most successful learners use a variety of different learning styles in acquiring a second language (p. 437). knowledge of these styles is often used in the classroom by teachers who do their best to adapt instruction and teaching to accommodate differences in learning preferences and learning styles of their students ( hedayati, 2015, p. 345). learning styles in relation to learning strategies in the realm of sla, we are interested in discussing learning strategies used by learners and what may influence them because we start at the premise that strategies improve and speed up language acquisition. dörnyei (2010) is discussing this is very idea when he says that “learner variables modified and personalized the overall trajectory of the language acquisition processes accounting for […] how proactively (learning strategies) and in what way (learning styles) the learner engaged in the learning process” (dörnyei, 2010, p. 252). here we can draw a distinct parallel between the different functions that learning styles and strategies are believed to play in the acquisition of language. however, macaro (2010) disagrees with the idea and claims that there is insufficient evidence to prove that strategy use leads to success (2010, p. 270) in her study, li jie (2006) states that strategies are chosen based on personality related factors and linked directly to learning style. she draws a different distinction exploring the relationship between 187 between the concepts of style and strategy. li jie believes that differentiation “should be made in terms of the level of intentionality, awareness and stability”(2006, p. 68). styles are unconscious learner traits, unintentional, and stable throughout long periods of time while strategies are specific behaviors selected by the aware learner and they are subject to change from one task to another. for research purposes, li jie used the mbti-g (myers-briggs type indicator form g) test for learning styles and the strategy inventory for language (sill) test for types of strategies that learners use (2006, p. 69). she concludes that learner awareness would develop the students’ flexibility to cope with different contexts and achieve learner autonomy, not having to depend on instructors. bhagat (2015) also agrees that “awareness of learning styles can create a better learning environment by enabling students to use appropriate strategies”(2015, s59). bhagat implies a strict correlation between learning styles and strategies although he does not attempt to explore or prove its truth. before conducting a study on the topic, one must decide on clear research questions as well as effective data collection. ellis suggests that multiple data collection procedures are the most successful in this context but that learners vary greatly in their ability to report and describe their strategies (2004, p.534). because much of the research relies on learner self-reports and retrospective reporting, the learners’ ability to self-report can create doubts about how reliable the research is (2004, p.559). the study specifically addresses the following questions: (1) what are the learning styles of l2 secondary school students in a small sample group? (2) is there a relationship between learning styles (visual, auditory, kinesthetic) and the self-reported learning strategies that the learners use? method the study investigates the relationship between learning styles and learning strategies of 22 participants. the participants are students in grade 6 who study in an immersive english program at a government school in thailand. they are all of the same age, between 12 and 13 years old and of similar english mastery levels. the students have all also been in the same class together since kindergarten and have had the same teachers throughout their formative years. although individual differences are present no matter how homogenous the group of participants may be, the similarities in their educational background leave less room for factors such as different backgrounds, knowledge, mastery, or culture to interfere with the study. instruments the instruments that were used to collect that data are a 16 question-learning styles test which recorded the quantitative data as well as a questionnaire and field notes from interviews which recorded the qualitative data. face to face interviews about learning strategies they use in the english classroom, learning strategies they dislike, and what they think about their learning styles test results were conducted with 9 students of the 22 188 exploring the relationship between students based on their questionnaire responses and how responsive the students were to the researcher’s questions. the instruments, both quantitative as well as qualitative were simplified versions of mbtig (myers-briggs type indicator form g) test for learning styles and the strategy inventory for language (sill) as mentioned in li jie’s study (2006, p. 69). this was done for the purpose of simplicity and ease of english language comprehension on the part of the participants. also, because the students are still young and not very mature, the simple version of the vark (visual, auditory, reading-writing, and kinesthetic) was narrowed down to just three main styles (v, a, k) as the reading-writing style sometimes falls under the umbrella of visual learning. this better suited the learners’ attention span and ability to answer the best they could. data collection students were first given the learning styles test without explanation of what learning styles are. after the test was collected, the students attended a brief lesson about the three different learning styles and students were given a list of common learning strategies (appendix 5). students were then given a list of 10 vocabulary words in english and asked to study the spelling and meaning for homework. they were also to record the steps they took in learning the words and what specific strategies they employed. students filled out a questionnaire the following week about their process in studying the new words. based on their questionnaire responses, nine students were interviewed one-on-one. interviews were recorded by taking notes. data from the interviews was then organized into a table (appendix 4). findings to address the first research question, according to the learning styles test (figure 1) the findings are as follows: 45% of the students are visual learners 23% kinesthetic, 18% audio-visual, 9% auditory, and 5% visual-kinesthetic learners. although these findings are not new in the field of efl, the findings help to describe and shape the discussion about learning strategies in the context of learning styles. there was also some observable relation between the learning styles and learning strategies as derived from the questionnaires and the interviews (appendix 4) but not enough to establish a relationship. figure 1. learning styles exploring the relationship between 189 discussion most students in the school are required to sit quietly and read and write without much auditory or kinesthetic stimulation. this environment can shape the collective personality of the students and make them successful visual learners. however, in a similar study, gilakjani (2012) found that out of over 100 iranian efl students, the preferred learning style was visual as well (2012, p.106). although gilankjani’s (2012) study and the current study are two examples that show a majority of students displaying visual learning styles, further research would be necessary to conclude that most of the learners in efl classes are visual learners. the relationship between learning styles and learning strategies is not strong enough to prove that learning styles play the most important role in choosing learning strategies for this group of learners. the test used to classify the learners as visual, auditory, or kinesthetic was a simplified version (for the purpose of clarity and easier language for the students) of the meyers-briggs personality test and thus could have given inaccurate results. the students’ level of understanding of the test language could have also contributed to false results. in assuming that the test results are accurate, we find that the students are not in any way restricted by their style in their strategy choice. most students in the class talk about using similar strategies and this could be a direct result of the instructor’s influence and the strategies they were taught to use in school. although most students seem to have a visual learning style, they employ strategies that are not directly related to their particular style. finally, bringing the learners’ attention to learning styles and strategies made them think about their learning process in a metacognitive way and monitor the strategies they used and the strategies they disliked. the students reporting of their strategies may not have been very reliable and a longitudinal study could more accurately describe the relationship between styles and strategies.the students’ l2 may not have been advanced enough for them to discuss styles and strategies in-depth. students knowledge of a variety of learning strategies seems to make the students more confident in their language learning process. pedagogical perspectives and implications for sla 190 exploring the relationship between some of the benefits of increasing learners’ awareness of their own learning styles brings “higher interest and motivation in the learning process, increased student responsibility for their own learning, and greater classroom community” (reid, 1999, p. 300). the most inspiring part of the study for me was watching the students try to make sense of the concept of learning styles and that some learning strategies can work better for different types of learners. the students were becoming in charge of their own learning while consciously trying to work out what works best for their learning style and how they feel about it. much literature on this topic advises teachers to be aware of the different learning styles and to adjust their teaching accordingly. but if both teachers and students, even younger learners, can be aware of these aspects of language acquisition, they can work together to devise better strategies. gilakjani says that learners of any subject will make greater progress if they can use their strong assets to master the learning material (2012, p. 106). teachers can conduct similar research in their classroom to shape their instruction based on the preferred learning style of the students. teachers can use multimodal instruction and teach students a variety of learning strategies that allows them to explore many learning styles. although the study does not show a clear relationship between personality and learning strategy choice, i believe that this aspect can be explored in the classroom through interviews, conferences, and peer discussion. by finding out more about the students, the teacher can create a learner-centered classroom where the instruction and materials are catered to the specific needs and interests of the students. this can be especially beneficial for young teenage students who are just starting to learn who they are (personality is developing) and how to learn any subject, but especially esl. mastery and understanding of their own personality and which strategies work for them can make them more confident in their language learning. teaching a wide variety of strategies can help the students become more versatile, efficient learners. conclusion the study explores the meaning of learning styles and strategies from an academic point of view. there seems to be little research in the field on how learning styles affect learning strategy choice. most scholars disagree when it comes to definition, motivation, or factors that influence strategy choice in second language learning. however, the field of sla recognizes both learning styles and strategies as important factors to consider when teaching a second language. the current study was conducted to examine whether a relationship could be established between learning styles and strategies in an efl class. the results for this small group of students show that there is no significant association between one’s learning styles, and their strategy use. however, the results suggest some interesting implications for efl teaching and for the pedagogical use of learning strategies. this study merely raises questions on a topic that can be further explored in the classroom as well as in largerscale research. exploring the relationship between 191 © irina mihaela stanescu irina stanescu is an esl/efl educator with experience in multi-disciplinary english curriculum development for primary and secondary school english programs. she has taught in a variety of environments in the united states, nicaragua, romania, and thailand. irina is passionate about teaching english through creative writing and expression, encouraging an open exchange of ideas in the classroom. irina holds a b.a. in french language and literature from bard college. she is also certified in tesol instruction from the sit graduate institute in new york and is currently working on her master’s degree thesis at payap university in thailand. references websites: learning preferences study tips. (n.d.). retrieved november 23, 2016, from https://www.whitman.edu/academic s/academic-resource-center/study-skills/ learning-preferences-study-tips/ using learning preferences to engage students. (n.d.). retrieved november 23, 2016, . https://www.tesol.org/docs/defaultsource/new-resource-library/usinglearning-preferences-to-engagestudents.pdf?sfvrsn=0 what’s your learning style? (2009). retrieved november 10, 2016, from http://people.usd.edu/~bwjames/tut/learni ng-style/. articles and books: bhagat, a., vyas, r., & singh, t. (2015). students awareness of learning styles and theirperceptions to a mixed method approach for learning. international journal of applied & basic medical research, 5s58-s5. cook, v. (2008). second language learning and language teaching. (4th ed.). london: routledge. dörnyei, z. (2010). the relationship between language aptitude and language learning motivation: individual differences from a dynamic systems perspective. in macaro, e. (ed). continuum companion to second language acquisition (pp. 247267). uk: bloomsbury academic. ellis, r. (2004).the study of second language acquisition. oxford: oxford university press. fleming, n.d. & mills, c. (1992). not another inventory, rather a catalyst for reflection. to improve the academy, 11, 137-155. gass, m., & selinker, l. (2008). second language acquisition: an introductory course. new york: routledge. gilakjani, a. p. (2012). visual, auditory, kinesthetic learning styles and their impacts on e language teaching. journal of studies in education, 2 (1). 104-113. hedayati, m., & foomani, e. m. (2015). learning style and task performance in synchronous computer-mediated communication: a case study of iranian efl learners. journal of educational technology & society, 18(4), 344-356. jie, li & xiaoqing, q. (2006). language learning styles and learning strategies of tertiary level e learners in china. relc. 37(1), 67-90. https://www.whitman.edu/academics/academic-resource-center/study-skills/%20learning-� https://www.whitman.edu/academics/academic-resource-center/study-skills/%20learning-� https://www.whitman.edu/academics/academic-resource-center/study-skills/%20learning-� https://www.whitman.edu/academics/academic-resource-center/study-skills/%20learning-� https://www.tesol.org/docs/default-source/new-resource-library/using-learning-� https://www.tesol.org/docs/default-source/new-resource-library/using-learning-� https://www.tesol.org/docs/default-source/new-resource-library/using-learning-� 192 exploring the relationship between macaro, e.(2010). the relationship between strategic behavior and language learning success. in macaro, e. (ed). continuum companion to second language acquisition (pp. 268-299). uk: bloomsbury academic. oxford, r. and nyikos, m. (1989), variables affecting choice of language learning strategies by university students. the modern language journal, 73: 291–300. selinger, h. (1984). processing universals in second language acquisition. in f. eckman, l. bell, & d. nelson (eds.), universals of second language acquisition. rowley, ma: newbury house. appendices exploring the relationship between 193 194 exploring the relationship between appendix 1: learning styles results table student sex learning style 1 f visual 2 m visual 3 m visual 4 f visual 5 m visual 6 m visual 7 f visual 8 m visual 9 f visual 10 f visual 11 m auditory 12 f auditory 13 f kinesthetic 14 f kinesthetic 15 f kinesthetic 16 f kinesthetic 17 f kinesthetic 18 m visual-kinestethic exploring the relationship between 195 appendix 1: learning styles results table student sex learning style 19 f audio-visual 20 m audio-visual 21 f audio-visual 22 f audio-visual total: 22 students appendix 3: the learning strategies associated with each learning style* visual auditory kinesthetic take detailed notes acquire knowledge by reading aloud need to be active and take frequent breaks like to see what they are learning remember by verbalizing lessons to themselves or to others rely on what they can directly experience or perform use illustrations to aid their learning learn by listening and discussing, questioning, explaining learn through field trips or tasks that involve manipulating materials around them find quiet/passive surroundings ideal ask others to listen to their understanding of a topic learn by sensing and seeing examples use charts, graphs, maps use voice recorders to listen to their own personal voice notes learn by trial and error reconstruct images, charts, ideas in different ways use all the senses in the learning process redraw notes, words, diagrams from memory -study by using many examples and context 196 exploring the relationship between appendix 3: the learning strategies associated with each learning style* replace words with symbols or acronyms write practice answers for a test, role play the exam situation * adapted from http://people.usd.edu/~bwjames/tut/learning-style/ and https://www.whitman.edu/academics/academic-resource-center/study-skills/learningpreferences-study-tips appendix 4: students’ learning strategies for learning vocabulary -data from interviews stu dent learni ng style preferred learning strategies strategies they disliked/did not find useful comments/observa tions students made about their learning style based on quiz answers 1 visual drawing mind maps to remember; using words in a sentence. re-writing the words; saying the words out loud. agrees with result because it has always been easy for her to learn visually and does not want to try out new strategies. 2 kinest hetic reading words out loud and talking to a study partner; writing synonyms. drawing pictures or diagrams, re-writing words. did not agree with being a kinesthetic learner, and thinks of herself as an auditory learner. http://people.usd.edu/~bwjames/tut/learning-style/� https://www.whitman.edu/academics/academic-resource-center/study-skills/learning-� https://www.whitman.edu/academics/academic-resource-center/study-skills/learning-� exploring the relationship between 197 appendix 4: students’ learning strategies for learning vocabulary -data from interviews stu dent learni ng style preferred learning strategies strategies they disliked/did not find useful comments/observa tions students made about their learning style based on quiz answers 3 audiovisual drawing diagrams and making mind maps; practice spelling and writing; redraw pictures, diagrams from memory. reading out loud or studying with a friend. believes she is more a visual than auditory learner. knowing her learning style made her more confident about using drawings and diagrams to recall vocabulary. 4 audito ry study and discuss homework with friend; ask others for help/clarification; use vocabulary word in a sentence. hard work (writing a lot). agrees with result because she enjoys listening more than reading or speaking in english. 5 kinest hetic drawing diagrams and remembering pictures and words; before a health test draw pictures of organs to remember english words for them. repeating the words out loud; acting out the words. thought she was more of a visual learner; will try out learning strategies associated with kinesthetic learners like using real life examples to remember vocabulary. 6 audiovisual listening; spending time in quiet places;speaking to a study partner. re-writing the words many times; having a cluttered table. knowing that she is an audio-visual learner, she wants to use strategies from both styles to study in the future. 198 exploring the relationship between appendix 4: students’ learning strategies for learning vocabulary -data from interviews stu dent learni ng style preferred learning strategies strategies they disliked/did not find useful comments/observa tions students made about their learning style based on quiz answers 7 visual using examples from the book to help remember ideas; underlining important vocabulary in the book. saying the words out loud; using movement to memorize the vocabulary. did not agree with being a visual learner, saw herself as an auditory learner. 8 kinest hetic drawing pictures and diagrams; writing synonyms; spelling a word many times; using many examples and learning the word in context. using role play or games; spending a lot of time rereading the words. saw herself as a visual learner not kinesthetic because she does not like to act things out or move a lot. 9 visual re-writing the word many times; spell it out loud by herself, spell it out loud with a partner; reading notes to her partner to check for understanding. acting out the word or role play; copying the definition from the book. she agrees that she is a visual learner although she thinks she is a combination of visual and auditory because she likes to say the words out loud and work out the meaning by talking to her friends. appendix 5 *list of learning strategies given to students in class discussion about learning strategies: exploring the relationship between 199 ◦ reconstruct images, charts, figures in different ways ◦ redraw pages, diagrams, notes from memory ◦ replace words with symbols, initials, acronyms ◦ draw ◦ use diagrams ◦ recall pictures ◦ turn your visuals into words ◦ expand notes by talking with others and collecting notes from the textbook ◦ put your summarized notes onto a recording to listen to ◦ ask others to listen to your understanding of a topic ◦ read summarized notes out loud ◦ listen to your voice and write your ideas in your notebook ◦ spend time in quiet places recalling ideas ◦ speak your answers aloud when studying/answering practice test questions ◦ put plenty of examples in your notes and summaries ◦ use case studies ◦ recall experiments, field trips, labs, etc. ◦ write practice answers ◦ move a lot while you memorize new vocabulary ◦ role play the exam situation *adapted from: https://www.whitman.edu/academics/academic-resource-center/studyskills/learning-preferences-study-tips appendix 6 what's your learning style? https://www.whitman.edu/academics/academic-resource-center/study-skills/learning-� https://www.whitman.edu/academics/academic-resource-center/study-skills/learning-� 200 exploring the relationship between for these questions, choose the first answer that comes to mind and circle a, b, or c. question 1 when you study for a test, would you rather a) read notes, read headings in a book, and look at diagrams and illustrations. b) have someone ask you questions, or repeat facts silently to yourself. c) write things out on index cards and make models or diagrams. question 2 which of these do you do when you listen to music? a) daydream (see things that go with the music) b) hum along c) move with the music, tap your foot, etc. question 3 when you work at solving a problem do you a) make a list, organize the steps, and check them off as they are done b) make a few phone calls and talk to friends or experts c) make a model of the problem or walk through all the steps in your mind question 4 when you read for fun, do you prefer a) a travel book with a lot of pictures in it b) a mystery book with a lot of conversation in it c) a book where you answer questions and solve problems question 5 to learn how a computer works, would you rather a) watch a movie about it b) listen to someone explain it c) take the computer apart and try to figure it out for yourself question 6 you have just entered a science museum, what will you do first? a) look around and find a map showing the locations of the various exhibits b) talk to a museum guide and ask about exhibits c) go into the first exhibit that looks interesting, and read directions later question 7 what kind of restaurant would you rather not go to? a) one with the lights too bright b) one with the music too loud c) one with uncomfortable chairs question 8 would you rather go to exploring the relationship between 201 a) an art class b) a music class c) an exercise class question 9 which are you most likely to do when you are happy? a) grin b) shout with joy c) jump for joy question 10 if you were at a party, what would you be most likely to remember the next day? a) the faces of the people there, but not the names b) the names but not the faces c) the things you did and said while you were there question 11 when you see the word "d o g", what do you do first? a) think of a picture of a particular dog b) say the word "dog" to yourself silently c) sense the feeling of being with a dog (petting it, running with it, etc.) question 12 when you tell a story, would you rather a) write it b) tell it out loud c) act it out question 13 what is most distracting for you when you are trying to concentrate? a) visual distractions b) noises c) other sensations like, hunger, tight shoes, or worry question 14 what are you most likely to do when you are angry? a) scowl b) shout or "blow up" c) stomp off and slam doors question 15 when you aren't sure how to spell a word, which of these are you most likely to do? a) write it out to see if it looks right b) sound it out c) write it out to see if it feels right question 16 which are you most likely to do when standing in a long line at the movies? 202 exploring the relationship between a) look at posters advertising other movies b) talk to the person next to you c) tap your foot or move around in some other way source: http://people.usd.edu/~bwjames/tut/learning-style/ appendix 7 name: __________________________ questionnaire please answer the following questions about yourself as best as you can and provide as many details as possible. 1. how do you learn best? by drawing diagrams and remembering pictures and words? by reading your notes out loud and talking to a study partner? or by using life examples to help you remember ideas, moving a lot and acting out the lesson? list some strategies you find useful. give an example. 2. if you had to study a vocabulary list of 10 new words, how would you do it? write the steps you would take: 1. 2. 3. 4. … http://people.usd.edu/~bwjames/tut/learning-style/� exploring the relationship between 203 3. what study strategies do not work for you? list a few examples. 16 efl teacher challenges in teaching composition beyond words vol.6 no.1 (2018) teaching composition in schools: challenges of efl teachers in post-soviet georgia nino jakhaia ph.d. candidate at the department of teacher education university of mississippi & kerry holmes the university of mississippi united states abstract writing in foreign language classes has long been a challenge for both teachers and students. with the rise of globalization, there is an urgent need for efl (english as a foreign language) teachers to help students develop writing skills needed to function effectively in a society. this article reports on the practices and experiences of teachers of english in georgian schools. it discusses how writing instruction is enacted in schools; how teachers perceive their pre-service education and professional opportunities regarding writing. the results of a qualitative analysis of teacher interviews indicate that (a) inadequate preparation at a pre-service level is a major concern for teachers; (b) absence of a unified curriculum on composition studies in schools prevents teachers from the implementation of the writing assignments in the classrooms; (c) teachers are seeking their own learning and professional growth pathways despite the lack of systematic professional development opportunities. based on the findings, pedagogical implications are discussed with the aim of enhancing the teaching and learning of written english in foreign language in georgia and ultimately, in other foreign language contexts. key words: efl teachers, composition instruction, professional development. introduction a plethora of research has investigated english writing in the english as a second language (esl) context where english plays a dominant role, whereas writing instruction in non-english contexts has not received enough attention (lee, 2010; leki, 2000; leki et al., 2008; cumming, 2009). researchers have pointed out that teachers who work as english as a foreign language (efl) teachers face specific obstacles in their professions (leki, 2001). these obstacles are often caused by various contextual variables (dimova, 2003; gonzalez, 2004; kamwangamalu, 2002; reichelt, 2005; taavitsainen & pahta, 2003). to raise the standards of teaching and learning it is important to understand the factors that impact writing pedagogy in efl contexts. furthermore, the urgency of understanding efl teachers’ teaching practices comes from the role english language plays today in the world. in many countries, the urgency is amplified by such reasons as testing, publication requirements, international student mobility and global job market. to fill the gap in the research literature, the researchers investigated how composition instruction has been enacted in schools in the former soviet republic of georgia. in addition, the study explored how teachers perceived their pre-and in-service education and professional development as pertained to teaching writing. efl teacher education in georgia, there are a number of higher educational institutions, both private and state-owned that educate teachers to teach english. they offer both bachelor’s and master’s level programs and award diplomas in efl teaching, translation, and philology. degrees granted in english exceed degrees granted in all other foreign languages. the spread and dominance of english are results from several reasons. first, after the split from the soviet union in 1993, the georgian government set forth the integration of the country into a world community as its top priority. second, the goal of the reforms initiated by the government was to broaden career trajectories of the graduates and improve their occupational flexibility and job mobility. third, the demand for the knowledge of english is further amplified by the strong desire of the georgian people to fight “the constructs associated with the former soviet union (polat, 2009, p. 243). achieving these goals was impossible without the mastery of the english language. since the mastery of english is linked with the country’s political power and economic resources, it is no surprise that teaching and learning english language is of efl teacher challenges in teaching composition 17 paramount importance in educational settings. under such circumstances, georgian teachers of english language are expected to demonstrate professional growth and professionalism. to raise teaching standards and support teachers in improving their qualification, the georgian government launched a teacher professional development program in 2001 with the reform initiated by the world bank (chakhaia, kutateladze, & amoroso, 2017). the goal of the reforms was multifaceted: first, reforms aimed at increasing the number of professional development training sessions for teachers. second, reforms had to bring a major shift in teaching by refocusing attention from the teacher to the student. the reforms were further institutionalized by the law of georgia on general education in 2007. the ensuing development was the formation of the teacher professional development center in 2007-2009, which developed standards for teachers (chakhaia et al., 2017). the standards were to be used as a guidepost for teaches’ knowledge and skills. the standards developed by the teacher professional development center laid the foundation for the subsequent teacher certification scheme. in post-soviet georgia, the law on teacher certification exams was created in 2005. the aim of the proposed plan was to have teachers prove their qualifications by passing exams in the subject area and professional skills. the results and the effects of the certifications exams were inconclusive and largely negligible. teachers’ opinions on the importance and the need of certification varied widely. thirty percents of them regarded certifications as unnecessary (issa, 2012). opinions on the usefulness of the certification in terms of professional skills and pedagogy also attracted divergent views: some teachers believed that they gained knowledge about content and pedagogy in the preparation process, while others held negative beliefs on the efficiency and practicality of the proposed scheme (kobakhidze, 2013). regarding specific professional development for english as a foreign language (efl) teacher in georgia, there has been a scarcity of substantial teacher-development programs (polat, 2009). teacher education for efl teachers, within the scope of professional development, often consists of short-term training sessions. these training sessions have been geared to prepare teachers for the certification exams and introduction of new books. for instance, georgian ministry of education mandated textbooks for primary level english learners published by mcmillan english language publishing. mcmillan in partnership with the government supported extensive training programs for teachers across the country. even though these trainings helped teachers to better introduce the new material to students, on a larger scheme, trainings were nothing but a miniscule attempt to alleviate the quality of the georgian teachers of english. these training sessions, initiated by the government under the scheme of the professional development, have rarely focused on enriching the teachers’ content knowledge in writing pedagogy. the study reported here sought to understand how english language writing is currently being implemented in schools in the country of georgia. an additional objective of the study was to gather teachers’ perceptions of their pre-service and in-service education. understanding this information is very important considering the changes that georgia underwent in terms of educational reforms after the dissolution of the soviet union. learning about teachers’ perceptions of their preservice education will shed light on the situation that existed in higher education in georgia prior to its independence. this study highlights the current educational climate. it also helps us understand where these teachers stand in terms of their educational level, how teachers see themselves in the current educational system, and how higher education impacted their instructional abilities, specifically in composition. lastly, for teachers to gain new skills and adjust to the demands of the reforms and innovation, it is necessary to be able to participate in professional development sessions. by learning about efl teachers’ perceptions of the professional development opportunities, we gained a view of the programs that are available for teachers in georgia and how the teachers and their students have been impacted by these programs. specifically, the study addressed the following research questions: 1. how do efl teachers perceive their preservice education? 2. how is english writing implemented in georgian schools? 3. what are the perceptions of teachers of professional opportunities regarding writing? 18 efl teacher challenges in teaching composition methods the goal of the qualitative research design was to explore teachers’ perceptions of the influence of the pre-service preparation and professional development on their teaching practices as well as their understanding of the writing curriculum as it is enacted in georgian schools. an exploratory approach, based on grounded theory methodology and principles, was employed to provide the researcher with the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the teachers’ perceptions (creswell, 2011). we conducted individual semi-structured interviews with the teachers, allowing us to gain an in-depth understanding of classroom teachers’ perceptions of the influence of pre-service preparation and professional development on their teaching practices and understanding of implementation of writing curriculum. the semi-structured interview format afforded us the opportunity to probe more deeply into participants’ responses and to ask the follow up questions leading to richer, more robust data. participants we used a purposeful sampling, namely maximal variation sampling strategy to select efl teachers working in georgian schools. the rationale for using this method is to “present multiple perspectives of individuals” to document unique and diverse variations (creswell, 2011, p. 207). the researchers sampled individuals that differed on the following characteristics: age, employment (private vs public schools), educational level (bachelors’ vs. masters’), and years of experience teaching english, the region of employment as well as ethnicity. the final 12 participants included teachers from four regions in georgia: kartli, samegrelo, sametskhe-javaskheti, and svaneti. four teachers worked in private schools and the remaining eight teachers were employed in public schools. regarding their experience and educational level, five teachers had less than ten years of experience working as efl teachers and the other six teachers had more than ten years of experience working in various educational settings as english teachers and lecturers. seven teachers held master’s level diplomas from georgian universities, three teachers had bachelor’s degrees, and two teachers had bachelor’s degrees in different fields with master’s degrees in english. the workload of the participants ranged from five to thirty-three hours per week. all twelve teachers were females. data collection and analysis data of the study were from in-depth individual interviews with the twelve efl teachers. the audio-taped interviews were conducted in georgian language through skype and lasted for about an hour for each teacher. prior to the interview, the researcher contacted teachers through an email and maintained the contact with them to find a time for online interviews. the researcher also sent the consent forms to potential participants. even though 17 teachers were contacted for participation, 12 teachers eventually expressed their willingness to take part in the study. to increase the validity of the study, procedures that decrease the biases and questions of objectivity often associated with the qualitative research were employed. creswell (2011) recommends using several methods for verification purposes such as member checking, peer debriefing, disconfirming evidence. in this study, researchers used member checking, peer debriefing and disconfirming evidence to limit the biases associated with the qualitative study. for example, authors incorporated member checking to add validity to the research findings. furthermore, participants of the study received the transcripts for verification purposes and commented on the themes and categories by confirming the accuracy of the overall account. another validity procedure that researchers employed was peer debriefing. a colleague who is familiar with the topic, reviewed the analysis and data selection method before a final version of the paper was written. and last, trustworthiness of the research findings is extremely important and it was achieved by disconfirming the evidence. disconfirming the evidence involves a deliberate and articulate search for disconfirmation and helps to combat the investigator’s natural tendency to seek confirmation of her or his preliminary or emerging findings (murrow, p. 256). in the study, the researchers identified the potential disconfirming data and compared with confirming instances. efl teacher challenges in teaching composition 19 results efl teacher at pre-service education nine teachers, seven of whom worked in public and two in private schools, expressed their concerns that the teacher preparation at a preservice level had not prepared them to become effective teachers of writing. they thought that the pedagogic and contentknowledge they gained were not sufficient to be knowledgeable about composition pedagogy. specifically, there was a strong awareness on the part of the teachers about the “gap” in the pedagogic knowledge and they regarded it as a direct consequence of the limited curriculum the universities they attended had offered. one of the teachers offered the following explanation: “upon graduation from my first college, i felt confident about my knowledge in english language. it was only at master’s level, when it dawned on me that my knowledge of the language was minimal. i started doubting myself, my capacities…i was asking myself: ‘why did i think i was ready?’ i was not ready for master’s level studies…it was frustrating but then i talked with others and looked like we all were more or less in the same shoes…we just had to work hard and catch up with the requirements.” in this particular response, the respondent is alluding to the fact that georgian institutions of higher learning were mostly unable to provide high quality education to their students. according to the teachers’ accounts, modern teaching methodologies and curricula were largely absent in universities. the gap was mostly vivid for those teachers who had an opportunity to attend international universities or had a chance to study abroad. the respondent who provided the insight in the above passage attended one of the prestigious private international university in georgia. such institutions of higher learning were distinguished with very high tuition costs but in return they offered higher standards of teaching and learning. strong disillusionment often came from teachers who attended universities during the 1990s. one teacher was pointed in her response: “i have used nothing from the university i was attending to for my bachelor’s degree…. nothing…it was a workbook system…russian system. write a homework! submit the homework!” teachers also observed the absence of an academic writing curriculum at pre-service level. even though they studied as language majors, they did not have classes that would prepare them for composition instruction. one teacher poignantly recollected on what she was taught at the pre-service level in terms of composition. “we never studied composition as such as far as i remember. of course, we were writing grammar based assignments, we were asked to do translations, and occasionally were asked to write an essay. but throughout all five years of my education, i probably wrote the maximum of ten essays. not more definitely. when i started attending training on teaching composition, i understood we did not study writing as such. then, i asked few of my friends who attended different universities and they expressed the similar concerns. (it)looks like they did not have composition classes separately either.” the sense of regret and sadness permeated the words of teachers when they reflected on their university preparation. for example, one teacher who attended one of the public universities in georgia, remarked: “i have not studied writing pedagogy at the university. i have not received an appropriate education. that’s why i sometimes say i am unhappy about it...i am a student of the areuloba (term in georgian language to describe the turbulent times of the 1990s).” from the quotes of these teachers we can see that they not only understood their own deficiency in writing pedagogy but also were attributing their lack of knowledge in writing pedagogy to the inadequate university preparation, which they, in turn, linked with the social and economic challenges of the country of the time. teaching writing in schools teacher interviews revealed that an emphasis on teaching writing was never a main priority of schools. in other words, the majority of the teachers observed that schools largely neglected teaching writing because it was not part of the requirements of the national entrance exams prior to 2005. they also reported that the writing component was added to the national unified examinations in english in 2006 but despite the requirement writing is still largely ignored in schools and considerably less time is allocated to teaching this adminpc typewritten text adminpc typewritten text adminpc typewritten text 20 efl teacher challenges in teaching composition skill in school curricula. the following quotation from a teacher exemplifies this theme: “i always try to engage my students in writing practices. i give them small essays on familiar topics. unfortunately, our english textbooks do not provide much opportunities for engaging students in writing activities. sometimes, when i assign an essay, students seem startled. they ask me: ms. lia (pseudonym), why do you assign us an essay? is it in our textbooks?” there was a unanimous agreement among teachers that georgian students’ composition skills in l2 language are below the sufficient level and they are often reluctant to write an essay. the assertion of this teacher is a succinct description of students’ writing competencies shared by the study participant: “our students often lack the minimal competencies in writing. the situation is so dire that students get anxious about writing an essay. our unified entrance exams reflect this problem: students have lower scores in an essay component of the english exam. writing is a real “achilles’s heel” for students.” it is interesting to note that poor writing competency in the l2 context was perceived as a consequence of the lack of experiences writing in l1 language. study participants admitted that their students often did not have much exposure to writing tasks in their native georgian language. a teacher from a private school provided the following perspective: “i think that writing experiences in georgian language influence the writing skill in english language. i had few students who complained to me: “how should i write in english when i hardly write in the georgian language?!” another obstacle that had been identified by teachers is concerned with the school level policies that do not mandate implementation of regular writing skills in the classrooms. absence of a unified curriculum creates a barrier between teachers and schools to enact a writing curriculum. the absence of institutional support systems and policies do not provide incentives for a teacher to implement regular writing assignments. one teacher noted: “school tests in english do not require a student to write an essay. students are asked to write an essay only at the universty entrance exams. i can say that at school level, writing is completely ignored.” the majority of the study’s participants identified the consequences of the barriers that blocked the implementation of the writing curricula in classrooms. they pointed out that many parents send their children to private tutors because they are afraid schools are failing to prepare the students for university examinations. as one teacher questioned: “how are we supposed to teach writing in these circumstances to students? the only option that is left for parents of these kids is to send their kids to the private teachers. they may get some help there.” when teachers were asked about the approaches to teaching writing, many of them unanimously reported that they are enacting some elements of the process-based approaches to teaching. even though no theory or approach was identified, they mentioned employing brainstorming, planning and modeling. the teacher behind this quotation aptly showed the current state of affair in writing instruction: “prior to assigning an essay, i devote instruction time to brainstorming. i help them generate ideas…also, i provide a model essay. they know that the essay should have an introduction, thesis, body and a conclusion. i encourage them to write at least short sentences.” as this response suggests teachers were aware of some elements of the process based pedagogy but the knowledge seemed disjoint and incoherent. according to teachers’ reports, on modeling, they not only raised awareness of essay structures but they also revealed that instructional approaches to writing were rather limited. the main focus on text structures and cognitive aspects of process pedagogies were minimally applied. teachers’ thoughts on professional development teachers unanimously attributed their professional growth in writing instruction to the professional development opportunities. by identifying the professional development programs teachers were referring to the training program provided by the government and by other nongovernment organizations to teachers. the aim of the training provided by the government was to acquaint teachers with a certification exam format. the writing was one of the components of the training. regarding workshops and trainings by nonefl teacher challenges in teaching composition 21 governmental organizations, it mainly included trainings offered by the english teachers’ association of georgia (etag). the etag operates in georgia since 1995 and has nine branches throughout the country. the organization offers trainings to its members in various domains of teaching english. even though these trainings were neither long term or systematic, teachers believed that without them they would not be able to enrich their instructional methods and acquaint themselves with current teaching practices in writing. the response from one of the participants aptly shows the disposition of other teachers toward professional development and trainings offered in their field: “i can boldly say that what we know about writing is mostly thanks to the trainings we attended. if not for these trainings, we would not be aware of common best practices in writing instruction.” despite the overall positive attitude to the professional development, respondents poignantly admitted that the professional development opportunities were not offered on a regular basis. they mentioned that government sponsored professional workshops are quite rare. many teachers acknowledged that instead of government mandated training, they attend private training provided by such organizations as the british council, nongovernmental organizations, associations and learning centers. one teacher explained: “i always try to attend trainings offered by the etag (she refers to the english teachers association of georgia). their writing trainings were very beneficial for me. if not these trainings, i would not know anything about teaching writing today.” teachers also attributed their learning and professional growth to the widespread growth of the internet and social media. one teacher noted: “i am often reading news on the internet. sometimes i read books online in english. i would say i try to read everything that interests in me in english. and, i listen and watch too. it is one way to help myself improve my overall proficiency in a foreign language.” as seen from this reflection, the exposure to free online resources holds a huge appeal for teachers. embracing the internet as a learning tool is a great way to improve language proficiency for these teachers; they are able to read texts of various difficulties online and listen to english speaking radio or videos or a youtube channel. however, it has to be noted that while existence of the worldwide web is appealing, teachers are aware that they need systemic training in methodology and theories of teaching english. they understand that professional growth is insurmountable without a proper theoretical basis. the study participants noted that teachers should be equipped with learning and teaching theories in order to adapt their knowledge to various contexts and student populations. this teacher poignantly reflected on the question about her self-development pathways: “of course, i’m benefiting from the internet but there are serious matters of theory, methodology and pedagogy i will not be able to access from the web. what should i do?! how should i look for the sources when i do not know what to look for?” despite their attempts to fill in the gap created by the lack of quality pre-service education and systematic in-service education, most teachers understood that their efforts only allowed them to scratch the surface. many teachers revealed their gratitude for existing opportunities but they also admitted that their instructional knowledge in composition will not improve unless they have opportunities of professional growth in the field of writing. discussion our study aimed to understand how english writing is enacted in georgian schools, how efl teachers perceive their pre-service education and perceptions of teachers on their professional development as it regards to writing. the qualitative data shows clearly that the teachers are dissatisfied with their pre-service education. the data also reveals that there is a mismatch between school curriculum and higher education institutions. the third section consists of the description of the teachers’ professional growth pathways. it reveals how georgian efl teachers embrace the challenges and seek independent and unique ways for self-development and professional progress. inadequate pre-service preparation we gleaned from teachers’ responses that they were acutely aware of their own deficiencies in instructional and pedagogic knowledge in the composition field. the sharp awareness of the gaps in knowledge and pe22 efl teacher challenges in teaching composition dagogy was coming from teachers who studied at the institutions of higher learning in 1990s – the times when georgia was experiencing challenging transition from soviet system to a democratic state. it was a time when most institutions of higher learning were disrupted due to the political and economic turmoil. in such conditions, it was difficult to maintain high standards of teaching and learning. therefore, teachers who went through the teacher preparation process during that time, lamented that they did not have an opportunity to adequately prepare for teaching the foreign language. these findings are aligned with the quality of education mentioned in previous studies (gvaramidze, 2010). the quality of teaching was especially low at private universities that started to emerge after the collapse of the soviet union. insufficient funds of privately held institutions, lax admission standards, and a drive to enroll large number of students further diminished the academic standards of private institutions. they often were notorious for inadequate academic preparation and for setting a low academic bar for their students (gvaramidze). given these conditions atop other structural, administrative and systematic problems, it was a challenge for many higher education institutions to offer high quality education. teachers are clearly alluding to the fact that the political turmoil georgia underwent in the 1990s created a chain reaction of events: political and social unrest affected the education system and consequently participants of the system – the teachers. indeed, to shed a light on this specific issue, it is necessary to take into consideration that the impact of soviet educational system lingered long even after the dissolution of the soviet bloc. it was only after the rose revolution in 2003 that sweeping reforms in the educational sector eradicated corrupt practices that saturated and negatively impacted all aspects of the education system. in addition, the data from these interviews reflect the research conducted in other post-soviet countries which illuminate the fact that teaching writing as communicative act was an activity mainly ignored in former ussr countries even after the dissolution of the soviet union (tarnopolsky, 2000). as it is apparent from the teachers’ responses, english teachers’ preparation at the pre-service level left them with a sense of dissatisfaction about their education. prior to the rose revolution, corrupt practices were prevalent at all levels of the education system, from admission to the universities to teaching process. it was not uncommon to purchase degrees or credentials or misuse the available institutional funds (rostiashvili, 2012). of course, introducing new reforms have since been in full swing, and gradually the improvements are evident. however, improving the quality of education takes a considerable time, refinement and allocation of resources and funds. schools and higher education institutions the study also investigated how english writing curriculum is enacted in georgian schools. as teachers reported, prior to 2005, there was no regulation, policy or curricula that would mandate the development of students’ writing skills in schools. indeed, in the years preceding 2005, exams in foreign languages, including english, were comprised of oral exams and written translation of texts from georgian to english and vice versa. after the introduction of the national unified examination in 2006, students are tested in three language skills: reading, listening, and writing. the writing component of the exam entails activities that demonstrate students’ mastery of intermediate level grammar and an ability to write a short essay based on a prompt. despite the existing requirement to pass the written part of the test, english writing at a school level is mainly circumscribed to the requirements such as fill-in-the-gap activities and completing various grammar related activities. the reports of the teachers parallel the findings of polat’s (2009) study which found that foreign language curriculum in school contexts is largely dominated by grammar exercises. since no official methodology or curricula exists that would require teachers to develop their students’ written communicative skills, the opportunity to engage students in such tasks is largely dependent on teachers’ initiative and willingness. we can glean from the teachers’ responses that the absence of the requirement to test students’ composition skills in english contributes to the lack of writing practices in schools. given that there is not a requirement or an official demand to assess students’ ability to perform communicative functions in a foreign language provides a picture which showcases that there is a mismatch between schools and universities. in other words, efl teacher challenges in teaching composition 23 schools should be the platforms for students to prepare for college entrance exams. the mismatch we see between schools and higher education institutions suggests that schools on a large part, are not able to prepare students for university exams. the failure of school systems to provide tools for both teachers and students contributes to the further empowering shadow education. shadow education, which is a widely used term that describes various forms of private tutoring, was an unofficial strand of the education system in the soviet times. the data from the interviews clearly reflect the current educational picture; despite the reforms in education sector, shadow education still flourishes in georgia (matiashvili & kutateladze, 2006). after the rose revolution in 2003, the major reforms in education sector eradicated corrupt practices, especially at higher education level. the new unified entrance exams afforded an opportunity to students to secure places in the university based on their test results. today, corrupt practices at he level are almost non-existent but the need to send students to private teachers still prevails. this is mostly due to several reasons: (1) disjunction between university and school curriculum, and (2) inability of schools to prepare students for school university level exams. the existence of such conditions creates the need for private tutors and private classes. in the context of writing english, the need to send students to private teachers stems from the void that exists between school and university system. another finding that emerged from the teachers’ responses is that the lack of experiences in the students’ mother language can significantly hinder the development of writing skills of l2 learners. this finding is in line with other studies which indicate that writing in l1 can have a tremendous impact on l2 writing competency (carson & kuehn, 1992; crossley et al., 2011). teachers expressed their concern that most students struggle to write short essays even if they have enough vocabulary and the adequate command of grammar. indeed, if new writers have strong writing skills in their native language, it will be comparatively easy to build on and develop further their l2 writing competency. however, it does not mean that l1 composition skills and knowledge are directly transferable to l2 contexts. for example, ortega (2009) acknowledged the impact l1 can have on l2 development but he warned that such an impact does not necessarily presuppose “accelerating or delaying” students writing competencies (p. 53). considering these divergent views on the influence of l1 on l2 language competence, it would be misguided to make any decisive conclusion on the effects of the l1 writing practices on the l2 writing progress. however, it can be argued that the exposure of writing tasks in one’s native language would definitely give more experience and leverage to language learners, and would also create more favorable conditions for efl teachers teaching composition. professional growth and learning pathways there is much evidence in our study to suggest that teachers, despite the lack of the professional development opportunities, began to shape their own trajectories of learning. they attended training and workshops offered by non-governmental organizations. some of the teachers responded to the deficit to the pre-service preparation by enrolling in professional organizations and by sharing their experiences with their colleagues. it has to be noted that external sources and opportunities of professional development are indeed appealing considering that government cannot provide such opportunities regularly. however, the problem is that not all teachers can afford paying for training and transportation fees to attend a professional development program. some teachers, especially in rural areas, may not always have information available as to where and when such training is held. many teachers acknowledged that the main source of self-education is the internet. access to online educational websites has been a new and cost-free enterprise for georgian teachers. indeed, the use of internet as a learning tool, according to the research has long been proven as an effective method. however, the use of internet as a way of personal self-development as an educator is a topic that needs further exploration and investigation. conclusion in summary, the present study aimed to understand how english writing is taught in post-soviet georgia and how efl teachers perceive their preservice and in-service edu24 efl teacher challenges in teaching composition cation as it pertains to writing. the analysis of the results suggests that implementation of writing curricula is hampered by a number of contextual variables such as an absence of the writing methodology and school curricula. the findings of our study also indicate that the teachers’ lack of knowledge in composition pedagogy stems from the inadequate teacher preparation and lack of in-service teacher preparation. yet, it has to be noted that such a diminished state of written pedagogy is not only specific to the georgian context. the efl teachers in general in many countries are not adequately prepared for teaching writing (casanave, 2009; lee, 2010; reichelt, 2009). to change the dynamics of writing instruction in schools, composition should be used as a vehicle for teaching language structure and vocabulary. however, unless dramatic changes are made in school curricula and general language teaching policies, such changes in teaching will not take place. in addition, the findings of this study are in line with other research which indicate that there are not adequate professional development opportunities for efl teachers in georgia. for example, the findings of the study conducted by polat (2009) point to the lack of the suitable development opportunities for language teachers of georgia. this indicates the need for systematic programs for teachers to engage in separate courses where sole attention is devoted to the composition studies. more theory oriented pds are necessary for teachers to reduce their pedagogic and instructional knowledge gap in composition. the findings revealed that teachers are stymied on ways to implement a writing curriculum in their classrooms due to the absence of the official writing curriculum in schools. assigning writing assignments to the students is very sporadic and depends solely on the willingness and enthusiasm of individual teachers. to improve the existing situation, reforms should be implemented at all levels of the education system: pre-service, in-service and school level policies. to ameliorate the gap in teachers’ pedagogic knowledge in composition, introduction of more rigorous composition curriculum at the preservice level together with ongoing systematic professional development opportunities are needed. equipping teachers with foundational knowledge about writing pedagogies would certainly give more leverage to teachers to expand on their instructional practices and modify and adapt them to their local contexts. as ferris and hedgcock (2014) note the “knowledge of formal models, theories, and methods enable teachers to discover, build, and articulate their own theories” (p. 3). the absence of such language expertise deprives teachers of the opportunity to draw on their pedagogic knowledge base. such changes will better support teachers in meeting their pedagogic needs and will help students improve writing skills. since the data of the present study came from the qualitative interviews with efl teachers in georgia, it will be important in future studies to gather data from other postsoviet countries. researching other foreign language contexts in relations with writing instruction will shed a better light on the impact the political unrest of the 1990s had on the education system and especially on the efl teachers. participants’ perceptions of professional development and their in-service and pre-service education will also be important when evaluating the needs of teachers and designing programs that will help teachers to raise the standards of teaching writing in a foreign language. references carson, j. e., & kuehn, p. 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(2000). writing english as a foreign language: a report from ukraine. journal of second language writing, 9(3), 209–226. phonological and morphological interaction on computer 24 computer mediated communication the linguistic perspectives on computer mediated communication larry dwan chong larrychong@hotmail.com school of foreign languages & tourism gyeongju university gyeongju, republic of korea abstract this paper aims to explore the role of production and perception constraints in computer mediated communication. i review lindblom's (1990) theory of phonetic variation and propose a new model of linguistic production in computer mediated communication. cyber citizens use cyber communication as conceptually oral, medially written. the reason to use chat-mode is that it saves time and space (the principle of least effort); here sound, not spelling, is the first thing to be considered. with respect to production in the proposed model, effort is no longer equated with articulatory movement, but rather with the number of keystrokes involved in typing an utterance. on discussing online, discussants show paralinguistic actions such as smile, frown, screaming, etc., and they also reduplicate writings, capitalize all the sentences, and use emoticons; net-communication is headed toward less grammatical and more telegraphic type. the production of hyper-and hypo-forms such as reduplication, punctuation and capitalization will vary according to the sender's estimation of signal-complementary processes and his attempts to compensate for the restricted context. we discuss online and off line on the issues; why we like cyber communication and how we classify the phenomena. the more computer mediated communications we use, the more issues we have to review beyond words and linguistic principles. keywords: computer-mediated communication, emoticon, acronym, linguistic constraints introduction all over the world, the growing popularity of the internet (web) and the increasing familiarity of computer mediated communication (cmc) are new social phenomena. this internet technology is, however, often seen as a source of separation between human beings as an obstacle in interpersonal communication. internet technologies have given rise to multiple forms of interactive written discourse. synchronous communication systems, such as internet relay chat (irc), allow users to have real-time conversations that combine characteristics of face-to-face verbal interaction with those of text-based discourse. communication in irc consists of typewritten exchanges that take place in real-time among users who are spatially distant. these exchanges are transmitted, received and responded to within a time frame formerly thought relevant only to spoken communication. with respect to the irc user community, reid (1991) notes that members are preselected by external social structures and tend to occupy an economically privileged position in their society. users tend to belong to the admin typewritten text this article is accepted and will be published in beyond words vol.8 no.1 may 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v8i1.2366 admin typewritten text admin typewritten text admin typewritten text admin typewritten text 1 admin typewritten text admin typewritten text admin typewritten text admin typewritten text admin line admin line computer mediated communication 25 academic and research community and have access to computer technology and the internet. since they have no prior knowledge of each other, users interact anonymously in the knowledge that they are in rough equality. studies of the linguistic features of computer mediated communication suggest similarities with processes that occur in real world communication. for example, werry (1996) notes the high frequency of reduction strategies that function to reduce the time and effort necessary to communicate in terms like “orthographic reduction and omission of pronouns, etc. also resembles phonological reduction and ellipsis in rapid, informal speech, rendering chat exchanges `speech-like' in their degree of informality as well” (1996, p.56). this tendency toward reduction has a parallel in contemporary phonological and morphological theory. this explanation is based on the notion that speech production involves reconciling two conflicting constraints: minimization of articulatory effort and maximization of perceptual discrimination (linblom, 1990; mohanan, 1993; byrd, 1994).these accounts continue a line of research on phonetic explanation in phonology, whereby phonological patterns are seen as the result of articulatory or perceptual factors. the parallel with internet written discourse (iwd) in cmc raises an interesting question: to what extent can patterns of linguistic reduction in iwd be explained in terms of production and perception? in this paper, we explore the role of production and perception constraints in the iwd register of english. in particular, we address the following questions; what modules govern reduction processes in real world speech? what modules govern reduction processes in iwd?; how do english iwd users modify linguistic forms in accordance with these modules? this paper first reviews lindblom's (1990) hypo &hyper (h & h) theory of phonetic variation in speech production. second, computer mediated communic-ation and hypoand hyper-form of cyber communication is introduced and simply the h & h theory to cmc production is applied to review the similarities. we open a stage to discuss it on and off line among cmc researchers and propose a new model of linguistic production in cmc. we conclude with some remarks and implications. accounting for linguistic variation in real speech a fundamental problem in phonetic theory is that of invariance. because speech sounds undergo modification in context, a linguistic category cannot be given a constant phonetic definition. lindblom (1990) proposed a theory to explain phonetic variation in speech production. according to the h & h theory, speech production is adaptive and involves an inter-play between productionoriented factors and output-oriented constraints. speakers tune their performance according to communicative and situational demands. phonetic output is expected to vary along a continuum from hypo-speech, or reduced forms, to hyper-speech, or non-reduced forms. more recently, these production and perception factors have resurfaced as formalized constraints in jun's (1995) optimality theoretic account of gradient assimilation. this hypothesis reflects lindblom's (1990) characterization of speech production as the reconciliation of conflicting production and perceptual factors. figure 1 gives lindblom's visual 26 computer mediated communication representation of the h & h theory of phonetic variation. fig. 1. a model of phonetic variation in speech production according to the h & h theory, speech perception involves discrimination among items stored in the listener's lexicon. lexical access is a function of the distinctiveness (rather than invariance) of the acoustic stimulus. access is facilitated by knowledge that is not present in the signal, i.e., signal complementary process. with respect to speech production, preservation constraints tend to yield hyper-speech forms, which ensure perceptibility of the acoustic stimulus. as output constraints diminish, the weakening constraints tend to yield hypo-speech forms, which involve minimal articulatory effort. in producing an utterance, the speaker estimates the running contribution that signal-complementary processes will make on the listener's side and varies his production accordingly along a continuum of hypo-and hyper-speech forms. the difference between hypoand hyper-forms is illustrated in examples (1): (1) a. i am not going to wash the car today. b. 'm nahgonna wash 'duh car d'day. the utterance in (1a) is situated at the hyper end of continuum since it involves preservation of segmental content, whereas that in (1b) is a hypo-form involving articulatory reduction. the understanding of cmc language cmc language considering cmc language, the sender or receiver can choose to have a printed page version, but there is no requirement to print it in order to read it. some linguists have recognized the fact that computer mediated communication is a hybrid register that resembles both speech and writing and yet is neither, distinguishing `web speech' as a completely unique mode of communication over the electronic medium. here we can combine the definition of cmc language as a language which is used to communicate in the net-mediated world. perhaps we could even trace back the origin of these jargon words, abbreviations, or phonological simplifications. in the beginning of the 19th century, morse-code jargon used by radio amateurs and either of two codes consisting of variously spaced dots and dashes or long and short sounds hypo-forms weakening constraint preservation constraint lexical access hyper-forms speaker acoustic listener signalcomplementary computer mediated communication 27 used for transmitting messages by audible or visual signals. in the 1930's, telex ( blended from teleprinter + exchange) began to replace the morse-code system and this communication service involves teletype machines connected by wire. as the amount of communication has grown in modern society, the facsimile (l. facere, make + simile, like) was developed to transmit and reproduce even graphic matter by means of signals sent through telephone lines in the early 1960's. the up-to-date computer system allows us to communicate by means of immediate and stored sending and receiving messages electronically between terminals linked by telephone lines of microwave relays, or hard-wired systems such as local access networks (lan). applying the proposed model of real speech to computer-mediated communication, the communication will be between sender and receiver instead of speaker and listener. perception involves parsing the alphabetical string into distinctive corresponding lexical items. with respect to production, effort is no longer equated with articulatory movement, but rather with the number of keystrokes involved in typing an utterance. temporal constraints imposed by iwd favor minimal effort strategies in order to reduce the time and effort necessary to communicate. hypoand hyper-forms in cmc the utterances presented in this section are taken from study on cmc by werry (1996). the examples in (2)-(5) illustrate hypo-forms, which may be understood as the result of minimal effort strategies employed by the sender as a response to temporal constraints. (2) deletion/reduction of subject pronouns a. <larry> t pardonee diva. 8 -) b. <john> goodby gonna try and do something smart for once. c. <kath> in a bad mood :( (3) abbreviation / truncation a. <hari> can you get rid of the auto kick pls? b. <bomber> where r u from? c. <bubu> well i gotta go ...cu (4) acronyms a. atm at the moment b. brb be right back c. convo conversation d. filfre feel free e. irl in real life f. lol laugh out loud (5) emoticons a. :) a smiling face b. :( an unhappy face c. 8-) someone wearing glasses d. :-o someone shocked e. :-x someone's lips sealed f. :-q someone smoking g. ;-) someone winking h. :-@ someone screaming the forms in (2) involves syntactic reduction, while those in (3)-(4) show orthographic simplification in comparison to their standard forms. the emoticons in (5) represent a symbolic type of reduction in that they do not correspond to an explicit canonical form as do the hypo-forms in (2)-(4). nonetheless, there must be some agreed-upon meaning that irc users ascribe to them. the emoticon in (5a), for example, can serve as shorthand for a number of meanings, depending on the context of use: "do not be offended," "i'm just kidding," "i'm happy about what you just said," etc. the utterances in (6)-(8) contain instances of hyper-forms and are thus situated at the opposite end of the reduction continuum. (6) reduplication to indicate drawn-out or expressive intonation 28 computer mediated communication a. <lili> hainan island? cooolll b. <larry> baaaaad joke lili ...hehehe c. <lili> awwwwwwwwww, cool :) (7) punctuation to create pauses and indicate tempo a. <keel> what a peculiar name ... cw7r b. <larry> hahaha one of the question of keel where do most virgins live c. <keel> virginia ... hahahaha (8) capitalization reserved for expression of emphasis or shouting a. <larry> sorry, m i late too long? b. <cw7r> yeeeees, waiting for you too loooong c. <larry> i cant less than go wooooooooow the examples in (6)-(8) show how reduplication, punctuation and capitalization yield hyper-forms, all of which involve greater time and effort (i.e., keystroke combinations) on the part of the sender. they reflect the sender's efforts to compensate for restricted communicative context via textual recreation of non-verbal cues such as intonation, tempo and emphatic speech. discussion discussion online when i posted the following question via e-mail: why cyber citizens love to use as many acronyms as they could, why it occurs all over the sentences, how we could classify these phenomena, how we can foretell its future, surprisingly, i received more than twenty replies from ten countries. i describe some of discussions. why cyber citizens love to use acronyms; we describe chat communication as conceptually oral, medially written. schrammel (2016) thinks that using acronyms helps to stay within a communication, to hold the attention because of being able to react real quick. she further thinks that acronyms serve a certain expressive function: because of spatio-social constraints (first of all not being able to see each other) there is something new used to convey more than mere information, we can use expressions like `lol (laugh out loud), rofl (rolling on the floor laughing), etc. as some sort of contextualization. she also thinks that smileys in a certain use serve a similar function: because of not being able to use intonation or mimics to put an utterance how to understand what i said-frame, the chat community creates something new to serve this function. this phenomenon also occurs in text messages sent by smart (mobile) phones. the primary reason is that it saves time and space. ruuskanen (2016) states e-mails in mobile phones are charged by time spent typing msgs (messages) which currently allow only some 150 characters and there are also lots of iconic usages: `lots' indicates emphases or italics, lots indicates shouting, *lots* indicates emphasis or irony, and so on. these are due to the fact that e-mail does not allow italics, etc. and originally only allowed capital letters. the `smileys' like :-) indicate emotion, sarcasm, irony, or `don't take me seriously'-it is very hard to indicate emotion in writing when you are limited as to time and space. anipa (2016) believe the abundant use of acronyms in cyber communication is very natural, exemplifying what ferdinand de saussure (1916) called the principle of least effort (later dubbed `language economy', etc.). she thinks humans subconsciously try computer mediated communication 29 to find the most economical way of putting their messages across to the interlocutor. this linguistic behavior is reinforced by the speedy nature of human life in general, particularly in the 20th century. she insists again the written form of language is the artificial way of representing the natural phenomenon of language; and, obviously, being artificial, it is far from being perfect, hence writing is sometimes felt to be an impediment to natural communication. lotfi (2016) says that the first thing that comes to the mind is that economy must be behind it. but as usual the first impression may not be the answer. most probably the phenomenon does have its roots in economy considerations telegram telex and e-mail users had in the past in order to save the time needed for sending a message and as a result to reduce the costs. but e-mail users today must have different reasons for that because charges are not that high any more. a few minutes ago, an e-mail arrived urging him to answer asap (as soon as possible). in his reply, he mentioned `i couldn't answer asaper than this!' interestingly enough, the sender of that e-mail was one of those `busy people' who have no time to even capitalize their sentences. his impression is that e-mail has become something like `fast food' (especially pizzas in iran) for the youth: it has connotations of freedom, informality, a rebel against the fixed traditions of the business, and an attempt to avoid clichés. it's even similar to the function of slangy expressions in communications of freshness and novelty. mchale (2016) claims that we use acronyms, speed writing (pls) and emoticons as a way of compensating for the lack of body english, intonation and other phenomena that we use in conversation to more clearly make out point. cyber citizens view e-mail as both informal and transient therefore it's ok to add emoticons to the mix. he thinks that often that view is wrong. certainly e-mail isn't short-lived as the white house e-mail, the microsoft anti-trust case and numerous other legal cases have shown. zhang (2016) claims that they love to use some acronyms such as btw, but not as many as they could, because those demand too much effort from the interlocutors when their english proficiency is low. it seems to her that acronyms may trigger the imagination of the netizens. she thinks that here the language use is a game. when such acronyms are used often in talking, it is the principle of economy that plays a role here, and/or, conditioned reaction to the stimulus (message to be conveyed in the required phonological form). in such a language behavior, sound comes first. the written (typed) words only serve the purpose of triggering the phonological representation of the concepts. how we could classify these phenomena; even in real language, it is not easy to classify acronyms. joosten (2016) thinks there is a substantial difference between btw (<by the way) and r u (<are you). btw is an abbreviation, r u is not, he thinks, or certainly not a normal one. what happens with r u is that sounds are transmitted to a new graphic form, a new spelling form (other examples are xtc for `ecstasy', u2 for `you too', inxs for `in excess'). once acronyms are created (e.g., cia, gatt), the sound of the original base-form is of no importance: its letters that are selected and brought together not sound. for instance, cia pronounces as `see-ai-ei', the ai-sound is not identical to the i-sound in `intelligence' (central intelligence agency). viredaz (2016) states he would not use the word `acronym' for e.g. btw, because 30 computer mediated communication such an abbreviation is not noun, i.e., it is not syntactically used as a noun. in any case, the phenomenon involves all sort of abbreviations, be they proper acronyms (nlp for natural language processing), other abbreviations using initials (imo), rebus (how r u), simplified spellings (such as hi->high, lo->low, though these are not restricted to the net). lisecki (2016) refers to the whole phenomenon as an `abbreviated talk mode', simply saying it's a feature supported on any unix (and some other systems) that allows two or more logged-in users to set up a real-time chat. he guesses that one could even trace back the origin of these gargon (jargon) words, abbreviations, or phonological simplifications, to the times of the morse-code jargon used by radio amateurs at the beginning of the century. how we can foretell its future; barbara (2016) replies what we find really interesting in the topic is the question how far you can go with creating new acronyms and smileys and whether they get acknowledged by the chat community. where is net talk headed? mchale (2016) states we are not sure today, but we would guess the trend is toward less syntax (pro drop, phrases instead of sentences) and more telegraphic type speech. summarizing discussion on line; cyber citizens think chat communication as conceptually oral, medially written: the reason to use chat-mode is that it saves time and space (the principle of least effort): sound, not letter is the first thing to be considered: to express paralinguistic actions such as smile, frown, screaming, etc., they duplicate writings, capitalize all the sentences, and use emoticons: net-communication is headed toward less syntax and more telegraphic type. discussion off line one interesting point in cmc is that users do not just reduce written forms all the time instead, when necessary, they duplicate writings, capitalize all the sentences, and use emoticons. this means the principle of economy alone cannot fully explain the phenomenon on line they use. in computer-mediated communication, the communication will be between sender and receiver instead of speaker and listener. perception involves parsing the alphabetical string into distinctive corresponding lexical items. with respect to production, effort is no longer equated with articulatory movement, but rather with the number of keystrokes involved in typing an utterance. we have seen temporal constraints imposed by iwd favor minimal effort strategies in order to reduce the time and effort necessary to communicate. it is claimed that we may explain the phenomenon as we take into account two additional factors not present in lindblom's h & h model. these factors reflect additional constraints on production and perception that are imposed by the internet medium. first, werry (1996) notes the rapidity with which communicative exchanges take place on irc. typed utterances appear on screen in chronological orders received by the irc system, making impossible the overlaps and interruptions of normal face-to-face verbal communication. disparate strands of conversation are juxtaposed, creating an ongoing and multidimensional text that scrolls up and off each person's screen at a fast pace. second, reid (1991) argues that communication on irc takes place in a restricted context. in face-to face interaction, non-verbal information (smiles, frowns, computer mediated communication 31 tones of voice, posture, etc.) provides a context for interlocutor contributions. since irc is a text-based medium, the non-verbal cues are no longer present. deprived of speech subtleties and non-verbal cues, utterances no longer express what they are intended to express. although cmc is synchronous like face to face communication, it imposes additional temporal and contextual constraints that face-to face interaction does not. these constraints are expected to have an impact on reduction processes. figure 2 presents a model of linguistic reduction which incorporates the additional constraints imposed by the irc medium. fig. 2 a proposed model of linguistic production in cmc according to the proposed model, perception involves parsing the alphabetical string into distinctive corresponding lexical items. as in the h & h model, signal-complementary processes are assumed to facilitate this parsing. with respect to production, effort is no longer equated with articulatory movement, but rather with the number of keystrokes involved in typing an utterance. temporal constraints imposed by iwd favor minimal effort strategies in order to reduce the time and effort necessary to communicate. additionally, the lack of non-verbal cues restricts the communicative context, creating a potential for miscomprehension by the receiver. the sender must compensate for this restriction by expending more effort to ensure message comprehension. the model predicts that the production of hypoand hyper-forms will vary according to the sender's estimation of signal-complementary processes and his attempts to compensate for the restricted context. conclusion and suggestion the paper has reported that communication in irc consists of typewritten exchanges that take place in real-time among users who are spatially distant. the high frequency of reduction strategies functions to reduce time and effort necessary to communicate. this tendency toward reduction has parallel in contemporary phonological and morphological theory. temporal constraints hypo-forms less effort more effort lexical access hyper-forms sender alphabetical string signalcomplementary process restricted context due to absent non-verbal cues message comprhension reseiver 32 computer mediated communication based on the notion that speech production involves reconciling two conflicting constraints, we minimize articulatory effort and maximize perceptual discrimination. as compared to lindblom's h & h model, effort is no longer equated with articulatory movement, but rather with the number of keystrokes involved in typing an utterance. with respect to linguistic register, ferguson (1994) states that a communicative situation that recurs regularly in a society will tend over time to develop identifying markers of linguistic structure and language use, different from the language of other communication situations. the samples of hypoand hyper-forms examined in this paper constitute linguistic markers that identify cmc as an independent linguistic register. it is by making use of these forms that cmc users are identified as an independent linguistic community. it is also claimed that cmc users think computer mediated communication as conceptually oral, medially written. the reason to use chat-mode is that it saves time and space (the principle of least effort), but today no longer cmc users focus time savings, rather it is a kind of linguistic culture. sound, not letter is the first thing to be considered and they also express paralinguistic actions such as smile, frown, screaming, etc., duplicate writings, capitalize all the sentences, and use emoticons. we could see cyber communication is headed toward less syntax and more telegraphic type. the occurrence of reduced and exaggerated linguistic forms in cmc has implications for language research and acquisition as technology continues to be integrated into foreign language courses. the use of synchronous communication systems in this context will potentially expose l2 learners to input that varies along the hypo & hyper continuum. this raises several issues that merit further investigation, namely; how do we classify cyber linguistic phenomena in the linguistics? how do cyber languages affect language acquisition? are there pedagogical advantages or disadvantages in exposure to reduced and exaggerated linguistic forms? how do the temporal and contextual constraints of cmc affect negotiation of meaning and interaction between and among language learners? the more computer mediated communications we use, the more issues we have to review beyond words and linguistic principles. © larry dwan chong larry d. chong has taught linguistics, efl, call at gyeongju university and western illinois university over 30 years. as a founder of asia call, he has given keynote speeches for several international conferences. he has served as an editor-in-chief for the asia call journal and as a columnist for the linguist list. * i would like to express my great thanks to anonymous reviewers and i am indebted to prof. wuri soedjatmiko for useful comments. computer mediated communication 33 references byrd, d. 1994. articulatory timing in english consonant sequences. (doctoral dissertation, ucla). retrived february 01, 2020, from https://www.amazon.com//ko/gp/produc t/ b0006pa8em/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch _vapi_taft_p1_i4/ cherny, l. 1996. the mud register: conversational models of action in a text-based virtual reality. (doctoral dissertation, standford university). retrived february 01, 2020, from https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/3 105436/ ferguson, c. 1994. dialect, register, and genre: working assumptions about conversationalization, in d. biber and e. finegan (eds.) sociolinguistic perspectives on register, 15-30. new york: oxford university press. jun, jongho (1995). place assimilation as the result of conflicting perceptual and articulatory constraints. in proceeding of wccfl 14. 221-237. retrived february 01, 2020, from https://www.researchgate.net/scientificcontributions/2162909855_jongho_jun lindblom, b. 1990. explaining phonetic variation: a sketch of the h & h theory, in w. j. hardcastle and a. marchal (eds.) speech production and speech modeling, 403-439. dordrecht: kluwer academic publishers. mohanan, k.p. 1993. fields of attraction in phonology, in j. goldsmith (ed.) the last phonological rule: reflections on constraints and derivations, 61-116. chicago: the university of chicago press. reid, e. 1991. electropolis: communication and community on internet relay chat. (senior honours thesis, university of melbourne, australia). retrived february 01, 2020, from http://www.aluluei.com/electropolis.ht m/ werry, c. 1996. linguistic and interactional features of internet relay chat. in susan herring (ed.) computer mediated communication: linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives, 47-64. amsterdam: john benjamins publishing company. personal communications ahmad reza lotfi, english department, azad university, iran. barbara schrammel, department of linguistics graz, austria. deborah d. kela ruuskanen, leankuja, vantaa finland. frank joosten, department of linguistics, k. u. leuven, belgium. kormi anipa, school of modern languages, university of st. andrews, united kingdom. michal lisecki, institute of slavonic studies, university of silesia, poland. michael mchale, mnis textwise labs, usa. remy viredaz, geneva, switzerland. wenzhong zhang, foreign languages school, wuhan university, china. 34 computer mediated communication appendix 1. acronyms acronym meaning atm at the moment asap as soon as possible brb be right back btw by the way cu l8r see you later fwiw for what it’s worth fyi for your information hth hope this helps imho in my humble opinion imo in my opinion iow in other words irl in real life lol laugh out loud oic oh, i see rotfl rolling on the floor laughing appendix 2. emoticons : e-mail body language face interpretation alternative interpretation :-) ha ha smile this is supposed to make you laugh (-: submitter is left-handed |-) hee hee submitter is asleep (out of boredom) |-d ho ho :-d submitter talks too much wider happy/anticipatory face :-> hey, hey; smirk :-( hoo hoo; disappointed "that comment makes me sad (or mad)!" "be prepared for trouble!" :-< really sad :-c really disappointed :-| hmmm; contemplation boring :-o uh oh! :-o submitter is shocked. submitter is singing computer mediated communication 35 #-p "oh, nooooo!" (remember mr. bill??) :-p nyah! nyah! submitter is sticking tongue out |-p yuck! :-} submitter has beard normal smiling face with pretty lips. :-{ submitter has mustache. submitter wear braces submitters lips are sealed. submitter has been punched in the mouth! :-)x submitter wears bow tie. :-q smoker <:-) dunce; dumb questions 8-) submitter wears glasses "i couldn t believe my eyes!" b-) submitter wears horn-rimmed glasses a message from batman 8-) submitter with glasses on forehead submitter is a little girl. ;-) wink "take this message with a grain of salt!" >:-< submitter is mad. :-@ submitter is screaming :-8( condescending stare :-[ biting criticism c undecided "that comment doesn't phase me." |-] grimace "if i close my eyes tight, maybe it will go away.” :-u sarcasm speaking out of the side of one's mouth 4 subsidiary characters beyond words vol.6 no.1 (2018) subsidiary characters in select william gillette’s play aaradhana ma student at shri mata vaishno devi university, katra, india & dr. amitabh v. dwivedi asst. prof (linguistics) amitabhvikram@yahoo.co.in abstract contemporary literature and recent media studies have taken so much from the genre called “sensational novels”, that even though this genre emerged in the late nineteenth century, it became hugely popular in the twentieth century, and also drew the attention of the present generation. the detective fiction first presented to the world by wilkie collins, was introduced during the time when the concept and performance of the great detective and the sensation genre was blooming. one such work which became popular during that time was the narrative by sir arthur conan doyle centering on sherlock holmes. the aim of this paper is to examine the intriguing characters which sir arthur conan doyle and william gillette constructed in the play of sherlock holmes. this consultant detective laid its impact on the readers in the nineteenth century, when it was first published, but even in the present times it had not lost its charms. the character of sherlock holmes became a sensational figure, due to which it had been the center of research by the scholars; however, the minor characters were studied seldomly. the paper with the help of narratology, seeks to examine the william gillette’s play; wherein, to show that the minor characters are essential for the development of the main protagonist, the narrative of the subsidiary characters will be analysed. keywords: narratology; sherlock holmes; characters; sensation fiction. introduction the present paper consists of analysis of the play sherlock holmes: a drama in four acts, which william gillette wrote by taking inspiration from the novels of conan doyle. the protagonist, sherlock holmes was a great success for the last hundred and twenty-five years and have attained the title of the most popular fictional character in the past, and even in the contemporary times. due to which, the character of sherlock holmes in the work of conan doyle, have been studied rigorously, as his convoluted character was difficult to understand; and to decode the reasons for why this fictional narrative became so popular. the subsidiary or the minor characters due to this very reason, somehow remained under the shadow of the grandeur of the sherlock holmes. to bring forth the minor characters, the paper will do a narratological investigation of these minor characters. the minor characters that will be discussed from the play sherlock holmes: a drama in four acts are alice faulkner, madge larrabee, john larrabee, professor moriarty, forman, etc. mailto:amitabhvikram@yahoo.co.in� subsidiary characters 5 sherlock holmes: a drama in four acts was played for first time on october 23, 1899, at the star theatre in buffalo. the producer of the play was charles frohman, the music was given by william furst and the scene was designed by ernest gros. the play was one of its own kind during that time because the scenes in the play were changed by using lightening (“dramatic and musical”,1889). william gillette created all the characters of the play, except the character of sherlock holmes; watson; and moriarty. the whole play was written by gillette, but still doyle was credited as a co-author because the plot of the play was largely inspired from doyle’s sherlock holmes series, that even some dialogues in the play were lifted from the original stories. hypothesis the main protagonist is important for a narrative, as the whole story revolves around him/her, but so are the minor characters as they also contribute in the advancement of the story building and are necessary for the development of the main protagonist. research objective and question the minor characters in the narrative of sherlock holmes do not enjoy as much attention and popularity as the main protagonist. to bring to the light the minor characters of the play sherlock holmes: a drama in four acts, the paper hinges on following research question: what is the role of the minor characters in the play sherlock holmes: drama in four acts? scope and limitations the paper studies minor characters and argues that they are as important as the major ones in the development of a narrative. so, the paper puts them in the forefront while analyzing gillette’s play. also, the paper employs popular models of forster, ewen, greimas, and fokkelman as a conceptual lens to analyse them. the structure of the narrative has been given more importance than the interpretation. at the surface level though the paper seems simple but it is not simplistic because it talks about margins, and how marginals are important in the formation of the centera very contemporary debate in the present day critical theory. theoretical background to find out the meaning of a given text, firstly it is important to know about the role of the reader. according to the reader-response theory, it is the reader who while doing the act of reading, interprets a text and gives meaning to the text (davis & womack, 2002, pp.59). the role of the reader is important for analysing the characters as it is the reader’s own experiences that he/she uses to interpret a text while reading it (davis & womack,2002, pp.61). therefore, there is possibility that each time a text is read, the reader might be able to find some new character traits due to the influence of the personal experiences. the issue related to the subjectivity while reading a text can be solved by making the reader aware of it and by not categorizing the reader. seymour chatman points out that the characters and the plot can exist independently in the mind of the readers, as many a times we recall fictional character vividly, but fail to remember the text from which the character became alive, this is how the readers remember the character (chatman,1978, pp.118). the reason for the independent existence of the character is because of the mimetici secondly, it is important to throw some light on the debate nature of the characters (phelan,1989, p.2). ii of whether character is more important or the action is more important in a narrative analysis. it was aristotle who fist 6 subsidiary characters gave the contrast between character and action, and according to him, action is superior to the character, as he stated in his poetics that a play does not act so that characters can be presented to the readers, instead the narrative characters are included in a play for the sake of action (mckeon,1947, pp.632). but there were other writers such as leslie stephen who believed that character is superior to action; according to him it was the narrative action that was responsible for the disclosure of character. but we cannot deny the fact that character and action cannot be treated separately. we cannot say for sure that character dominates the narrative or that it is the other way around, but one thing that we are sure of is that it is difficult to discuss the character than action. as the action is the unfolding of an event in a story (abbott, 2002, pp.123-25). the actions of the characters are easy to explain and analyse, whereas characters are hard to analyse because of their uncertain natureiii the essence of narrative character characters were considered as fictive people as they were created by the author, and for barthes in his s/z (1970) characters were not related to a real person but were mere words in a narrative. tzvetan todorov called these textual entities as “a mass of signs” as the text and the characters are together by naming these characters. character was considered to perform a specific task on discursive. this was one view about the character but there are other theorists who opposed this structuralist’s view point. . this should not affect the scholars from investigating the characters. the characters were becoming more distinctive with richer description and separate with the rise of novels in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. james phelan defines the characters in a narrative to be both synthetic and mimeticiv (phelan, 1989, p.2-3). phelan calls the characters synthetic for being artificial as they are the fictional characters. even though the narrative character is the construct of the writer, but they still constitute some, but not all realism as they depict the problems similar to the real people (rashkow, 1993, ppp.106). the narrative character is the reflection of the humanv to interpret a narrative, the readers need to fill in the gaps and how they fill in the gaps determine what is the meaning of a text (hatavara, hyvarinen, makela, & mayra,2015 pp.55). but the causative chemistry inside the narrative is hard to determine as what goes inside the character is impossible to figure out unless it is informed by the writer. readers have to deduce the insight of the character of their own. for analysing the character and determining the description of the character, it is necessary to categorize them. there have been many literary critics who gave various models for the characterization of the narrative character. the models given by e. m. forster, ewen, greimas, and fokkelman aspect, this very reason makes them mimetic. moreover, by giving names to the narrative characters makes them closer to the real life and mimetic in nature (reinharts, 1993, ppp.119). the characters perform different roles in narrative and these roles further help to set different characters apart (prince, 1982, pp.72). more or less, a character has similar qualities to that of real people, and the degree of resemblance to the real person helps in distinguishing the characters from one another. the status of main and secondary characters differs because of the realism perceived in characters along with their frequent appearances in the text (prince, 1982, pp.72) models of narrative character vi have characterized the narrative character in their own way and subsidiary characters 7 have their own values and defects. without choosing any one amongst these, the paper will use these models altogether eclectically for the analysis of minor characters in sherlock holmes: a drama in four acts. forster’s model. forster classified the narrative character into two types flat and round characters. the flat characters were called “humorous” in the nineteenth century (forster,1927). the flat characters were singular in action, without concealed complications (abbott,2002, pp.126). the flat characters were constructed to follow a single idea. the flat characters are convenient for the author because these characters do not need to be introduced again; moreover, there is no need to track the progress of these characters as they develop in their separate atmosphere. the flat characters are easy to remember by the readers, because they do not change during the different circumstances in the narrative (forster,1927). whereas, the round characters are opposite of the flat characters. according to forster the round characters cannot be defined in one phrase like the flat characters, since the round characters are full of varying complications and intensity. the round characters are considered superior to the flat characters by the critics because of the complexity in the round characters which makes then closer to the real person. ewen’s model. joseph ewen classified characters on the basis of three axis which were complexity, development and penetration into the “inner life” (kennan, 1983, pp.41-42). this model is very subjective, as the interpreter is responsible for setting the guidelines for determining the characters. characters have varying depths, as there are characters which only show single trait. these characters are fixed and are viewed from the outside in a narrative, whereas, on the other hand are the characters with complexity and development, which are viewed in a narrative from inside out (brown,2015). ewen’s classification keeps in the mind the depth of the characters. greimas actant model. greimas gave the concept of actants and acteurs which are similar to action or activity. actant is the role in a particular plot structure, which operates inside the logical composition of the plot. greimas generalized the approach of propp on russian fairy tales with his actant model in which he categorized all the narrative characters into three binaries opposites: subject and object, sender and receiver, helper and opponent. the one who performs these actant roles is the acteurs and acteur can perform more than one actantial role, which means that different characters at the same time can perform a particular actantial role (kenan,1983, pp.37). however, the actantial model has its drawbacks as it will difficult to define the how readers will be presented with particular perception of each character in a narrative (bal, 1997, ppp.118). table. 1 classification model of characters 8 subsidiary characters fokkelman’s model. fokkelman in his 1981 model classified narrative characters into three types as heroes, opponents and helpersvii. for fokkelman hero is the character which is important for the text as he/she is the center of the adventureviii the character in a narrative is introduced to the readers in many different ways. and if one wishes to analyse and define the characters of a narrative, he/she should first recognize those different ways in which a character is introduced. furthermore, for analysing a character one needs to first examine its character traits and shows initiative. whereas he defines opponents and helpers by their action of helping or making things difficult for the hero. this model also helps in analyzing the characters in a narrative. how to define a character ix (toolan, 1988, pp.93). leitch points out that when we view characters on the basis of their traits, the character immediately reduces in its depth and memetic nature (leitch, 1986, ppp.157); moreover, it is the dominant traits of the characters in the narrative which can be used for describing a character in a finest way (rashkow, 1993, pp.105). to discover these dominant qualities, one needs to see how the author presents the characters to the readers in the narrative, that is by direct characterization or by indirect characterization. direct characterization is either done by the narrator or by other characters in the narrative, while the indirect characterization involves the readers to draw a logical conclusion from the actions of the character in the narrative (bal, 1997, ppp.129) x the above-mentioned ways of characterization when used together with . when the author describes a character, the information we get is trustworthy, but the characterization given by the other characters is not that reliable (bar-efrat, 1989; tolmie, 1999, pp.42). the author or the other characters give direct characterization of the narrative character either by mentioning the character in a detailed manner, or by giving a psychological description of its feelings and thoughts (bar-efrat, 1989, pp.63). and the indirect characterization as mentioned earlier is done by analysing the speech or the way the characters act in the narrative. the speech of the character can lead to know about traits of the person who is speaking and about the person to whom the speaker is speaking (bar-efrat, 1989, pp.70). for analysing a character, one should note how the character makes a response when a speech is directed at them (bar-efrat, 1989, pp.73) and compares, how the narrator (or some other character) describes an event in a narrative from the perspective of the character (bar-efrat, 1989, pp.76). indirect characterization is done by a chief component, that is the actions of the character in the narrative, no matter if it is the minor one. while analysing the character it is important to think about whether the act by the character is necessary or he/she has some other options too, one needs to think of the other possible ways in which a certain act could have been performed; and also considers if it is necessary for the character to act in such a way (tolmie, 1999, pp.44). the action of the character gives us the glimpse of the value he/she has. it is possible that a certain act can have varying interpretations, in that case the act needs to be looked objectively for understanding the values of the character. minor characters also help in indirect characterization, as they are responsible for making the qualities of the main character to stand out (bar-efrat, 1989, pp.86). as simon says that the personality of the main character is highlighted by comparing them with the minor characters indirectly (simon, 1969, ppp.226-227). subsidiary characters 9 uncovering the traits by direct or indirect characterization, along with different models of narrative character will help in analysing the subsidiary characters in the play sherlock holmes; a drama in four acts. character analysis alice faulkner the character of alice faulkner is based on the role of irene adler from a scandal in bohemia by conan doyle, which shows a glimpse of the love life of sherlock holmes, as it has not been discussed in his canon (eyles, 1986, pp.34). alice is introduced to the readers in the act i when madge asks james to come up with different strategy to find out the code of the locker in which the evidence is kept, without using the force. madge (quickly): yes—but wait, jim. (larrabee stops and turns to her.) (she goes near him.) what’s the use of hurting the girl? we’ve tried all that! larrabee: well, i’ll try something else! (turns and goes to archway.) madge (quick, half whisper): jim! (larrabee turns, madge approaches him.) remember—nothing that’ll show! no marks! we might get into trouble (gillette, 1899). from the above-mentioned excerpt, it can be deduced that alice is a strong and determined woman, as she does not break down no matter how much she is tortured by the larrabee couple, who have held her captive along with her mother. she remains strong through the tough times, when she is beaten and starved. she is pure hearted as she knew that the evidence would bring the end for the person who caused the death of her sister or even fortune if it were used for blackmailing him. but she desires no such thing of those evidence, instead tries so hard to keep them to herself no matter how much pain she had to endure for it. all that she intends is not revenge but punishment, for the person who caused the death of her sister. though it is reflected in her dialogue below that she only wishes to warn the family who is planning to tie knot with such a person. alice:….there are other things beside revenge—there is punishment. if i am not able to communicate with the family—to which this man proposes to ally himself— in time to prevent such a thing—the punishment will come….(gillette,1899). alice is brave as she tricked the larrabee couple by changing the lock’s code and even hiding the evidence knowing the result of her action. she stays strong and never once shows her weak side. she is always upfront when she is asked to tell the location of the evidence which she hides away. as it is proven from the excerpt below: alice (low voice—slight shake of head): you needn’t tell me, i know well enough. madge: …. (pause. alice looks at madge calmly. no defiance or suffering in her expression.) (comes closer and speaks with set teeth.) do you hear! we want to know what you’ve done with them. alice (low voice—but clear and distinct): you will not know from me (gillette, 1899). it is evident that alice maintains her poise when she is threatened and replies calmly without feeling scared. moreover, alice is a naïve person, she could not see the intentions of the people around her, as when madge pretended to be her friend, she could not decipher the motive behind her friendship and opened her heart in front of her which led her into a big trouble. madge: i picked her up, of course, and sympathized and consoled. i invited her to stay with me at my house in london. 10 subsidiary characters jimmy came over and took this place — and when i brought her along a week later it was all ready — and a private desk safe for the letters and jewellery (gillette, 1899). moreover, alice could not even understand the plan of sherlock holmes who intentionally returned the package of evidence back to her. as all he wanted is, to gain her trust. holmes (speaks hurriedly): now that you think it over, miss faulkner, you are doubtless beginning to realize the series of tricks by which i sought to deprive you of your property…you see, miss faulkner, it was a trick—a deception—to the very—end (gillette, 1899). but alice could not understand that and fell for him instead. love of alice for sherlock is also sincere, as she even went to warn him of the plan which james larrabee had planned with moriarty of killing sherlock holmes. she knew that it would be dangerous as it is evident from the excerpt mentioned below: larrabee: oh — to warn him very likely? alice: yes. (pause.) to warn him (gillette, 1899). this shows that she is courageous enough to put her life at risk for the one she loves. and in the end, she even gives up the one thing that she has been fighting for from the beginning to protect sherlock holmes. she gives the package of the evidence to the owner, just to help sherlock holmes. alice faulkner is the center of the narrative and can be considered the driving force of the play. the character is a round character if we consider the classification made by forster. this character is a dynamic, as she has progressed and changed through the narrative. from being captive for two years and not taking any major steps to free herself, to warning sherlock is one big step which shows how the character of alice faulkner has developed in the narrative. one can also say that the character of alice is foil to the character of sherlock holmes, her innocence and sincerity is opposite to the sharp and genius mind of sherlock holmes. the complexity and psychological depth in the narrative of the character of alice faulkner makes it one of the main characters on narratological grounds. professor robert moriarty professor moriarity is the antagonist of the play. he is a middle-aged man, with high intellect. professor moriarty’s physical description is given in the introduction of the act 2 scene 1 as follows: he is a middle-aged man, with massive head and grey hair, and a face full of character, overhanging brow, heavy jaw. a man of great intellectual force, extremely tall and thin. his forehead domes out in a white curve, and his two eyes are deeply sunken in his head. clean-shaven, pale, ascetic-looking. shoulders rounded, and face protruding forward, and for ever oscillating from side to side in a curiously reptilian fashion. deep hollow voice (gillette, 1899). the character of professor moriarty is modelled on a real life criminal adam worth. conan doyle created the character of professor moriarty to kill sherlock holmes in his stories, but in the adaptations like this play professor moriarty plays a significant of sherlock’s archenemyxi prince ………moriarty is king of ‘em all in london. he runs everything that’s shady — an’ ‘olmes ‘as been settin’ lines and is given much more importance. professor moriarty is introduced in act i. he is the mastermind of all the illegal works in london and sherlock holmes is tracking him down to catch him. due to this very reason moriarty wants to kill sherlock holmes and is looking for any case through which he can get to sherlock holmes. as it can be seen in the following excerpt: subsidiary characters 11 all round ‘im for months —… an’ now he’s beginnin’ to find out that ‘olmes is trackin’ ‘im down — and there’s the devil to pay. ‘e wants any cases ‘olmes is on — it’s a dead fight between ‘em! ‘e’ll take the case just to get at ‘olmes! ‘e’ll kill ‘im before ‘e’s finished with ‘im, you can lay all you’ve got on it (gillette, 1899). the police can’t harm him in any way because it is difficult to catch him; moreover, there are not enough evidences to prove his crime. professor moriarty is so powerful that even if someone comes up to report against him, that person would not survive to speak against him. even the police are scared to take any actions against professor moriarty. moriarty is a kind of underworld king as it is shown in following excerpt: prince: … he sits at ‘ome — quiet and easy — an runs nearly every big operation that’s on. all the clever boys are under him one way or another — an’ he ‘olds them in ‘is ‘and without moving a muscle! an’ if there’s a slip and the police get wind of it there ain’t never any ‘old on ‘im. they can’t touch him. and wot’s more, they wouldn’t want to if they could. madge: why not? prince: because they’ve tried it — that’s w’y — an’ the men as did try it was found shortly after a-floatin’ in the river — that is, if they was found at all!... (gillette, 1899). professor moriarty is aware of the talent of sherlock and desperately wants to get rid of him. moriarty is a quick-witted mastermind, as he at once found out that the forman is involved with sherlock. he is ruthless as he without any hesitation orders to kill the forman, just to get sherlock holmes. moriarty is a master criminal who plans all the killings, without getting his hands dirty. moriarty: i have a suggestion to make. (all turn in surprise and look at moriarty.) the first thing we must do is to get rid of your butler — not discharge him — get rid of him. (to bassick.) craigin for that! to-day! (gillette,1899). moriarty badly wants to get rid of sherlock holmes and wants to do it himself. bassick: you will go there yourself sir! moriarty: i will go there myself — myself (revolver out) i am the one to attend to this (gillette, 1899). professor moriarty is a round character, because of his importance to the narrative, moreover this character can also be categorized as the opponent in the narrative, the term given by fokkelman. since, it is the character of professor moriarty, that have been waiting all along to interfere in any case, which sherlock holmes is on. professor moriarty being rival of sherlock holmes played the role of opponent in the narrative. the character of moriarty is important for moving forward the narrative and also developing the strong and impressive character of the main protagonist sherlock holmes. this character can be considered the most well-defined character by the author, as professor moriarty is the only character whose physical appearance was given by the author, to help make readers the picture of the villain. the larrabee couple the couple madge larrabee and james larrabee are the con artist, who deceived innocent alice for their own profit. madge takes the advantage of the situation of alice and pretends to be her friend. they both are cruel as they mistreated innocent alice and her mother. they both are greedy enough to make a person who is suffering already suffer more. as they knew the condition of alice, after her sister died, they still treated her like a prisoner and captivated her for two years. madge larrabee did show her concern, when she asked james not to torture alice anymore and think of another 12 subsidiary characters way to make her speak up. all they care about is to get as much profit as they can, no matter what way they were to take. the greed of james is evident when he makes the deal of the evidence with sherlock holmes. to categorize the character of madge larrabee and james larrabee, it is better to consider them as flat characters, who only had one motive in the play, to gain profit. the character of larrabee couple do not develop in the narrative and can also be categorized under being sender according to greimas, as it is because of the larrabee couple the whole quest for the evidence started. the larrabee couple have no depth or complexity in their character and certainly are not round character. they can be classified under flat character, because of their static nature. other minor charactersbilly, forman. forman. forman is an undercover butter planted by sherlock holmes at the larrabee’s resident. he follows the order of sherlock holmes. forman is a loyal servant of sherlock, who tries his best to help his master as he informs sherlock of the counterfeited package, which moriarty had planned to trap sherlock. he is strong enough to help himself out of any situation, as when he was attacked by moriarty’s men. billy. billy is the young attendant of sherlock holmes who plays the role of messenger in the narrative, as he announces the arrival of the people, do errand work for sherlock, and even spy on people. it was billy who informed sherlock about where moriarty was hiding and even disclosed that moriarty was disguised as taxi driver. billy is shown as courageous and smart, as he manages to run away when he is being captured by the moriarty’s men. and he even without any hesitation took out the gun out of the pocket of moriarity. he is obedient and listens to every need of sherlock. the character of billy and forman comes under the category of helper along with the other flat characters as they played important role in the background of the narrative by helping the main protagonist with his quest to retrieve the evidence package. they both are the static character and good servants of holmes. these characters do not have any depth, nor do they show any complexity. these characters are not round because not much has been informed to the readers about these characters, either by the author, or through the narrative. conclusion the subsidiary characters are important for the narrative and play a significant role for the development of the main protagonist. the characters in the play are open to the imagination of the readers. as the appearance of most of the characters is not defined by the author. all the characters which have been analysed above are mimetic in nature as they reflect the real life features of humans. all the characters are characterized on the basis of their action in the narrative. the minor characters help in the formulation of the character of sherlock holmes, the main protagonist. as the opposite traits of these characters make the main protagonist superior from the rest, and highlight the character of the hero. nthese minor characters are important as they introduce the readers to the characters as professor moriarty was introduced to the readers by the character of paul. these characters also help the readers inform about the background of the story (humpage,2016), as it was the larrabee couple who let the readers know about alice faulkner and the story of her sister. the subsidiary characters 13 minor characters help to fill the blank spots. the conflicts and tension created by these characters help in the development of the plot. for instance, the subplot by professor table. 2 role of characters in accordance to models models of classification alice faulkner prof. moriarty larrabee couple forman and billy forester round round flat flat ewen complex complex fokkelman opponent greimas sender helper moriarty to kill sherlock holmes, helped create a lot of tension and lead to a lot of action whereby, the home of sherlock was burned down to ashes, watson’s clinic was under surveillance, which created suspense and moved the story forward. hence the minor characters are equally important factors for the popularity of any narrative, as the minor character work with the main protagonist instead of bringing him/her down. how these characters act and react with the main protagonist, help in the development of all the characters in the narrative (humpage,2016). hence, every character plays a significant role in the narrative. © aaradhana rajput & amitabh vikram dwived aaradhana rajput is currently pursuing her master’s degree in arts from shri mara vaishno devi university, india. further, she is working on research subsidiary characters in select william gillette’s play, under the able guidance of dr. amitabh vikram dwivedi, who is head of school of languages and literature. amitabh vikram dwivedi is assistant professor of linguistic and the head of the school of languages & literature at shri mata vaishno devi university, india. his research interests include language documentation, writing descriptive grammar, and the preservation of rare and endangering languages in south asia. he has contributed research papers to many academic journals. as a poet, he has published more than 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(1999). reading biblical narrative: an introductory guide. louisville: westminster john knox press. toolan, m. j. (1988). narrative : a critical linguistic introduction. london: routledge. leitch, t. m. (1986). what stories are: narrative theory and interpretation. london: the pennsylvania state university press. efrat s. b., (1989). narrative art in the bible. sheffield: almond press. tolmie, d. f. (1999). narratology and biblical narratives: a practical guide. san francisco: international scholars publications. simon, u. (1969). secondary characters in the biblical narrative. peli, p. (ed.). proceedings of the fifth world congress of jewish studies. jerusalem: world union of jewish studies eyles a. (1986). sherlock holmes: a centenary celebration. (p.34). harper & row. humpage, (2016, march 12). the importance of supporting characters [blog post]. retrieved from http://allwritefictionadvice.blogspot.in/ 2016/03/the-importance-of-supportingcharacters.html i this mimetic nature is discussed in the section ‘the essence of the narrative character’. ii abbott (2002, ppp.123-124) also gives a brief information related this debate in his book. iii as bar-efrat stated that characters are nothing more than how they are described in a literary work (1989, pp.48). this statement of him don’t consider character’s the mimetic nature, the very reason which makes readers interested in the characters. hence, we cannot accept his statement. iv phelan also gave third component of character, that is they are ‘thematic’ in nature, which means that characters also reflect a certain social class (1989, pp.2-3). v since the characters are the reflection of humans, that is why there is not a single theory of character till the date that completely satisfies the scholars (bal, 1997, ppp.115). vi another theorist who classified character is w. j. harvey, he simply categorized characters as protagonists and the background characters; and the characters that are more elaborated than the background characters he called them ‘card’ and ‘ficelles’. mckeon r. (ed), (1965). introduction to aristotle. mcgraw-hill education http://allwritefictionadvice.blogspot.in/2016/03/the-importance-of-supporting-characters.html� http://allwritefictionadvice.blogspot.in/2016/03/the-importance-of-supporting-characters.html� http://allwritefictionadvice.blogspot.in/2016/03/the-importance-of-supporting-characters.html� subsidiary characters 15 vii one should note that the hero here does not necessarily know how to distinguish right from wrong (fokkelman, 1981, pp.82). viii there can be many adventures and heroes in a single narrative. ix toolan oversimplifies the analysis of characters by stating that traits of characters can be either positive or negative (1982, pp.72). x can also see prince (1982, pp.72) xi according to merriam webster dictionary an archenemy is the principal enemy of someone or something. teachers en glish proficiency 86 beyond words vol 7, no. 2, 2019 englis h proficiency of secondary school teache rs in indonesia anita lie anita@ ukwms.ac.id siti mina tamah mina@ ukwms.ac.id trianawaty trianawaty@ukwms.ac.id universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya, indonesia katarina retno triwidayati retno@ukmc.ac.id universitas katolik musi c haritas palembang, indonesia fransiskus jemadi ikinjemadi@ gmail.com stkip santu paulus ruteng, indonesia abstract responding to the growing need to foster communicative abilities in english, schools in indonesia are driven to make their students proficient in english. however, the majority of english teachers themselves are still not prepared to use english as a means of communication; improving their english proficiency has thus become a matter of concern. as the first phase of a larger-scale study, this present study focuses on teachers’ english proficiency. data for this study were collected from 149 secondary school teachers of english from five regions (palembang, yogyakarta-sleman, surabaya, ruteng, and maluku). they were asked to self-assess their english proficiencies based on the actfl (american council on the teaching of foreign languages) guidelines as well as to do an english proficiency assessment. fifty-two of these participants were teachers who were completing an in-service professional education program in surabaya. the teachers assessed their proficiencies in interpersonal communication, presentational speaking, presentational writing, interpretive listening, and interpretive reading. the english proficiency assessment includes syllabus-oriented items, general english items, and an essay. the study also conducted in-depth interviews of selected teachers. this study found that there is a gap between the teachers’ perception of their communicative abilities in english and their actual english proficiency. keywords: english proficiency, teachers, indonesia, professional development introduction in many countries including indonesia, the teaching profession is still characterized by its low quality and levels of competence. the indonesian government realises that teacher quality is a prerequisite to improve the quality of its education. all teachers must meet the minimum standards of a fouryear degree and should be formally certified. they have to attend in-service teacher professional development programmes and mailto:retno@ukmc.ac.id 87 teachers english proficiency take a series of teacher assessment to earn teaching certificates. o n a different note, a study on teachers in remote areas finds that when governmentinitiated professional development programme is non-existent, community-based professional development sessions have enabled teachers to enhance their knowledge of pedagogical content (harjanto, lie, wihardini, pryor, & wilson, 2018). despite the ambitious plan to upgrade teacher quality and the progresses in some areas, in many school systems, teachers find it extremely hard to participate in continuing professional development (cpd). they have long hours of teaching (in many cases, more than 28 periods of teaching in a week), demanding administrative work, committee tasks, and various extra-curricular activities. teachers of english are compelled to improve their english proficiency and enhance their professional development. in 2018, the ministry of education and culture, in collaboration with the ministry of research and higher education, set up an in-service professional education program system as a path toward teacher certification (pendidikan profesi guru dalam jabatan, hereinafter referred to as in-service tpe). the program involves a hybrid learning management platform of 12 modules of online classes, 256 hours of on-campus workshops including classroom teaching and action research proposal development. each batch consists of 30 in-service teachers facilitated by professors and lecturers of a participating teacher college. this paper reported a study investigating the perception of communicative abilities in english among in-service english teachers and their tested english proficiency. specifically, this study intends to answer the following research questions: 1. how do in-service english teachers perform in a proficiency test? a. how do novice english teachers perform in a proficiency test? b. how do mid-career (apprentice and practitioner) english teachers perform in a proficiency test? c. how do senior english teachers perform in a proficiency test? to what extent do in-service english teachers’ perceptions of their english communication ability in the five proficiency areas (interpersonal communication, presentational speaking, presentational writing, interpretive listening, and interpretive reading) correlate with their tested english proficiency? 2. how do teachers maintain, lose, or improve their english proficiency as they go through their professional journey? lite rature review this research stems from the necessity of awareness for teachers as lifelong learners and reflective pedagogical thinkers (grossman, 1992). mehrpour and moghadam (2018) compared novice and experienced iranian efl teachers and found that novice teachers became more competent and grew into a state of maturity as they converged their belief and practices. teacher professionalism can be viewed from the development perspectives. a few studies propose teacher professional development stages. the staging of professional development is used to help identify teachers’ learning needs, enhancement process and the requirement for professional learning cycles during their professional journey. hargreaves (2000) described teacher profesteachers en glish proficiency 88 sionalism based on the teacher response to the demands of the profession over different time periods. hargreaves (2000) noted four ages of teacher professionalism: the age of pre-professionalism (when teachers are more concerned with the overall delivery of the lesson than the learning experiences of individual students); the age of autonomous professional (when teachers become more knowledgeable and skilled but remain isolated); the age of collegial professional (when teachers collaborate in the organization to enhance the quality of classroom instruction), and the age of postprofessionalism (when teachers engage with the parents and wider community in responding to external demands). within this context, teacher professionalism should be viewed as a continuously developing journey to fulfill the needs of the schools and students. while hargreaves presented the four ages of teacher professionalism as seen in the state of the profession in several countries, robyn jackson (2009) identified the four stages as novice, apprentice, practitioner, and master. referring to hargreaves and fulan’s framework (2012), yumarnamto (2017) studied critical events in an efl teacher’s life and revealed that professional capital involving the human, social, and decisional capital enhance professionalism and that decisions at the micro and macro levels shape a teacher’s professional journey. with the increasing importance of english as a language of global communication, teachers of english, particularly, are compelled to demonstrate their english proficiency. to serve as a model of acceptable language speakers for their students, teachers need to demonstrate in-depth and adaptable knowledge of the field, which could be enhanced through professional development (borko, 2004). schools have invested in more hours of english instruction and need more qualified english teachers. therefore, the teachers’ english proficiency has drawn research interest particularly in countries where english is not the lingua franca. the competence of teachers of english has been the focus of a number of studies. in her investigation of 20 primary school english teachers in hong kong, tsang (2011) examined to what extent her subjects were aware of english metalanguage and found the need for regular or systematic use of metalanguage among school teachers. othman and nordin (2013) studied the correlation between the malaysian university english test (muet) and academic performance of english pre-service teachers while sharif (2013) suspected that teachers’ limited english proficiency hindered students’ understanding of the content. more recently, nair and arshad (2018) analyzed the discursive construction of malaysian english language teachers in connection with the malaysian education blueprint action plan from 2013 to 2015 and recommended ways to help teachers achieve the desired proficiency and make changes to existing classroom practices that were aligned with the government agenda. in her study of twelve english teachers in hong kong, tsang (2017) concluded that it was important for english teachers to reach a threshold of english proficiency but other factors such as pedagogical practices played a more significant role in overall teaching effectiveness. richards (2017) confirms that a threshold level of proficiency is needed for teachers to be able to teach through english. a number of studies on teachers’ english proficiency in indonesia have also been conducted. a study (lengkanawati, 2005) investigating the english proficiency of teachers in west java used a toefl89 teachers english proficiency equivalent test and revealed that the majority of the teachers did not show a satisfactory proficiency level. lie (2007) urged that to set advanced competencies in the english curriculum, indonesian teachers’ english proficiency first had to be improved. aniroh (2009) discussed the need for esp teachers to have a set of qualities, one of which is proficiency in english but she did not further elaborate on the proficiency issue. in their qualitative study of professional competence of english teachers in indonesia, anugerahwati and saukah (2010) compiled a profile of exemplary teachers based on qualitative descriptions of their four research subjects. they claimed that satisfactory competence in english may have been taken for granted by many people other than the english teachers themselves. the guarantee of subject matter competence through the teachers’ formal education is still very much debatable as graduate competence standards are still yet to be established and enforced in english teacher education. assessing english teachers’ competence remains an important issue. soepriyatna (2012) assessed competence of high school teachers of english in indonesia and set three dimensions of english language competence domain (language skills, linguistic, and sociocultural), two dimensions of content knowledge domain, and seven dimensions of teaching skills domain. the language proficiency covered in the first two domains was addressed in performance indicators statements such as “uses vocabulary correctly and appropriately” and “maintains grammatical accuracy.” soepriyatna did not, however, address how those indicators could be determined reliably. a test specifically constructed to assess the english proficiency of high school teachers is yet to be developed in indonesia. the ministry of education and culture had been administering annual teacher competency test for all teachers as part of the certification process until it was replaced by the in-service tpe. the online test comprises subject area and pedagogy items. therefore, it does not specifically address language proficiency. furthermore, there have been concerns that the test was not adequately constructed (prasetyo, 2017; putra, 2017). coleman (2009) reported that a survey of 27,000 teachers in international standard junior secondary, senior secondary and vocational secondary schools by the ministry of education revealed that more than half of all teachers and headteachers possess only a ‘novice’ proficiency level in english, scoring between 10 and 250 on a 990 point scale. the construct of this test is not accessible and this test has not been administered to all english teachers in the regular schools. a number of universities have developed english proficiency tests to assess their own students but official data on english teachers’ proficiency at the national level are not available for scholarly discussion. as renandya, hamid, and nurkamto (2018) urge, “there is a pressing need to establish a national framework of english language proficiency so that appropriate standards can be established for students and teachers at all educational levels” (p. 625) because english language proficiency is a significant part of an english teacher’s professional competence. tamah & lie (2019) developed an english proficiency test comprising 16 general english, syllabusoriented multiple choice items (31 for junior high school and 36 for senior high school level), and an essay prompt instructing teachers to write a three-paragraph reflection of their professional journey and aspiration. the article discusses the construct of teachers en glish proficiency 90 the english proficiency assessment while this present study puts forward the results of that assessment administered to in-service english teachers at different stages of their professional development in relation to their perception of communicative abilities in english. method through survey, proficiency assessment, reflective essay, and interviews, this research derives teachers’ perceived communicative abilities in english, their tested english proficiency, and their efforts to enhance their professional growth. perception survey and proficiency assessment were administered. select participants were later called for an in-depth interview. contexts and participants the participants of the study were 149 teachers of english from various state and private secondary schools in five regions (palembang, yogyakarta-sleman, surabaya, ruteng, and maluku). fifty-two of the participants were teachers from various state and private secondary schools in east java participating in an in-service tpe in 2018 toward their certification. they belonged to two batches of the program delivered at the faculty of teacher training and education of a private university in surabaya. eight out of 30 teachers from the first batch declined to participate in this study. participants of the program applied through their sim pkb (sistem informasi manajemen pengembangan keprofesian berkelanjutan trans., management information system of continuous professional development) online account and did a pre-test. they were selected based on their pre-test score and years of service. the pre-test consisted of four aspects of competence: professional competence, pedagogical competence, psychological competence, and aptitude. other than the test results, priority must be given to those teachers who were still young and on high demand in their area. participants were categorized by the number of years of their teaching experience and the following table shows the composition: this study did not use a random sampling of the teacher population in each area because the researchers were not entitled to secure teachers’ willingness to take part in the study voluntarily. therefore, the researchers collaborated with local teacher councils (musyawarah guru mata pelajaran or mgmp) which issued an an91 teachers english proficiency nouncement to all their members for a seminar and data collection. invitations in each region were limited to a maximum of 30 participants on a first-responsefirst-served basis. the seminar and data collection were held in a member secondary school in each region except for the in-service tpe groups in surabaya. in light of the nature of the participants’ selection, the makeup of the teacher participants in table 1 does not represent the actual teacher force in the five regions. the participants in this study were simply those teachers who responded to the invitations and thus were somewhat interested in their professional development. it should be noted that the participants from the assessment-survey administered in surabaya are teachers from various towns in east java who were taking part in the inservice tpe at widya mandala catholic university in surabaya. the majority of these teachers were between 5-10 years in their career stage as teachers. this fact is due to the policy by the education authority to recruit teachers who have served more than five years and are still young enough to work their way through their professional journey. almost all the teacher participants graduated from teacher colleges. only one or two teachers in each region graduated from non-education majors. data collection to collect the data, the researchers first developed instruments including the english proficiency test, survey, and protocol for the semi-structured interview. the english proficiency assessment consisted of syllabusoriented items, general english items, and a prompt for a reflective essay. the assessment was pilot-tested among pre-service english teachers and final-semester students majoring in english education in surabaya and in ruteng, east nusa tenggara. the pilot test in surabaya was administered via google form while the one in ruteng was paper-based due to poor internet connection in that area. three test types were utilized: multiple choice, c loze test, and writing. sixtyfive items were initially developed (50 multiple c hoice items and 15 c loze test items). the objective test type included grammar and reading comprehension (a test specification was prepared for test validity issue). with regard to p value and d value among the 50 mc items, it was found that 26% items belong to easy category (ranging from .75 to 1), 64% items belong to average category (ranging from .32 to .7), and 10% items belong to difficult category (ranging from .07 to .29). more detailed information about the test analysis was separately described in another article (tamah & lie, 2019). with regard to the c loze test set, it was found that 15% items were easy (ranging from .79 to .89), 75% average (ranging from .68 to .32), 10% difficult. the devised test reached the category of ave rage level of item difficulty and the classification of good at discriminating between the high and low achieving test takers. the total number of items became 52 (scored for 100 for all correctly answered items). the writing test was devised for the teachers to write a three-paragraph essay about their teaching career (why they become a teacher and what their plan for their professional development). the essay assessment rubric included the evaluation to these five components: main idea, organization (overall), content, style (details and examples), and grammar and mechanics. the score ranged 0-100. two raters were involved in blind review, but only one rater was involved in the other objective test types. based on the pilot test results, an item analysis was conducted and the assessment teachers en glish proficiency 92 was revised accordingly. the junior high school assessment instrument was found to have a reliability of 0.698 while the senior high school assessment 0.818. the development process of this assessment was separately described in another article (tamah & lie, 2019). as triangulation, participants wrote reflective essays describing their professional journey. each of the participants’ reflective essays was read and assessed by two reviewers based on a given rubric. all the essays were blind-reviewed. an inter-rater reliability was established at a pearson r of 0.84. through a survey built upon the actfl can-do statements, this research derives teachers’ perceived communicative abilities in english in the five proficiency areas (interpersonal communication, presentational speaking, presentational writing, interpretive listening, and interpretive reading). in collaboration with the national council of state supervisors for languages (ncssfl), american council on the teaching of foreign languages (actfl) developed the can-do statements to provide proficiency benchmarks and performance indicators. the statements are specified into five proficiency areas (interpretive listening and interpretive reading, interpersonal communication, presentational speaking, and presentational writing). the statements reflect the continuum of growth in communication skills through the novice, intermediate, advanced, superior, and distinguished levels (https://www.actfl.org/ publications/guidelines-andmanuals/ncssflactfl-can-do-statements). for each of the five proficiency areas, there are eleven can-do statements which denote a range of abilities from novice low to distinguished as follows: 1) novice low, 2) novice mid, 3) novice high, 4) intermediate low, 5) intermediate mid, 6) intermediate high, 7) advanced low, 8) advanced mid, 9) advanced high, 10) superior, and 11) distinguished a protocol for the semistructured interview was developed to elicit insights from a select number of participants. each interview was conducted by two researchers for a period of 30 minutes. the interview was administered on campus. it was recorded and then transcribed. prior to participation in the research, all participants were given information about the purpose and procedures of the research; they were also told that their participation was voluntary. for 52 teachers participating in the in-service tpe in 2018, the administration of the research was conducted by a research assistant who was not involved in the program to avoid conflict of interest and thus the research participants were aware that their participation had no effect on their success or failure in the professional education program. data analysis the data collected from the assessment, survey, and semi-structured interview were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. the quantitative analysis was conducted through descriptive statistics while the qualitative analysis was based on the content of the essays and interviews. to answer research question 1, the study did a mean, range, and standard deviation calculation for the different groups of teachers. a correlation computation was afterwards done on the actfl scores and the english proficiency assessment scores to answer research q uestion 2. the correlations were obtained for the overall group, different groups by location of assessment, and by stages of professional development. the interviews were conducted in both english and indonesian. the written notes https://www.actfl.org/%20publications/guidelines-and-manuals/ncssfl-actfl-can-do-statements https://www.actfl.org/%20publications/guidelines-and-manuals/ncssfl-actfl-can-do-statements https://www.actfl.org/%20publications/guidelines-and-manuals/ncssfl-actfl-can-do-statements 93 teachers english proficiency of interviews were transcribed, categorized and compiled together into themes. the indonesian parts of the interviews were translated into english. analysis and interpretations were made on the basis of the assessment scores, survey results, and reflective essay analysis. ultimately, the teachers’ reflective essays and interview transcripts were coded into related themes to reveal patterns for further interpretation (miles, huberman, & saldana, 2014). the insights gained through the essays and interviews were collected to answer research question 3. findings and discussion in light of the references of the teacher professional development stages (hargreaves, 2000; jackson, 2009), secondary school teachers of english in this study were categorized into four stages based on the number of years of their teaching experience: 1. novice (less than 5 years) 2. apprentice (between 5-10 years) 3. practitioner (between 10-15 years) 4. senior (more than 15 years) the novice teachers feel inadequate and unprepared in terms of their english language proficiency as well as their pedagogical practices but they usually demonstrate initial enthusiasm for development. they focus on curriculum coverage and task completion. the perceived lack of english language proficiency may impede the use of english as a medium of instruction, even in the english language classroom. the apprentice teachers begin to feel more confident of their english language proficiency although some of them may still not be able to engage their students in english as a medium of instruction fluently. they also choose which activities and assessment they use to meet their students’ interests. the practitioners make conscious choices about their professional practices based on experience. they align assessments and learning activities to learning goals. at the senior level, teachers reach stability and feel more confident about their pedagogical practices but may experience a decline in ambition for their professional development. englis h proficiency among diffe rent teacher groups the results of the english proficiency assessment revealed different levels among teachers across the regions as well as their stages of professional development. the following table shows a summary of means of the assessments grouped by the location of assessment: graph 1 mean of english proficiency assessment by location of assessment as seen in graph 1, teacher participants who did their assessment and survey in surabaya gained the highest mean (mean: 77.14, sd: 10.73) while participants in palembang (mean: 67.88, sd: 10.77) and yogyakarta (mean: 61.95, sd: 9.23) scored the second and third places respectively. the two lowest average scores belonged to teacher participants from ruteng (mean: 58.50, sd: 14.25) and maluku (mean: 51.14, sd: 22.35) respectively. although the study participants were not selected by random sampling, the results were fairly in line with other indicators of development across regions such as human teachers en glish proficiency 94 development index (in 2017, south sumatera: 68.86, yogyakarta: 78.89, east java: 70.27, east nusa tenggara: 63.73, maluku 68.19). the result indicating the mean for the surabaya group is the highest may be explained by the nature of the group—a special group of in-service tpe participants. they had been selected through an online selection system administering a pre-test and local education authorities. they were deemed to deserve a chance for teacher certification. furthermore, this group age may also be a determining factor which is revealed in the following summary of the mean of the english proficiency assessment by their stages of professional development and the locations of assessment: graph 2 shows that the four stages of professional development (novice, apprentice, practitioner, and senior) are represented in the palembang, yogyakarta, and maluku). the teachers doing the assessment in surabaya were younger; none of them had been teaching more than 15 years. the ruteng group did not by chance have the practitioner teacher as samples. other than comparing the means, it is also interesting to note that the two lowest regions (ruteng and maluku) show higher standard deviations—14.25 and 22.35 respectively. the range of scores in maluku is very large (54.84). the highest score earned by a practitioner (10-15 years of experience) teacher was 82.69 while the lowest 28.85 was scored by a senior teacher. a similar situation (range 64.47) was found in ruteng. the highest score—by an apprentice teacher of 5-10 years—was 78.85 while the lowest 15.38 was also scored by a senior teacher. viewed in a positive way, this finding may indicate hope for a more progressive teacher force for those two regions. graph 2 mean of english proficiency assessment by stages of professional development and locations of assessment in regard of progress among teachers of english, a summary of the means grouped by the stages of development shows the different proficiency levels as teachers went through their professional journey as seen in the following graph: graph 3 mean of english proficiency assessment by stages of professional development overall, the practitioner group of teachers scored the highest while the senior 95 teachers english proficiency teacher the lowest. the findings are in line with the identification of the stages of professional development that notes the development of confidence and familiarity with the field during the third stage and the decline in ambition for professional development among senior teachers (hargreaves, 2000; jackson, 2009). the low mean in the novice group of teachers is certainly a serious concern. this finding matches with the survey of 27,000 teachers international standard schools by the ministry of education showing poor proficiency level (coleman, 2009). this issue requires serious commitment to upgrade teachers’ english proficiency as well as the quality of english teacher colleges. teachers’ pe rceptions teachers’ perceptions of their communicative abilities in english varied across regions and stages of professional development. the full spectrum (from 1. novice low through 11. distinguished) of communication abilities was chosen by different teachers. o verall, teachers’ perceptions of their english ability as reflected in the actfl survey do not match with their tested english proficiency. an analysis of all the actfl scores and the assessment scores yielded a correlation of 0.199. this means that some teachers overestimated their english ability. for instance, one teacher who thought of herself as superior in one of the proficiency areas scored only 43.75 in the proficiency test. o n the other hand, a few teachers who scored rather high on the test did not attribute a high estimate of their ability. eighteen of 149 participants thought of themselves as either superior or distinguished in some of the proficiency areas while only one of them scored above 90 in the proficiency assessment, two others scored 84 and 87, and the rest ranged from 21 to 78. those who scored very low on the proficiency test but chose high marks on the ac tfl may just have mostly misunderstood the can-do statements. this is definitely a serious issue in regard of the quality of english instruction in secondary schools in indonesia. improvement of teachers’ english proficiency is undoubtedly a pressing need. while the ministry of research and higher education, along with the ministry of education and culture, are currently administering the inservice tpe, a higher standard of english proficiency has to be set up in the selection process as a pre-requisite for participation in the program. table 2 correlation of perceptions and proficiency test results by stages of development the correlation between perceptions of teachers’ english abilities and the tested proficiency is very low in the whole group. however, when the different groups were considered, there is a variation of correlations. the maluku group yielded a correlation of 0.748 between the teachers’ perceptions and their tested proficiency scores while the surabaya group registered the lowest correlation coefficient of 0.169. the variation also occurs across the different stage groups as seen in the table above. the practitioner group reached the highest correlation between their perceptions of abilities and their tested proficiency scores. this group also scored the highest in the proficiency test as has been discussed in the preteachers en glish proficiency 96 vious section. the mean of this group is70.83. their language proficiency is adequate enough to conduct a proper selfreflection and meta-evaluation of their own communication abilities in english. specifically, their language proficiency has also enabled them to do the assessment as well as comprehend the can-do statements. this study offers a caveat that the size of the practitioner group is small (n. 16) and thus the findings cannot be generalizable. the small size of this group is inevitable as the researchers had no control of who would take part in the study and from which stage group those participants were. implications on the path of maintaining, losing, or improving english proficiency four teachers who obtained incongruent perception survey and test scores were selected for in-depth interviews. as a comparison, two teachers with correlated scores were also interviewed. during the interviews, teachers were not informed about their scores. interview questions included how they felt about the survey and test, what they thought about their english proficiency, why they thought that way, and what they did to improve their english. interviews were conducted in september and october 2018. this section presents three types of teachers in terms of their perception of their performance and their tested proficiency. the first type of teachers underestimated their performance. as a novice teacher (less than five years of service), teacher ps regarded her english communication abilities as novice-mid while she scored 78.85 in the proficiency test. an apprentice teacher sk chose intermediate-mid while she scored 73.08. when asked about the survey and test, they both said they were not confident about their english and so chose what they did. teacher ps graduated from madrasah aliyah (an islamic boarding school) in bojonegoro and teacher sk from madrasah aliyah in kediri. thinking that their secondary school education was not adequate, they separately enrolled themselves in kampung inggris (an immersion boarding english course) in pare kediri. ps studied in the course for one month in 2010 before enrolling herself in ikip (teacher college) pgri in bojonegoro. sk had had a more winding journey. after her secondary school graduation, she did not think about college education. instead, she learned english in kampung inggris for nine months in 2003. then she taught english in her friend’s english course in madura. after she had got married, she decided to continue her study in college. at the time of interview, both ps and sk taught in islamic boarding schools in bojonegoro and banyuwangi respectively. the interviews were also conducted in english. both teachers tried hard to engage in conversations in english. they were fairly fluent but sometimes stumbled on some expressions. yet, they were not able to use full english when teaching their students because the students would not understand it. the second type overestimated their ability. teacher s scored 61.53 in the proficiency test but thought of himself at the advanced mid level. when asked about the survey and test, he even said that he was not confident enough to mark himself well in the survey. he thought he assessed himself lower than his actual proficiency. teacher s was not able to respond to interview questions in english. regarding his english proficiency, he felt more capable when he was still a student. in college, he had good teachers that encouraged him to speak english. “sekarang jadi guru, malah lebih goblok ” (now that i’m a teacher, i’ve become dumber). as an apprentice teacher, he felt he had lost quality chances to enhance his english. he did not have counterparts to use his english. teacher 97 teachers english proficiency s often skipped meetings by mgmp (the local teacher councils) because he thought they were just a waste of time. another case in point, teacher mw was an apprentice teacher in ruteng. she marked herself as above superior but scored 53.84. similar to teacher s, mw did not have much chance to practice her english. she used indonesian as the medium of instruction in her english class because her students would not understand it if she spoke english. the last type is those who got congruent scores in their perception and tested proficiency. two teachers were selected to represent this group. one is an apprentice (5-10 years of service) teacher who participated in the in-service tpe in surabaya and the other one a practitioner (10-15 years of service) teacher teaching in a private senior secondary school in ambon, maluku. both of these teachers chose advanced mid in the actfl survey. in the proficiency assessment pw, the apprentice teacher, scored 78.83 while mm, the practitioner teacher scored 82.69. interviews with both of them were conducted in english. they spoke english fluently; they were able to describe their professional journey and their experiences as english teachers. they also expressed themselves well in writing. pw’s essay scored an average of 87.00 and mm’s essay 93.79 by two graders. when asked about doing the actfl and proficiency test, teacher pw said that she just felt right. regarding her english proficiency, at the beginning of her teaching career, she felt her english was inadequate because she taught in one of the prestigious private junior secondary schools in surabaya. her students challenged her to improve her english. they read english novels in their spare time and often asked her about difficult vocabularies and expressions. furthermore, there were times that she used indonesian in class to adjust to her weaker students coming from less developed regions. then her brighter students bluntly reminded her that it was an english class and thus she was supposed to be speaking english. so, teacher pw pushed herself to enhance her english by reading, searching for references, and finally enrolling herself in a master program. teacher mm described herself as a confident person and so she did both the survey and test comfortably. she had started teaching english in a course before her undergraduate completion in 2003. then she moved to ambon and taught at a private senior secondary school in 2008. in 2014, she did her masters while continuing to teach in her school. furthermore, mm made conscious efforts to improve her english by attending seminars, participating in mgmp events, reading, corresponding with foreigners, and communicating with other english teachers in english. she found those activities useful not only to enhance her english but also “to enrich my knowledge of the world.” contrary to teacher s, mm believed that the mgmp activities were important for her because members discussed the updated curriculum, syllabus, teaching methods and techniques, and relevant experiences. conclusions and recommendations through the quantitative and qualitative analyses, four deductions are offered in relation to teachers’ path in maintaining, losing, or improving their english proficiency throughout their stages of professional development. first, at the entry point, teachers do not start at the same level. minimal standards of higher education have been set by the teachers en glish proficiency 98 government but at the implementation level, teacher colleges have different levels of commitment to quality assurance. therefore, teachers in our study demonstrate various levels of english proficiency from novice low to advanced high. many teachers have not achieved the threshold level, as tsang (2017), richards (2017), and renandya, hamid, and n urkamto (2018) propose. second, individual teachers also demonstrate different levels of commitment in regard of their own professional development. aware of their limited english proficiency, the more committed teachers make conscious efforts to fill in the gap by taking part in seminars, reading english books, participating in mgmp activities, communicating in english, and taking a master program. unfortunately, some other teachers become apathetic and have plateaued out. third, in regard of hargreaves’ four ages of teacher professionalism (2000), because of remoteness issues in some regions in indonesia, some teachers get stuck in the age of preprofessionalism. they are more concerned with the overall delivery of the lesson than the learning experiences of individual students or their own professional development. finally, the first deduction is extended when teachers end up in schools of different levels of quality commitment. those in better schools are continuously challenged to improve their proficiency and pedagogical practices while others in underprivileged schools have no agency to remind them of their lacking. english teachers need professional communities to grow. to move from the age of autonomous professional, teachers need others (students, fellow teachers, university teachers, and the wider community) to see the external demands and challenge them to enhance their professional development. based on the insights gained through this study, we offer three recommendations: 1. 2018 is a significant milestone when the ministry of research and higher education and the ministry of education and culture set up the certification system through the hybrid learning management. this inservice tpe has been an improvement of the previous systems but this needs to be further improved. o ne point to upgrade is the passing score of the english proficiency selection test. should a higher passing score not be feasible for most teachers in indonesia, an online english tutorial should be provided for teachers to reach the threshold level. 2. certification should not be the end of a teacher’s professional journey. as our study reveals that senior teachers show lower proficiency scores, english teachers must take language proficiency and pedagogical competence assessments periodically to ensure they move up their professional stages. 3. mgmp can be a powerful agency to help teachers enhance their quality. as some of the teachers in the study show, collaboration through mgmp activities have helped them improve their english as well as pedagogical practices. it is recommended that teachers’ participation in mgmp can be further facilitated, monitored, and perhaps also be integrated into the certification program. this study has attempted to delve into english teachers’ proficiency in their professional development across different regions in indonesia. as with other assessments, this study may still have issues with limitations, validity and reliability. nevertheless, the researchers wish to reiterate that english teachers’ adequate proficiency is not a given capital at the time of teacher service and thus it takes a serious collaboration between english teacher colleges, the ministry, and the school communities to challenge teachers to enhance their competence. 99 teachers english proficiency acknowledge ment this study was funded by a 2018 research grant from the directorate of research and community service, the indonesian ministry of research, technology, and higher education. anita lie (anita@ ukwms.ac.id) is a professor at widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, indonesia. her areas of research are teacher professional development, english education, and heritage language learning. she led the team for this research project and was responsible for the design and data analysis. siti mina tamah (mina@ ukwms.ac.id) is a fulltimer at the english department of widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, indonesia. she has great interest in language teaching methods. her current research topics are related to cooperative learning and assessment. she designed the assessment instruments in this project. trianawaty (trianawaty@ ukwms.ac.id) is a faculty member of faculty of teacher training and education, widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, east java province. in 2014, she gained her master degree in applied linguistics from universitas katolik atma jaya jakarta. she helped in data collection in this project. katarina retno (retno@ ukmc.ac.id) teaches bahasa indonesia at musi charitas catholic university. placed at primary school teacher education study program, she teaches some courses, among others, low level indonesian learning, high level indonesian language learning, educational research methods, and c lassroom action research. she was responsible for data collection in palembang and yogyakarta. fransiskus jemadi (ikinjemadi@ gmail.com) is an english lecturer at universitas katolik st. paulus ruteng-flores-indonesia. he is passionate about teaching english as a foreign language and has great interest in 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inequalities among teachers of english, in this viewpoint paper, the authors argue that characteristics related to association with an inner circle country, caucasian appearance, middle and upper class socio-economic status and university education seem to be related to the image of the “ideal” teacher of english to speakers of other languages (esol). this image, in turn, affects job prospects, salary and recognition by students and peers. by reflecting on their experiences in relation to how well they fit the “ideal”, the authors show that the construct is highly flawed and potentially destructive and divisive. to redress the inequities brought about by perceptions of the “ideal” language teacher, strategies pertaining to providing role models, raising awareness, providing tools and techniques for improving proficiency, and discussing status and identity issues are suggested for assigning competence to people who do not fit the idealized image. the article aims to offer a fairly new perspective from the unique experiences of three established language teachers, one from each of kachru’s (1992) circles, and to also raise awareness about the need to accept greater diversity among language teaching professionals. keywords: teacher identity, teacher characteristics, teacher employment, nnests, non-native teachers of english, assigning competence, narrative enquiry introduction the genesis of this paper was the authors’ longstanding disquiet with status inequalities among teachers of english to speakers of other languages (esol)1 1 this term is meant to be inclusive of english as a second language (esl), english as a foreign language (efl) and other contexts in which english is taught to non-mother-tongue users. we have chosen to use the term “english to speakers of other languages” (esol) throughout this article as the terms “efl” (english as a foreign language) and “esl” (english as a second language) are based on ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ constructs, which are not only difficult to determine but also geopolitically problematic and outdated from an english as an international language (eil) perspective. perspectives of “ideal” teachers of english 67 esol teachers’ job prospects and salaries and colleagues’ and students’ initial reactions to them seem to be affected by whether these teachers fit a particular image of the “ideal” esol teacher. it should be noted that our use of the word “ideal” is not to be confused with any evaluation of the quality of teachers’ work. furthermore, this image and its component characteristics are only partly based on objective criteria; they are more often than not social constructions (brutt-griffler & samimy, 2001). this theme has been dealt with by previous authors (e.g., ammon, 2000; canagarajah, 2014; davies, 2003; farrell, 2015; ferguson, pérez-llantada & plo, 2011; flowerdew, 2001; medgyes 2001). however, we hope to offer a fairly new perspective by evaluating our own experiences in light of these inequalities. in the first part of the paper, we argue that there are certain characteristics often linked to the image of the “ideal” esol teacher. informed by the methodological paradigm of narrative inquiry research, we critically reflect upon and narrate our journeys as english language learners and teachers, taking into account these characteristics. as discriminatory practices that use the ideal image of a qualified english teacher as the yardstick continue to affect the lives of many student-teachers and professionals (kumaravadivelu, 2016), this paper, unlike many others, does not simply intend to narrate the stories of the authors’ struggle to ‘fit in’ or to challenge the ideal image. instead, in the second part of the paper, after the narratives, we explain the practice of assigning competence (cohen & lohan, 1995) and offer modest suggestions on how to promote greater equality among members of our profession. our suggestions are intended to demonstrate how to systematically and publicly raise the status of “non-ideal” teachers and other english users. characteristics of the ‘ideal’ esol teacher the topic of “the ideal teacher” of esol has been dealt with extensively over the years (canagarajah 1999; medyges 2001; moussu & llurda 2008; norton & tang 1997; phillipson 1992; timmis 2002). in consideration of the literature on this topic and our professional experiences, we propose the following as characteristics linked to the image of an “ideal” esol teacher. 1. citizenship of an inner circle country or, at least, having lived a significant part of one’s life in an inner circle country. in relation to the concentric circles model popularized by kachru (1992), having citizenship of or having lived for some time in an “inner circle” country, where english is the native language of most people and where interactions predominantly take place in english, is often the key criterion. although kachru’s model has come under criticism in recent years (jenkins, 2007; park & wee, 2009), it is still one of the most influential models for describing the spread of english and its speakers. as observed by park and wee (2009), the model, to some extent, contributes to the problematic ‘ideal’ and ‘non-ideal’ binary, with inner circle countries identified with the ‘ideal’ and outer and expanding circle countries with ‘non-ideal’. outer circle countries are countries where english is not the mother tongue of most people but is used widely. expanding circle countries are those where english is mostly used only for contact with people from other countries. 2. caucasian race. although the term “caucasian” is highly problematic (e.g., dawkins, 2016; wolpoff, & caspari, 1997), 68 perspectives of “ideal” teachers of english it is commonly used to describe race and ethnicity. in the oxford advanced learner’s dictionary, “caucasian” refers to “a member of any of the races of people who have pale skin” (p. 233). since traditionally the majority of the population in inner circle countries was caucasians, the english language is associated with this race, and teachers who are caucasian or “white people” (amin, 2013) may be glorified (, 2005; ling & , 2007; moussu & llurda 2008; mahboob, 2009; rubin, 1992). in reality, there are caucasians in many expanding circle countries, such as poland and russia, who are not native speakers of english. nevertheless, being caucasian in appearance continues to be considered one of the “ideal” characteristics (amin, 2013; mahboob, 2007). 3. middle and upper class socioeconomic status. dominant languages are usually associated with powerful economies (crystal 2003). consistent with this, income levels in inner circle countries have tended to be higher than average. for example, according to the world development indicators database (2015), these inner circle countries, namely, australia, the united states, canada, the united kingdom and new zealand are ranked 12th, 15th, 22nd, 29th, and 36th out of 217 countries in terms of per capita income. hence, even those in relatively lower-paying professions, such as teaching, receive per capita incomes above the world averages. this income level allows teachers from inner circle countries to travel internationally. often as “independent academic expatriates” (yeo, 2012, p. 8), they go in search of career opportunities at language schools and universities abroad. while working overseas, particularly in expanding circle countries, they are usually paid wages above the local average, allowing them to enjoy what would be seen as a middle-class lifestyle, eating in restaurants, having cleaners and domestic helpers, and travelling regularly. phillipson (1992) noted that the salaries of native english speaking teachers, even unqualified ones, tended to far exceed those of local teachers. such benefits no doubt serve to perpetuate the perception of the middle to upper class status of these idealized english teachers. 4. university education. in inner circle countries, a university degree is often a basic qualification for teaching. indeed, many esol teachers nowadays have graduate degrees. a survey of job advertisements on http://careers.tesol.org/ (accessed 5 december 2016) found that of 10 random job advertisements for positions in china, japan, and saudi arabia, all required at least a four-year bachelor degree; in seven out of the 10 advertisements, a masters degree in tesol or a related field was required. thus, it appears that from the perspective of these employers, the ideal teacher of english needs to have at least a university degree, though increasingly tesol training at masters level is required. this may be because higher education is often associated with the use of the prestigious standard variety of english. it is, therefore, not surprising that language schools prefer teachers with higher degrees, whom they believe are able to model the ‘standard’ variety of english. these four characteristics association with an inner circle country, caucasian appearance, middle and upper class socioeconomic status, and university education seem to be related to the image of the “ideal” teacher of esol. as will be discussed below, teachers’ and other stakeholders’ perceptions of how well teachers fit the image can shape perspectives of “ideal” teachers of english 69 stakeholders’ thoughts and actions, sometimes quite detrimentally for those esol teachers who do not conform to the idealized image. recollections of the authors questions of diversity and inclusion lie at the heart of narrative inquiry (saleh, menon, & clandinin, 2014). specifically, as the paper intends to challenge inequality within diversity by problematizing, in foucauldian terms, “discursive practice”i observed in the authors’ journey of becoming esol teachers, autobiographical narrative inquiry (clandinin & caine, 2012) has been used. informed by this methodological paradigm, each author narrates some critical instances in their teaching journey in an attempt to highlight and challenge existing perspectives about the ‘ideal’ characteristics of teachers of esol, as well as practices whereby those characteristics have been either consciously or subconsciously regularized as ‘ideal traits or attributes’ of qualified english teachers. moreover, unlike quantitative researchers who seek definitive truths that can be generalized to other contexts, narrative inquiry advocates that each inquirer or research participant has a unique story to tell and issues to grapple with, leaving the readers a critical space to ask what is there in the following narratives that are (in)applicable to their own situations (marlina, forthcoming). from the “inner circle” – george. george’s narrative is based on his education career of about 36 years that began as a backpacker and continued as a graduate student in education and a teacher of esol, education and academic writing in central and north america and then asia. he has also long been involved in justice issues, within and outside of his teaching, e.g., he helped to found the social responsibility group with the teachers of english to speakers of other languages (tesol) organization.2 thus, perhaps, it is not surprising that he noticed the justice issues raised in this paper. when i entered esol teaching, i had all of the traits of an ideal esol teacher: being a citizen of an inner circle country, being caucasian, coming 2 the process through which ‘dominant’ ideological beliefs come into being or are regularized as normative discourses (foucault, 1974). from a middle or upper class background and possessing a university education. first, i was born and raised in the united states and was an american citizen from birth, until i became a singapore citizen in 2014. second, i am from a middle class family: my parents were both social workers. finally, when i entered esol teaching, i already had a master’s degree, and later, i received a doctorate, with a scholarship from the east-west center, which was funded mostly by the u.s. government and at the time i began my studies, in 1987, gave about 2/3 of its scholarships to u.s. citizens. beginning from about age 13, i studied spanish as a second language. all or most of my spanish teachers (i am not sure about my first teacher) in secondary, tertiary and non-formal education were native speakers of spanish, born and raised in spanish native speaker countries, even though some of them were living in the u.s. perspectives of “ideal” teachers of english 70 when i studied to be an esol teacher, all of the other students in the program, to the best of my recollection, fit all of the ideal esol teacher criteria. the same was true for my first teaching jobs in the u.s. in my first esol teaching job in another country, china, i was part of a group of about six american teachers who worked alongside chinese nationals. the american teachers fit either all or most of the ideal esol teacher criteria; one colleague was hispanic, a group which might not fit the ideal esol teacher image. the american teachers’ salaries and benefits greatly exceeded those of our chinese colleagues, who did basically the same work. this pattern of better remuneration packages for ‘ideal’ esol teachers continued when i taught in thailand, although the difference was much smaller than in china. as i gained more knowledge about esol teaching in expanding circle countries, such as china and thailand, i became aware of three tier situations at some esol institutions in some expanding circle countries, where ideal teachers had the top package, esol teachers from outer circle countries, e.g., the philippines, had second level packages, and teachers from the country where the institution was located had the lowest level packages, although they might have had other benefits, e.g., reduced cost of medical care, because of being citizens. furthermore, i should point out that the remuneration packages i received in china and thailand would have probably been considered on the low side by the standards of teachers in the u.s. furthermore, in my experience, it was not only institutions who discriminated against non-ideal esol teachers. students, too, sometimes expressed preferences for the ideal. one time, while teaching in singapore in a program for in-service esol teachers from around southeast asia, i had a visit from a colleague from india who explained that one of the teachers from vietnam had requested a native speaker as her supervisor. this indian colleague, who, from my observation, outshone me in terms of knowledge of english language and literature, was not pleased with the situation, but he and i decided to accede to the teacher’s request. i have also experienced the issue of the ‘ideal’ esol teacher in regard to people from outer and expanding circle countries who have asked my advice about entering the esol teaching profession. i have warned them about the discrimination they might face. however, it should be pointed out that such discrimination does not always exist. for example, in singapore ministry of education (moe) schools, singaporean teachers receive the same remuneration packages as teachers from inner circle countries. indeed, it is my experience that there are very few ‘ideal’ english teachers in moe schools if we go by the characteristics described. similarly, in the 1990s, when i taught language teachers in singapore, most of my colleagues, including the head of my department, were from outer circle countries, with a smaller number from expanding circle countries, such as indonesia and thailand. this has continued in the rest of my career in singapore. for example, the colleagues at my current institution with whom i work most closely are from outer circle countries. 71 perspectives of “ideal” teachers of english sharing equal status in singapore with colleagues from outside the inner circle has been a bit of a relief, as earlier in my career, i was uncomfortable being the beneficiary of discrimination. my view is captured in the maxim, “may i have the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can and the wisdom to know the difference.” as to trying to change what i could change, firstly, i tried to support the professional development of my colleagues, e.g., offering assistance with english language development, as well as in professional development activities, such as joint conference presentations and academic publications, in order to enable colleagues to raise their status. third, i utilized some of the activities described in the final section of this article, in hopes of assigning competence to both teachers and students from “nonideal” backgrounds. furthermore, i appreciated the fact that although my english competence was generally superior to that of my expanding circle colleagues, their ability in other areas certainly might be, and often was, superior to mine. for instance, without a doubt, their english competence was far superior to my competence in the second languages that i speak and in the students’ first language. thus, i was (i hope) wise enough to humbly play whatever role i could in raising colleagues’ and students’ language competence towards the day when equal status can be achieved. the above narrative reflects that george was aware fairly early in his career of the discrimination that existed in regard to esol teachers who lacked some of the “ideal” characteristics. he did not do much to change this situation, except provide some help to colleagues in order to raise their status as esol teachers and some advocacy for the paradigm of english as an international language (marlina, 2014; matsuda, 2017), not english as the special property of native speakers. from the “outer circle” – marie. marie’s narrative is written with the hindsight of nearly 30 years in the field of language teaching, teacher training, and educational management across a range of geographies. her experiences have been inextricably linked with the political, socioeconomic, and cultural landscapes of the places she has lived and worked in. a prominent theme in her narrative is that of identity crisis and change and marie’s current acceptance of her identity as a transcultural (caws, 1994) and translingual educator (pennycook, 2012). i am a singaporean of straits-born chinese descent, so i belong to an outer circle country. i am not caucasian. both my parents were educated at englishmedium mission schools in singapore so they were able to read, write and speak english well. because of my parents’ education, i grew up speaking english (or perhaps singlish) as my mother tongue and learnt malay as a second language at school. although mine was a large working class family with my father as the sole breadwinner, i was able to attend mission schools throughout my primary, secondary, and junior college years. in these schools, not only was english the medium of instruction, but teachers and students generally spoke a standard variety of english well. at home, being the ninth of ten children, i had a great deal of perspectives of “ideal” teachers of english 72 exposure to english spoken by my parents and siblings. i did a bachelor of arts degree at the university of colorado in the united states and graduated summa cum laude in political science, with a major in english and a minor in writing. while in colorado, my interest in teaching english was piqued, so, i volunteered in the university writing center, where i helped american and international students with their writing. it was quite surprisingly for some americans to be tutored by someone who was not caucasian and they often commented that my english was very good! as a naïve and idealistic college student, at no time did it occur to me that my race or nationality would become an impediment if i chose to pursue the teaching of english as a profession. as a graduate of an american university with a major in english and minor in writing, i found it easy to get a job teaching english upon my return to singapore. this was probably helped by my “faux american accent”, which i had acquired overseas. i moved to australia to pursue graduate studies and eventually got a job teaching english in an australian university. being the only non-caucasian teacher of english was challenging, as students would sometimes express their preference for being taught by a “real australian”. to be accepted by my colleagues and students, i developed a strong australian accent and identity and tried as far as possible to distance myself from my singaporean roots. a critical incident occurred when i was nominated to be trained as an examiner for an international language test. as i had indicated my nationality as “singaporean” on my application, questions were raised about my english proficiency level. such instances prompted me to recreate my identity; not only did i eventually become an australian citizen, but i also changed my appearance and accent, rejecting my asian-ness and embracing my australian-ness. in the 1990s, i taught english and trained teachers in china, cambodia, and vietnam, countries in which “native speakers” were preferred as teachers of english. hence, it was important for me to maintain my australian identity. however, i often felt that i did not really belong. in many ways, i exhibited features of “adult third culture kids” (atcks). a term popularized by pollock and van reken (2001), atcks tend to lack cultural identity and rootedness. they are in a sense “cultural chameleons”, able to live in many worlds but belonging to none. it was only when i returned to singapore many years later that i began to rediscover my singaporean identity. because i did not meet the criterion of being “caucasian” nor had i been born in an inner circle country, i felt a great deal of pressure to acquire graduate qualifications as a way to bolster my identity as a teacher. i felt that as a non-caucasian teacher of english, i had to work harder and be better qualified than my caucasian peers. i went on to complete several graduate qualifications, including a graduate diploma, masters, graduate certificate, and doctorate, notably, all from universities in inner circle countries. in my more recent roles in educational management, i’ve struggled with my principles, as i’ve sometimes 73 perspectives of “ideal” teachers of english been forced to employ “only native speakers” or “caucasians” because of institutional demands. now, as a teacher trainer working primarily with nonnative speaker teachers of english, it has become my mission to help them to feel proud of their identity and to use their first language as a resource. i am also committed to creating a level playing field for teachers based on what they can do and not on who they are. through the above narrative, we can see how perceptions of the “ideal” esol teacher have had a significant impact on marie’s personal and professional life to the extent of relinquishing her identity. while this may seem extreme, when viewed against the backdrop of being a noncaucasian teacher of english in australia in the late 1980s, it may be easier to understand the extent to which not fitting the image of the “ideal” language teacher can have an impact on the professional identity and career development of teachers of english from outer circle countries, particularly those working in inner circle countries . from the expanding circle – roby. the following is a short autobiographyical narrative of roby’s journey to become and to be legitimately recognized as an ideal esol teacher, and his encounters with situations where his credentials as an ‘english’ teacher were questioned. although there would be several ‘scenes’ in which he narrated his ‘success’ in becoming an english teacher, they are not intended to be read and constructed as a ‘victory’ narrative (lather, 1994, cited in parr, 2010, p. 52) in which he was positioned as the “hero of [his own] tale” (parr, 2010, p. 52). rather, they are meant to foreground unspoken problematic discourses of tesol professionalism, and to prompt critical reflections on the ideology of nativespeakerism (holliday, 2005) underlying those scenes. this narrative also aims to allow readers to grapple with and vicariously experience a sweet-and-bitter journey of an inner-circle educated teacher of english from an expanding circle country, teaching in an inner-circle country. although the following narrative may sound like ‘an old story’, it is in the spirit of narrative inquiry that the author intends to “generate ideas to make us think again about what is going on in the world” (holliday, 2010, pp. 101-102). i was born in one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities in indonesia, medan, in north sumatra. ethnically, i am a third-generation chinese indonesian. as a chineseindonesian born in medan, i predominantly spoke chinese creole (with bahasa indonesia as the superstrate language; and hokkien–a chinese dialect spoken in china’s fujian province–and mandarin as the substrate languages) at home, and bahasa indonesia at school. being born in an expanding circle country where english was a foreign language, english was only used in english lessons at schools and private language institutions. when i was a teenager, my parents decided to send me to australia to further my studies. due to the limited use of bahasa indonesia in most of the daily communicative exchanges i engaged in during my stay in australia, my proficiency in the language gradually deteriorated, and english became my predominant language. peer pressure that i experienced in an australian high perspectives of “ideal” teachers of english 74 school drove me to change the way i spoke english. my attempts to speak english were often teased when i first arrived in australia. i was the object of derision and laughter. my australianborn peer group poked fun at my ‘asian ching-chong style’ of speaking english. there were times when my teachers just smiled out of politeness when they could not comprehend what i was saying. as a teenager who feared ‘not looking cool’, i decided to learn to speak english ‘perfectly’ and listened carefully to the way my australian-born best friend spoke english. i insisted that he take every opportunity to ‘correct’ the way i spoke, so that i could sound like him and other australian classmates. upon completion of my secondary schooling in melbourne, a statement that i was an indonesian was met with disbelief as i did not ‘have an accent’! driven by my passion in learning/teaching languages, i pursued and successfully completed undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral study in applied linguistics/tesol. on top of this, i also completed a pre-service tesol teacher education program, which certified me to teach esol in australia. thanks to my australian accent and the expensive credentials for which my parents and i had paid with struggle, it was not difficult to get recruited to work as an esol teacher in australia. whilst completing my doctoral study, i was recruited to lecture in the program of applied linguistics at a local university. however, this was certainly not a happy ending, as i encountered the following incidents in social and professional contexts that had detrimental effects on my self-esteem as an ‘english’ teacher/lecturer. the first incident was my experience at one of the airports in australia in which i was prompted to observe a view that an ideal english teacher/lecturer in an inner-circle country should hold a certain passport and be of a certain nationality. as all travelers are required to state their occupation in an incoming/outgoing passenger card, my answer to that question, i.e., lecturer, was met with disbelief. the passport control officer thought that i was a lecturer of mathematics, engineering, or accounting because apparently, in her words, “you guys are very good at those calculating subjects”. words failed her when i told her i taught applied linguistics (english) at a local university. she asked me in a high pitched squeaky voice: “how is it possible for an indonesian passport holder to teach english here?” words also failed me, and i walked away with perforated self-esteem. the second incident was when i had to introduce myself to my applied linguistics students at the beginning of a new semester, i was often met with disbelief, surprise, and eventually a remark that could be interpreted as discriminatory. some students approached me after class and said: “you don’t look like your name. we expected a caucasian or spanish/latino looking person”. others, who were surprised the moment i spoke, asked if i was a ‘real aussie’, which one of them later explained by saying that i, “sound like one but don’t look like one”. though i was taken aback and hurt, i could only respond with a smile. there was a point where i thought this comment would only be made by students. so, it came as a shock when i learned that such discourse 75 perspectives of “ideal” teachers of english was also found in the conversations among a certain group of academics. what is worse is that they were academics from the same department, who complained about having too many ‘asians scholars’ in the department, and cautioned the head to not turn the department into ‘an asian ghetto’. echoing kubota’s (2002) observation of “racism in a ‘nice’ field like tesol” (p. 84), i was appalled at the fact that, despite the educational qualifications one has struggled to obtain as well as the english language proficiency one has worked hard to master, a qualified and ideal esol teacher seems to be required to have a certain ‘look’ or ‘name’, and to belong to a certain race. roby’s engagement in writing this narrative has allowed him to uncover how racialization, a neglected area of research in nest/nnests literature (kubota, 2009), has formed a major part of his struggle to be a legitimate esol teacher. confirming observations from various scholars, such as kubota (2009) and kubota and lin (2006), roby’s narrative to a large extent indicates that the acquisition of the language of power (i.e., english) and attainment of various authorized licenses to teach that language of power are not sufficient in order for someone like roby to complete the journey of becoming an english teacher. racialized discourses have powerfully ‘colored’ and are likely to continue ‘coloring’ his journey, prompting him to constantly grapple with the discourses throughout his profession. the above recollections of teachers of english from inner circle, outer circle, and expanding circle countries in relation to the four “ideal” characteristics show how inaccurate it is to pigeon-hole teachers on the basis of physical appearance, country of birth, socio-economic status, or educational background. furthermore, the narratives suggest that accepting, adhering to, or promoting a particular image of the “ideal” esol teacher may be detrimental to all teachers. even those like george, who have all of the traits, may feel “uncomfortable being the beneficiary of discrimination”. furthermore, teachers such as marie and roby, who are obviously not caucasian and not from inner circle countries, may feel a need to compensate by pursuing education in inner circle countries. such an endeavor requires a significant investment, which may not be affordable for many, hence creating a distinction and division between “overseas-educated” and “locally-educated” teachers of english, implicitly discriminating between the “haves” and the “have nots”. marie and roby also tried to gain acceptance by changing their accents, which entailed some degree of loss of identity, in exchange for the status of being considered a legitimate teacher of english. medgyes (2001) noted that attaining native proficiency in english may lead to “a loss of native identity in one’s l1 a price many would find far too great to pay”, as marie found in later years. for those like roby, the battle continues as one has to deal with racialized discourses that may be detrimental to one’s self-esteem as english teacher. the call to redress the inequitable status among language teaching professionals based on “who they are” rather than “how they teach” has been and continues to be championed surprisingly not just by those who do not fit the image of the “ideal” esol teacher but by many who do. most recently, freeman (2017) and richards (2017) have challenged traditional notions that associate general language proficiency (including native proficiency) with the perspectives of “ideal” teachers of english 76 ability to teach effectively and have proposed fairer conceptualizations of language in use and for specific purposes by which to assess teachers’ language proficiency. like these scholars, we too would like to promote more inclusive and fairer constructs to raise the status of esol professionals who have traditionally been discriminated against. discussion assigning competence in this section of the paper, the authors discuss several theories related to status, expectations, and competence to provide background on how the status of “nonideal” teachers of esol can be raised and to provide a theoretical basis for the recommended strategies to assign competence which are discussed later. cohen and lotan (1995) explored status differences among students in heterogeneous classrooms. status, they found, becomes especially important when students from different ethnic groups face different expectations for academic success. cohen and lotan based their analysis and their subsequent interventions on expectation states theory (berger, wagner, & zelditch, 1985). this theory comes from sociology and posits that status is a generalized construct with individuals having or lacking power in accordance with their status, regardless of each person’s own characteristics. thus, people are judged based on the perceived status of their group, not on their actual qualities. in the same way, within the narratives of the three teachers, it can be seen that although marie and roby were as qualified as george in terms of academic qualifications and experience, they were often judged by their students on the basis of physical appearance and accent, something george never encountered. furthermore, expectations can become self-fulfilling. this was found to be the case in a well-known study in which the researchers’ appeared to illustrate what they called the pygmalion effect (rosenthal, 1973; rosenthal & jacobson, 1968). the researchers told primary school teachers that certain students were “intellectual bloomers”, when, in fact, there was no evidence for this. however, students given the status of intellectual bloomers tended to outperform their peers perhaps because of the way that their teachers interacted with them. feldman and prohaska (1979) conducted a pair of similar experiments at tertiary level, except this time, instead of teachers’ images of students, the researchers manipulated students’ images of teachers. in the first experiment, researchers seemed to be able to impact student attitudes and performance based on what the researchers told the students about their teacher. even though the teacher was the same for all the students, one group was told he was a very good teacher, while the other group was told that he was not a good teacher. in the second experiment, students acting on instructions from the researchers were able to change teachers’ behaviours and performance by reacting positively or negatively in class, i.e., teachers responded to how their students seemed to view them. these studies suggest that students' perceptions and, in some cases, expectations for their teachers to have "a certain ‘look’ or ‘name’, and to belong to a certain race" can negatively impact the way they behave towards their teacher which, in turn, can impact the teacher's performance. hence, teachers who do not fit the "ideal" may feel inadequate and try to compensate by obtaining more paper qualifications, as cited perspectives of “ideal” teachers of english 77 in marie's narrative. they may even try to recreate their professional identities (richards 2015) to fit the social context, evidenced in the narratives of marie and roby. the question of how to raise the status of teachers of english who are deemed not to possess the necessary “ideal” characteristics can partially be answered by dembo and mcauliffe’s (1987) study, which looked at the impact of students’ perceived status differences on interactions among students. in their study, the researchers used a fake test to convince students that some of them were better than others at problem-solving. next, they gave students a problem-solving task. the researchers found that those to whom superior problem-solving status had been falsely assigned dominated the studentstudent task interaction, had more influence, and were more likely to be seen as leaders. taken together, the studies above, mainly from the field of sociology, have shown that status can be raised by using specific strategies to assign competence. assigning competence to ‘non-ideal’ language users using the work of cohen and lotan (1995) as a foundation, the following section presents strategies for assigning competence to english language learners and teachers who do not match the idealized characteristics discussed above. broadly, these strategies fall into these four categories: providing role models of highly proficient non-native speakers using english effectively; raising awareness about the imperfections of language use by native speakers; providing tools and techniques to improve language proficiency; and discussing status and identity issues. role models 1. inviting guest speakers who are nonnative speakers to come to class in person (metrejean, pittman, & zarzeski, 2002) or via video conferencing tools such as skype. 2. highlighting prominent non-native speakers in the public eye, e.g., athletes, actors, scientists, and politicians. students can be shown videos of them speaking english, read transcripts of their talks, or read what they have written. 3. talking to students about language teachers who are second language speakers of the languages they teach. 4. drawing attention to the english competence of those who were not proficient in english as children but who now are. for instance, there are many examples of immigrants who have settled in inner circle countries such as the united states or australia. while some first generation immigrants had difficulties with english, subsequent generations are often as proficient or even more proficient than members of families who have resided in the country for many generations. 5. including in lessons short texts by people identified as not having all the ideal characteristics. for instance, saslow & ascher (2012, p. 112) include photos of three young adults, from india, nigeria and canada, talking about life in their countries in texts of about 80 words. audio versions of the texts can be part of the coursebooks. these people seem to be young adults, not university students, e.g., one talks about his children. two pages earlier, the same coursebook has photos of seven internationally-prominent people, with each photo accompanied by a text of about 20 words. three of the people are from nonperspectives of “ideal” teachers of english 78 native speaking countries: ghana, india and jordan. language awareness 6. noticing variations in english even among native speakers, such as regional and contextual variations, e.g., the differences between a formal business letter and an informal text message. the point made here is that there are many ways of using english well. 7. noticing errors by native speakers. these can be in writing or in speaking. an example of a written error, in this case a spelling error, can be found in dawkins (2016, p. iv), a book published by oxford university press, a prominent publisher: “but the theory does not necessarily preict (sic) this”. an example of a speaking error comes from barack obama (2010), who, in addition to being president of the u.s. for eight years, was also editor of the harvard law review. in his state of the union address, obama stated: “each of these institutions are (sic) full of honorable men and women doing important work that helps our country prosper.” the subject “each” should agree with the verb “is”. tools and techniques to improve language proficiency 8. increasing awareness of technology tools such as translation software, corpora, voice-to-text applications and digital resources. as such software continues to improve, both teachers and students need to learn how to maximize their use of these affordances, thereby allowing them to continue to develop their second language competence. 9. promoting positivity. using language, even a first language, can be anxiety provoking, e.g., one of the authors of this article used to have a stuttering problem in both first and second languages. additionally, the particular difficulties of second language learning anxiety are welldocumented (dewaele & ip, 2013; woodrow, 2006). the field of positive psychology offers many useful suggestions, e.g., fredrickson (2009a) reported that a preponderance of positive statements tends to lead to enhanced outcomes. her suggested ratio of positive to negative statements is 3 to 1 (fredrickson, 2009b). thus, if students and teachers are to achieve a high level of language competence, according to fredrickson’s 3 to 1 ratio, they need to be told about what they have done well and about their errors and weaknesses. status and identity 10. understanding and practising critical sociolinguistics. in the spirit of a critical approach to knowledge and learning (crookes, 2013), students and teachers need to discuss and debate the inequality at the heart of this article. a critical approach may also include attempting to change the status quo, as has been done by the nonnative english speakers in tesol interest group of the tesol organisation.3 11. encouraging critical and reflective writing (such as narratives or journals) on encountered problematic discourses that may threaten one’s linguistic, cultural, ethnic, racial, and professional identity. 3 http://www.tesol.org/connect/interestsections/nonnative-english-speakersin-tesol perspectives of “ideal” teachers of english 79 as“the interaction between nationalities, culture, and language speakers is the basis of elt profession” (baxter, 2003, p.19), encountering problematic discourses related to one’s nationality, culture, or language is likely to be inevitable. thus, as supported by ellis (2016) and saleh et al. (2014), to deal with these discourses and the struggles experienced in dealing with such discourses, teachers need to encourage themselves, their peers, and their students to engage in critical reflection on experiences and to ‘(re) tell’ them in a form of a critical autobiographical narrative. conclusion addressing their concern about status inequalities among teachers of english, in this viewpoint paper, the authors have suggested that there are certain characteristics inaccurately associated with being an “ideal” teacher of english and these, in turn, affect job prospects, salary, and recognition by students and peers. by reflecting on their experiences in language teaching in relation to how well they fit the “ideal”, the authors attempted to demonstrate that the construct is highly flawed and potentially destructive and divisive. to redress the inequities brought about by perceptions of the “ideal” language teacher, ideas for specific actions have been provided. it is hoped that this article will not only offer a fairly new perspective from the unique experiences of three established language teachers, but will also raise awareness about the need for our profession to celebrate the different strengths that each language teacher brings to teaching. __________________________________________________________________________ © marie yeo, roby marlina & george m. jacobs marie yeo has worked in the field of english teaching, educational management and teacher education for the past 30 years in australia, china and throughout southeast asia. she is currently a language specialist at seameo relc, where she trains educators from all over asia. her current areas of interest are assessment for learning, blended learning, and learner engagement. dr yeo is editor-in-chief of the relc journal. roby marlina is a language specialist at seameo-relc, singapore. his works have appeared in various international journals including international journal of educational research, world englishes, multilingual education, and asian efl journal. he is the main editor of the book, the pedagogy of english as an international language: perspectives from scholars, teachers, and students (springer international publishing). george m. jacobs has written widely on such topics as cooperative learning, extensive reading, environmental education, and humane education. he teaches writing at james cook university, singapore. he is a member of the board of the extensive reading foundation, the international association for the study of cooperation in education, vegetarian society (singapore), and the international ecolinguistics association. perspectives of “ideal” teachers of english 80 references amin, n. 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(2012). career decisionmaking: a case study of independent academic expatriates (doctoral dissertation, university of leicester). i the process through which ‘dominant’ ideological beliefs come into being or are regularized as normative discourses (foucault, 1974). acknowledgements first of all, we would like to apologize for the late publication of this issue caused by the locked down period. next, allow us to express our gratitude to all reviewers: prof. dr. patrisius istiarto djiwandono, senior professor at ma chung university, malang, indonesia, dr. jati gumawang senior lecturer at the department of art and design, institut teknologi bandung, professor dr. larry chong, gyeongju university, republic of korea, mark feng teng, ma senior lecturer at the department of education studies, hong kong baptist university, hong kong, benedict dwijatmoko, ph.d., sanata dharma university, rouhollah askari bigdelli, ma linguistics postgraduate student, university of otago, new zealand, prof. anita lie, ed.d., prof. dr. veronica l. diptoadi, mateus yumarnamto, ph.d., and siti mina tamah, ph.d. professors and senior lecturers at the english education department, graduate school widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia. the peer reviews they contributed are very significant to maintain both the quality of this online journal and as a feedback for authors. the same thankful expressions also came from authors for the reviewers’ scholarly comments and feedback. and last but not least, our great appreciation goes to all authors for their writings. for those whose manuscripts have not been accepted for this issue, please do not get discouraged. we invite you to do more research and submit articles again. your juniors need vivid examples from you, besides being able to write a good article is a value in itself. javascript:openrtwindow('http://journal.wima.ac.id/index.php/bw/about/editorialteambio/234') small and large groups 61 beyond words vol 7, no. 2, 2019 advantages of combining small and large groups: implications for second language education george m. jacobs george.jacobs@gmail.com centre for a responsible future singapore & thomas s. c. farrell tfarrell@brocku.ca brock university st catherines, canada abstract this paper looks at the value of second language students, teachers, and others interacting in very large groups of tens and even 100s of members of the same group. the paper begins by looking at disadvantages of these larger groups and then at their advantages, before providing advice on how to facilitate groups regardless of their sizes. this advice includes dividing resources and roles, promoting a common identity, encouraging rewards and celebrations, using groups of different sizes, taking advantage of communication technology, and paying attention to the development and use of collaborative skills. the authors’ conclusion is that very large groups can be beneficial if those involved carefully attend to the groups’ functioning, such as by dividing those very large groups into much smaller groups, including groups of 2-4 members. keywords: hyperauthorship, collaborative skills, group size, democracy, bottom-up control, community, cooperative learning introduction most people, including second language educators, agree that collaboration can be useful, and research supports this view (apicella & silk, 2019). what is more controversial is whether an upper limit exists as to how high the number of collaborators can grow and still yield benefits. the authors of this article believe that while groups as small as two members are usually best, a place also exists for large groups, even groups with hundreds or thousands of members. the genesis of this article was a collegial dispute the first author had with a respected associate on the board of a charity. the colleague wanted 3-4 or even fewer people to be the only ones involved in making a particular decision, whereas the first author wanted to involve about 15 people in deciding what to do. on one hand, the first author is a steadfast advocate of small groups, and he often reminds people that not only are two people enough to form a group, but often, two is the best size for groups. at the same time, he also advocates for greater involvement of all affected parties in making decisions. such involvement can often mean very large groups. for example, schools have hundreds and even thousands of students, as well as 60+ teachers. thus, groups of any size, very small, very large, and in 62 small and large groups between appeal to him, but for different reasons. this article begins by presenting arguments against the use of large groups in second language education and other areas of society. next, benefits of larger groups, even groups with hundreds of members, are discussed. finally, the authors discuss how to facilitate groups of various sizes. most of the literature cited in this article refers to groups in education. for example, johnson, johnson, and smith (2014) discussed cooperation in three types of student groups, according to the duration of time for which the groups stay together. informal groups stay together for a day or less, maybe only for a 15-minute activity. formal group work together longer, such as for a school term, whereas base groups can last for a year or more. certainly, regardless of the duration of groups or groups’ size, groups in education contexts often differ from many other contexts in which people come together. for instance, 300 students gathered for an assembly talk by a speaker on the role of diet in diabetes causation and treatment might have different group dynamics compared to an audience of 300 people coming to listen to the same talk at a venue open to the public. at the same time, the dynamics of both those audiences might differ from an audience of another 300 people who are all listening to the speaker with the shared goal of afterwards spreading the same message to the wider public. thus, the ideas in this article need to be filtered through the many variations in which groups are formed and operate. groups in education need not be limited to groups of students. farrell (2014) described how esl teachers in canada used groups to cope with their perceived mid-career stagnation and thus maintain their commitment to and enthusiasm for their work. these teachers reported that collaborating with their colleagues enhanced their feelings of self-efficacy. for example, collegial groups reduced the teachers’ feelings of isolation. as one of the teachers noted, “so often you are out on your island, ‘oh my god! here i am by myself. am i the only one having this issue?” second language teachers’ collegial interactions can extend beyond their designated groups of two to four members and even beyond their particular schools, towns, and countries. for instance, one of the teachers in the above-mentioned group began collegial interactions with a teacher from outside her group. they discussed various struggles she was facing. in the course of these discussions, she began to see this colleague as a “critical friend”; she said that her colleague “clicked into almost a mentor mode because she had taught speaking so much more than i have recently and then she came up with these [teaching] ideas.” this critical friendship made her realize the value of colleagues collaborating. she continued, “it just started to hit me as we were talking that we could do more together than this; that’s what you need between colleagues to get this kind of thing going.” as a result of peer interaction, this second language teacher has since begun to meet with other colleagues: “i’m meeting with other teachers and we’re talking about our teaching. we’re trying to become better teachers. i like to share what i learn with them.” another teacher in farrell’s study reflected on how she found her collaborations with other second language teachers reassuring for her own teaching; she noted: “it was just one of those things where you always knew but it was kind of small and large groups 63 nice to see that people have some sort of common characteristics and you have to understand how each other is both working together as a staff.” problems with larger groups many books on education, including second language education, suggest that groups be no larger than four or sometimes five members (slavin, 1995). indeed, many advantages exist for groups of only two members. in contrast, several reasons arise to doubt the efficacy of increasing the number of collaborators beyond a certain point. these reasons include social loafing, difficulty in coordinating big groups, lost time involved in communicating with and waiting for large numbers of people, and fewer opportunities for each group member to interact with others. the next paragraphs elaborate on the above reasons. a first reason why more members in groups may mean fewer benefits lies in what social psychologists call social loafing (latané, williams, & harkins, 1979), i.e., some members of large groups being relatively inactive. social loafing may be more likely in larger groups. cooperative learning, a teaching methodology in which students work together in groups (johnson & johnson, 1994), addresses social loafing with the principle of individual accountability. this principle calls on each student to do their fair share toward the achievement of the group’s goals. social loafing impedes the fulfillment of individual account-ability. some cooperative learning techniques used in second language instruction promote individual accountab-ility by asking students to take turns to report to the group. a second reason why bigger groups may not be better groups stems from the fact that larger groups require more skill to coordinate (johnson & johnson, 2009). for example, in small groups of two, three, or four members, everyone can usually hear each other and see what each other is doing. as group size rises beyond a certain number, visual and oral communication become increasingly difficult. additionally, the more members in a group, the more diverse the group becomes. while diversity has advantages, students will need to develop a certain level of group skills to manage more diverse groups. time presents a third potential impediment to the functioning of larger groups. with groups of two-four members, everyone’s view can usually be canvassed fairly quickly. on the other hand, with larger groups, more time and patience may be required if democracy is valued (schul, 2011). when both patience and time run out, undemocratic decision-making shortcuts become more tempting. one more argument against large groups flows from the view in socialcognitive psychology (e.g., vygotsky, 1978) that communication with others promotes learning and other forms of cognitive development. potentially, the larger the group, the fewer opportunities each member has to hold the floor and communicate their views. groups of two seem to offer maximum opportunities to interact, and with every additional group member, each person’s chances to interact seem to diminish. benefits of larger groups while larger groups do have possible drawbacks, people actively and consciously collaborating in a structured larger group can also provide benefits, including more input into decision-making, greater sense of ownership by all, and a 64 small and large groups heightened feeling of mutual interdependence. to appreciate the potential advantages of larger groups, two terms need to be understood: hyperauthorship and community. hyperauthorship hyperauthorship is the first key term relevant to the benefits of larger groups. hyperauthorship can be defined as when at least 50 people (and sometimes more than 1000) have made a sufficiently substantial contribution to an academic research paper or other work such that they merit being listed as an author of that work. the term was coined by cronin (2001) almost 20 years ago. cronin attributed the rise he had observed in the number of authors of a single academic paper to several factors, one of which was the greater complexity of issues being researched, and another was the greater professionalization of the research process which demanded more data from more sources. the website of the american psychological association (2019) defined an author as “anyone involved with initial research design, data collection and analysis, manuscript drafting, and final approval”. as harari (2017),a prominent futurist, noted, the need to collect and analyze large quantities of data has grown. community a second and related term that explains the importance of large scale collaboration also comes from many years ago, almost 30. that term is community (lave & wenger, 1991). a community is a group of people who share a common interest or purpose. communities can stretch across second language classes, across schools and other kinds of institutions, across towns, cities, and countries, and communities can include experts and newbies (such as low proficiency l2 students) and everyone in between, as well as people from any place in an organizational hierarchy, e.g., students, teachers, administrators, and university lecturers. community members support each other via various forms of cooperation (franke & shah, 2003), including it (scardamalia & bereiter, 1994). one way community members provide that support can be via hyperauthorship, such as students working on an online newsletter with input, including newsletter articles, from teachers. administrators, lecturers, and preservice teachers currently studying at university. bottom-up control a third reason for building large groups flows from the idea of bottom-up control. giving people more control encourages them to have a feeling of ownership and, therefore, to strive to understand more deeply and contribute more fully. the united nations convention on the rights of the child (ounhchr, 2019) was formally adopted in 1989 and dates back to 1924 when the league of nations adopted a similar document. article 12 of the current document is summarized by landsdown (2001, p. 2) as stating that: [c]hildren are entitled to be actors in their own lives and to participate in the decisions that affect them. but, as with adults, democratic participation is not an end in itself. it is the means through which to achieve justice, influence outcomes and expose abuses of power. too often in education, as well as in other areas of society, important decisions are made for people by others, including even when those people being deprived of power are adults. for instance, how often do school administrators and officials of small and large groups 65 government education bodies decide on significant issues without teachers having an influential voice? student-centered learning, one means of enacting the paradigm shift toward bottom-up decisionmaking (jacobs & farrell, 2001), enjoys wide-scale endorsement in second language education, but how often is it practiced on a school level? communities provide one form of group via which more on-the-ground people can have a voice. this does not mean that every decision needs to be made by everyone, but it does mean that efforts should be made to extend input to larger numbers, because effective decisionmaking can only take place when information is widely shared. unfortunately, transparency too often is sacrificed in the name of expediency. positive interdependence positive interdependence (johnson & johnson, 1994) is a cooperative learning principle that seeks to hold groups, including communities, together. positive interdependence can be defined as a feeling among people that their outcomes are positively correlated, that what helps one group member helps all the others, and what hurts any one member of the group hurts the rest of the group. while the cooperative learning principle of individual accountability, mentioned above, puts pressure on each member to do their fair share for the group, positive interdependence provides support as individuals strive to learn, do, and share. in contrast to positive interdependence, too often, people feel their outcomes are negatively correlated with those of others, i.e., what helps one hurts the others, and what hurts one helps the others. this is known as a feeling of negative interdependence. a third, also too common, feeling involves a sense of no interdependence between people, such that they believe what impacts one person, for better or for worse, has no impact on others. people working on research to produce a hyperauthored publication share a common goal, to have the research accepted for publication and for that publication to be impactful. thus, they are likely to feel positively interdependent, as do the members of a community striving to better understand reality and to use their research and authorship to improve life for others. facilitating benefits of collaboration regardless of group size every group size, from two to 599 and beyond, has potential benefits, as harari (2017) claimed that it is our species’ (homo sapiens) ability to coop-erate in unique ways that has allowed today’s humans to, for better or worse, dominate the planet. the remainder of this article uses cooperative learning principles to consider how to enhance interaction in groups of all sizes. the groups considered here are groups in second language education, but the ideas presented apply regardless of the sector of society involved. too often, teachers, other education leaders, and students themselves make two erroneous assumptions about group functioning, regardless of whether the group is as small or large. the first wrong assumption is that group members will want to collaborate with each other. second is the incorrect belief that group members know how to work together well. let us examine each of these assumptions. encouraging groups to cooperate earlier, this paper explained three different forms of interdependence among students and other people: positive inter66 small and large groups dependence, negative interdependence, and no interdependence. while types of interdependence can exist simultaneously within the same group in the same situation, only a feeling of positive interdependence is likely to lead students to want to assist one another to achieve their goals. fortunately, the literature on cooperative learning offers various ways that group members, teachers, and others can promote positive interdependence (johnson, johnson, & holubec, 2009). here are a few of those ways. positive interdependence can be promoted when each student has unique resources, e.g., information that no one else in the group has, and the members need to share these resources to achieve their group goal (aronson, 2019). a simple example of resource positive interdependence is when student groups are to do a presentation of plant-based nutrition, and each member researches plant sources for different nutrients. for example, one student finds materials to read about the main plant foods to eat for iron, while partners read about protein, calcium, or potassium. in addition to each group member having different resources, in another path to promoting positive interdependence among second language students, each group member has different roles in enabling groups to successfully accomplish their tasks (lee et al., 2016). for instance, one member (or a team of members) can be responsible for representing the group’s ideas via video, while one or more others do online research, interview people, write a report, or prepare a presentation. these roles can often rotate so that everyone develops a range of skills. a third way to encourage second language students to feel positively interdependent with each other involves building a common identity among group members (jacobs & renandya, 2019). for example, sports teams use team names, mascots, slogans, colors, songs, and shared history to encourage cooperation among both their players and their fans. student groups can use these same ways to develop a common identity. additionally, they might wish to have a group handshake or logo. fourth, positive interdependence can also be facilitated by students believing that their rewards and their opportunities to celebrate are linked, i.e., no one wins unless everyone wins. as rewards and celebrations in education often involve grades, improvement scoring can be used, as in student teams achievement divisions (slavin, 1995), in order so that lower proficiency students have equal opportunities to contribute points to their groups. other than grades, additional types of rewards include the chance to celebrate the achievement of their shared goals and the opportunity to have input into choosing subsequent activities. collaborative skills people need many skills to cooperate well (azizan, mellon, ramli, &yusup, 2018).researchers and practitioners have identified a large number of collaborative skills and developed various collaborative skills taxonomies (ladd et al., 2014).examples of collaborative skills include praising others, thanking others, responding to praise and thanks, disagreeing politely, asking for reasons, and checking that others understand. many times, students lack these skills, do not feel comfortable using them, or just do not use them, for whatever reason. this can especially be the case in second language contexts, given some students lack of comfort using their second language. small and large groups 67 without skilful deployment of collaborative skills, student interaction decreases in quantity and, especially in quality. the cooperative learning principle of teaching collaborative skills encourages the time needed for students to use collaborative skills fluently. this time can be spent on students learning why various skills are important, understanding and practicing how to use each skill, combining each skill with their regular class activities, and evaluating and discussing their own and their groupmates’ use of collaborative skills (johnson, johnson, & holubec, 2009). for instance, as a form of selfassessment, if a class is working on the collaborative skill of praising others, each student can record the number of times during an activity that they praised one of their partners. examples of ways to combine small and large groups this subsection of the paper suggests means of linking small and large groups. write-pair-switch-share. when people in large groups of 59, 599, etc. cooperate, they need not always interact with all their group members at the same time. instead, they can first discuss in small groups. this combines the more numerous interaction opportunities of small groups with the greater range of experiences, knowledge, and perspectives of larger groups. it also works to extend the feeling of positive interdependence beyond small groups, what jacobs and renandya (2019) called the principle of cooperation as a value. an example of how to structure this increasingly larger-scale interaction is via the cooperative learning technique writepair-switch-share (jacobs, power, & loh, 2002). this technique works as follows and can be modified: a. write step – each student works alone to write their ideas on the task the group is collaborating on. b. pair step – people discuss what they wrote with a partner. c. switch step – people switch partners and discuss starting with their previous partner’s ideas. d. share step – the foursome comes together and decides what to share with the larger group. sharing can be done in a variety of ways. group investigation. group investigation (sharan & sharan, 1992) represents another example of a cooperative learning technique in which small group interaction can facilitate decision-making in large groups. one version of how to do group investigation in a classroom follows. a. the class has a research topic, and students form small groups based on which subtopic they want to study. b. the groups assign research tasks to their members. c. students do the research, report back to their small group, discuss their findings, and do more research until they feel ready to develop a presentation to the class. d. each group presents, after which they are evaluated by the teacher, other groups, and themselves. the class might use their group investigation presentations to craft a report to share with others in their community and beyond. technology to facilitate interaction in large groups. especially when groups are large, but even with groups of two, technology can facilitate interaction (gambrari, yusof, & thomas, 2015) 68 small and large groups among second language students. fortunately, many inexpensive or even free-of-charge technological options exist to bring students together, even if those students are far apart physically, such as students in indonesia interacting with peers in brazil. these technological tools enable the participants in the interaction to communicate simultaneously (synchronous interaction) or at different times (asynchronous interaction). google groups and facebook pages are just two of the more commonly used tools for collaboration. as a result of such technological advances, no longer can people be deprived of their right to participation and of their right to transparency of information with the outdated excuse that communication and knowledge sharing are not possible or too slow. conclusion this paper has looked at disadvantages of large groups and also at their advantages. the paper’s final section shared ideas on how to promote group effectiveness regardless of group size but especially for larger groups. these ideas included using various ways to promote a feeling of positive interdependence among group members, facilitating the learning and use of cooperative skills, combining small and large groups, and using technology to enhance interaction among group members. overall, the authors believe in giving more time and power to groups as a means of moving towards more bottom-up decision-making. for example, the usual way to do the presentation on the impact of diet on diabetes mentioned in the first section of this article is for a single presenter to present – pouring knowledge into the audience’s heads. when the presenter finishes, if time permits – often no time is left because speakers believe they need to use all the time allotted to pour as much information as possible into the audience’s heads – the presenter takes a few questions. no time is allotted for discussion among the audience members. sadly, this remains the norm as we approach the third decade of the 21st century, despite the fact that cognitive psychology (gardner, 1985) (a.k.a. social constructivism) – the theory that people learn by doing, including applying, elaborating on, and communicating about ideas and experiences has now been the dominant paradigm in learning theory for at least 50 years. as the first author has compiled a list of quotes on cooperation (jacobs, 2013), many possible quotations could be used for the final denouement of this paper. here is a favorite quote from the co-discoverer of dna, francis crick, referring to his collaboration process with the other codiscoverer, james watson: “our … advantage was that we had evolved unstated but fruitful methods of collaboration … if either of us suggested a new idea, the other, while taking it seriously, would attempt to demolish it in a candid but non-hostile manner.” active groups allow everyone to experience the advantages enjoyed by crick and watson, as they empower greater bottom up control and engagement. small and large groups 69 acknowledgements the authors would like to thank yael sharan, stephen hall, tim murphey, and patricia reed for their input. © george m. jacobs & thomas s.c. farrell dr george m. jacobs publishes and otherwise teaches on student centered learning, environmental education and animal welfare education. his latest book is student centered cooperative learning, with willy renandya thomas s.c. farrell is professor of applied linguistics at brock university, canada. professor farrell’s professional interests include reflective practice, and language teacher education & development. professor farrell has published widely in academic journals and has presented at major conferences worldwide on these topics -see his webpage: www.reflectiveinquiry.ca references american psychological association. 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(2019). student-centered cooperative learning. linking concepts in education to promote student learning. basingstoke, united kingdom: springer nature. designing game-based learning to foster 137 beyond words vol 7, no. 2 november 2019 designing game-based learning to foster the cross-cultural cognition singgih widodo limantoro politeknik ubaya surabaya, indonesia ngagel2015@gmail.com & yerly arnold datu politeknik ubaya surabaya, indonesia yerly@staff.ubaya.ac.id abstract boredom would be the biggest challenge in realizing a successful learning effective and joyful learning. boredom could happen in any learning when the students learn what they do not need or and they do not enjoy the conventional way of learning. in this case study, the writer would design game-based learning to foster the cross-cultural cognition in business cross-cultural materials. by designing and playing games for learning bcc materials, the writer tried to create the effective and joyful learning. in this research, the writer would use fives phases of the research in designing the game-based learning. moreover, the writer would investigate their joy and effectiveness of learning by using two different groups of totally 40 participants of business english students that learn bcc the experiment group that would use the game-based learning and the controlling group that had learnt without it. and the research results are there was insignificant difference in cognitive learning but the game-based learning could enhance the joy and motivation of learning. key words: boredom, bcc, game-based learning, effectiveness, joy. introduction cognitive learning needs a way that makes the learning process of obtaining and retrieving the knowledge be successfully done. obtaining and retrieving the cross cultural knowledge , including recognizing and memorizing some new words acrosscultures tend to be routine activities. and routine activities are often considered as a monotonous process of learning. so, memorizing new words or knowledge acrosscultures is often considered a boring activity. and learning motivation is one crucial factor of successful learning that cultivates the learners' interest in learning. therefore, there are at least two factors that teachers have to consider in teaching new knowledge acrosscultures. first, it is important for teachers to think about the learning materials whether students really need to learn. second, it is also important to know how students want to learn or what kind of learning method they expect to do. in this paper, the writer also expects to meet the students needs and interests in learning subject like business cross-culture by designing game-based learning so that there is an effective and joyful way to enrich and strengthen the students’ knowledge. in this case of learning 138 designing game-based learning to foster business cross-culture, the students feel bored to learn it in a conventional way. the effect of such conventional learning for students is the learning boredom. it is also shown that the result of the learning report conducted by the quality assurance team of ubaya mentioned that one of the learning process problems at business english study program of politeknik ubaya was the student learning boredom. boredom would be the biggest challenge in realizing a successful leaning: effective and joyful learning. boredom could happen in any learning when the students learn what they do not need and they also do not enjoy the dull way of learning. by designing and playing games for learning business cross-culture materials, the writer expects that the game-based learning atmosphere would create the joyful/conducive learning. therefore, the writer would like to investigate the students by assessing their needs and interests in learning business cross-cultural materials and find out the appropriate game-based learning to foster/ strengthen the cross-cultural cognitive learning materials. further, based on this real case study in the classrooms of business cross-culture subject, the writer would like to investigate on it by having three main problematic questions 1) how could the writer design game-based learning that is effective to enhance the cross-culture recognition in learning business cross-culture materials 2) how could the writer design game-based learning that could create joy and could uplif the interest to learn business crossculture materials ? 3) how could the writer find out between the experiment and the control groups in learning business cross-culture materials by using different ways of learning: gamebased learning and non-game-based learning? therefore, the purposes of this research would be as follows: first, the writer would like to know the effectiveness of game-based learning in learning business cross-culture materials, second, he would like to know whether the respondents (the students) would really enjoy learning business cross-culture materials by using game-based learning and why they would like it, and third, he would like to compare two different ways of learning: game-based learning and non-gamebased learning. and the benefits of this study would be: first, helping the students foster the cross-cultural cognitive learning in order to encourage/keep their learning passionately, second, producing effective and joyful gamebased learning to enhance/strengthen the cross-cultural cognitive materials, third, facilitating international students/tourists'/ businessmen's learning in order to enhance the joy and effectiveness of their business trip/ study. review of related literature the game-based learning is an alternative way to solve boredom in cognitive learning. and the use of game-based learning in educational contexts is also growing popular (alaswad & nadolny, 2015). the game-based learning in educational contexts could enhance the participants' learning motivation , improve the knowledge, and make them have positive attitudes toward the use of the educational games for learning. (zhi & po, designing game-based learning to foster 139 2013). moreover, language learners only succeed of learning in a positive, relaxed, and enjoyable experience, that's why teachers have to facilitate their learning so that they could gain the joy themselves from the materials they are using, and the learning materials should engage the emotions of the students because their emotions, such as joy, excitement, laughter, sad, and anger could also promote learning. in this research, the writer would like to produce/ design gamebased learning to meet the needs of the business cross-culture subject and the learners. it is previously explained that the game-based learning is an alternative way to solve boredom in cognitive learning. based on the cognitive learning theory, this theory focuses on the conceptualization of the learning processes of learners and how knowledge is obtained, organized, stored, and reused/ retrieved by the mind-the memory system (ertmer & newby in bakan & bakan, 2018). furthermore, cognitive theorists promote that the mind has an important role in learning. and the cognitive processes of the mind, such as motivation, and imagination are the critical elements of learning that bridge environment stimuli and students' responses (picciano, 2017). bandura in harinie et al (2017) also emphasizes the importance of behavioral factors, environmental and individual (cognitive) in the learning process. the games which would deal with the cognitive processes of the mind are considered as serious games. and serious games were found to be more effective in terms of learning but the gamebased learning was not more motivating than conventional instruction methods (wonters et al, 2013). moreover, khenissi & fathi (2015) found out that serious games also succeeded in improving student motivation, increasing students' desire to learn, making learning more enjoyable. another finding that the use of fun activity, such as game-based learning, is more effective in teaching vocabularies (cognitive words) technique than the conventional way (bavi, 2018). however, games are not the only useful way. it means that other ways of learning should not be ignored (ayesha, 2016) further, the teachers usually use games as a warm-up activity or a fun break from the routine of language classes to maintain the students' learning efforts for learning their best. in learning new words or new languages, teaching language games are beneficial for efl students because language games could help them enhance language knowledge (cognition) and also build a good relationship or a collaborative learning (ibrahim, 2017). on the other hand, effective language games could also eradicate the boredom of the classroom on two things, first by movement (the game activity) and, second by game design itself ( ayesha et al, 2016). therefore, it is important to design this game-based learning based on the learning objectives from the curriculum and the appropriateness of the students' (the players') level, interest, and context (bakhsh, 2016). therefore, as a part of edutainment, the game-based learning should be designed by using educational technology in learning efl/ esl (ahmadi, 2018). and the teachers who would use the game should convince of the effectiveness of technology in improving their students' learning (pourhossein, 2017). 140 designing game-based learning to foster previous studies previous studies revealed that games are useful in vocabulary learning because they enhance learners' abilities to memorize words, encourage their interaction, improve their communication skills, and enhance their motivation to learn (derakhshan and khatir, 2015). therefore, the learners that learn with the use of game-based learning, gain positive attitudes and can be more motivated while learning. in another study of rohani and pourgharib (2013), there was no significant difference between the group of students that was taught by using textbooks and the group that was taught by games. another research result with the edutainment model that has various components, such as the teacher, the gamebased learning materials, the latest technology, and others, pasawano (2015) also found out that the learners had the positive attitude, wanted to study, and finally increased their learning achievement. the use of games as a technique for language learning was also mostly positive. most participants of this research thought that students felt happy to learn english through games. (korkmaz, 2013) moreover, the positive effects of language games are lowering the learners' anxiety and providing meaningful use of a language in class. in their research, zhi and po (2013) also found out that learning motivation could be enhanced via educational games. moreover, alaswad and nadolny (2015) also found out that game-based learning could increase the learners' achievement and motivation. it is also evident that using games promote learning motivation and vocabulary acquisition (beyza, 2017). as a matter of fact, the use of games in educational contexts is growing in popularity. method first of all, the writer would like to make the game for learning business cross-culture materials by using the following steps: first, the writer would like to map the participants' needs and interests in learning the crosscultural cognitive learning materials. second, the writer would design the game-based learning, such as a board-card game for having a trip around the world to enhance/strengthen the cross-cultural cognition. in this board game, there would be cards with questions on the cross-cultural cognitive learning materials. if the player could answer it correctly, the player's pawn could have, for instant, one step forward, but if it was wrong, the pawn couldn't step forward. there would be some other cards that were the bonuses and traps in order to make the game more exciting. he also made the game rules and instructions for the boardcard game for learning business cross-culture with its game given name: cross-cultural trip around the world. third, it was the implementation of the word-card games to improve the cross-cultural cognitive learning. the players/ students would play the game with the game rules and instructions given. the players would also play it in maximum 10 seconds' time that was considered the most appropriate and possible challenging time for each player to think the answer. the time speed given would encourage the players to think fast. fourth, it was the reflection of the effectiveness and the joy of the games-based learning. a forum group discussion was conducted with all the participants/ players/ students to gain feedbacks on the designing game-based learning to foster 141 implementation of the game. he would also get the participants' feedbacks from the questionnaires and the post test. from the post-test and the previous pre-test, the writer would like to see the difference/ gain of the effectiveness of the game. and he would also like to know the students' opinions of the game including their joy/ preference. he would also use some interviews to triangulate the data collected if necessary. after that, he also did the forum group discussion (fgd) to triangulate some survey results to know whether they enjoyed the game and whether the game was effective. interview and discussion (forum group discussion) would also be conducted as a tool of triangulation. in this reflection phase, the writer would try to get the weakness/ shortcomings/ lacks of the game in order to improve it to be its best. fifth, it was the editing of the design of the game-based learning to improve the crosscultural cognitive learning. after obtaining all the feedbacks/ inputs/ data from the participants, the writer would like to make necessary changes based on the data. he also thought the finishing touch of the printed game design to beautify its appearance of the game board, the game cards, the game box, and the game pawns as well as the spelling accuracy, its color and images/ pictures. therefore, the writer would like to revise the design of the game based on all the feedbacks. finally, the writer would also like to improve the game rules and the game instructions based on the feedbacks/ inputs to make the best design of game-based learning to strengthen the cross-culture cognition. moreover, this research used a case study approach. the total participants of the research consisted of forty students of business english study program of politeknik ubaya surabaya in the 2018/2019 academic year. in this case study, the writer would like to choose twenty first-year students that used game-based learning for learning business cross-culture materials as the experimental group and also have the other twenty secondyear students that had studied business crossculture materials by using the conventional or non-game-based learning as the control group. in addition to the experimental group, the writer asked the students to do the pretest, played the game-based learning, and asked them to do the posttest. the pretest and posttest as well as the game materials covered the same business cross-culture materials. in addition to the control group, the writer taught the same business cross-culture materials by using conventional methods in the classroom, such as lecturing, summarizing, and conducting the project-based learning. in the project, the students were assigned to study certain topics and to make their presentation and group reports. the participants of the control group also did the same pretest and posttest. findings and discussion in this part, the writer would like to reveal the results of this case study relating to the effectiveness of the game-based learning designed to enhance the cross-culture cognition in learning business cross-culture materials (see table 1). the result of the pretest average score that was assessed before the game-based learning was 26,6 %. and the result of the 142 designing game-based learning to foster posttest average score that was assessed after playing the game in one round was 49,35 %. so, the gain or the difference between the pretest average score and the posttest average score was 22,75 %. it meant that the gamebased learning way/ method was effective for the experimental participants to enhance the cross-culture cognition in learning business cross-culture materials though the game was played in one round. if the participants played the game some more rounds, the gain would significantly become higher than the gain of the first round. it also meant that the game succeeded to enhance the cross-culture cognition in learning business cross-culture materials. so, this board-card game designed for learning business cross-culture, namely, cross-cultural trip around the world was positive/ effective to foster the players gain new words across-cultures. further, the writer would also like to explain the results of his survey via questionnaires relating to the joy/ fun of the game-based learning designed to be able to uplift the players'/ participants' interest to learn business cross-culture materials (see fig. 1) designing game-based learning to foster 143 when asked whether the participants enjoyed the game for learning business cross-culture materials, all the participants enjoyed it. and when asked why they enjoyed the game for learning business cross-culture materials, the participants replied that almost all of them could learn new words across-cultures in fun ways, more than half of them could gain new cultural knowledge in challenging and useful ways, and many others could learn with friends in friendly competitive ways. moreover, these findings were also in line with the same other questionnaire. such as when asked whether the participants felt satisfied or happy to learn business crossculture by playing this game, the participants replied that all of them felt satisfied or happy to learn business cross-culture by playing this game. and when asked why they felt satisfied or happy to learn business crossculture by playing this game, the participants replied that almost all of them could learn to know new words from different languages/ cultures, and majority of them could learn and play with friends together. from their opinions, the writer could highlight some important findings that the participants this game could facilitate their joyful learning because the way/ method of learning was fun, challenging, and friendly competitive. furthermore, the writer would also like to explain the results between the experimental group and the control group in learning business cross-culture materials by using different ways of learning: game-based learning and non-game-based learning. there were twenty participants from the experimental group that did not learn business cross-culture materials yet. they merely learned business cross-culture materials by using this game-based of learning method done in the classroom. on the other hand, there were other twenty participants from the control group that had taken/ learned business cross-culture materials in the previous year in conventional ways/ methods of learning. it meant that they did not learn business cross-culture materials by using the game-based of learning; they learned business cross-culture materials through the teacher lecturing, summarizing the materials, conducting the business crossculture project assigned and presenting in 144 designing game-based learning to foster front of the classroom. and the results of both participants from the experimental group and the control group could be compared (see fig.1). from the table 2 above, the participants in the experimental group were taught the bcc learning materials by using the game-based learning, while the participants in the control group underwent the conventional learning. and the results showed that the total average gain score of the experimental group (22,75%) was, in fact, slightly higher than that of the control group (21,25%). the difference between them was merely 1,5 % which could be considered as insignificant difference. on the other word, the comparison of the effectiveness of the game-based learning method and the conventional learning method (non-gamebased learning method) revealed that the total average gain scores might be more or less the same or the total average gain score of the participants that learned business crossculture materials via the game-based learning could be slightly/ insignificantly higher than that of those that learned business crossculture materials via the conventional learning. from the comparative results of both learning methods seen at the table 2 above, there had only a little difference or insignificantly difference between the total average gain score of the experimental group and that of the control group on learning business cross-culture materials. table 2 the gain of the experimental group and the control group (n=40) designing game-based learning to foster 145 moreover, when asked whether the participants from the control group enjoyed learning business cross-culture materials by using the conventional learning method, such as lecturing from the teacher, making the summaries of the materials, conducting and presenting the project, most of the participants enjoyed learning them. they enjoyed learning them because they could get some introduction and inputs of business crossculture materials from the teacher first, also think to summarize one chapter into only one page, doing their project themselves from mostly online resources and presenting it in front of the class. they actually liked this conventional learning method because they could learn from the guidance of the teacher, any online resources, individual and collaborative learning. though most participants of the control group enjoyed learning them in this conventional method or in this non-game-based learning, they might feel bored when doing some routine class activities in one semester. there were 14 meetings of learning this subject in one semester. the writer as their teacher would like to minimize their learning boredom because learning boredom might affect the students' motivation / interest to learn the subject joyfully/ passionately. therefore, the writer would like to collect data from the other group of participants that learned the same subject/ business cross-culture materials merely by using the game-based learning. and the other results of the survey (questionnaires, fgd, and observation on the board-card game for learning bcc materials; seefig.2). fig. 2 the benefits of playing the board-card game when asked about the benefits of playing the board-card game, the participants from the experimental group replied that almost all of them could learn new words from other languages/ cultures in fun ways, most of them could learn with friends together in friendly competitive ways, more than half of them could enrich cultural knowledge and also could help memorize foreign words in easy and challenging ways, and some others could learn how to say foreign words. 0 50 100 a b c d e a. could learn new words from other languages/ cultures in fun ways b. could learn with friends together in friendly competitive ways c. could enrich cultural knowledge d. could help memorize foreign words in easy and challenging ways e. could learn how to say foreign words 146 designing game-based learning to foster fig. 3 what makes this game-based learning be different from the non-game-based learning when asked about what made this gamebased learning be different from the nongame-based learning, the participants from the experimental group replied that majority of them could learn new language/ cultural items in fun ways, most of them could also learn the learning materials in more interesting and challenging ways, and more than half of them could learn with friends together in friendly competitive ways and help understand and memorize new words across-cultures. fig. 4 difficulties in playing this board-card game. when asked about the difficulties in playing this board-card game, the participants from the experimental group replied that more than half of them did not know new words from other cultures and most of them (90%) also did not know how to say the foreign words correctly. 60 70 80 90 a b c d a. could learn new language/ cultural items in fun ways b. could learn the learning materials in more interesting and challenging ways c. could learn with friends together in friendly competitive ways d. could help understand and memorize new words across-cultures 0 50 100 a b a. they did not know new words from other cultures b. they did not know how to say the foreign words correctly designing game-based learning to foster 147 fig. 5 suggestions for the board-card game when asked about suggestions on the board-card game for learning business crossculture materials, the participants from the experimental group replied that most of them suggested to learn how to say / pronounce foreign words correctly, more than half of them suggested to add more challenging questions, and nearly half of them also suggested to add more rewards and punishment cards. conclusion in this case study, the writer would like to investigate whether game-based learning could foster the cross-cultural cognition in business cross-cultural materials and minimize the learning boredom. so, the students that learned business cross-cultural materials could learn effectively and joyfully by playing the board-card game that was scientifically designed for learning business cross-cultural materials. further, based on the real case study in the classrooms of business cross-culture subject, the writer would like to investigate on bcc subject by having three main questions: how could the writer design game-based learning which would be effective to enhance the cross-culture cognition in learning bbc, how could the writer design game-based learning which could create joy and could uplift their interest to learn bbc, and how could the writer find out between the experiment group and the control group in learning bbc materials by using different ways of learning: game-based learning and non-game-based learning. first, the writer found out that the gamebased learning method was effective to enhance the cross-culture cognition in learning bbc. in one round of playing this board-card game, namely cross-culture trip around the world, the participants from the experimental group could gain 22,75 % which was the difference between the total pretest average score that was 26,6 % and the total posttest average score that was 49,35 %. it meant that the game-based learning method was, anyhow, effective for the experimental participants to enhance the cross-culture cognition in learning bbc. second, he also found out that the gamebased learning method was joyful/ fun. the 0 50 100 a b c a. how to say / pronounce foreign words correctly b. more challenging questions c. more rewards and punishment cards 148 designing game-based learning to foster joyful/ fun learning would enhance their motivation/ interest to learn bcc materials. this board -card game for learning bcc could minimize the learning boredom when the students had to learn routine activities in conventional ways. the results of the survey also revealed that all the participants enjoyed it or felt happy to play the game for learning business cross-culture materials for some reasons, such as almost all of them could learn new words across-cultures in fun ways, more than half of them could gain new cultural knowledge in challenging and useful ways, and many others could learn with friends in friendly competitive ways. third, he also found out that the total average gain score of the experimental group (22,75%) was , in fact, slightly higher than that of the control group (21,25%). the difference between them was merely 1,5 % which could be considered as relatively insignificant difference/ gain in cognitive learning. it meant that the gain of learning business cross-culture materials via the game-based learning could be slightly/ insignificantly higher than that of learning business cross-culture materials via the conventional learning. the participants thought that this game-based learning was different from the non-game-based learning/ conventional one for some reasons, such as the students could learn new language/ cultural items in fun ways, could learn the learning materials in more interesting and challenging ways, could learn with friends together in friendly competitive ways, and could help understand and memorize new words across-cultures. comparing these two learning methods, the writer concluded that both the non-gamebased learning/ conventional learning in varied ways/ methods, such as project-based learning, summarizing one chapter into one page of learning, teacher lectures and the game-based learning method might be relatively effective for cognitive learning, such as the total average gain score of the experimental group (22,75%) was , in fact, slightly higher than that of the control group (21,25%). as a matter of fact that the fun/ joy of the game-based learning method might exceed than the non-game-based learning methods in cognitive learning for this game could also help facilitate their joyful learning because the way/ method of learning was fun, challenging, and friendle competitive. suggestions to foster the cross-cultural cognition, such as learning bcc subject, the teacher could facilitate the effectiveness and the joy/ fun of their learning by using both methods the game -based learning and the non-gamebased learning in varied methods appropriately in the classrooms to minimize the learning boredom as well. it meant that one single learning method either the conventional learning method/ non-gamebased learning method or the game-based learning method could also be boring if the students did the same monotonous classroom activities for a long period of time, such as one semester. the game-based learning and the non-game-based learning methods could complement each other so that the students could experience the successful learning experience in the classrooms by facilitating their effective and joyful learning appropriately. designing game-based learning to foster 149 © singgih widodo limantoro & yerly arnold datu singgih widodo limantoro is a lecturer of business english at politeknik ubaya surabaya, indonesia. he was the former director and business english head of politeknik ubaya, surabaya. he got his master in tefl (2004) from widya mandala catholic university, surabaya and international elt training from british council oxford in 1998 and cambridge in 2000. yerly arnold datu is a lecturer and also a head of business english study program, politeknik ubaya, surabaya, indonesia. he got his master in tefl (2014) from widya mandala catholic university, surabaya. he also got the english specialist training from relc (regional english language centre) singapore in 2005. reference ahmadi, mohammad reza. 2018. the use of technology in english language learning: a literature review. international journal of research in english education. 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'available online at www.irjabs.com. silsupur, beyza. 2017. does using language games affect vocabulary learning in efl classes? journal of foreign language education and technology, 2 (1). retrieved from http://jflet.com/ jflet. 150 designing game-based learning to foster wonters, p., van vimwegen, c., van oostendorp, h., and van der spek, e.d. 2013. a meta-analysis of the cognitive and motivational effects of serious games. journal of educational psychology, 105 (2), 249-265. retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1037/a0031311. zhi, f.l.and po, k.c. 2013. the effect of game-based learning on students' learning performance in science learning a case of conveyance go. procedia vol 103, 1044-1051. english passive voice and aspects 1 beyond words vol.7 no.1 [may, 2019] a unified analysis of english passive voice and aspects benedictus b. dwijatmoko b.b.dwijatmoko@gmail.com sanata dharma university indonesia abstract english passive voice and aspects are generated in the same process and have the same dstructure. in a passive sentence, progressive sentence, and perfect sentence, t (tense) takes a vp headed by be or have, and be or have takes a participle phrase (partp), and –en or – ingtakes a vp as its complement. be or have in the upper vp merges with t, and the verb in the lower vp merges with part. the specifier or complement of the lower vp moves cyclicly through the specifier of part and the specifier of the upper verb to occupy the subject position. the single theory on the production of passive, progressive, and perfect sentences observes the principle of economy of derivation and, therefore, contributes to the explanation of the relative easiness of a child in acquiring his or her mother tongue. keywords: sentence, passive voice, progressive, perfect, d-structure introduction english has a complex predicate system. besides the tense, a sentence may have an auxiliary verb be and a verb in the past participle or -en form to show a passive voice, an auxiliary verb be and a verb in thepresentparticiple (progressive)or-ing form to show a progressive aspect, and the auxiliary verb have and a verb in the past participle or -en form to show a perfect aspect. sentences (1) (3) show the different predicate forms. (1) the proposal was accepted. (2) john is reading the book. (3) john has returned my camera. sentence (1) (3) are a passive sentence, a progressive sentence, and a perfect sentence respectively. they are different in the choice of the subject, the auxiliary verb, and the verbal affixes. both the passive voice and the progressive and perfect aspects have been discussed widely(jaegli, 1986; shibatani, 1988; åfarli, 1989; caponigro & schütze, 2003; embick, 2004; kallulli, 2007; castillo, 2009; kiparsky, 2013; breul, 2004; breul, 2014), though not exhaustively. the nature of the suffix –en and –ing and their presence in their d-structure has not been revealed well. chomsky(1986, p. 157) states that dstrcuture was to be regarded as "a pure representation of theta-structure" without inflectional affixes which do not affect theta-marking and s-selection. in radford (2004) and haegeman(2006), the progressive aspect is marked with the verb be which takes a vp headed by an -ing form as its complement. a sentence in the progressive and perfect aspect is described as a sentence which has the aspect auxiliary verb have or be under t which in turn takes a vp headed a "specific kind of verb"(radford, 2009, p. 252), namely a verb in the -en or -ing form. the verb be takes a 2 english passive voice and aspects v-ing to observe the selectional features(radford, 2004). the nature of the inflection –en in the passive voice and the inflection –ing for the progressive aspect have not been dealt sufficiently (fleisher, 2006; bruening b. , 2012). the identification of a v-ing as the head of a vp which be selects does not reflect the nature of the suffix. the suffix ing, which is an inflectional suffix, functions at the syntactic level. consequently, its position in the generation of a sentence with a progressive aspect needs to be displayed. this article argues for a unified passive, progressive, and perfect analysis. in the unified analysis, a passive sentence, a progressive sentence, and a perfectsentence are genarated in the same process and have the same d-structure, and the participle inflections -en and -ing functions as a syntactic unit and form a participle phrases (partp). for the discussion of the structure of the three kinds of sentence, the structure of a sentence (4) as it is displayed in diagram (5) will be used. (4) john wrote the paper. a sentence is analyzed as a complementizer phrase (cp) where c takes a tense phrase (tp) as its complement (radford, 2004; 2009). in turn, t takes a verb phrase (vp) as its complement. the suffix -ed is identified as tense and not inflection (i) because english verb suffixes can be -es and -ed, the tense markers, or -en the perfect and passive inflection and -ing, the progressive inflection. following the internal subject hypothesis(koopman & sportiche, 1991; mcnally, 1992; burton & grimshaw, 1992; belliti, 2009; koizumi & tamaoka, 2010), the subject of (4) john is generated as the specifier of the verb write and not the specifier of t. as a head of a functional phrase, t does not require a specifier with certain semantic features. the np like john in (4), which is [+human], on the contrary, is needed as a specifier of the verb write. the participle english has four verbal inflections, namely the present tense marker -es, the past tense marker -ed, the passive voice and perfect aspect -en, and the progressive aspect –ing(carstairs-mccarthy, 2002; lieber, 2009). the tense inflections are more frequent and productive than the aspect inflections as every english sentence always requires a tense marker and only passive sentences and sentences which indicate a perfect or progressive aspect carry a participle inflection. although part is less frequent than t, the status as an inflection brings a significantconsequence in the structure of the progressive and perfect aspects and the passive voice of english. according to carstairs-mccarthy(1992)an inflection process occurs after a derivation process in a certain part of grammar,or an inflection process takes place at the syntactic level after a word is formed in the morphological level anderson(1992). the principle can be clarified with sentences (6)−(8). english passive voice and aspects 3 beyond words vol.7 no.1 [may, 2019] (6) the minister has clarified the statement. (7) the president is emphasizing the need for tolerance. (8) the villagers were empowered by the meetings. the verbs clarified, emphasizing, and empowered take part after the stems clarify, emphasize, and empower are derived. the derivation of clarify, emphasize, and empower from clear, emphasis, and power bring a significant change in the semantic features of the derived words. the derived verbs have a capacity to take two arguments; a capacity which the stems do not have. if part is separated from the sentences and the auxiliary verbs are put aside first, a configuration like (9)−(11) will occur. (9) -en [the minister clarify his statement] (10) -ing [the president emphasize the need for tolerance] (11) -en [the meetings empower the villagers] the verbs clarify, emphasize, and empower have the capacity to hold two nps in the vp. the preposition by in (11) is dropped because it is simply inserted in the formation of the s-structure to assign case to the noun phrase the meetings. the nps in (9)−(11) belong to the bracketed strings because their presence is needed by the derivation affixes -ify, -ize, and emrespectively. they would not be there if the roots clear, emphasis, and power were there instead of the derived verbs. the arguments in (9)−(11), therefore, form phrases which are headed by clarify, emphasize, and empower respectively. the bracketed strings are obviously vps. the derived verbs clarify in (9) semantically (s-)selects the minister and the statement as its arguments, emphasize in (10) s-selects the president and the need for tolerance and the president,and empower in (11) s-selects the meetings and the villagers. the arguments in each number enter the configuration in different levels with his statement, the need for tolerance, and the villagers being closer to clarify, emphasize, and empower than the arguments the minister, the president, and the meetings respectively. thus, only the x-bar theory can capture the relationships of the vps. the structure of the vp in (9) can be displayed in diagram (12) below. the vps the president emphasize the need for tolerancein (10) and the meetings empower the villagers in (11) have the same structure as (12). as the structure of the vps of (9) − (11) are set, what remains to determine is the relation of the vps with part. part in (9) − (11) is obviously not a part of the vps and is outside the vps. v does not take part, but, on the contrary, part takes vp. part is similar to t in that part and t are both inflections. if t takes a vp as its complement, part also takes vp as its complement and forms a phrase, namely a partp. as both t and part are bound morphemes which cannot occur by itself in a sentence, they both take a phrase which is headed by a lexical item as their complement. then part absorbs and merges with the lexical head. the structure of (6) can, thus, be displayed in (13). 4 english passive voice and aspects partp (10) and (11) have the same structure as partp (9). part is similar to t in case assignment. according to case theory (chomksy, 1981; koopman & sportiche, 1991; haegeman, 2006; radord, 2004; 2009), every argument in a sentence should be assigned case to occur legitimately. (14) john wrote the paper in three weeks. (15) the paper was written by john in three weeks. in (14) the argument john is caseassigned by -ed, and in (15) john is caseassigned by the preposition by. with the pp in three weeks neglected, the stucture of (14) can be displayed in diagram (16). the case-assignment in (14) occurs under two conditions, namely co-indexing and m-command. john can be co-indexed with -ed without breaking any grammatical rule, and john is also m-commanded by -ed. the maximal projection which dominates john also dominates -ed. a similar case assignment also occurs in a non-finite clause with a subject.quirk et al.(1972)identify that a non-finite verb can occur without a subject or with a subject like in (17)−(20). (17) his hands handcuffed, the criminal was brought to court. (18) all his money spent, the young man had nothing to eat. (19) her kids going to school, mrs. smith has more time for herself. (20) the workers working late, diana could not go home early. the subject of the non-finite predicates in (17) (20) are his hands, all his money, her kids, and the workers respectively. the argument his hands in (17) and all his moneyin (18) are case-assigned by part -en, and the arguments her kids in (19) and the workers in (20) are case-assigned by part ing. part -en in (17) and (18) and -ing in (19) and (20) are the only potential case-assigner. no element in [vp(sb) handcuff his hands], [vp(sb) spend all his money], [vphis kids go to school], and [vpthe workers work late] assign a case. the arguments have to move to the specifier of –en or –ing to get a case. partp in (17) and (18) have the same structure. the structure of (17) can be displayed in diagram (21). the partp in (17) is base-generated as in (21). the verb handcuff, then, merges with en because -en is a bound morpheme; it english passive voice and aspects 5 beyond words vol.7 no.1 [may, 2019] absorbs handcuff to meet the morpholoical requirement that a bound morpheme should be attached to a stem. his handsmoves from the spec/v position to the spec/part position to be case-assigned. partp in (18) has the same d-structure and processes as (21). partps in (19) and (20) have a similar elements and process. the difference lies in the presence of the progressive aspect affix ing and in the vps. the vs are intransitive and only has spec/v. his kids and the workers move to spec/part to be caseassigned, and go and work merge with -ing to form going and working. the assignment of the nominative case in indonesian works in the same as in english. indonesian verbal sentences does not have agreement between the subject and predicate, and the only potential nominative case assigner is the voice affix meng (vcact) or di(vcpas) like in (22) and (23). (22) ibu mem-baca buku saya mother vca read book i 'mom read my book.' (23) buku saya di baca ibu. book i vcp read mother 'my book was read by mom.' (24) surat itu tidak ter-baca olehku letter the not vcp/abl read by-me 'i cannot read the letter.' ibu 'mother' in (22) is assigned a nominative case by vcact, and buku saya 'my book' is assigned a nominative case by vcpas. the diagram of vcp (22) can be shown in diagram (25). v baca 'read' merges with mengto form the active formmembaca 'to read'. then, ibu 'mother' moves to spec/vc to be assigned a nominative case by meng-. the passive sentence (23) and (24) has the same d-structure and syntactic processes as (22) except that vc is diin (23) and vc in (24) is a passive with the ability meaning. to sum up the discussion on part, it can be said that english participles -en and -ing have the same status as an inflection which heads a phrase. it forms a phrase (partp), it takes a vp as its complement, and it also assigns a nominative case. consequently, with the status of part as a head of partp, a verb in the -en and -ing form does not enter the generation of a passive, perfect, or progressive sentence as a stem+-en or stem+-ing form, but as stem form. a stem+en form and stem+-ing form result in as process of merging v with part. from the discussion of the derived verbs clarify, emphasize, and empower, it can also be said that the three-level analysis of vp is internally motivated. the structure of a vp with a head like clarify, emphasize, and empower can only be explained with the x-bar theory. the auxiallary verb be and have the verb be occurs with a verb in the -en form to show the passive voice like in (1) and with a verb in the -ing form to show the progressive aspects like in (2). the verb have occurs with the -en form. the occurrence of be with verb in the -en form and -ing form in (1) and (2) respesctively and the occurrence of have with a verb in the -en form like in (3) may only show one of the fuctions of the auxiliary verbs. the 6 english passive voice and aspects auxiliary verbs also occur with several different forms of verbs of constructions. the auxiliary verb be occurs with different phrase categories in (26) − (30). (26) (a) john is very helpful. (b) john is [ap very helpful]. (27) (a) john is a good student. (b) john is [np a good student]. (28) (a) john is in the library. (b) john is [pp in the library]. (29) (a) john is to do the decoration. (b) john is [tp to do the decoration]. (30) (a) the problem is that the workers often came late. (b) the problem is [cp that the workers often came late]. the verb be occurs with anap in (26), an np in (27), a pp like in (28), a cp headed by that like in (29), and a tp headed by to in (30). the analysis of tp as the complement of be in (29) follows the theory that tp or ip can be headed by a modal like can, may, and must, -es or -ed, and to. the complement of the verb want in (31) and plan in (32) is, then, also tp. (31) (a) john wants to go to the movie. (b) john wants [tp to go to the movie]. (32) (a) ricky plans to finish his study in july. (b) ricky plans [tp to finish his study in july]. the complement of be in (1) and (2), which are rewritten as (33) and (34) below, is, therefore, also partp. (33) the proposal was accepted. (34) john is reading the book. part as the head of partp, then, takes a vp as its complement. the structure of the vp with be as the head in (33) can be displayed in (35). the vp with be as the head in (34) has the same structure as (35) except that part is – ing and the vp is [vp john read the book]. the auxiliary verb have also occurs with different phrase categories like in (36) (38). (36) (a) john has a problem. (b) john has [np a problem]. (37) (a) john has to submit his work by friday. (b) john has [tp to submit his work by friday]. (38) (a) john has his employees work for eight hours a day. (b) john has [cp his employees work for eight hours a day]. the verb have has an np as its complement in (36), a tp headed by to in (37), and a vp in (38). the status of np as a complement of have is clear, and the status of tp as a complement of have can be understood from the status of to before an infinitive verb. to before an infinitive verb is infl with a [tense] feature (chomsky, 1981) or simply t in later literature on generative grammar (breul, focus structure in generative grammar: an ingrated syntactic, semantic and intonational approach, 2004; epstein & seely, 2006; baker, 2008; roy, 2013). the status of vp as the complement of have in (38) can be compared with a vp which becomes the complement of the verb see in (39) and hear in (40). (39) (a) i saw danny take the camera.. english passive voice and aspects 7 beyond words vol.7 no.1 [may, 2019] (b) i saw [vp danny take the camera]. (c) i saw him take the camera. (40) (a) i heard brian lock his door. (b) i heard [vp brian lock his door]. (c) i heard him lock his door. in (39), danny and the camera form a vp with the verb take as the head, and in (40) the npsbrian and his door form a vp with the verb lock as the head. with the capability of the verb be and have to take different phrase categories as its complement, it can also be concluded that be in (7) and (8) and have in (6), which are rewritten below as (41a) − (42a) also take partp as its complement. (41) (a) the villagers were empowered by the meetings. (b) [vp [v' be partp [part'-en [vp the meetings empower the villagers]]]]] (42) (a) the president is emphasizing the need for tolerance. (b) [vp [v' be [partp [part'-ing [vp the president emphasize the need for tolerance]]]]] (43) (a) the minister has clarified his statement. (b) [vp [v' have [partp [part'-en [vp the minister clarify his statement]]]]] the structure of (41a) − (43a) are displayed in (41b) − (43b) respectively. the auliary verb be or have takes a partp headed by -en or -ing to show a passive voice, a progressive aspect, or a perfect aspect. then, part takes a vp as its complement. as part is a bound morpheme, it absorbs the head of the vp and merges with it. the structure of passive, progressive, and perfect sentences as is obvious from the discussion so far, a passive sentence and a progressive sentence, and a perfect sentence are produced with a series process of complementation. the same as any other sentence, a passive, progressive, and perfect sentence is a cp, and c takes a tp as its complement, and what makes the three kinds of sentence different is what the head of the vp which t takes as its complement is and what the head of partp which the verb takes as its complement is. in a passive sentence, t takes a vp headed by be, and be takes a partp headed by -en. the structure of sentence (41a) can be displayed in diagram (44). english passive voice and aspects 8 beyond words vol.7 no.1 [may, 2019] as seen in (44), in the d-structure-edtakes a vp headed by be, be takes partp headed by –ento show the passive voice, and –en takes vp the meetings empower the people. the suffix –ed absorbs and merges with be to form were, and the suffix–en absorbs and mergers with empower to form empowered. the subject of (44), the villagers, is base-generated as comp/v and moves cyclicly to the position of spec/t. the np first moves to spec/part first, then to spec/v, and finally to spec/t. the movement of the np to the spec/part is supported with sentences like (17) and (18), which are rewritten as (45a) and (46a). (45) (a) his hands handcuffed, the criminal was brought to court. (b) [partp his hands [part' –en [vp (sb) [v' handcuff t1] (46) (a) all his money spent, the young man had nothing to eat. (b) [partp all his money1 [part' –en [vp (the young man) [v' spend t1] as can be seen in the non-finite clause of (45a) and (46a), his hands and all his money are base-generated as the complement of handcuff and spend respectively. the two arguments move to spec/part to be caseassigned. spec/part is a legitimate position for an argument. the specifier position of be is also a legitimate position for an argument. it can be seen in (47) and (48). (47) (a) i cannot see the team be defeated. (b) i cannot see [vp the team1 [v' be [partp t1 [part – en [vp (sb) defeat t1]]]]] (48) (a) you have to make your voice be heard. (b) you have to make [vp your voice1 [v' be [partp t1 [part –en [vp (sb) hear t1]]]]] in (47), the argument the team is basegenerated as the complement of defeat, and then it moves to the spec/part position and finally to spec/be. similarly, in (48) the argument your voice is base-generated as the complement of hear, and then it moves to spec/p and finally to spec/be. a progressive sentence has the same structure as a passive sentence. the progressive sentence (42a), rewritten below as (49), can be displayed in (50). (49) the president is emphasizing the need for tolerance. in (50), t takes a vp headed by be as its complement, and be takes partp headed–ing to show the progressive meaning. t as a bound morpheme absorbs be and merges english passive voice and aspects 9 beyond words vol.7 no.1 [may, 2019] with it forming is. part–ing takes a vp headed by emphasize. then, it absorbs emphasize and merges with it, forming emphasizing. the verb emphasize has the argument the president as spec/v and the need for tolerenceas comp/v. as it is not a passive sentence, the spec/v the president moves cyclicly to the spec/t position. first, it moves to the spec/part position, to the spec/be position, and finally to the spec/t to become to the subject of the sentence. the movement of the president to its final position at the spec/t is legitimate. the first landing-site of the argument, spec/part, is a legitimate position. the argument her kids in the non-finite clause of (51) and the workers in the non-finite clause of (52) also occupy the spec/part position. (51) (a) her kids going to school, mrs. smith has more time for herself. (b) [partp her kids [part' –ing [vp t1 [v' go to school]]]] (52) (a) the workers working late, diana could not go home early. (b) [partp the workers1 [part' –ing [vp t1 [v' work late] as can be seen in (51), her kids is basegenerated as spec/go and moves to spec/part, and in (50) the workersis basegenerated as spec/work and moves to spec/part as well. the movement of the president from spec/part to spec/be is also legitimate. as sentences (51) and (52) show, spec/be can be occupied by an argument. a perfect sentence has the same structure as a passive sentence and progressive sentence. the structure of (43), rewritten below as (53), can be displayed in diagram (54). (53) the minister has clarified his statement. the sentence has –es as the head of tp. the inflection takes a vp headed by have as its complement. the inflection, then, absorbs and merges with have to form has in agreement with spec/t. have takes a partp headed by –en, which, in turn, takes a vp headed by clarify. the part –en, then, absorbs and merges with clarify forming clarified. 10 english passive voice and aspects the subject of (54) is base-generated as spec/clarify. then, it moves cyclicly to spec/part, spec/have, and finally spec/t. the movement is legitimate as the landingsite which it temporarily occupies is a position which an argument may occupy. a sentence which has both a passive voice and progressive or perfect aspect or have both the perfect aspect and the progressive aspect contains two partps. sentences (55) and (56) below have two partps. (55) the house has been sold. (56) she has been doing the practice (for an hour). the structure of (55) can be displayed in diagram (57). in (57), t -es takes vp headed by have, which in turn takes partp headed by -en to show the perfect aspect.have moves to and merges with -es forming has in agreement with spec/t. the upper part -en takes vp headed by be, and be moves to and merges with –en forming been. bealso takes a partp headed by -en to show the passive voice. the lower part takes vp headed by sell. sell, then, moves to and merges with -en forming sold. finally, the argument the house moves cyclicly from spec/sell to spec/t to meet the subject requirement and to be assigned case. the d-structure of (56), which is displayed in diagram (58), is the same as (57). english passive voice and aspects 11 beyond words vol.7 no.1 [may, 2019] as seen in (58), t -es takes a vp headed by have, and have takes partp headed by –en to show the perfect aspect. have moves to and merges with –es forming has in agreement with spec/t. part –en takes a vp headed bybe, be takes partp headed –ing to show the progressive aspect, and –ing takes the vp she do the practice for an hour. be merges with –en forming been, and domerges with –ing forming doing. spec/v she, then, moves cyclicly to spec/t to occupy the subject position, leaving a trace t4in each position it passes. from the discussion of the structure of (54), (57), and (58), it can be seen that a passive sentence, a progressive sentence, and perfect sentence have the same structure. they are all a cp with t takes a vp headed by either the auxiliary verb be or the auxiliary verb have, and the auxiliary verb takes a partp headed by –en or –ing. part, then, takes a vp as its complement. the s-structures of the sentences are derived through a process of merging of the verbs with the bound morphemes and movement of to fill the sentence subject positions. conclusion from the discussion above, some conclusions can be made. firstly,a passive sentence, a progressive sentence, and a perfect sentence as cps are generated in the same way and have the same d-structure. t takes a vp headed by be or have, and the verb takes a partp headed by –en or –ing according to the voice or aspect. part –en or –ing takes as its complement a vp with a full verb as head or beas the head to show a passive voice or progressive aspect if part does not show a passive voice or progressive aspect. secondly, the participle affixes (part) – en and –ingas inflections are present in the generation of a passive, progressive, and 12 english passive voice and aspects perfect sentence as a syntactic unit. part forms a phrase which becomes the complement of be or have and takes a vp as its complement. part also shares the capacity of t (-es and –ed) to assign a nominative case to an argument. thirdly, or finally, a unified analysis of the english passive voice and progressive and perfect aspects yields a single theory to explain three grammatical processes. the theory observes the principle of economy of derivation and, therefore, may contribute to the explanation of the relative easiness of a child in acquiring his or her mother tongue. references åfarli, t. a. 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(2002). the syntax of spanish. cambridge: cambridge university press. a unified analysis of english passive voice and aspects introduction the participle the auxiallary verb be and have the structure of passive, progressive, and perfect sentences conclusion pragmatics of greetings 43 beyond words vol. 7 no. 1 (may 2019) the interlanguage pragmatics of greetings galina shleykina shleykg@miamioh.edu miami university usa abstract the present study centers on interlanguage and cross-cultural pragmatics. it investigates semantic formulas (sf) in the speech act of greeting as performed by russian efl learners. in particular, it compares the non-native speakers’ (nns) and native speakers’ (ns) production of sf in terms of number, frequency, and content. a free discourse completion test (fdct) containing 16 situational prompts elicited greetings by the english nnss and nss. the results demonstrate significant differences in ns and nns production in terms of number, frequency, and content of greetings strategies, namely, greetings proper, phatic questions and phrases, address terms, and situational greetings. the differences result from negative pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic transfer, lack of appropriate linguistic means, attitude towards the fdct, and induced instruction. important pedagogical implications for pragmatic instruction are discussed. the results contribute to a better understanding of how efl learners greet and respond to greetings. they also shed light on the discussion of l2 learners’ pragmatic competence and appropriateness. keywords: interlanguage, cross-cultural pragmatics, speech acts, greetings. introduction in the recent years, in the fields of applied linguistics and teaching english as a second/ foreign language, interlanguage pragmatics (ilp) – acquisition and use of second language (sl) or foreign language (fl) pragmatics – has drawn extensive research interest (alcónsoler &martínez-flor, 2008; culpeper, mackey, & taguchi, 2018; martínez-flor &usó-juan, 2010a; taguchi, 2019; trosborg, 2010). among many directions in ilp research, such as politeness strategies, conversational implicatures, turntaking, discourse markers, and others, the central attention of the researchers in crosslinguistic ilphas was devoted to the production of speech acts by non-native speakers (nnss) of different languages. among a variety of speech acts, requests and apologies are the most well-studied (blumkulka, house, & kasper, 1989; trosborg, 1995).research has demonstrated that performing speech acts is a complex task which requires linguistic as well and communicative and pragmatic competence. in the process of speech acts production, a target language(l2)learner relies not only on the linguistic rules – phonetics, phonology, morphology, semantics, and syntax, but also on the appropriate use of these rules and interactional norms according to a specific context. in other words, in order to interact successfully in the immediate as well as broad 44 pragmatics of greetings socio-cultural context, a learner should develop communicative, pragmatic, and interactional competences. such communication includes performing appropriate utterances and communicative tasks and also joint construction and negotiation of meaning in a dynamic discourse (taguchi, 2017). this becomes vital under today’s conditions of globalization and multiculturalism with the goal of current english as a second language (esl) pedagogy to create conditions for effective cross-cultural interaction between speakers of different languages and representatives of different cultures (savignon, 2018). previous literature has documented and described difficulties that sl and fl learners of all proficiency levels encounter in acquisition ofl2 communicative rules and pragmatic norms (bardovi-harlig, 2001). it has been shown that the learners often inappropriately transfer pragmalinguistic (linguistic forms) and sociopragmatic (sociocultural and contextual conventions) rules of their native language (l1) into the l2 production (thomas, 1983). such pragmatic transfer often leads to communicative breakdowns, misunderstandings, and pragmatic failure. pragmatic errors or “errors of appropriacy” (crandall &basturkmen, 2004, p. 38) are perceived as serious by native speakers (nss) and compared to grammatical or vocabulary errors are “less easily forgiven” (yates, 2010, p. 288) and might beseen asoffensive, disrespectful, and rude. developing competence in performing speech acts is therefore of paramount importance in relation to successful communication. it becomes especially important in the case of performing the speech act of greeting considering its significant social function in speech communities. greetings are keys for establishing and maintaining contacts and for language learners serve “as a door to the target culture” (kakiuchi, 2005, p. 63). knowledge and appropriate use of greetings is an important component of l2 communicative and pragmatic competences: “the more speakers understand the cultural context of greetings, the better the society appreciates them, and the more they are regarded as well behaved” (schleicher, 1997, p. 334). literature review the speech act theory views greetings as ritualized speech utterances which lack propositional content and denotational meaning (austin, 1962; searle, 1969). their main function is social: to establish and reestablish relations and to acknowledge differences in social status (goffman, 1971). moreover, greetings represent politeness, distinguish and recognize hearer (h), express attitudes of speaker (s) towards h, attract attention, and are expected in a certain social situation. the choice of greetings in a particular culture depends on different factors such as social status, age, gender, degree of familiarity, and degree of intimacy or distance (ferguson, 1981; laver, 1981). in the politeness theory, brown and levinson (1987) characterize greetings as face-saving acts (fsa)since they demonstrate positive politeness, phatic communication, and establish relationships in a non-threatening atmosphere. however, if greetings violate a variable of power (p) or social distance (d), they may turn into a face-threatening act pragmatics of greetings 45 (fta). in regards to greetings, brown and levinson’s formula for determination the weight of an fta wx= d (s,h) + p (h,s) + rx might be revised as x= d (s,h) + p (h,s) + … (qian, 1996), where x is the degree of greeting politeness. it varies if variables of d or p change. for example, in the dialogues “hey buddy! – hey! glad to see you here!” and “how do you do, mr. smith? – how do you do, mr. jones? i am pleased to meet you” the variables of p and d are contextually different. consequently, x–the greeting politeness–is changed (qian, p. 36). the suggested formula is open-ended as other factors, for example, time of day, communicative intention, number of interlocutors and so on, may interfere (felecan, 2015; qian, 1996). traditionally, verbal greetings in english are classified according to time indication, contextual factors (p, d, age (a), etc.), and lexico-semantic content. first, english greetings are divided into time-free (such as “hello,” “how are you?”) and time-bound (such as “good morning,” “good afternoon”) (halliday, 1975). another classification distinguishes formal and informal greetings (greere, 2005; leech &svartvik, 2002). formal greetings denote formality of context and are used in business situations, with interlocutors of higher p and a, and unfamiliar or not so well familiar interlocutors. informal greetings have more variability and flexibility and are used between family members, friends, p and a peers, and in informal situations in general. finally, greetings are distinguished by the social context: different kinds of service encounters, telephone calls, media broadcasts, personalized greetings, and other (qian, 1996). specific opening phrases functioning as a greeting or preceding it are expected in these contexts, e. g. the phrase “can i help you?” in service encounters; summons in telephone calls (schegloff, 1986); summons in academic office hours (limberg, 2010); “nice to meet you,” “how do you do,” “my name is …” in introductory greetings (greere, 2005; masi, 2008); and inquiries about interlocutor’s health, feelings, family, compliments or remarks appropriate to the situation in personalized greetings. in cross-linguistic descriptive studies, greetings from a number of languages chinese (li, 2009; ma, 2000; qian, 1996), vietnamese (suu, 1990), polish (jakubowska, 1998), spanish (pinto, 2008), thai (bornmann, 2001), persian (negargar, 2015; salmani-nodoushan, 2007), german and spanish (feller, 2007), italian (bonsignori, bruti, &masi, 2011)– have been compared to english. these studies demonstrate the diversity of greetings and their contextual, social, and linguistic variability. the determining factors can be d, p,a, gender, or socio-religious norms of a community. such variability presents a challenge for l2 learners in terms of linguo-cultural comprehension and linguistic production. for instance, chinese and thai greetings “have you eaten?” or “where are you going?” might become ftas for english speakers (li, 2009; sukwiwat & fieg, 1987). in contrast, for chinese speakers such greetings “show concern for others’ welfare and at the same time maintain the hearer’s positive face” (li, p. 74). another example of a challenge for l2 learners is the english greeting phatic questions such as “how are you?” because of 46 pragmatics of greetings the “mismatch between the literal meaning, or locutionary force, of the utterance and its intended meaning, or illocutionary force” (sykes, 2018, p. 121),this phrase might be perceived as a genuine question about wellbeing, leading to misunderstandings, cultural profiling (kartalova, 1996), and pragmatic failure (jaworski, 1994). in ilp research, the speech act of greeting has been under studied. although many greetings are relatively straightforward and formulaic (baratta, 2009),they can involve extensive forms and additional contextual features emerging in context and during interaction (baratta, 2009; duranti, 1997). in this regard, the speech act of greeting mightpresent difficulties for l2 learners (waring, 2012) and consequently is of interest for ilp scholarship. nonetheless, the studies exploring the ilp aspect of greetingsare scarce up to date. few studies analyze the nnss’ production of english greetings. the first one done by ebsworth, bodman, and carpenter (1995) looked at the types of english greetings performed by english nnss with various l1s. the analysisof discourse completion tests (dct) and role-plays demonstratedsignificant difficulties that english learners at the advanced level of proficiency have with producing and responding to english greetings. pragmatic transfer, sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic deficiencies, and a limited variety of greeting phrases were noted. the second study – bykakiuchi (2005) –analyzed greetings in conversations by nss of american english and japanese nnss of english and found nnss to be less target-like and showing low variability in greetings. gharaghani, eslami-rasekh, dabaghi, and tohidian (2011) further confirmed and exemplified challenges for english learners in the production of greetings. in their research, persian efl learners inappropriately transferred l1 greeting strategies into the english production, which led to pragmatic failure. in addition to these three studies, several others direct attention to the l2 production of greetings in languages other than english. omar (1991) explored greeting performance by learners of kiswahili. du fon (1999) focused on the process of acquisition of indonesian greetings. lastly, sithebe (2011) analyzed greetings produced by american learners of swazi. these studies provide additional evidence on the complexities of greetings and challenges for l2 learners. the current article aims to address the research gaps outlined above. adopting crosslinguistic comparative perspective, it analyzes the production of the speech act of greeting from the ilp view and identifies and explains differences between ns and nns production of this particular speech act. the following research questions are addressed in this article: are semantic formulas (sf) in greetings produced by russian efl learners different or similar to those produced by english nss in terms of their number, frequency, and content? what types of greetings exhibit differences/ similarities? methods the data for the present research wa scollected through a free discourse completion test(fdct). it has undergone two rounds of piloting for prompts revising and rewording, ensuring comprehensibility for the nns respondents, feasibility to pragmatics of greetings 47 answer, and practicality to administer. the final version included 16 situational prompts with the contextual variables of p, d, a, and formality (f) which, as discussed above, influence greetings production significantly. the prompts in the fdct represent all possible configurations of p, d, a, and f variables for the participants. the distribution of variables is represented in table 1. all variables are binary and are presented as follows: +a (h is older than s) and =a (equal age of s and h); +f (formal situation), -f (informal situation); +d (s and h do not know each other), -d (s and h know each other); +p(h has more power than s) and =p (power status of s and h is equal). in the p variable, the possible scenario of -p (s has more p than h) was not included in the fdct, as the participants were undergraduate students and it might have been unfeasible for them to envision contexts of greeting someone of less p. the complete fdct is presented in appendix 1. table 1. variables distribution between items of the fdct two groups of participants were employed: nnss of english – efl students in a russian university (n=50), and nss of american english – undergraduate students in an american university (n=40). both groups answered demographic questions on their age, gender, and university major. the nnss group was additionally asked about the 48 pragmatics of greetings number of years of english learning and opportunities to use english outside the classroom. the majors of the nns participants were english language and literature (52%), finnish and english languages (36%), andjournalism (12%). ns participants had a variety of majors – english, german, arts, music, history, geography, psychology, sociology, business and finance, botany, strategic communication, engineering, and political science. nns participants were 10% male and 90% female; ns – 30% male and 70 % female. age of both groups was between 18 and 24 years (the mean – 19.5 years). for the nnss, the number of years of english learning varied from five to 16 years (the mean – 9.8 years). regarding using english outside the classroom, 38% of the nnss never communicate in english, 28% – rarely, 26% – sometimes, and 8% – often;14% have travelled to countries where english is used for communication. for the nns group, the prompts of the fdct were written both in l1 and l2 in order to ascertain their full understanding. the test was run during class time or immediately after it by the researcher or cooperating university instructors. the ns participants completed the fdct at their convenience. in the current study, following the method of data analysis used in crosslinguistic ilp research (bardovi-harlig, 2009;bardovi-harlig, bastos, burghardt, chappetto, nickels, & rose, 2010; bardoviharlig & hartford, 1990; beebe, takahashi, uliss-weltz, 1990; keshavarz, eslamirasekh, &ghahraman, 2006), semantic formulas (sf) – components of a speech act (cohen, 1996) – were used as major units of analysis. sf of greetings produced in the fdcts were identified and coded. the sf in the present data include the constituents of ,english greetings: greetings proper, address terms, and elements of phatic communication (bonsignori et al., 2011; greere, 2005; sacks, 1975) and were coded as follows: 1. greetings proper. this category was further divided into time-free/ time-bound and formal/ informal variants. for example, “hello” is time-free, neutral greeting proper; “hey” is time-free, informal greeting proper; “good afternoon” is time-bound, formal greeting proper. 2. address terms. this category was further divided into personal names, university titles (doctor, professor), honorifics (mr./ mrs., sir/ madam), and colloquial addresses (man, dude); 3. phatic questions. this category was further divided into neutral (how are you?), formal (how do you do?), and informal (what’s up?) questions; 4. phatic phrases (nice to see you/ nice to meet you); 5. situational greetings. this category includes contextualized or individualized phrases or questions which serve as a greeting in specific circumstances of the constructed dialogue. for example, the greeting “hi, john! what’s up?” includes the following components – sf: time-free informal greeting proper ‘hi’, a personal name, and the informalphatic question. in order to ensure the reliability of coding and further analysis, a second coder coded 10% of the data, a sufficient amount for pragmatics of greetings 49 establishing raters’ reliability (mackey &gass, 2005, p. 243). the results were highly reliable (97%), with disagreements being resolved through discussion. the number of sf was calculated and compared between the two participant groups. the mean number of all sf was calculated by dividing the total sf number by the number of responses (total # of sf / n). the mean number of particular sf was calculated by dividing the total number of particular sp by the number of responses (total # of particular sf / n). in order to determine whether there is a difference in the number of produced sf between the two groups and whether the difference is significant, the chi-square test was conducted, and the p-value was calculated. the frequency of sf was calculated as the percentage of the total number of sf produced by the respondents ([total # of particular sf / total # ofsf] x 100) (bardovi-harlig & hartford, 1993, p. 147). for qualitative analysis, the nnss’ responses were examined from the sf perspective in relation to nss’ responses; attention was paid to the features and content of obtained discourse data. results and discussion table 2 presents the numbers of sf produced in the entire fdct and the mean in the two participant groups. table 2 numbers and mean of sf in ns and nns data as shown in table 2, the total mean of sf produced by the ns and nns groups is similar. in other words, in average, the nss and nnss produced similar number of sf in 50 pragmatics of greetings the entire fdct. for the total number of sf, x2= 0.0384, p=.844567 which is not significant at p < .05. however, the results of the mean of sf per each fdct item(#1-16) are different: they demonstrate discrepancies between the nss and nnss. mainly, the number of sf varied depending on p and d. the nnss produced a higher number ofsf when greeting status peers (=p) in items# 1-3. more sf were also produced in introductory greetings (+d) in items # 9-16. a lower number of sf was produced in greeting status superiors – university professors and instructors (+p) in items # 5-8. the higher number of sf in the nnss’ production can be accounted for by an interlanguage characteristic known as “waffle phenomenon” (edmonson & house, 1991). it refers to “excessive use of linguistic forms to fill a specific discourse ‘slot’ or ‘move, i.e. achieve a specific pragmatic goal” (pp. 273274). according to blum-kulka and olshtain (1986), such verbosity and overuse ofsf is evident in more proficient learners. in producing a high number of words and excessive elaboration, they demonstrate “a desire to ‘play it safe’ by making propositional and pragmatic meanings as transparent as possible” (ellis, 2003, p. 172). additionally, the l2 learners may not be entirely competent in the usage range and appropriateness of a particular sf (edmondson & house, 1991). as blumkulka and olshtain (1986) and edmondson and house (1991) showed, nnss produced longer dct responses for the speech acts of requests and apologies. in these studies, the nnss used fewer formulas and a higher number of words compared to the nss. such verbosity was intended to communicate information and express themselves more clearly. the current research partially supports these results. in the present study, the nnss similarly exhibited “waffling;” however, it is found not in the number of discrete words but in the number of sf. the nnss used strings of formulas in order to highlight the illocutionary meaning, to ensure its complete understanding, and to achieve the overall communicative goal. for example, a typical nns greeting of a peer(=p, =a, -f, d) includes three sf contrasting with the single-formula ns greeting, as shown in (1) and (2): (1) oh, hi! it’s so good to meet you. how are you? (nns 4, dialogue 1); (2) hey (ns 1, dialogue 1). additionally, the high numbers of formulas in fdct items # 1-3 and # 9-16 can be explained by the nnss’ attitude towards the fdct. they treated it as a serious task and intended to demonstrate their competence and ability to produce long and extended utterances in l2 (ellis, 2003; faerch & kasper, 1989). the nss, on the other hand, did not have to prove their proficiency and responded to the fdct dialogues in the most natural manner approaching and resembling natural conversations. as one of the ns respondents commented, “this is how i really talk most the time” (ns 12). the second interesting finding regarding the number of sf in the nns production is the low numbers of formulas in the fdct items# 5-8. such production was influenced by and transferred from politeness rules and communication style of l1. as shown in the literature (bergelson, 2012; larina, 2009; wierzbicka, 2002), russians are more verbose with close friends and peers than with pragmatics of greetings 51 superiors and typically find it inappropriate to converse and to engage in small talk with status superiors. in this study this observation is supported by the use of the phatic question “how are you?” which was produced less frequently by the nnss in greeting status superiors as will be discussed further. to summarize, in the entire fdct, the nnss did not produce significantly higher number of sf as compared to the nss. however, the numbers of sf vary in each fdct item depending on the factors of p, a, and d. the nnss were more verbose with p and a equals and in introductory greetings of all types, and less verbose – with p superiors. the next part presents and discusses the results of particular sf production of the two groups. the distribution of particular sf in their number, mean and frequency in the ns and nnss data is presented in table 3. table 3. number, mean, and frequency of particular sf in the ns and nns data as shown in table 3, the statistically significant differences (p < .05) are found in the production of the following sf: greetings proper “hello,” “hey,” and time-bound greetings; terms of address – titles and honorifics; phatic questions; phatic phrases; and situational greetings (fdct items# 1-8). the first significant difference is found in the greetings “hello,” “hey,” and time-bound phrases: the nnss employed “hello” and 52 pragmatics of greetings time-bound greeting frequently and the nss – the greeting “hey” frequently. this result can be explained by the induced instruction as well as sociopragmatic transfer of the l1 norms. traditionally, efl classes present and use “hello,” “hi,” and time-bound greetings as typical and standard. besides, these phrases correspond to russian greetings: a more formal – здравствуй/ здравствуйте (zdrastvuy/ zdrastvuyte) corresponding to “hello”, and a more informal – привет (privet), corresponding to “hi”, making the use of these english greetings easier for the learners. in contrast, the greeting “hey” does not have a single translational equivalent. thus, as the data showed, the nns production of “hey” was very limited. the nnss were not completely competent and confident in its usage and “played safe” (ellis, 2003, p. 172) preferring the neutral “hello”. in addition, they used time-bound greetings frequently which can be explained by the high level of politeness of their equivalents in l1. the nnss used such greetings in order not to insult the interlocutor and not to sound inappropriate. the second significant difference was observed in the production of address terms, namely in the use of titles and honorifics to address professors and personal names to address instructors. the nss employed titles (such as doctor and professor) to address their professors, the nnss – honorifics (such as mr., mrs.). such production stems from the differences in academic culture in l1 and l2 environment. besides, it is indicative of insufficient information on the academic address termspresented during efl instruction.another difference in address terms is observed in the use of personal names. the nss used them frequently to address instructors. for the nnss, however, such use was unacceptable. the nnss based their addresses on the politeness norms of l1 being that students must address interlocutors of the higher status – here, teachers – respectfully. consider the following fdct dialogue in example (3): (3) hello, nick. shhh. we are in the university. i'm your instructor. excuse me. i didn't want to say it. it's okay. later you'll accustom. (nns 42, dialogue 8). in example (3), a student used the first name to address an instructor. the use of a personal name was perceived as inappropriate in the given context and consequently, the student had to apologize. in russian, students should address all instructors – irrespective of their age – by their first full name and patronymic. using the first name only or its diminutive is considered unacceptable at the university setting. in example (3), the lack of the corresponding linguistic form in l2 caused difficulties in the nnss’ address production. next, the participants demonstrated significant discrepancies in the phatic greeting questions. the nnss employed questions “how are you?” and the like less frequently than the nss. such tendency reveals transfer of l1 politeness rules and a difference in the “how are you?” meaning and use between english and russian. in english, it is a phatic and ritualized phrase the response to which does not imply an elaborate and honest answer. the “how are you?” sequence might open a conversation; however, the phrase primarily serves a social purpose – recognize pragmatics of greetings 53 the presence of an interlocutor, create a conversational routine, and maintain politeness rules of interaction. in russian, the corresponding phrases such as “какдела?” (“kakdela?” – “how are things?”) are ritualized to a lesser extent. such questionsare commonly used among friends, family members, or in-group participants; rarely – among interlocutors who do not know each other well and interlocutors of a higher social status; and never – between strangers. it is regarded more as a genuine question and a conversation opener rather than a routinized greeting. such lingua-cultural differences have led to the lesser use of “how are you?” and similar phrases by the nnss. interestingly, a formal phatic question “how do you do?” – brought up through instruction – occurred in the nns data. while “how do you do?” for the nnss participants was a polite and appropriate way to greet superiors, i.e. professors, “how are you?” seemed an inappropriate question to ask of professors and instructors. a revealing dialogue is given in example (4): (4) hey! how are you? i don’t think it’s appropriate to talk to your university instructor in that way… (nns 1, dialogue 8). in example (4), a student greeted auniversity instructor with an informal greeting “hey” and a neutral phatic question “how are you?” the response to such a greeting showed that the instructor perceived it aa inappropriate attempt to chat, to initiate an informal conversation, breaking the hierarchy subordination of p status between the student and the instructor. lastly, the participant groups showed significant differences in the situational greetings – context-specific phrases and questions. the nnss employed a wide variety of those in fdct dialogues # 1-8: questions “where are you going?” and “what are you doing (here)?”expressions of surprise, personal comments, speech acts of requests, suggestions, offers, compliments, and complaints. such production again refers to the “waffle phenomenon” (edmonson & house, 1991, p. 273)and willingness to demonstrate l2 proficiency(ellis, 2003).in addition, the use of direct questions such as “where are you going?” and direct comments or personal remarks in items# 1-4– greeting friends – might be explained by transfer of l1 socio-pragmatic rules. the russian speakers tend towards straightforwardness and openness in the conversations with friends and close people, thus demonstrating directness, honesty, and content orientation typical for russian communicative style (larina, 2009; wierzbicka, 2002). as we see, the major factors that influenced the nns production of greetings are induced instruction, l1 transfer, low competence in a particular greeting phrase or strategy, desire to sound polite, and attitude towards the fdct as a means to prove l2 proficiency. besides, the nss and nnss applied dissimilar rules of greetings as components of politeness systems in their l1s. for the nss, greetings are mostly casual and informal, even in the academic setting in greetings of status superiors – professors and instructors. for the nnss, such informality is unacceptable. the evidence for such a view is, first, in the high numbers of the informal greeting “hey” in the ns data; second, in the high numbers of time-bound greetings in the nns data, and third, in the low numbers of 54 pragmatics of greetings the “how are you?” question and its informal variants and high numbers of direct questions to status peers in the nns data. conclusion to contribute to the ilp scholarship, the article has established and systematically analyzed a research gap in the area of the speech act of greeting produced by english nnss. the focus of the investigation was the sf in greetings and comparison of nnss and nss production. the study found that the nnss’ production differs from the nss in regards to the number, frequency, and content of sf. the differences were discovered in all components of the speech act – greetings proper, phatic questions and phrases, and address terms. several factors explain the divergences: “waffle phenomenon” (edmonson & house, 1991), explicit demonstration of english competence, insufficient confidence in the use of particular formulas, efforts to use politeness strategies, induced instruction, attitude towards the research instrument – fdct, and pragmatic transfer from l1. the current study has important implications for learners and instructors of esl/ efl. research has demonstrated the benefits and need for explicit instruction of speech acts, cross-linguistic comparisons, cross-cultural awareness (bardovi-harlig, 2001; martínez-flor &usó-juan, 2006; martínez-flor &usó-juan, 2010b; takimoto, 2008), and in general, the explicit strategic approach to development of ilp (cohen, 2018; sykes & cohen, 2018). a variety of materials for pragmatic instruction in general (sykes, 2018; taguchi & sykes, 2012) and teaching greetings and conversation openings in particular have been developed (wong & waring, 2010). an important issue here is the representation of speech acts in efl textbooks which might provide deficient illustrations of speech acts including greetings (kakiuchi, 2005; usó-juan, 2007; williams, 2001). lack of authentic materials and instruction might avert development of pragmatic competence. as the results of the current study demonstrate, some of the learners’ pragmatic choices are directly instruction-related and are influenced by textbooks and classroom discourse. to reduce such limitations of efl pragmatic instruction, teaching materials should include corpusbased data and teachers could become more aware of variability of speech acts uses in the target-language. however, in teaching pragmatics, it is essential to address the needs of the learners and the current conditions of english teaching in a globalizing world. first, the learners may not necessarily aim at achieving native-like pragmatic competence (ishihara &tarone, 2009; kasper, 1998). in contrast, they may deliberately choose to distance themselves from l2 pragmatic behaviors and sustain their nnss’ or multicultural identities through language use (ishihara, 2010). second, and even more importantly, today, most of communication in english is between nnss of english (crystal, 2012).thus, achieving and demonstrating native-like proficiency in language skills, including pragmatic skills, is not the goal of instruction; rather the instruction is oriented on successful interaction when interlocutors constantly negotiate and adjust their language resources to reach a desired communicative goal(house, pragmatics of greetings 55 2010; taguchi & ishihara, 2018). consequently, in teaching pragmatics, we need to consider this dynamics of pragmatic conventions and their instant negotiation (kasper, 2006), and the modern reality of english as a lingua franca (elf) with its “diversity, fluidity, and variability” (jenkins, 2015, p. 50).pragmatic instruction should consider “the users’ cultural content and their sense of appropriate use of english” (mckey, 2003, p. 13) and aim at developing an “inbetween style of interaction” (house, 2003, p. 150) or “hybrid pragmatics” (murray, 2012, p. 4). the results of the present study point out the importance of further research in several directions. first, variables of nnss such as age, gender, university major, l2 proficiency level, and contacts with l2 speakers, and the influence of these variables on the choice of greeting strategies should be studied more in depth. the secondquestion – a more general one – concerns thennss’ attitudes towards ns pragmatic conventions and politeness rules and maintaining multicultural and multicultural identity in l2. anotherinterestingdirection of research is the use of conversational analysis and emic approach in ilp in order tobetter understand talk-in-interaction and the construction of meaning by the participants in the immediate context. additionally,approaches to pragmatic instruction should be investigated further todevelop pragmatic and interactional competence of efl/ esl/ elf learners and users. lastly, the application of the theoretical constructs of communicative, pragmatic, and interactional competences and their significance in elf should be addressed in future research. references alcón soler, e. &martínez-flor, a. 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(2010). convers-ation analysis and second language pedagogy. new york, ny: routlege. yates, l. (2010). pragmatic challenges for second language learners. in a. trosborg (ed.), pragmatics across languages and cultures (pp. 287308). berlin, germany: mouton de gruyter. appendix free discourse completion test (fdct) you need to write a short dialogue for each situation in english that represents typical language that you would use if you were in these situations. 1. you run into a good friend (of the same age with you) in one of the streets in the city. 2. you run into a good friend (of the same age with you) when you come for an internship to a business company/ government agency, etc. 3. you run into a good friend (older than you) at a restaurant/ café. 4. you run into a friend/ a colleague (older than you) when you come to studies/ work on monday morning. 5. you run into your professor on one of the streets in the city. 6. you meet your professor in the university hallway. 7. you run into your university instructor (of the same age with you) in a café in the city. 8. you meet your university instructor (of the same age with you) in the university hallway. 9. at a friend’s party you see someone whom you don’t know (of the same age) who smiles in a friendly manner and seems willing to chat. http://www.jrc.sophia/ 60 pragmatics of greetings 10. on the first day of classes at the university you see a new student (of the same age) and decide to talk to him/her. 11. at a friend’s party you see someone whom you don’t know (older than you) who smiles in a friendly manner and seems willing to chat. 12. on the first day of classes at the university you see a new student who looks older than you and decide to talk to him/her. 13. at a university party you see a new professor whom you don’t know yet and decide to talk to him/ her. 14. you come for a consultation to a new university professor whom you haven’t met before. 15. at a university party you see a new instructor who is of your age and decide to talk to him/ her. you haven’t met the instructor before. 16. you come for a consultation to a new university instructor (of the same age with you) whom you haven’t met before. cohen, a. d. (2018). learning pragmatics from native and nonnative language teachers. bristol, uk: multilingual matters. cohen, a. d. (1996). developing the ability to perform speech acts. studies in second language acquisition, 18, 253-267. crandall, e., &basturkmen, h. (2004). evaluating pragmatics-focused materials. elt journal, 58, 38-49. reading to learn pedagogy 37 applying the reading to learn pedagogy to improve entrepreneurship students’ exposition texts juan gabriel vencesla juan@ukwms.ac.id widya mandala catholic university surabaya surabaya, indonesia article history abstract this article discusses a classroom action research (car) which applied reading to learn (r2l) to teach efl reading and writing with indonesianspeaking entrepreneurial management students at universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya. r2l is a genre based literacy pedagogy based on systemic functional linguistics. this car was designed based on an r2l pilot study conducted a few months earlier, and it consisted of three cycles, each one of which involved detailed reading, joint rewriting, and joint construction. the objective was to help the participants independently write an exposition text. through observation and reflection, the class meetings of the second and third cycles were fine-tuned. observation involved journal entries written by the teacher-researcher and the students. the effects of r2l on the exposition writing skills of the students were measured by comparing a pre-test and a post-test written by the participants. the criteria used to compare both texts were based on rose and martin (2012), and martin and white (2005). it was found that the participants improved in terms of (1) purpose; (2) staging and phases; and (3) attitude. thus, this study serves as further evidence of the effectiveness of the r2l pedagogy to teach english writing in efl contexts like indonesia. received: 04-11-20 reviewed: 22-05-21 accepted: 26-05-21 keywords: reading to learn (r2l); genre based literacy pedagogy; systemic functional linguistics; appraisal theory; efl writing doi https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i1.2808 introduction the faculty of entrepreneurship of widya mandala surabaya catholic university gave me the opportunity to become an assistant lecturer of english-124 from august to december 2018. thirty eight students took this course, and we met for 100 minutes every week. because that course was the only opportunity for the students to https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i1.3143 38 reading to learn pedagogy practice their english skills, the lecturer in charge of english-124 decided to encourage the students to make use of the british council app at home. that way, they would also practice their english skills outside the classroom. the lecturer in charge also required the students to write an english learning journal weekly. the purpose of this requirement was double. firstly, it would help the students develop their english writing skills. secondly, it would help the students reflect on their own learning journey. since the english learning journal was an assignment, i assisted the lecturer in charge to grade it. i made use of the r2l rubric (rose & martin, 2012, p. 282), which is divided in to the following categories: context, discourse, grammar and graphic features. because there were thirty eight students and they had to write a weekly journal entry for thirteen weeks, i analyzed 494 journal entries. the data analysis revealed three writing proficiency level groups: high, medium, and low. the three groups showed weaknesses in terms of context. the medium and low groups also showed weaknesses in terms of discourse, and grammar and graphic features. upon analyzing the students’ journal entries, i came to wonder how to help those students improve their english writing skills. i went through the english as a second and as foreign language writing instruction literature in search of a solution to this problem. hyland (2003) highly recommends the genre-based approach to writing instruction. from all the genre-based approaches to writing instruction, i got particularly interested in the reading to learn (hence, abbreviated r2l) pedagogy because of the effectiveness of the following study. rose and martin (2014) carried out a study with 10,000 participants ranging from kindergarten to junior secondary in western new south wales. all of them underwent r2l instruction for three school terms. the participants were classified into high, middle, and low achieving groups. the participants were given a pre-test and a post-test. the results showed that the kindergarten average score grew by 70%, and the difference between low and high achieving students was reduced from 16% to 8%. the other age groups experienced an average score improvement from 30 to 40%, and the difference between low and high achieving students decreased from 50% to 25%. in addition to the results of this study, i also decided to implement the r2l pedagogy because of the availability of the teacher training books and dvds which make it easy for teachers to learn and implement. literature review to better understand the r2l pedagogy, it is necessary to be familiar with the three main traditions of genre-based writing instruction as described by hyon (1996): systemic functional linguistics, english for specific purposes, and rhetorical genre studies. r2l belongs to the systemic functional linguistics (sfl) tradition, which is also known as the sydney school. its main theoretical principle is known as language in social context, according to which language is “meaning in social context” (rose, 2015a, p. 1). this theory is based on two pillars, the first one of which is the three metafunctions of language: interpersonal, ideational, and textual. rose and martin (2012) explain that the interpersonal metafunction enacts relationships, the ideational metafunction construes our experience, and the textual metafunction relates the text to its context. the second pillar is the division of language into the following levels: phonology and graphology, lexicogrammar, and discourse semantics. reading to learn pedagogy 39 rose and martin (2012) describe phonology as the realisation of words as patterns of sounds in spoken language, and graphology as the realisation of words as patterns of letters in written language. they also describe lexicogrammar as “patterns of meaning within clauses” (2012, p. 19), and discourse as “patterns of meaning across whole texts” (2012, p. 18). based on the metafunctions and levels of language mentioned above, halliday proposes the following three dimensions of social context: field, or social activity; tenor, or social relations; and mode, or relevance in context. according to rose (2015b, p. 2), martin (martin, 1992; martin & rose, 2008) developed halliday’s theory by “stratifying context as two levels”. for him, field, tenor, and mode are three dimensions that make up register, which is the first layer of social context. the second layer is genre or the “global social purpose” of texts (2012, p. 20). rose (2015a) explains that genre is a more abstract stratum than register. that is why, rose and martin (2012, p. 20) also state that genre is a “configuration of tenor, field, and mode”. rose (2015b, p. 2) adds to the definition by stating that “genre specifies the particular combinations of field, tenor, and mode allowed by a given culture, realized by the stages and phases through which a text unfolds.” all the information mentioned in this section is summarized in figure 1. figure 1. a stratified model of language in social context (rose, 2015b, p. 2) the r2l pedagogy has previously been implemented in indonesia, and has also been the object of research of a few studies. one of these studies is listyani (2018) who implemented the r2l pedagogy in the english department of satia wacana christian university. her research was quantitative, and the design was one-group pretest-posttest. she compared the students writing before and after implementing the r2l pedagogy. she did a paired-sample test, and found a 0.048 p-value, which meant that students performed better in their post-test than in their pre-test. another study is samanhudi and sugiarti (2013) who implemented the r2l pedagogy in the sampoerna school of education. they did a qualitative research with a case study design. twelve of the participants were eflteaching department students, and the other eight were math-teaching department students. their instruments were texts written by the participants, class observations, interviews, and journals written at the end of every class. they concluded that the participants’ writing improved after the implantation of the r2l pedagogy. there have also been studies conducted in the indonesian high school context like kartika-ningsih (2015), and damayanti (2017). the present study aims at contributing to the research of the r2l pedagogy implementation in the indonesian context, in which english is a foreign language. while previous studies report the implementation of 40 reading to learn pedagogy the r2l pedagogy in indonesian high schools (damayanti, 2017; kartika-ningsih, 2015), and teaching departments (listyani, 2018; samanhudi and sugiarti, 2013), this study reports the implementation of the r2l pedagogy in the faculty of entrepreneurship of universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya. from the age point of view, these entrepreneurship students are similar to the teaching department students reported in previous studies, but their field of study is different. also, this research focuses on the exposition genre, whereas listyani (2018) taught academic writing, and samanhudi and sugiarti (2013) taught the discussion genre. this present research also has a different research design from those two studies; this is a classroom action research (car). methods participants the participants of this research were three students from the faculty of entrepreneurship of universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya. in the odd semester (august-december) of the 20182019 academic year they took the english124 course, which is the only english language learning course offered by the faculty. in that english course, their weak efl writing skills became evident through their english language learning journals. to help them overcome those weaknesses, they were invited to participate in an r2l program in the even semester (january-may) of the same academic year (2018-2019). three english-124 students agreed to participate. they were eighteen year old at that time, and their first language is bahasa indonesia. the design this study followed a classroom action research (car) design, based on the stages proposed by kemmis and mctaggart (1986): planning, action, observation, and reflection. a description of each stage is provided below. planning in the planning stage, a solution was searched to help the english-124 course students overcome their difficulties to write in english. from all the genre-based approaches to efl writing instruction, r2l was selected because of its research-based evidence of effectiveness (acevedo & lövstedt, 2014; blecua sánchez & sánchez garrido, 2017; damayanti, 2017; gouveia, 2014; kartika-ningsih, 2015; millin, 2011; pedrosa, 2017; rose & martin, 2014; samanhudi & sugiarti, 2013; whittaker, 2014; whittaker & garcía parejo, 2018; wildsmith-cromarty & steinke, 2014). after r2l was selected as the means to help the students, a pilot study was conducted during the english-124 course in november 2018. based on the results of the pilot study, an r2l intervention program was designed to be implemented in the following semester (january-may) of the same academic year (2018-2019). it was decided that the students would learn exposition writing in the intervention program. the dean of the faculty personally invited the english-124 students to participate in this intervention program. action. the r2l intervention program was conducted in march-may 2019. this car took three cycles in the hope of finetuning subsequent cycles through observation, and reflection. each cycle took three weeks. table 1 presents the details of the car schedule. observation. the data collected in the observation stage were the opinion of both participants and teacher-researcher about the performance of the participants in class. opinion not related to the participants’ reading to learn pedagogy 41 performance in class was not taken into account for the purpose of this study. thus, the participants’ performance is the unit of analysis of this study. the participants’ written opinion was collected through a dialogue journal written at the end of each meeting. a dialogue journal is defined by griffee (2012) as a journal written by the students to the teacher. the researcher’s written opinion was collected through a diary journal written at the end of each meeting. griffee (2012, p. 204) defines a diary journal as “a document maintained by an individual writing a report to himself or herself on some topic area, such as learning a language or teaching a course.” to determine whether the participants’ exposition writing skills improved as a result of the intervention program, a pre-test and a post-test were administered before and after the program respectively. both the pre-test and the post-test were exposition writing tests. the issue of the pre-test was, “should cigarettes be banned in indonesia?” and the issue of the post-test was “should social media be illegal for people under 18?” the students could take as much time as they needed to complete both tests. reflection. in the reflection stage, the observation data was analyzed so as to come up with ideas to better implement r2l in the following cycles. first of all, the data from the participants’ dialogue journals, and researchers’ diary journal, were analyzed based on the technique proposed by griffee (2012). the first step was to thoroughly read the journals to search for themes, especially themes which happened more than once. the second step was to tally up the occurrences of each theme. the third step was to sort the themes logically. the fourth step was to support those themes with quotes taken from the journals. table 1. classroom action research schedule cycle car stage r2l curriculum genre date cycle 1 planning novembermarch action preparing for reading and detailed reading march 18-24 joint rewriting march 25-31 joint construction april 1-7 reflection cycle 2 planning april 8-14 action preparing for reading and detailed reading joint rewriting april 15-21 joint construction april 22-28 reflection cycle 3 planning april 29may 5 action preparing for reading and detailed reading joint rewriting may 6-12 joint construction may 13-19 reflection 42 reading to learn pedagogy the pre-tests and the post-tests were analyzed in terms of purpose, staging, phases, and attitude. the analysis of purpose, staging, and phases was based on the teacher resource package developed by rose (2015c, book 2 and book 3). the purpose of the exposition genre is to claim for one’s point of view. the stages of exposition texts are thesis, arguments, and restatement. the phases of exposition texts are position statement, preview of arguments, topic, elaboration, review of arguments, and position restatement. the analysis of attitude was based on martin and white (2005), and martin and rose (2007). there are three types of attitudinal resources: affect, judgments, and appreciation. results the implementation of r2l regarding the detailed reading meetings, the sample exposition text selected for the first cycle was entitled, “australia day should be celebrated on the 26th of january”. it was found that the participants could not easily follow the teacher’s sentence preparation comments because of their low english listening proficiency level, so it was decided that the teacher would prepare the sentences using both english and bahasa indonesia. the sample text read in the second cycle was entitled, “in favour of progress”. in this second session, the teacher prepared the sentences using both english and bahasa indonesia. even if the teacher used bahasa, the participants still found the text difficult to understand. because the students needed additional time to understand the text, there was no time left for the researcher to teach the text’s stages, phases, and attitudinal resources. the sample text selected for the third cycle was entitled, “traffic must be reduced in central sydney”. just like it happened in the previous cycle, the participants still had difficulty understanding the text. the joint rewriting meetings were meant to help the participants learn “to appropriate the language resources of accomplished authors, and to control technical, abstract and literary language” (rose, 2015b, p. 8). because the focus of the intervention program was the exposition genre, it was very important for the participants to learn the attitudinal resources. in the first cycle, the teacher decided not to direct their attention to the attitudinal resources because they had much difficulty rewriting the text. it was too difficult for them to come up with synonyms and suitable words to express their ideas. in the second cycle, the teacher began the session by teaching the metalanguage for attitudinal resources. then, he focused the participants’ attention to the attitudinal resources. they were able to rewrite some of them, but they found it very difficult. in the third cycle, the participants were also able to rewrite some attitudinal resources. however, it was difficult for them, and it took them much time to finish. as a result, there was not enough time for them to learn the metalanguage for the other systems of discourse: ideation, conjunction, and identification. in the joint construction meetings, the participants were expected to write a complete text together with the teacher. in the first cycle, it became clear that the time was just enough for them to learn the stages and phases of the exposition genre; there was no time left for them to work on their language patterns. in any case, the participants had already had the opportunity to improve their language patterns in the joint rewriting meetings. in the second cycle, it also became evident that the participants had much difficulty coming up with the reading to learn pedagogy 43 arguments. they needed to understand that the arguments were meant to support their position statement. thus, in the third cycle, the teacher especially focused on helping them to think of the arguments. the texts written by the participants table 2 shows a short description of the purpose of the pre-tests and post-tests based on the progression rubrics of rose (2015c, book 3). it can be seen that both participants 1 and 2 wrote a pre-test with a purpose “appropriate for task”, which means they claimed for one’s point of view. because their post-test was not only appropriate for task, but also well-developed, it can be considered that they improved in terms of purpose after the intervention. the same can be said regarding participant 3, whose case is even clearer because he wrote a pre-test discussing two sides of an issue, which is not the purpose of the exposition genre. table 2. purpose of the pre-tests and post-tests purpose participant 1 pre-test appropriate for task post-test appropriate for task and well-developed participant 2 pre-test appropriate for task post-test appropriate for task and well-developed participant 3 pre-test not appropriate for task post-test appropriate for task and well-developed it can be seen in table 3 that participants 2 and 3 did not write the preview and review of arguments in their pre-tests, but they did so in their post-tests. participant 1 did not write the preview and review of arguments in both the pre-test and post-test. nevertheless, it can be stated that participant 1 also improved in terms of stages and phases because in his post-test he divided his paragraphs based on the stages, and he wrote three arguments as compared to the two arguments which he wrote in his pre-test table 3. stages and phases in the pre-tests and post-tests thesis arguments restatement position statement preview of arguments topic elaboration review of arguments position restatement pretest participants 1, 3 participants 1, 2, 3 participants 1, 2, 3 participant 2 participants 1, 3 posttest participants 1, 2, 3 participants 2, 3 participants 1, 2, 3 participants 1, 2, 3 participants 2, 3 participants 1, 2, 3 table 4 shows the attitudinal resources written by the participants in the pre-tests and post-tests. it can be observed that every one of them wrote more attitudinal resources in the post-test than in the pre-test. they did not only improve in terms of quantity, but also quality. they wrote more field-specific attitudinal resources in the post-tests. for example, participant 3 wrote very generic appreciations in his pre-test like: problem, help, dangerous, bad, and improve. on the other hand, his posttest’s appreciations are more field specific like: efficient, quick, not foolproof, and safe. also, their post-tests’ attitudinal resources developed their arguments much better than their pre-tests’ attitudinal resources did. 44 reading to learn pedagogy table 4. attitudinal resources in the pre-tests and post-tests participant 1 participant 2 participant 3 pre-test post-test pre-test post-test pre-test post-test affect 2 3 1 0 10 6 judgments 1 4 2 7 3 6 appreciations 10 23 11 21 20 34 total 13 30 14 28 33 46 tables 5, 6, and 7 display the sub-types of attitudinal resources written by the three participants. it can be observed that they used appreciation the most. this finding is consistent with liu (2013) who states that this pattern is common for the argumentative genre. the three participants avoided expressing emotions, and being judgmental. they limited themselves to appreciate the issues which were the following. the pretest’s issue was, “should indonesian ban motorcycles?” the post-test’s issue was, “should social media be banned for people under the age of 18?” table 5. types of affect in the pre-tests and post-tests participant 1 participant 2 participant 3 pre-test post-test pre-test post-test pre-test post-test positive desire 2 0 0 0 8 5 negative desire 0 1 0 0 2 0 negative security 0 1 1 0 0 0 negative happiness 0 0 0 0 0 1 table 6. types of judgments in the pre-tests and post-tests participant 1 participant 2 participant 3 pre-test post-test pre-test post-test pre-test post-test positive capacity 1 1 1 1 0 3 negative capacity 0 3 0 0 0 2 negative propriety 0 0 1 6 1 1 negative tenacity 0 0 0 0 1 0 negative normality 0 0 0 0 1 0 table 7. types of appreciations in the pre-tests and post-tests participant 1 participant 2 participant 3 pre-test post-test pre-test post-test pre-test post-test positive valuation 7 8 5 1 9 7 negative valuation 3 15 6 20 11 27 discussions as stated above, it was found that the three participants improved in terms of purpose, staging, phases, and attitude. these finding are consistent with millin (2011), rose and martin (2014), wildsmithcromarty and steinke (2014), acevedo and lövstedt (2014), gouveia (2014), whittaker (2014), pedrosa (2017), blecua sánchez and reading to learn pedagogy 45 sánchez garrido (2017), and whittaker and garcía parejo (2018). there are also studies conducted in indonesia reporting similar findings like samanhudi and sugiarti (2013), kartika ningsih (2016), and damayanti (2017). because the present study reports positive results from the teaching of a genre (i.e. exposition) different from the genre taught in previous studies, it serves as evidence that r2l is effective for the teaching of different genres. from the educational setting point of view, which is tertiary education, this study is similar to millin (2011), samanhudi and sugiarti (2013), and wildsmith-cromarty and steinke (2014). the other studies were conducted either in primary or in secondary schools: acevedo and lövstedt (2014), gouveia (2014), whittaker (2014), pedrosa (2017), blecua sánchez and sánchez garrido (2017), kartika ningsih (2016), damayanti (2017), and whittaker and garcía parejo (2018). one of the studies, rose and martin (2014), also included kindergarten participants in addition to primary and secondary students. there is also an important variable distinguishing these studies from one another, which is the target language. rose and martin (2014) report the implementation of r2l to teach english as a first language. the following studies report the implementation of r2l to teach english as a second or as a foreign language: millin (2011), samanhudi and sugiarti (2013), wildsmith-cromarty and steinke (2014), kartika ningsih (2016), and damayanti (2017). the following studies report the implementation of r2l to teach both english as a foreign language and a first language: acevedo and lövstedt (2014) report the teaching of swedish; gouveia (2014) reports the teaching of portuguese; whittaker (2014), pedrosa (2017), and blecua sánchez and sánchez garrido (2017) report the teaching of spanish. the present study belongs to the group of studies teaching english as a second or a foreign language. this present study is also different from some previous studies (acevedo & lövstedt, 2014; gouveia, 2014; millin, 2011; pedrosa, 2017; whittaker, 2014; wildsmith-cromarty & steinke, 2014) in the sense that it does not report the students’ text scores, but rather a description of the texts. other previous studies do report descriptions of the students’ texts (blecua sánchez & sánchez garrido, 2017; kartika-ningsih, 2015; rose & martin, 2014; whittaker & garcía parejo, 2018). the descriptions reported by those studies are similar to the present one because they describe the purpose, staging, and phases of the students’ text. however, they are also different because they do not describe the attitude of the students’ texts like this study does. in the case of this study, the three participants had the same english proficiency level at the time of the research. therefore, it could not be determined whether r2l helped close any gap between faster and slower performing students. because of that, this study is different from millin (2011), rose and martin (2014), kartika-ningsih (2015), damayanti (2017), and blecua sánchez and sánchez garrido (2017) which data reveal a closing of the gap. the tel4ele also aimed at closing that gap, but the three reports do not present any specific data. these reports only present the example of a few students from a disadvantaged background who improved after receiving r2l instruction. samanhudi and sugiarti (2013), and pedrosa (2017) do not make any mention related to the closing of the gap either. 46 reading to learn pedagogy conclusions and suggestions based on the analysis of the pre-tests and post-tests written by the participants, the following conclusions can be drawn from the present study. first, the three participants improved in terms of purpose. they wrote a well-developed post-test, which claims for their point of view. secondly, their post-test also included the correct stages of an exposition, which are thesis, arguments, and restatement. third, they wrote the correct exposition phases in their post-tests: position statement, preview of arguments, topic, elaboration, review of arguments, and position restatement. fourth, they also showed improvement in terms of attitude. they wrote more variety of attitudinal resources in their post-test. they also wrote more field-specific attitudinal resources. they better developed their arguments using attitudinal resources. most of the genrebased, including r2l, research in indonesia has been conducted either in secondary schools or in english departments. this study reports the implementation of r2l in an entrepreneurship faculty. therefore, this study also serves as evidence of the effectiveness of r2l in non-english departments in indonesia. juan gabriel vencesla, m.pd. teaches business english at the business faculty of widya mandala catholic university surabaya. he earned his elt master’s degree from the graduate school of the same university in 2019. his main interest is efl reading and writing instruction, and systemic functional linguistics. references acevedo, c., & lövstedt, a.-c. (2014). sweden project outputs, teacher learning for european literacy education. agustien, h. i. (2006). genre-based approach and the 2004 english curriculum. a plenary paper presented at upi national seminar, 27. aunurrahman, a., hamied, f. a. h., & emilia, e. (2017). exploring the tertiary efl students’ academic writing competencies. indonesian journal of applied linguistics, 7(1), 72–79. blecua sánchez, i. b., & sánchez garrido, c. (2017). cambios de enseñanzaaprendizaje tras la implementación del modelo reading to learn/leer para aprender en las aulas de educación secundaria de un centro bilingüe. lenguaje y textos, 46, 55–68. damayanti, i. l. (2017). from storytelling to story writing: the implementation of reading to learn (r2l) pedagogy to teach english as a foreign language in indonesia. indonesian journal of applied linguistics, 6(2), 232–245. emilia, e. 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(1994). qualitative data analysis: an expanded sourcebook. sage publications, inc. millin, t. (2011). scaffolding academic literacy with undergraduate social science students at the university of kwazulu-natal using the reading to learn intervention strategy: an evaluative study [phd thesis]. msc dissertation, the university of edinburgh moray house school of education. paltridge, b. (2014). genre and second language academic writing. language teaching, 47, 303–318. pedrosa, b. (2017). implementación del modelo leer para aprender en un contexto plurilingüe. lenguaje y textos, 46, 41–54. richards, k. (2009). interviews. in qualitative research in applied linguistics: a practical introduction (pp. 182–199). palgrave macmillan. rose, d. (2015a). genre, knowledge and pedagogy in the sydney school. genre studies around the globe. beyond the three traditions, 299–338. rose, d. (2015b). new developments in genre-based literacy pedagogy. handbook of writing research. rose, d. (2015c). reading to learn: accelerating learning and closing the gap. teacher training books and dvds. reading to learn. rose, d., & martin, j. r. (2014). intervening in contexts of schooling. discourse in context: contemporary applied linguistics, 273–300. rozimela, y. (2004). the role of explicit teaching in improving efl students’ writing. samanhudi, u., & sugiarti, s. (2013). reading to learn program to teaching critical writing in english for academic purpose class. leksika, 7(2). whittaker, r. (2014). teacher learning for european literacy education (tel4ele) final report spain. 48 reading to learn pedagogy whittaker, r., & garcía parejo, i. (2018). teacher learning for european literacy education (tel4ele): genre-based pedagogy in five european countries. european journal of applied linguistics, 6(1), 31–57. widiati, u., & cahyono, b. y. (2006). the teaching of efl speaking in the indonesian context: the state of the art. jurnal bahasa dan seni, 2(34), 269–292. widodo, h. p. (2006). designing a genrebased lesson plan for an academic writing course. english teaching: practice & critique (university of waikato), 5(3), 173–199. wildsmith-cromarty, r., & steinke, k. (2014). the write approach: can r2l help at tertiary level? per linguam: a journal of language learning, 30(1), 38–54. 37 developing a semi-direct speaking test developing a semi-direct speaking test for fourth graders using video conferencing yuditha putri wiwaharini (yudithaaputri@yahoo.com) nation star academy school surabaya, indonesia & bartholomeus budiyono (bartholomeusbudiyono@gmail.com) english education department graduate school widya mandala surabaya catholic university surabaya, indonesia article history abstract received: 12-03-2021 reviewed: 03-03-2022 revised: 17-05-2022 accepted: 30-05-2022 keywords: covid-19 testing era; semidirect speaking test; speaking test; test development; video conferencing doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i1.3071 this study aimed to develop alternative englishspeaking testing to be used during the covid-19 pandemic. a semi-direct speaking test for 4 graders was the final product of this study. cambridge curriculum with the esl framework was used to formulate the test. it was designed using steps suggested by bachman and palmer. it also has been reviewed by an expert and a trial group. it asked each test-taker to tell a story using provided picture series, connectors, and past verbs within 5 minutes. a minute was given for them to study the picture series; the rest was to do the test. it was delivered by using video conferencing called zoom. the result showed that the test developed was a valid, reliable, practical, and authentic measurement. its reliability was proved by test-retest and interrater results. its validity, practicality, and authenticity were proved by providing an expert judgement collected through questionnaires. introduction being able to get a good and proper education is important for all human beings. a good education leads humans to get a life improvement in the future. unfortunately, in 2020, the world’s education system needs to change its overall practice because of the covid-19 virus spread. all education sectors are forced to close down because of the covid-19 pandemic. according to covid-19 assessing the impact on the education sector and looking ahead (2020), during the pandemic phase, people are not allowed to go outside and do activities like what they have been doing so far. this beyond words vol. 10, no.1, may 2022 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya mailto:yudithaaputri@yahoo.com mailto:bartholomeusbudiyono@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i1.3071 38 developing a semi-direct speaking test situation also happens in the education sector. educators and students are not allowed to come to school and do the teaching-learning activities as usual. as a result, teaching-learning activities should be done online. teachers and students have to follow governments’ new regulations by conducting online classes as a replacement for not being able to come to offline schools. many kinds of platforms and applications have been developed to support teachers in this situation. they are varied from ones with the simplest features to the ones with more complex features. technically, schools can choose the platforms and applications to be used in their learning activity depending on their needs and preferences. some schools, including in indonesia, use additional applications like video conferencing to replace face-to-face meetings. according to lee (2020), video conferencing is a helpful tool to help people interact face to face without meeting in real life. having this sophisticated tool to support online learning does not mean that online learning is problem-free. this new situation caused many problems for all parties, especially teachers and students who take part in the online learning situation (guangul, suhail, khalit & khidhir, 2020). many factors can be the barrier for teachers to teach remotely. starting from the lack of strong internet connection, sophisticated gadgets, proper equipment to teach, assessment quality, and the skill to use the combination of all the above (hasan & khan,2020; setyawan & aryati prasetyarini, 2020). aboagye, yawson, & appiah (2021) confirmed that most of the learners were not ready with online learning. they added that the learners felt uncomfortable joining online learning because it was too indirect and personal for them. one of the most difficult problems to solve is the testing or assessment system during this online learning. since teachers and students cannot meet in person, not all types and approaches of testing can be implemented. according to covid 19 and higher education: today and tomorrow (2020), during this pandemic, teachers are puzzled about how to assess or test their students from distance. one of the most difficult skills to be tested during online learning is the students’ production skills, especially speaking. this statement is confirmed by (diana, 2021; djafar, 2020). they found that most speaking testing during the covid-19 pandemic was disturbed and became more difficult to deliver. as a result, most schools limit their assessment or testing by only giving home projects or testing for their students. this situation is what happens in the first writer’s teaching place. most of her fellow teachers only asked their students to submit projects to be taken as their daily scores including mid and final term exams. the scores taken from those home-projects cannot be taken for granted because teachers cannot control that those assignments are done by the students individually without being helped in any way. moreover, haynie iii (2003) found that students who only have taken home assignment treatments tended to be outscored, but in reality, they may not have a deeper understanding about the topics discussed. the need to adopt and integrate a traditional teaching-learning approach to real online learning is highly recommended (krishan, ching, ramalingam, maruthai, kandasamy,de mello & ling, 2020). therefore, many experts provided an alternative solution for this testing problem. one of which is known as a semi-direct speaking test. according to larson (1984), semi-direct speaking test is an alternative 39 developing a semi-direct speaking testing that can be used in certain circumstances and needs. it has the value of energy, cost, and time efficiency. in addition to that guangul, suhail, khalit & khidhir (2020) suggested changing the regular paper-based testing into something applicable such as online presentation, demonstrations, and reports making. their findings also showed that 68% of the respondents prefer project-based testing. online presentation was concluded as one of the most preferable assessments during remote learning. for all of the reasons mentioned above, this study aimed to develop reliable, valid, practical, and authentic testing to be used to test young learners’ speaking ability and to answer the following research questions. 1.to what extent is the test reliable? 2.to what extent is the test valid? 3.to what extent is the test practical? 4.to what extent is the test authentic? literature review to achieve the above’s objectives, the writers use three relevant theories to guide them. they present elaborations, examples, and deeper explanations to help them understand better. the first theory is speaking. it is taken from (huebner, 1960). he described speaking as the main communication skill to possess. it is very important to have such a skill to interact with each other. the second theory is about semidirect speaking test development (bachman & palmer, 1996). their steps in developing a good test were taken and adapted to the current covid-19 learning condition before applying. in their book, they defined test development as the process of making a test in detail. it starts with making the concept and design following their test-takers and curriculum used. the last theory is about video conferencing use in a test. it is taken from (wang, 2004). he explained that video conferencing is a desktop and studio-based conferencing which is familiar to students in nowadays era. there, he provided some tips to be used to further researchers in using video conferencing in a test. methods this study was a test development study. it aimed to produce a reliable, valid, practical, and authentic speaking testing to be used during the covid-19 pandemic. the writer used a test making framework and steps adapted from (bachman and palmer, 1996). the following is the figure. figure 1. steps of designing a test they made three speaking test drafts in total before presenting their final product. the drafts and final product have been reviewed by an expert who is a cambridge curriculum head in a primary school taking part in this study. she reviewed the test from its deeper features matched with the curriculum used and objective set. it also has been reviewed by a similar group of targetedtest takers to see its language use and design: describing, identifying, selecting, defining, developing, allocating managing operationalization selecting specifying writing administration administering, collecting feedback,analysing, archiving 40 developing a semi-direct speaking instructions from their perspectives. after getting this feedback, the writer revised the drafts until it became the final product. the test’s drafts and final product were administered through a video conferencing application called zoom. the speaking test required test-takers to be able to tell a story based on picture series given to them using vocabularies, connectors and past verbs provided. the requirements were chosen from the curriculum and framework used at the moment. the topic and type of speaking testing were chosen from the recent book chapters that targeted test-takers discussed at the moment. in scoring their performance, the writers have also developed a rubric as a set of test. it supposed to be used along with the developed test. it was made considering the criteria provided by (nunan, 1999). she took pronunciation, task, vocabulary, and grammar to be added to her rubric. to answer the first research question, which was to what extend the test reliable, was answered by providing statistical proof of the test’s testretest and interrater reliability. the second, third and fourth research questions, which were to what extend is the test valid, practical, and authentic were answered by providing an expert judgement about the test. it was taken in the form of four likert scale questionnaires. the expert used in this study was the cambridge curriculum head of the school taking part in this study at the moment. results and discussion the final product of the speaking test used in this study has been revised several times following the cambridge curriculum head and try out group feedback. they covered the use of the picture, language, instructions, guidelines to the template chosen for the test. the following was the final product of the speaking test. picture 1. test’s cover picture 2. test’s preface picture 3. table of contents picture 4. test’s specifications picture 5. test’s guidelines picture 6. test’s parts 41 developing a semi-direct speaking picture 7. picture series studying picture 8. picture series showing picture 9. test 1 picture 10. test 2 picture 11. closing slide picture 12. speaking rubric this semi-direct speaking test was the final product of this study. it developed using steps adapted from (bachman and palmer, 1996). the framework used to design its objective was taken from cambridge curriculum for english as a second language 42 developing a semi-direct speaking with the code of 0837. cambridge global english for cambridge primary, english as a second language textbook, written by jane boylan and claire medwell, published by cambridge university press was used to choose the test’s topic and materials. the vocabularies provided in the test were taken from the test-takers current discussed chapters which were chapter 5; getting around and chapter 6; school lunch. the test task asked test takers to tell a story using picture series, connectors and past verbs given to them. it was formulated following the speaking framework chosen with the code of 4s5. this test layout was made using www.canva.com. it was a free editing website that can be freely used by users around the world. picture series used in the test were taken from www.pinterest.com. the writers have put the specific links on the references. there were two parts of the test that test takers have to follow. the first one called preparation. they were given approximately 1 minute to study the picture series shown to them. after that, they proceeded to do the speaking test individually for approximately 4 minutes. at the end of the test, the test’s assessor would not reveal their scores. all of their performance were recorded and sent to the juries. they used the same agreed rubric to score the test takers. they have been trained several times before finally come to judge the test-takers. the test’s reliability results to find the test’s reliability, the writers needed to get the numerical data from this study to count the test-retest and interrater values. therefore, during the test’s tryout with the trial group, the writers asked three raters to score the try out test-takers performance. test-retest reliability is a way to prove that measurement is stable and consistent enough to be used. it was proved by delivering the same test to the same test takers twice on separate occasions and times (dutil, bottari, & auger, 2017). the interrater reliability, on the other hand, dealt with what extent an agreement among data collectors (may, 2006). in many types of research, multiple people were collecting and interpreting data together. this fact may lead to a biased result if it was not maintained carefully. by finding the interrater reliability, researchers may notice the agreement between raters used to make sense of the results at the end. the tables below provided information about the test-takers’ scores on their first and final trial. table 1. first trial results 43 developing a semi-direct speaking table 2. final trial results test-retest reliability the test’s test-retest reliability was the first thing that the writers analysed. first of all, they made a table that can compare testtakers’ first and final scores. after that, they counted each student's average scores from all raters. then, they counted the test-retest value using pearson’s correlation formula. the writers did this step by themselves after doing enough research on how to do it properly using excel. after checking the results, they proceeded to interpret the value found. the table presenting the result as followed. table 3. test-retest reliability results table 4. test-retest reliability criteria test-retest students' name test 1 test 2 student 1 88 89 student 2 89 91 student 3 92 92 student 4 93 90 student 5 89 87 student 6 89 91 student 7 95 94 correlation 0.7115794203 less than 0.20 slight, almost no relationship 0.21-0.40 low, correlation; definite but small relationship 0.41-0.70 moderate correlation; substantial relationship 0.71-0.90 high correlation; strong relationship 0.91-1.00 very high correlation; very dependable relationship 44 developing a semi-direct speaking test the writer used a range of criteria to interpret the result above provided by (guilford, 1956). it was shown as followed. the result of the test’s test-retest reliability showed that it has a high correlation relationship with the value of 0.71. it has been proved by this data that the test developed was highly reliable to be used. this result provided an answer to the first research question, which was to what extend is the test reliable. interrater reliability. interrater reliability was the second thing to analyse. the writers collected the scores taken from 3 raters. they put them on the same table. there were two scores typed in the table. they were the students’ first and second test average scores. after compiling those scores, they then counted each rater’s average scores for each test taker. they used the formula of average on excel to count this. the table presented the scores and calculations as followed. table 5. scores taken from different raters students' name test 1 test 2 average score the writer rater a rater b the writer rater a rater b the writer rater a rater b student 1 88 88 87 89 89 88 88 88 88 student 2 90 89 89 89 92 92 90 90 90 student 3 92 91 92 92 92 92 92 92 92 student 4 94 93 93 90 91 90 92 92 92 student 5 90 89 89 86 87 89 88 88 89 student 6 89 88 89 91 91 92 90 89 90 student 7 95 95 94 95 95 94 95 95 94 45 developing a semi-direct speaking after getting the average scores from each rater for each test taker, the writer made another table to count the interrater reliability. first of all, she made a table consisted of three rows namely students’ names, average score, and difference pair. the students’ names and average score rows on table 6 were taken from table 5. on the difference pair row, the writers needed to pair her raters before counting any further. since this study used three raters, it has three different pairs in total. the first pair was the writer and rater a, the second pair was the writer and rater b and the last one was rater a and rater b. after that, the writers needed to find the score gaps between each pair. it was counted by doing a subtraction. in doing this, they did not do it manually. they used a formula in her excel to help them counting. after getting the score gaps, they needed to count the 0 values found there. the 0 value represented the raters’ agreement; there were no score gaps found in the scoring. the presentation table as followed. table 6. interrater reliability students' name average score difference pair the writer rater a rater b writer and a writer and b a and b student 1 88 88 88 0 0 0 student 2 90 90 90 0 0 0 student 3 92 92 92 0 0 0 student 4 92 92 92 0 0 0 student 5 88 88 89 0 -1 -1 student 6 90 89 90 1 0 -1 student 7 95 95 94 0 1 1 total count of 0 in difference column 6 5 4 total rating 7 7 7 proportion of agreement 0.8571429 0.7142857 0.5714286 the result of the score gaps counting was presented in table 6. first of all, the writers needed to count the 0 values among the pairs. the writer and rater a have 6 zeros, the writer and rater b have 5 zeros and rater a and b have 4 zeros. after that, she counted the proportion of agreement from each pair. she divided the total count of zero with the total ratings of this study. the total rating of this study was 7. it was taken from the total test-takers who participated in the trial. the result of the calculation was put in the proportion of agreement column. as shown in table 6, the writer and rater a got a proportion of agreement of 0.85, categorised as an almost perfect agreement. the second 46 developing a semi-direct speaking pair, the writer and rater b, got a proportion of agreement of 0.71, categorised as a substantial agreement. the last pair, rater a and b got a proportion of agreement of 0.57, categorised as a moderate agreement. the writer interpreted the data found using criteria provided by landis and koch (1977) as followed. table 7. interrater reliability criteria the test’s validity, practicality and authenticity results the test’s validity, practicality, and authenticity were proved by providing an expert judgement about the test. the expert judgement used in this study was the cambridge curriculum head of the school participated in this study. they were collected through questionnaires filling. the following were the aspects used in the questionnaires. table 8. aspects in the questionnaire the overall judgement about the test was satisfying. it can be concluded that the writer has made a valid, practical, and authentic test. in the validity questionnaire, it can be concluded that the test made has great a great face, content, and construct validity. there, the expert has strongly agreed to most of the statements. first of all, in face validity, she was strongly agreed that the test was suitable, doable, well-developed, and interesting. in the construct validity, she also was agreed that the test’s task matched the skill required, objective set, and curriculum used. in the content validity, she was agreed that the test task covered the recent materials, chapter, and topic discussed by targeted test takers. in the practicality questionnaire, she was strongly agreed that the time, media, test procedure, effort, and a result of the test were very efficient and suitable to be done in the recent pandemic learning situation. in the authenticity questionnaire, she was strongly < 0 poor agreement 0.01 – 0.20 slight agreement 0.21 – 0.40 fair agreement 0.41 – 0.60 moderate agreement 0.61 – 0.80 substantial agreement 0.81 – 1.00 almost perfect agreement validity practicality authenticity face validity time realistic content validity media universal construct validity test procedure transparent effort engaged result trustworthy 47 developing a semi-direct speaking agreed with all of the elements used in it. it covered the test’s realism, universality, transparency, engagement, and trustworthiness. the test developed was appropriate to the targeted test takers. it asked the test-takers, to be able to perform a universal skill that can be used outside the class. it also has a transparent scoring standard that test-takers can check before and after their performance. moreover, they can access the scoring criteria, system, and rubric used to score them before their performance to prepare themselves better. all in all, the expert has agreed that the test developed has passed all of the requirements to be called a valid, practical, and authentic test. conclusions from all the results above, it can be concluded that the test developed was reliable, valid, practical, and authentic. it can be used to targeted test-takers that share the same curriculum, level materials, and topics. it was reliable because the value of its testretest and interrater reliability was high. the test-retest reliability was 0.71. it was categorised as a highly reliable test. as the test’s interrater reliability was at the value of 0.85, 0.71, and 0.57. it can be categorised as an almost perfect, substantial, and moderate agreement. for the validity, practicality and authenticity were proved by the expert judgement through a questionnaire result. it was concluded that the test developed has passed her standard and worth to be used. references aboagye, e., yawson, j. a., & appiah, k. n. (2021). covid-19 and e-learning: the challenges of students in tertiary institute-ions. social education research, 1-8. bachman, l. f., & palmer, a. s. (1996). language testing in practice: designing and developing useful language tests (vol. 1). oxford university press. covid-19 and higher education: today and tomorrow. (2020, april 9). iesalc. http://www.iesalc.unesco.org/en/wpcontent/uploads/2020/04/covid-19en-090420-2.pdf covid-19 assessing the impact on the education sector and looking ahead. (2020, april). ey parthenon. https://www.ey.com/publication/vwlu assets/ey-covid-19-assessing-theimpact-on-the-education-sector-andlooking-ahead/$file/ey-covid-19assessing-the-impact-on-the-educationsector-and-looking-ahead.pdf diana, l. (2021). problems faced in speaking assesment during the covid19 pandemic. study case of universitas pembangunan nasional veteran jawa timur. jisip (jurnal ilmu sosial dan pendidikan), 5(1). djafar, r. (2020). analysis of the effect of covid-19 towards l2 english speaking performance. jisip (jurnal ilmu sosial dan pendidikan), 4(4). dutil, é., bottari, c., & auger, c. (2017). test-retest reliability of a measure of independence in everyday activities: the adl profile. occupational therapy international, 2017. guangul, f. m., suhail, a. h., khalit, m. i., & khidhir, b. a. (2020). challenges of remote assessment in higher education in the context of covid-19: a case study of middle east college. educational assess-ment, evaluation and accountability, 1-17. guilford, j. p. (1956). the structure of intellect. psychological bulletin, 53(4), 267. hasan, n., & khan, n. h. (2020). online teaching-learning during covid-19 http://www.iesalc.unesco.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/covid-19-en-090420-2.pdf http://www.iesalc.unesco.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/covid-19-en-090420-2.pdf http://www.iesalc.unesco.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/covid-19-en-090420-2.pdf https://www.ey.com/publication/vwluassets/ey-covid-19-assessing-the-impact-on-thehttps://www.ey.com/publication/vwluassets/ey-covid-19-assessing-the-impact-on-thehttps://www.ey.com/publication/vwluassets/ey-covid-19-assessing-the-impact-on-the48 developing a semi-direct speaking pandemic: students’perspective. the online journal of distance education and e-learning, 8(4), 202. haynie iii, w. j. (2003). effects of takehome tests and study questions on retention learning in technology education. volume 14 issue 2 (spring 2003). huebner, theodore. (1960). audio visual technique in foreign language. new york: cambridge university press. krishan, i. a., ching, h. s., ramalingam, s., maruthai, e., kandasamy, p., de mello, g., ... & ling, w. w. (2020). challenges of learning english in 21st century: online vs. traditional during covid-19. malaysian journal of social sciences and humanities (mjssh),5(9), 1-15. landis, j. r., & koch, g. g. (1977). an application of hierarchical kappa-type statistics in the assessment of majority agreement among multiple observers. biometrics, 363-374. larson, j. w. (1984). testing speaking ability in the classroom: the semi‐ direct alternative. foreignlanguage annals, 17(5), 499-507. lee, h.-w. (2020). technology-enhanced language assessment: innovative approaches for better learning. cambridge assessment https://www.cambridgeassessment.org. uk/insights/technology-enhancedlanguage-assessment-innovativeapproaches-for-better-learning/ may, l. a. (2006). an examination of rater orientations on a paired candidate discussion task through stimulated verbal recall. melbourne papers in language testing, 11(1), 29–51. nunan, d. (1999). second language teaching & learning. heinle & heinle publishers, 7625 empire dr., florence, ky 41042-2978. setyawan, c., & aryati prasetyarini, m. p. (2020). challenges on teaching online english subject in smk negeri-1 nawangan (doctoral dissertation, universitas muhammadiyah surakarta). wang, y. (2004). supporting synchronous distance language learning with desktop video conferencing. language learning & technology, 8(3), 90-121. pictures used in the test: first: https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/4220 71796329377577/ second: https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/4220 71796329377582/ about the author yuditha putri wiwaharini has got her master’s degree from the english education department, graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university. she is a curriculum vice-principal at nation star academy surabaya. her research focuses on english teaching and learning to gain insight to improve the students' interest in learning it. recently, her work focused on developing adaptative media to teach english. https://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/insights/technology-enhanced-language-assessme https://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/insights/technology-enhanced-language-assessme https://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/insights/technology-enhanced-language-assessme https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/422071796329377577/ https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/422071796329377577/ https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/422071796329377582/ https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/422071796329377582/ 20 spanish language use in the english classroom beyond words vol 7 no.1 (may 2019) spanish use in the english classroom: a study of dominican students in an english-only environment alexander lopez diaz lopezdiazalexander@gmail.com miami, fl usa abstract the native language use in the target language classroom has recently gained the attention of second language acquisition research. this study analyzes such issue in the context of dominican university students, ranging from 18 to 35 years old, studying in an english immersion program, who have been speaking their native language, namely, spanish too often in their classrooms. this research focuses on identifying the causes for students to use their native language in the class, and their attitude towards both, spanish and english, by implementing a survey to 37 of these students. to better understand the problem and create potential strategies to address it, firstly, literature has been visited by presenting relevant research related to second language learning and acquisition. secondly, the methodology is explained so that the research context can be more readily understood. subsequently, results from surveys are analyzed in the light of current second language acquisition research. as a conclusion, this study revealed that students use their native language primarily when prompted by their partners, when in need of clarification, when unable to understand a concept, and overwhelmingly as a means to making oneself clear. the teaching implications of these findings are also discussed in the end. keywords: l1, l2, tesol, transfer, second language learning, language learning introduction in recent years, language learning has grown exponentially in the dominican republic. people from different backgrounds join language institutes in the hope of mastering english, in order to access better employment opportunities and life conditions. to support the expansion of language learning among the college student population, the dominican government has created a nearly one-year, nationwide english immersion program. this program aims at taking students to the b2 level, as per the common european framework of reference, which labels speakers as “independent users,” who can understand main ideas of complex and abstract topics, and are able to hold technical discussions in their specialization field (common european framework of references, 2010). students are supposed to reach such level through four hours of daily instruction, for a period of ten months. this program is in high demand since it has proven to be effective when given the favorable conditions. however, it is common to see that immersion programs are demanding. students are mandated to speak only the target language, english, in the premises of the schools in which this program is administered. unfortunately, due to different communication challenges in students, learners constantly fall into speaking spanish, their first language (l1), mailto:lopezdiazalexander@gmail.com spanish language use in the english classroom 21 beyond words vol 7 no. 1 (may 2019) which is not only discouraged but also prohibited by the program’s administration. for instance, on a teacher-training website for this program, it clearly embraces the “total immersion method” as the basis for the english-only policy. total immersion engages learners in the second language (l2) during all the period of instruction, allowing no time for their l1 to be considered in the classroom. additionally, on a statement about the english immersion program teaching approach, methodology and techniques (2015) it was argued that the effectiveness of this method relies on how it optimizes the input received by students, as well as challenging teachers to use a variety of techniques which do not resource in spanish use. “optimization”, as seen through the eyes of the program administrators, is closely intertwined with the idea of total immersion, little to no l1 should be used. the program principles and structure explicitly mandates teachers to speak english only, using realia and other instructional strategies to avoid the language gap. this paper explores current research discussing the causes and effects of spanish as an l1 on english as a foreign language (efl) instruction. additionally, suggestions are provided to educators on how to motivate their students to maximize the use of the l2 in the classroom, when being expected to do so by their institution. students’ voices were taken into account to add validity and relevance to the pedagogical implications of the data collected. l1 and its influence 
 much has been said about the l1 influence on the second language acquisition process. a myriad of researchers and teachers agree that students' first language is an aid, while others object believing it to be a problem in certain cases. meyer (2008) argues that the use of the l2 should be maximized whenever possible. the first language primary role is to provide scaffolding, which can lower affective filters by making the l2 comprehensible and the classroom environment feasible for meaningful learning to occur. the l1 plays a secondary role by helping students to anchor l2 concepts to the l1 through use of loan-words, translation activities, and codeswitching within storytelling activities (meyer, 2008). contrastively, behaviorism thinks differently about the l1 presence in the classroom. behaviorist learning theories believe that the old habits of the l1 inevitably interfere with the process of learning the new habits of the l2, and predict that the similarities between the l1 and l2 facilitate l2 learning, while the differences between the two languages lead to negative transfer and errors (ellis, 1985). although the behaviorist account of l2 learning seems to indicate that the l1 plays both a negative and a positive role in language learning, it puts more emphasis on the negative influence of the l1 than its benefits. for example, ellis (1994) pointed out that “according to behaviorist theories, the main impediment to learning was interference from prior knowledge” (p. 299). in this context, prior knowledge refers to students’ first language, and how its structure affects any other second language learning experience. for instance, wang (2014) observed that “the distinctions between l1 and l2 cause difficulties and mistakes in sla, while the similarities promote it”. furthermore, language learning, as seen through the behavioral perspective, gives room to understanding l1 22 spanish language use in the english classroom as an influence to be overcome through more habit-formation exercises. for instance, corder (1981) also argues that this theory predicted errors to be ‘the results of the persistence of existing mother tongue habits in the new language’ and that ‘consequently a major part of applied linguistic research was devoted to comparing the mother tongue and the target language in order to predict or explain the errors made by learners of any particular language background’. thus, l1, in the behaviorist eyes, provides more of a negative influence than a positive one. according to this, language teachers should suppress its use and manifestation through total immersion in the target language. causes for students use of l1 morahan (2010) presents some reasoning as to why students tend to constantly use l1 in the classroom. according to the study, the use of l1 when doing pair work to construct solutions to linguistic tasks and evaluate written language, is a strong factor. l1 vocabulary allows learners to use the language which they may not yet possess in l2 "to process ideas and reach higher levels of understanding. this applies both to social talk between partners and private talk intended for the learner alone" (p. 2). for example, in private talk, students might utter a non-standard l2 phrase and then selfcorrect. morahan (2010) also explains that if students are given a chance to use their native language for communication, the l2 use should also be encouraged and expected in the same or a higher amount. the teacher can expect students to use their l1: while speaking in order to: ask each other clarifying questions, express frustrations concerning their lack of understanding, clarify meaning of words in l2, find new words in l2 which correspond to already known words in l1, use language to process complex concepts, build shared meaning while evaluating written tasks through shared discussion. (morahan, 2010). l1 in teaching contrastively, du (2016) claims that the relationship between l1 and l2 acquisition is important because it affects l2 learning and teaching. furthermore, the communicative approach usually prefers the l2 as the only medium of communication in the classroom, (richards & rodgers, 2014), as it also provides extra practice and helps the students be reliant on the target language. additionally, in a study conducted with a group of turkish english language learners and non-native english teachers, debreli (2016) analyzed the perspectives of non-native teachers when it comes to l1 use in the classroom. most of the surveyed teachers admitted having deceived the english-only policy imposed by the institution, and sometimes switched to the students' l1 when giving instructions. conversely, littlewood & yu (2011, as cited in debreli & oyman, 2015) found that "the use of l1 does not strengthen learner's cognition but may result in inappropriate transfer of the bad language habits from first language to the target language; thus it should be abandoned" (p. 146). it is evident how second language research has studied the positive and negative effects of the first language in the classroom. one may encounter research supporting both sides, though findings suggest that the l1 does have a positive influence in how the second language is being learned and produced. moreover, krashen's (1987) perspectives on second language acquisition (sla) suggest that it is the role of the teacher to be a source of optimal comprehensible input to students. in short, drawing back from the spanish language use in the english classroom 23 beyond words vol 7 no. 1 (may 2019) natural approach (krashen &terell, 1988), the more the students are exposed to the language, the easier it will be for them to understand and process language input, as long as the target language exposure fulfills the conditions of optimal input. according to krashen (1987) optimal input is comprehensible, interesting and relevant, is not grammatically sequenced, and is sufficient in quantity. in this view, teachers come into action by being constant producers of such input. code-switching evaluating the different aspects influencing students’ use of spanish in the classroom, code-switching is a fundamental variable to consider. lin (2007 as cited in ibrahim, shash and armia, 2013) explains classroom code-switching as “the alternating use of more than one linguistic code in the classroom by any of the classroom participants such as teacher and students”. code-switching is constantly present in the bilingual and foreign language classroom as a remedial device for students with strong communication need. in an attempt to understand code-switching more deeply, the concept of language mode allows researchers and language educators to better evaluate this bilingual and monolingual communication behavior. bilingual and monolingual communication may be governed by the mode being employed at the moment, namely, bilingual or monolingual mode. such modes are also subject to the specifics of the communication settings speakers are engaged in (heltai, 2018). additionally, in his research heltai (2018) states students’ genuine communicative interactions are constantly influenced by their l1 due to the limitations of their l2 language proficiency. conversational code-switching is said to happen subconsciously when different factors prompt the speaker to switch between languages. code-switching will most inevitably happen to satisfy a communicative need by speakers who have less proficiency in the l2, and is more likely to override grammatical correctness and accuracy, in an attempt to get the message across (moore, 2002). switching is not only determined by the speaker choice, but may be influenced by external and internal factors to the communicative act the speaker is involved in. in a study in iranian efl classrooms, sarem& hamidi (2012) found codeswitching to happen in the classroom as a response of the teacher’s own switching strategy, to which students responded accordingly by using their l1. in most instances, this occured: 1) when something emotional was said, 2) to clarify meaning, 3) when the teacher intentionally initiated code-switching, 4) peer-correction, and 5) when using sarcasm and humor in the classroom (sarem& hamidi, 2012). even though these findings involve teachers as a variable, it is clearer to establish the interactional nature of code-switching in the classroom by seeing its occurrence as related to a stimulus-response phenomenon, as it tends to happen at times. another aspect of code-switching relevant to this research is when compensation is needed. for instance, hughes, shaunessy, brice, ratliff, mchatton (2006) argue that “when code switching is used to compensate for a language difficulty, it may be viewed as interference”. the authors, though, view this use of code-switching positive as it it aids comprehension and help speakers make sense of the information being shared. in sum, literature reviewing code-switching places a strong emphasis on its role as a 24 spanish language use in the english classroom mediator between speakers to establish communication and convey ideas. methods subjects in order to receive the necessary information for this research, various procedures and instruments were implemented. firstly, the subjects were students participating in this research were part of an english immersion program which runs nationally, for ten months, daily in the morning, afternoon, and evening. however, for this study only students from morning and afternoon were considered. firstly, a sample of 22 students was surveyed in the morning, representing 10% of the 218 student population. in the afternoon, on the one hand, a sample of 15 students, which represents the 10% of the 149 student population, was invited to take the survey. in sum, a total of 37 students were guided to the institution’s computer lab where they could complete a survey on google forms. at the time of the program, students were all simultaneously enrolled in the university as well, as it is a prerequisite to the english course. ages among the participants ranged from 18 to 35 years. finally, the study was conducted in one of the centers running this program, which is located in santo domingo, the capital city of the dominican republic. the survey the survey used for this research was an adaptation from the research of al sharaeai (2012) on the causes of students’ l1 use. in it, a questionnaire was applied to a group of graduate students from diverse proficiency levels and age groups. in this present research, the survey was simplified for these students by adapting prompts to all levels of proficiency. prompts included, “i speak spanish in my class when i am…” if students answered “always,” “often,” “sometimes,” or “rarely,” their response was taken as a positive answer since it implied l1 use, no matter its degree. contrastively, if the students answered “never,” it implied no agreement whatsoever with the statement. the statements were written and organized in a way in which they could easily elicit students’ preference without a threatening or institutional tone. this survey represents a flexible, yet effective, device for voicing students’ preferences in a way valuable to second language research. students’ perspectives on this issue should be a primary source of information in order to better analyze this phenomenon in the efl context. therefore, in this study, one of the primary questions to address was “what causes students to speak spanish in the institution? research findings ”findings suggest that students speak spanish for several reasons; these reasons vary from internal motivation factors to more substantial and induced factors. students regularly have something to say, and they choose which language they want to use to convey it (as in code-switching). in fact, an overwhelming majority of students (76.3%) admitted to speaking spanish in their classes, regardless of the extent, let alone the english-only policy. the conditions and the extent to which this may happen, though, vary and depend on the learners’ characteristics and other factors. among the motivators for said spanish (l1) use, most of the students admitted to their 25 beyond words vol 7 no. 1 (may 2019) use of l1 while: explaining a new point in class (73.4%); while making themselves clear (73.8%); while discussing personal matters (68.5%); checking meaning of new concepts (65.8%); and asking for topic explanation (63.1%). research suggests that one of the many triggers of first language use in the classroom is the lack of vocabulary and knowledge in the target language (koronkiewicz, 2018). it could be inferred, thus, that a strong motivator of first language use, is language impairment; i.e. when students are trying to communicate in the target language, but cannot find the right exponents, they may go back to their native language exponents to satisfy their communicative needs. second, identifying students’ attitude towards the l1 is a key step for developing strategies for its reduction in the classroom. note that this applies to the context where this research is made, in which the use of spanish as a target language is banned, and other contexts alike. by administering this survey, it was found that students responded positively towards the encouragement for english use only; yet so, they frequently fail to carry out rules and instructions in the language program’s context. therefore, the main questions were: how do students feel towards their l1 and l2-only policy in the classroom? moreover, why is that relevant at all? students do feel positive towards a teacher who can both understand and speak their l1 in the class. 50% of the students preferred a teacher who shared the same l1 with them. additionally, 97% of the students expressed their need to be permitted to speak spanish without punishment, when needed. surprisingly, 81% answered positively to the englishonly policy, and it can be inferred that this is true as long as they are allowed to use spanish when necessary. in conclusion, this research found students to have positive considerations about the encouragement placed by the institution to speak only english in the classroom. yet, the reality proved to be somewhat different. students in this program could benefit from a teacher who shares their l1 and provides opportunities for students to negotiate meaning and make sense of what is happening in the classroom by using spanish cues to aid understanding and instructions follow up. implications for teaching although it is not explicitly said, students’ responses may argue that lack of clarity in instruction is a trigger for students’ l1 use. such reality challenges teachers in planning instruction and implementing classroom activities. if instructions are clear while doing tasks, this will reduce the need to ask and receive clarification from partner to partner. in addition, personal matters appear to be another topic of discussion for students which motivates their use of the l1. teachers must keep this in mind when doing pair and group work. monitoring students as they participate, collaborate and speak with other classmates might help decrease the time allotted for personal matters. teachers who constantly encourage and monitor for students’ use of the target language should also be mindful of the tasks and the proficiency levels involved in doing completing them. tasks which are levelappropriate might reduce the learners’ need to use spanish as a resource. however, activities that require timing and those that push students to finish first should be critically considered so that they do not, implicitly, force students to use their 26 native language in order to complete the language task first or simply “get rid of the activity”. nevertheless, it may be a challenge for teachers to manage this in large classes. it is essential for teachers, then, to create strategies and it may also be effective to negotiate with students on procedures to be followed in the classroom that encourage l2 use, instead of punishing it. moreover, teachers need to be aware of the varied factors affecting language acquisition and become more aware of principles of instructed second language acquisition. krashen and terell (1987) propose language acquisition as such a complex process that no classroom, not even learner, can be said to be the same. factors like language aptitude, affective filter, monitor and other individual learning preferences can influence in the way people learn languages. another critical aspect for teachers to consider is vocabulary instruction. need for vocabulary when attempting to communicate in transactional dialogues makes it unavoidable for the students to rely on their l1. informed efl teaching should be aware of these factors. for instance, teachers under immersion programs or any other kind of program which ignores student first language’s aid, could pay close attention to vocabulary instruction in order to help students navigate imparities between both languages. vocabulary teaching should be sequenced and classroom activities should yield appropriate linguistic forms and items students are already familiar with. scaffolding activities by doing vocabularybuilding tasks and by simplifying instruction for students also foster an atmosphere where lack of lexical items do not impede communication or classroom performance. further, teachers can tremendously help their students by working on confidence and motivation. confidence is an important factor as it reduces anxiety and provides students with a readiness to talk and share with partners, even to comment and correct on others’ mistakes. on the same note, students admitted that the english-only policy in the center was causative of feeling nervous and/or anxious when asked to perform in front of a group. this view has been theoretically defended by many, highlighting krashen (1982) in his monitor hypothesis, in which he correlates the students’ emotions to students’ oral production and their overall influence in learning. it follows that the english-only policy, as per students’ responses, makes them feel more nervous when it comes to speaking and could cause mistakes, namely, slips when producing orally. different strategies may decrease students’ use of l1 in the classroom. through another simple survey, it was requested from students to mark common classroom activities that had little to no motivation for their spanish speaking in the classroom. students stated that they would not be in the need of using spanish when their teacher:  motivated them to speak in english (87.5%)  taught them learning strategies (80%)  used a variety of activities and games to practice the target language (77.5%)  made them use english for peer interaction (75%)  played games that they could use to practice english (75%)  made them use english in real-life situations (75%) these answers reveal substantial data regarding the use of instructional activities to decrease first language use in the class. the survey concluded that motivation, 27 beyond words vol 7 no. 1 (may 2019) learning strategies and a variety of activities are factors contributing to l1 decrease in the classroom. motivation is one of the causative factors of second language acquisition, as described by krashen (1982). motivation, defined by longman dictionary of applied linguistics (1985), refers to: the factors that determine a person’s desire to do something. in second language and foreign language learning, learning may be affected differently by different types of motivation. two types of motivation are sometimes distinguished: a) instrumental motivation: wanting to learn a language because it will be useful for certain instrumental goals, such as getting a job, reading a foreign newspaper, passing an examination; b) integrative motivation: wanting to learn a language in order to communicate with people of another culture who speak it. (p.185). in addition to considering motivation, teaching students learning strategies foster independence and thus, selfawareness. learning strategies focus attention on the learners and provide them with tools to develop their language skills and extend the language use even when the teacher is not there. therefore, are inevitably important for teachers to incorporate in their teaching as a means to foster learner’s independence. one of the main benefits if independent learning is self-awareness and academic improvement. in a study carried out by faraday, haywood, meyer, and sachdev (2008), the researchers discovered that independence or autonomy is worth pursuing in language teaching, as it is likely to result in:1) improved academic proficiency; 2) increased motivation and confidence; 3) and greater student awareness of their limitations and their ability to manage them. lastly, another factor students considered important is the use of a variety of instructional activities. instructional activities are designed to accomplish an educational goal or objective. regardless of the planning philosophy or school policies, teachers incorporate activities day to day to help students acquire and fluently use the target language. in english language teaching (elt) everyday activities may include drillings, roleplay, pair-work, group-work, task-based learning, and so on. one of the tenets of the communicative approach is that teachers should make sure to incorporate activities that use the target language as a means for meaningful communication in the classroom. when communication is stressed in the efl classroom, students lose the speaking fright faster, reduce affective filters and are able to share their ideas more freely due to the openness and security of the learning environment. teachers who stress communication in the classroom continually ask questions that appeal to students’ interest,listen and validate their answers, and motivate for more conversation to happen. it is quite apparent that such exchanges come accompanied by on-thespot corrections when a slip occurs, but the focus is still communication. on the other hand, collaboration develops community. learning environments should rather be seen as communities where students can share and be themselves regardless of their preferences and language proficiency levels. contrastingly, decorating classrooms (40%) and making students reflect on english and its importance (42.5%) show little relevance on motivating students to speak english in the classroom. students seem to pay little attention to the environment decoration. one way in which this can be made beneficial to the learner 28 might be providing posters and visual cues of common words or phrases students will more likely say during class. by providing both communication and collaboration activities, we construct a learning environment that motivates students to speak in the target language. this action continually helps students gain independence, and creates community in the classroom where learners help other learners.
 through the survey result analysis, it was significant to see how positively students reacted to the use of games in the class (75%) and the use of speaking activities (fluency activities) in the classroom (75%); the latter is an example of how important community building is in the class. kent and simpson (2012, as cited in lloyd, kolodziej, and brashears, 2016) advocate for classroom discourse as a mean for classroom community by asserting that “allowing students time to discuss, analyze, and reflect on the reading in small groups or pairs..is a great way to facilitate community” (p. 30) as far as methodological strategies, based on students’ feedback and reflecting upon current educational and second language acquisition theories, the following instructional ideas are suggested: learning contracts with students; provide more precise instructions and widely use comprehension checking questions (ccqs); and, work with vocabulary building activities. further, lavan (2001) also provides different activities to encourage l2 use in the classroom. these activities include:  songs (culture, grammar, vernacular use, artistic styles).
  dance (culture, movement).
  puppet plays (students can be given a topic or theme, then write and perform a play; an excellent area for incorporating specific language objectives). 
  linguistic games (bingo, jeopardy, etc.). 
  dialogues (again, easy to incorporate language objectives). 
  role plays (can be designed around daily activities and vocabulary). 
  simulations. 
  picture dictionaries (create a list of vernacular terms the students would like to learn, or synonyms that portray different meanings in different countries). 
  video performances (news reports, weather reports, current issues). 
  how-to presentations (write instructions for performing a task and present to class; 
a great way to incorporate the imperative tense). 
 in classrooms where the l1 is not encouraged, teachers ought to find ways to engage students in total use of the target language. the aforementioned activities allow language instructors to have readily available resources that foster the l2 use in the classroom. additionally, it provides students with a wide range of options using the target language, that may result in decline of the first language in the classroom. all in all, teachers need to be critically informed in order to make an effective integration of total immersion approaches to teaching. conclusion literature suggests that english-only policies may not be conducive to second language acquisition, as it was perceived in the past. however, in environments when 29 beyond words vol 7 no. 1 (may 2019) said policies are institutionally enforced, problems arise as teachers have to deal with inconsistencies regarding student´s compliance with these policies and the language learning process. studying teachers’ and students’ perceptions of strict english-only policies and l1 use directly informs teaching. this research concluded that students use their l1 due to many factors present in the teaching-learning process and that teacher-provided strategies can help decrease it. additionally, the reasons behind students’ use of spanish as their l1 ranges from personal preference to linguistic impairment. thus, teachers should be prepared to provide learners with balanced input and tasks which enable the learners to engage in meaningful learning paying attention to the students’ background knowledge. the students’ reality and characteristics should always inform english-only policies. many of the students need actual communication and will rely on whichever means they find feasible at their disposal, whether it is english or spanish. furthermore, since different bodies of research exist, both supporting and attacking l1 use, little consensus has been achieved on the ever-expanding debate of the first language use in the target language classroom. teachers should become mediators in this issue; byy fostering an atmosphere where the l2 is readily available to students and motivation is constantly provided, teachers can boost the students’ target language use. conversely, teachers should be able to categorize and prioritize scenarios where the students’ native language can be used, if it serves an ultimate instructional purpose. furthermore, strategies that explicitly require students to use the l2 as a means to satisfy a communicative need, seem to prove helpful when trying to decrease the use of l1 in the classroom. despite the tendency in englishonly policies to assume that l2 total use is conducive to language learning, an opposing body of research suggests otherwise. second language acquisition research has found both positive and negative effects of l1 use in the language classroom which should critically inform language teaching. lastly, english-only policies may fail to acknowledge the fact that students do draw upon their first language in different scenarios, as it is part of human nature to exchange information with our peers. language learning can be widely benefited by teachers who mediate l1 use in the classroom and english-only policies enforced by institutions as a remedial device to foster l2 communication in their programs. acknowledgement the author would like to acknowledge and thank dr. jenna nelson, associate faculty department of teaching, learning and diversity from concordia university chicago, for agreeing to help on the manuscript and support its writing and development. © alexander lopez diaz alexander lopez diaz is an efl instructor and administrator. he holds a ba in education and is currently completing an m.a. in applied linguistics for elt (uasd), and an m.a. in curriculum and instruction (concordia university chicago). he is currently a program coordinator in the english immersion program. he is interested in teachers’ professional development, teacher education and language learning and acquisition research. he is an iatefl and tesol international association member. 30 references alshammari, m. m. 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(2014). review of the influence of l1 and l2 acquisition. studies in literature and language, 9(2) 57-60 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/%20download?doi=10.1.1.563.3097&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/%20download?doi=10.1.1.563.3097&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/%20download?doi=10.1.1.563.3097&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://how-to-teach-english.ontesol.com/helping-learners-become-%20independ-ent/ http://how-to-teach-english.ontesol.com/helping-learners-become-%20independ-ent/ http://how-to-teach-english.ontesol.com/helping-learners-become-%20independ-ent/ http://exchanges.state.gov/forum/vols/vol40/no1%20/p36.htm#top http://exchanges.state.gov/forum/vols/vol40/no1%20/p36.htm#top https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/ students create their own books 1 helping students create their own books the dialogic way1 george m jacobs george.jacobs@gmail.com healthpartners.sg singapore, republic of singapore abstract this article explores one technique that is consistent with the student-centered paradigm in language education: student-generated books. first, benefits of student-generated are discussed. then, the article explores the crucial area of maintaining student ownership of their own books. the next topic explained in the article is why dialog is important as the students are developing their books. finally, it is suggested that book creation works for students of all ages and levels, with examples given of students at the early childhood level and of second language students at university level. key words: student-generated, student-centered, writing, dialogic, self-reliance, peer interaction introduction in the teacher-centric paradigm, students’ designated roles mostly involve receiving. they receive, for example, teachers’ explanations, teachers’ instructions, teachers’ and other education professionals’ assessment instruments, and education materials developed by education professionals. in contrast, in the student-centric paradigm, students play more of a role in creating all of the above (blumberg, 2016). these differences between teacher-centric and student-centric education find similarities in the wider society (jacobs & farrell, 2001), such as the absence or presence of democratic structures in a country or other political unit. this article focuses on how students can create reading and other materials for themselves and peers. the article contains four parts: benefits of students creating their own books; student ownership of the books they create; the importance of promoting dialog during and after book creation; and which students should create their own books. benefits of student-created books the term “create” a book is used instead of “write” a book to highlight that creating can often involve more than words, in particular visuals should often be added to promote visual literacy (kiss & weninger, 2017). additionally, book creators can include tactile features, e.g., pasting leaves into books, and sounds, e.g., making audio books and adding sound effects to online versions of books. 1 this article is accepted and will be published in beyond words vol.8 no.1 may 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v8i1.2354 book covers also offer space for exploring non-text communication. many benefits may accrue when students create their own books. these include: 1. improves reading and writing skills– research supports that idea that the language skills of reading and writing, as well as listening and speaking, support one another and are usefully combined (bromley, 1989; 2 students create their own books grobe & grobe, 1977; krashen, 1982; sun, yang, & he, 2016). 2. increases to use language -sudirman & ati (2019) found that when students have more control over what they write, their desire to write increases. 3. provides appropriate reading material– when books are created by students themselves, the books’ topics are more likely to fit students’ interests (asaba & eidswick, 2018),and the difficulty level should be in the range of students’ current proficiency level (yano, long, & ross, 1994). at the same time, even in the same class, student interests as to what to read and write differ based on many variables. for example, merisuo‐ storm (2006) reported that in her sample of 10-11 year old swedish students, while girls preferred adventure books, boys expressed more interest in comics and humorous books. similarly, even in streamed classes, proficiency levels vary. 4. demystifies books and authoring – it may be an exaggeration to say that students think books grow on trees or are produced by robots –the latter already happens (poole, 2019) – but in the authors’ experience, while most students, especially older students, have met people in many walks of life, they do not know any book writers, nor do they know about the book writing process. 5. increases self-esteem–when students accomplish a task, such as creating a book (however simple that book might be) in a supportive setting, they receive positive feedback (although constructive criticism also has an important place) from teachers, peers, and perhaps others, such as family members, their self-esteem is likely to grow (manning, 2007). 6. builds observation skill–to create a book, students need to observe how books are constructed. in gardner’s taxonomy of multiple intelligences (armstrong, 2018), observation skill can be considered part of naturalist intelligence. 7. boosts organising skill–creating a book also involves organizing skill, as students need to plan such aspects as the parts of the book’s content, the visuals if any, how to bind the book if it is hard copy, and how to distribute the book. of course, even with careful planning, creating a book often becomes a recursive process involving redoing and replanning various aspects (abas, 2016). 8. heightens communication skill– students need to learn to avoid writer-based prose, i.e., writing that can be understood by the author, but not by others who lack the author’s background knowledge. instead, book creators need to communicate more effectively by asking themselves whether their books are reader-based, i.e., enough context has been provided (ädel, 2017). 9. strengthens self-reliance – rather than always depending on teachers and others, in keeping with the spirit of student-centered learning, students can generate some of their own materials (allen, 1985). 10. increases students’ enjoyment of reading – researchers have found that students involved in growing plant-based foods increase their consumption of such foods (e.g., heim, stang, & ireland, 2009). perhaps, similarly, “growing” their own books may increase students’ fondness for book reading. 11. builds bonds between students and teachers–teaching has been called a lonely profession, which seems paradoxical. how can teachers be lonely when all day we work surrounded by others: our students? however, teacher-centred instruction, with its emphasis on hierarchy, may tend to separate teachers from their students. at the same time, research suggests that loneliness poses a significant obstacle for students (richardson, elliott, & roberts, 2017). development of communities of practice (kevany & students create their own books 3 macmichael, 2014; wenger, 1998) offers a student-centered approach that may overcome separation and loneliness. communities of practices build common interest and purpose among disparate groups of people, including students and teachers. creating and sharing books offers activities with which communities canengage together. student ownership students’ felt ownership of the books they create lies at the heart of student-generated books. without that feeling of ownership, book creation becomes just another teacher-centered activity, similar to doing worksheets. thus, thought needs to be given to ownership issues that may arise; certainly, context will play a role in how teachers will address these issues. perhaps the most difficult issue teachers face in helping students create their own book involves the degree to which teachers should intervene in the process. for example, some students may have difficulty thinking of topics for their book. in such cases, teachers might want to use prompts, e.g., how many people in your family? or what is your favorite hobby? also, models can be very useful. students can use other books as models, varying them in such aspects as location, time, characters, and ending. also, on the matter of book topic, students should be able to change their minds whenever they wish. for instance, in the middle of writing a book, students can decide to abandon (temporarily or possibly forever) the specific book or even the idea of creating their own books. george was once helping his five-year-old neighbor write books. in the middle of one book, the author decided to switch from ninjas to princess sophia. this right to change is similar to the right of students doing extensive reading to start reading one book and then change to another after deciding that the first book was, for whatever reason, not presently to their liking (jacobs & farrell, 2012). probably the place where teachers feel the greatest temptation to intervene resides with the vocabulary and grammar of the book, although organization and formatting can also be issues. student-generated books provide comprehensible input (krashen, 1992) for the students and their peers. as a result, many teachers, as well as students and other stakeholders, do not feel comfortable unless they are confident that the vocabulary, grammar, and other language aspects reflect standard language usage. in contrast, other teachers believe that successive approximation (hoskisson, 1975) may work, i.e., nonstandard forms can be accepted as part of the process of moving closer and closer to standard usage. also, even those who believe that teachers should intervene to help students achieve standard form in their books may postpone this intervention until later in the writing process, which designed to follow the recursive steps of prewriting, drafting, editing for content, and proofreading. peers can be involved in these steps. perhaps, peer intervention may be less threatening to students’ feeling of ownership. ownership extends to areas beyond the content of the books. for example, students should decide how to hold their books’ pages together, e.g., one student used one of her hair clips, but more typically, students use staples, or they punch holes and use string, or they have their books more professionally bound. options for preserving the books include lamination and putting each page in an individual clear plastic sleeve. of course, many online options also present themselves. other non-content issues with studentcreated books include whether to rewrite books to create neater versions and what 4 students create their own books should happen with finished books. one option for when students have completed their books is to create a class library, thereby making it easy for the students’ present classmates, as well as future students to enjoy and learn from the books. alternatively, students may want to take their creations home to show family members and friends or to be used as gifts. again, the choice should probably remain with each book’s creator. the importance of dialogue vygotsky (1978) highlighted the importance of language in students’ cognitive development. more specific to language learning, long(2017) emphasized that interaction with peers and others promotes students’ second language acquisition. taking the above theoretical perspectives into account, dialogic reading (doyle & bramwell, 2006) was developed to enhance a practice that has long been common among teachers of young students: reading aloud to their students. with dialogic reading teacher read aloud sessions become more interactive by sparking conversation on a wide range of possible topics, including social / emotional ones, and often connecting to students’ lives.the same ideas used in dialogic reading also apply to the theme of the current article: helping students create their own books the dialogic way. by emphasizing dialog, the book being read or created becomes just a tool for generating discussion, and while this discussion can touch on language matters, such as the choice of punctuation or tense, and comprehension, matters on which the teacher serves as authority figure, in keeping with studentcentered learning, a much wider range of topics are available. because teachers and students are seen mostly as co-learners, discussions resemble those found in everyday settings with a preponderance of referential questions, i.e., questions for which the askers do not already know the answers, instead of display questions, i.e., questions for which the askers already know the answers (farrell, 1999; long & sato, 1983).an example of a display question might be, “what was the name of the sister in the story?,” whereas a referential question could be, “do you know anyone who is similar to the sister in the story, and, if so, how are the sister and the other person similar and different?” display questions tend to dominate in teacher-centered classroom interaction. another aspect of the questions used to promote dialog compared to questions used in teacher-centered learning involves a focus on thinking questions (degener& berne, 2017) rather than surface questions. with surface questions, students can often answer by merely going to the text and retrieving the answers from there, whereas with thinking questions, more elaborated thinking comes into play. an example on a surface question might be, “what room in the story has blue walls?”, whereas a thinking question might be, “what is one thing in your bedroom that you do not need very much and might want to give to charity?” classroom dialog should extend beyond individual one-on-one student conversations with teachers. student-student dialog should also take place, during all the recursive steps in the writing process. in this way, even if books are single-authored, the authors can acknowledge the contributions of others, just as often takes place with professionally published book. students may need assistance in learning the skills involved in providing peer feedback (min, 2016). providing specific positive feedback is one such skill, e.g., instead of saying, “this is good,” students might tell a classmate, “i really like all the colors you used in your drawing” or “i like the way that you help your parents.” students create their own books 5 which students should create their own books many different types of students can create their own books. for example, pelton & pelton (2009) described how students created comic books as part of their mathematics studies. this next section of the paper looks at two groups of students creating their own books: early childhood students (3-8 years old) and teenage and young adult second language students. the content of these books is flexible, depending on the students’ interests and purposes. early childhood education characteristics of early childhood students include that they may not be able to write at all, or they may need a great deal of help to write. several ways exist to compensate for these students’ lack of writing skill. one, they can use invented spelling (martins, salvador, albuquerque, & silva, 2016). with invented spelling in an alphabetic language, students spell words in whatever way fits their understanding of sound-symbol correspondence. the latitude given to students to spell as they wish can go as far as students writing squiggles, as long as those squiggles have meaning to the students. a second way to compensate for students’ current lack of writing proficiency involves someone else writing for the students. this writing could be done on a separate piece of paper from which students then copy into their book, or the helper could write directly into the students’ books. three, students can use a template from which they can copy many words, only writing the words needed to individualize their book. for instance, to help students create a book about their family, part of the template could go as follows, “there are ______ people in my family. they are my mother, my father, my _____ sisters, my ____ brothers. also, my ______ lives with us.” students can delete the parts that are not relevant, e.g., if they are only children, students can delete the parts about sisters and brothers. these templates seem more compatible with teacher-centric education. however, the hope is that these templates represent a first step toward increasing student independence. another fairly unique characteristic of students in the early childhood years is their appreciation for visuals and their enjoyment in creating visuals. indeed, many books written for these students feature a large drawing on each page accompanied by only a single sentence. taking this emphasis on visuals over words even further, early childhood literature also includes wordless picture books (grolig, cohrdes, tiffin-richards, & schroeder, 2020). one advantage of this emphasis on visuals relates to the issue of student ownership; whereas teachers and other stakeholders may be loathe to allow student books to contain less than stellar language, most people accept a developmental view of students’ art skills, possibly because the arts occupy a less valued place in the curriculum, especially as children near higher levels of education (gregory, 2017). as a result, teachers who might readily intervene in students’ language usage may be more willing to allow students complete ownership of the visuals they create. teen and young adult second language students extensive reading plays a key role in many second language education programs. to do extensive reading, students require books at their independent reading level, i.e., the difficulty level at which students can understand the books with little or no external assistance, e.g., from dictionaries or peers. 6 students create their own books most books in secondary school and university libraries, hard copy and online, are far above second language students’ independent reading levels. thus, graded readers, i.e., books specifically written or adopted to cater to second language learners at different levels of reading proficiency, were developed (holster, lake, &pellowe, 2017). graded readers often come with a variety of accompanying activities(mitchell, snead, & walker, 2019). student-generated books have at least two advantages over the typical graded readers, which cost money to purchase and cater to international audiences. in contrast, books produced by second language students for themselves and their peers cost little (perhaps a fee for laminating or binding) or nothing, and students should have less difficulty understanding books created in their local context, although students need to be cognizant of producing reader-based texts, e.g., in the case of students from iran doing books about their home context in a multinational class with classmates from countries such as india, japan, and spain. books appropriate for early childhood students may not be appropriate for older students. for instance, teen and young adult students may be likely to reject as childish books that consist of pages with a large drawing and only a single sentence. also, while books of five-six pages may satisfy young students, older students may want to produce longer books. one method that the authors of this article have used with older students involves producing anthologies in which each student takes responsibility for one page. for example, each student can write for an anthology entitled, “a scary moment.” teachers can also contribute to the anthology with an entry of their own, or they can find a model by a professional author or a former student. rather than only distributing the model to students, teachers might want to spend time facilitating students’ appreciation of salient features of the model (sowell, 2019). as mentioned earlier, dialog can be useful at all stages of the writing process. furthermore, students can dialog in order to share how they created their books with dialog prompts such as, “what is your favorite part of the story and why do you like it?” or “what was some useful feedback you received, and did you change your story because of the feedback?” other opportunities for dialog can arise after peers have read each other’s stories. here, students can write their own discussion questions to accompany their stories (song, oh, &glazewski, 2017). in addition to anthologies, another type of student-generated book for second language students arises out of a well-known education practice: dialog journals (mukti, 2016). with dialog journals, students write regularly in a paper notebook or on an electronic device. journal entries can be based on the entire class responding to the same prompt, or each student can base their entry on whatever inspires them at the time. the dialog in dialog journals comes into play as each journal entry receives a response from peers, teachers, or others. over the course of a term, students’ books will have grown large with many journal entries, each with one or more responses. while students may not wish to share their dialog journals widely, perhaps these books can serve as a way to encourage students to reflect on their own thoughts, thereby mobilizing their intrapersonal intelligence (armstrong, 2018). conclusion this article has suggested one method of inspiring more student-centeredness: student-created books. student ownership of their books deserves highlighting, as in the students create their own books 7 experience of the article’s authors, establishing student ownership constitutes a key potential stumbling block. the book creation process is impoverished without it. furthermore, a vital aim of student-centered education is to encourage students to become lifelong learners. whereas teacher-centered instruction risks draining education of the joy and excitement inherent in learning, studentcentered pedagogy offers the promise of a citizenry keen to learn throughout life and, just like students may share the books they create, we hope people throughout their lives will share their learning in a host of varied ways. © jacobs, george m. dr george m jacobs writes and speaks on such topics as education, environment, health, and animal welfare. many of his papers can be found at www.georgejacobs.net. his forthcoming book, with thomas farrell, is the second edition of essentials for successful english language teaching to be published by bloomsbury references abas, h. 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(2019, march 25). the rise of robot authors: is the writing on the wall for human novelists? the guardian. retrieved from https://www.theguarian.com/books/ 2019/mar/25/the-rise-of-robot-authorsis-the-writing-on-the-wall-for-humannovelists richardson, t., elliott, p., & roberts, r. (2017). relationship between loneliness and mental health in students. journal of public mental health, 16(2), 48-54. song, d., oh, e. y., &glazewski, k. (2017). student-generated questioning activity in second language courses using a customized personal response system: a case study. educational technology research and development, 65(6), 14251449. sowell, j. (2019). using models in the second-language writing classroom. english teaching forum, 57(1), 2-13. sudirman, s., &ati, s. (2019). the use of blogs to enhance students’ writing motivation. langua: journal of linguistics, literature, and language education, 2(1), 39-44. sun, z., yang, x. m., & he, k. k. (2016). an extensive reading strategy to promote online writing for elementary students in the 1: 1 digital classroom. computer assisted language learning, 29(2), 398-412. vygotsky, l. s. (1978). mind in society (ed. by m. cole, v. john-steiner, s. scribner, & e. souberman). cambridge, ma: harvard university press. wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. cambridge, united kingdom: cambridge university press. yano, y., long, m. h., & ross, s. (1994). the effects of simplified and elaborated texts of foreign language reading comprehension. language learning, 44(2), 189-219. https://www.theguarian.com/books/%202019/ https://www.theguarian.com/books/%202019/ https://books.google.com/books?id=hebzpgyukdac&dq=communities+of+practice:+learning,+meaning,+and+identity&printsec=frontcover&q= https://books.google.com/books?id=hebzpgyukdac&dq=communities+of+practice:+learning,+meaning,+and+identity&printsec=frontcover&q= paper title (use style: paper title) 88 syllabus design for computer extracurricular beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) syllabus design for computer extracurricular based on internet of things dias agata diasagatahendra@gmail.com *** adnan rachmad anom besari, *** iwan kurnianto wibowo *** berliana cahyaniati purnomo putri politeknik elektronika negeri surabaya, indonesia abstract this research presents the process of designing syllabus for computer extracurricular that will be used in a junior high school in indonesia, namely al uswah junior high school, surabaya. this study will determine the basic competencies that students need to master to learn internet of things (iot) and the ideal syllabus design so that students are able to master all basic competencies related to iot. in designing the new syllabus, first of all, the stem curriculum is obtained from schools, then needs analysis is done. internet of things was seen as the most suitable approach and then chosen as the main material for the extracurricular. then, the syllabus is designed based on the regulation of indonesian ministry of education and culture and revised bloom taxonomy. after that, six basic competencies were formulated and adapted into six learning materials. then the indicators are chosen in accordance with the competency standards of junior high school students. cognitive domain verbs from the knowledge dimension (factual, conceptual, procedural and metacognitive) are used in each indicator of competence achievement. various learning activities in the syllabus are comprehensively designed so that students can perform practical work in accordance with the learning materials. learning facilities in each section cover practicum teaching modules, power points, videos, practicum tool modules, and lcd projectors. the assessments for students include written tests, practicum and making products. each assessment is adjusted to the basic competency and learning materials that have been formulated. the results shows that that all indicators mentioned in the syllabus are in accordance with the competency standards of junior high school students. keywords: curriculum, syllabus, junior high school, internet of things, revised bloom taxonomy. introduction the booming population around 258 million people in indonesia, greatly affects the level of indonesian welfare. the asean economic community (aec) will further improve the economic competitiveness of the people in indonesia. in 2020-2030, indonesia is predicted to enter the peak of demographic bonus year. bonus demography is a representation where the number of productive age is greater than the unproductive age. statistical data in 2016 shows that 50% of indonesia population is of productive age, equivalent to 166.06 million people (annisa, 2017). the target population that has the best quality and opportunity in facing the demographic bonus of 2030 is the mailto:diasagatahendra@gmail.com� syllabus design for computer extracurricular 89 z generation (generation born in 1995-2010) who are currently aged between 7-22 years (adam, 2017). this shows that most of the z generation is still in childhood and threatened to face the demographic bonus later. the z generation is a generation who is versatile, individual, global, open-minded, entrepreneurship focused, faster dive into the world of work and more technology-friendly. according to hellen katherina from nielsen indonesia, the z generation is the future generation. however, the challenge that must be faced is that the generation is more inclined to have dependence on technologies such as gadgets, computers and the internet, which have an impact on excessive addiction that can affect mental decline, creativity and quality of learning. to deal with these problems, human resources need to be prepared through basic education from the early age. one of them is through the formal education curriculum. it also requires a form of application of digital technology activities so that children can be interested in applying technology to the realm of education. so that the output later can eliminate the bad habits of technology addiction without having to separate the technology from them completely. a design and implementation of internet of things-based computer learning media (iot) is needed as a solution to these problems. the iot-based stem learning will later be applied to the extracurricular of schools in the computer field. media connecting communication between students and iot learning media is using python language programming. because python has benefits to be easily learned by beginners. the main subject of this learning is children at the junior high school level because they have the ability to understand abstract science such as understanding programming languages. research questions the purpose of this study is to obtain a computer extracurricular syllabus design to improve the junior high school students' competency in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem), based on internet of things. in accordance with the purpose of the study, the following research questions were proposed: what are the basic competencies of junior high school’s students need to learn internet of things? how is the ideal syllabus design so that students are able to master the basic competencies? literature review the competency standards of junior high school graduates in indonesia as formulated in the indonesia minister of education and culture regulation no. 20 of 2016 concerning the competency standards for graduates of primary and secondary education (kemendikbud, 2016) are the basis of the preparation of basic competencies which will be derived in the syllabus design. based on the knowledge dimension, the competency standards of junior high school graduates are expected to have simple factual, conceptual, procedural and metacognitive knowledge at a simple technical and specific level related to science, technology, art and culture and are able to relate the knowledge in the everyday context as an indonesian citizen. syllabus is a learning plan for a particular subject or group that includes competency standards, basic competencies, subject matter or learning materials, learning activities, indicators of competence achievement, and assessment and learning 90 syllabus design for computer extracurricular beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) resources (depdiknas, 2005). the contents of the syllabus that meet the standards must be able to answer the following three questions: 1. what are the competencies that students must master? 2. how to achieve it? 3. how to know the achievement? the ideal syllabus design according to republic of indonesia government regulations (pp) number 19 of 2005 concerning national education standards article 20 is: syllabus must carry scientific value, relevant, systematic, consistent, adequate, actual and contextual, flexible and comprehensive (depdiknas, 2005). the indonesian government's concern for the development of stem teaching needs to be balanced with the readiness of the syllabus to implement the ideal teaching and learning process. one of the studies that has been done is in the form of research on the application of stem that is adapted to iot technology. the media used to implement iot technology are raspberry pi and python programming languages. raspberry pi has lower price, easy and fast iot implementation, and has an i / o port. while the python programming language was chosen because it is one of the best programming languages (rao, et al., 2018). the internet of things (iot) is an emerging global internet-based information architecture facilitating the exchange of goods and services. the iot has the purpose of providing it-infrastructure facilitating the exchange of "things" in a secure and reliable manner, i.e. the function is to overcome the gap between objects in the world and their representation in information systems. the iot will serve to increase transparency and enhance the efficiency of global supply chain networks (weber, 2010). iot is the most relevant approach applied to computer extracurricular because in the current industrial revolution 4.0 era, the need for students' understanding of the development of iot is very high, but the stem curriculum at school has not been supportive. so that with the fulfillment of material about iot in computer extracurricular activities, students are expected to be comprehensively understand the application of stem especially iot in everyday life. the implementation of stem in natural science learning in junior high schools is continued to refer to the 2013 curriculum. this study explained that stem was in line with the principles of making the syllabus in the 2017 edition of the 2013 curriculum revision. at each level of education, there is a conceptual framework from stem. junior high school level is a level which the skills in the stem field are explored through the activity of analyzing issues in solving problems. in addition, at this level, the subject of science and mathematics can be integrated in accordance with the concept of stem. the integration process can be done through basic competencies so that in learning process, two basic competencies are achieved at once. to implement stem in learning at junior high school, teachers can make a syllabus by integrating the basic competencies of the subject (anggraini, et al., 2017). method the internet of things-based computer extracurricular syllabus is designed in order to carry out ideal teaching and learning activities in a directed manner and in accordance with the objectives of the extracurricular. the objective of computer extracurricular is to provide a forum for students to develop self-confidence, syllabus design for computer extracurricular 91 providing skills to students who have interests and talents in the field of information and communication technology, directing students in the use of information and communication technology tools. "knowledge", the achievement of cognition, is further divided into subcategories adapted to the development in the field of neuroscience and research which covers factual knowledge, conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, and metacognitive knowledge (rukmini, 2009). this sub-category helps teachers and researchers to classify learning objectives, basic competencies or compile assessments more simply. these four sub-categories also appear to be a reference for the stipulation of the ministry of education and culture regulation no. 20 of 2016 concerning the competency standards for graduates of primary and secondary education (kemendikbud, 2016). so the use of revised bloom taxonomy is relevant for designing the syllabus in this study. the first step in designing the syllabus is to apply the conformity of competency standards with the stem curriculum that has been established by the school. after the adjustment, a number of basic competencies can be formulated from the competency standards. basic competency will be the basis for the design of the syllabus. second, the basic competencies will be formulated based on the revised bloom taxonomy (rukmini, 2009). the basic competency will be the base in determining the learning materials related to iot. third, cognitive domain verbs from revised bloom taxonomy will be used in establishing the indicators of competence achievement. taxonomy's revised bloom cognitive dimensions: remember (c1), understand (c2), apply (c3), analyze (c4), evaluate (c5 and create (c6). fourth, to embody the concept of technology in learning, a form of syllabus design that contains programming of the internet of things-based language as a learning media in the field of technology is made. the need analysis this syllabus design is prepared in accordance with the stem curriculum that is applied in one of the private schools in surabaya, namely al uswah junior high school surabaya. in this school, there is computer extracurricular that has been running for several years but still do not have an ideal syllabus to meet the needs of students which are adapted to the stem curriculum. to make the syllabus design, it is necessary to make plans and adjustments in accordance with the curriculum applied in al uswah junior high school. to be able to create a syllabus that is appropriate, information about the learning curriculum that has been applied in formal schools is collected. curriculum applied at the school today is the 2013 curriculum, which computer lesson is not a compulsory course yet serves as the supporting facility for all courses at school. if computer lesson considered as a certain study hour, in curriculum 2013 it is located during hours of student's extracurricular activity. stem stem is an abreviation for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. stem combines all parts of science, technology, engineering and mathematics in order to be applicable and realistic in understanding and solving a problem. if science and mathematics are integrated with technology and engineering, it can affect students’ motivation in learning. they will 92 syllabus design for computer extracurricular beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) feel that learning is memorable, interesting, fun, active, stimulating students' creative thinking skills and providing direct experience (alfama, 2017). in order for stem education to be in accordance with education in indonesia, the application of conformity is required. if the stem components in the form of science and represents science lesson, the technology will be manifested in mini pc or mini computer learning tools in the form of raspberry pi. if it is in the form of engineering, it will be manifested in the form of internet of things and if it is in the form of mathematics, it will be manifested in the mathematics lesson. with the adjustment plan between stem education and education in indonesia, it is highly expected that stem education can be best applied in indonesia through computer extracurricular based on internet of things. internet of things in this study the application of computer extracurricular learning is based on the internet, because it is easy to implement and in accordance with everyday activities. in the syllabus, the application of stem elements employs techniques and technology to utilize the use of internet of things. internet of things (iot) is an object that is connected wirelessly using smart sensors. in addition, iot is considered as a part of the internet in the future and is consisting of billions of intelligent communications on objects around us. in indonesia’s education, iot is often used as a learning medium in the classroom. the material related to iot is web programming, mobile computing and embedded systems. policy studies the syllabus design for junior high school students will be adjusted to republic of indonesia government regulations (pp) number 19 of 2005 concerning national education standards article 20 is: syllabus must carry scientific value, relevant, systematic, consistent, adequate, actual and contextual, flexible and comprehensive (depdiknas, 2005). results and analysis the curriculum in the destination school is in accordance with the graduates' competency standards which are having simple factual, conceptual, procedural and metacognitive knowledge at a simple technical and specific level related to science, technology. there are six basic competencies formulated from the competency standards: (1) apply the concept of internet of things in daily life, (2) employ python language programming in daily life, (3) apply the concept of measuring the quantities using standard units and sensors, (4) present the results of experiments in investigating the characteristic of acid and base solutions, (5) analyze the concept of temperature and its application in daily life, and (6) present the experiments results of work. based on the six basic competencies, the syllabus are designed consisting six learning materials: the basic of the internet of things and python, python basic programming, internet of things on measurement and unit, internet of things on the application of acids and bases, internet of things at temperature and internet of things on work. the six basic competencies are described in six tables respectively. the first learning material is the basics of internet of things and python. the purpose of this learning materials is students can comprehension the concept and the application from internet of things (iot) in syllabus design for computer extracurricular 93 daily life. besides of that, the basic competencies that must be reached is that students are able to apply the concept of internet of things in daily life. this learning material is the base of the entire iot learning. the indicators of competence achievement are: first, they are able to name the definitions of raspberry pi, internet of things and python which represents c1. second, they are able to elaborate the results of an investigation about using the internet of things in daily life which represents c2, and third, they are able to classify the daily life problems that related with internet of things which represents c4. in the end of this section, students can remember, understand and analyze items related to the basics of iot and python. the reason of classifying is to determine the iot application in daily life which related with the purpose and the basic competencies. table 1 the basics of the internet of things and python basic competencies the concept of internet of things in daily life. learning materials the basics of the internet of things and python. indicator name the definitions of raspberry pi, internet of things and python. elaborate the results of an investigation about using the internet of things in daily life. classify the daily life problems that related with internet of things. learning activities observe the human activities daily life which related with internet of things. make a solution model in daily life by using internet of things. learning facilities practicum learning module power point presentation video games practicum tool module lcd projector assessment written test learning resources raspberry pi cookbook, simon monk. teachers need to prepare several learning materials such as practicum teaching module, power point, video, game, practicum tool module and lcd projector. in first meeting, teacher will explain about the function of each learning facilities by video, power point and lcd projector. lastly, teacher will show the education game that must be finished by students. the assessment is obtained from the writing test only. the second learning material is about python basic programming. this learning material is designed so that students can apply the basic of arithmetic, algebra and integer in python programming language. the basic competencies must be reach is employ python language programming in daily life. the indicators of competence achievement are: students are keen to make a solution python program based on arithmetic and algebra which represents c6 and solve problems by using arithmetic, algebra and integer calculations which 94 syllabus design for computer extracurricular beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) represents c4. in the end of this section, students can analyze and create items related to python basic programming. the reason of this indicator is this section focused on the basic programming by arithmetic, algebra and integer calculations. in learning activities, student will experience using python language programming in daily life and presents the results of experiments with python and displayed in web or lcd screen. from this learn activities, the student must try to use python programming language and show the result from the experiment. teachers needed to use several learning materials such as practicum teaching module to guide the students to do experiment, power point to help the teacher explain the material, video to show the example of experiment application, practicum tool module as the media practice of the student and lcd projector to help when show the power point. the assessment is obtained from the writing test, the practicum process and products created by the students. the third learning material is about internet of things on measurement and unit. the goal is that students can count and read the value of measurements and units by applying iot. so that, the basic competency formulated is applying the concept of measuring the quantities using standard units and presenting measurement data using sensors. this section is focusing on the utilization of measurements and units by iot. so that the indicators of competence achievement formulated as follows: students are able to measure the measurement and unit, measure the condition of an object using a sensor which represents, count using timers in python programming, make programming to save and display data results in web form, design programming for the application of measurements and units, solve problems by using arithmetic, algebra and integer calculations. the indicators are syllabus design for computer extracurricular 95 representing c5, c3, c6 and c4 which means that students are able to apply, analyze, evaluate and create items related to iot on measurement and unit students will conduct experiments in learning activities to measure the length, mass, time and others and presenting experimental results about measurements with sensors and displayed in web or lcd screen. these activities will encourage students to use python programming language to determine and show the result from the experiment. learning facilities needed are practicum teaching module to guide the students to do experiment, power point to help the teacher explain the material, game to make the class fun, video to show the example of experiment application, practicum tool module as the media practice of the student and lcd projector to help when show the power point. the assessment is obtained from the writing test, the practicum process and products created by the students. the fourth learning material is about internet of things on acids and bases. the purpose is that the students can classify the difference between acids and bases and determine the application. in the end of this section, students are expected to master a basic competency: present the results of experiments in investigating the characteristic of acid and base solutions. 96 syllabus design for computer extracurricular beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) the indicators of competence achievement are: students are able to analyze the differences between acids and bases, compare acids and bases using ph sensor, demonstrate saving and displaying data results in web, design programming to apply the use of acids and bases classification and solve problems by using arithmetic, algebra and integer calculations. the indicators represents c4, c5, c3 and c6 respectively which means that in the end of this section, students can apply, analyze, evaluate and create related to iot on the application of acids and bases. the reason of this indicator is this section focused on the classification the difference between acids and bases by iot. in learning activities, student will investigate acid and bases by ph sensor and will present experimental results about investigations with sensors and displayed in web or lcd screens. this learning activities will encourage students to use python programming language to determine and show the result from the experiment. teachers need to prepare learning facilities such as practicum teaching module to guide the students to do experiment, power point to help the teacher explain the material, video to show the example of experiment application, practicum tool module as the media practice of the student and lcd projector to help when show the power point. the assessment is obtained from the writing test, the practicum process and products created by the students. syllabus design for computer extracurricular 97 the fifth learning material is about internet of things at temperature. the basiccompetency formulated is analyze the concept of temperature and its application in daily life and do experiments to investigate temperature use in everyday life. the indicators of competence achievement are: students are able to analyze the concepts of temperature and its application in daily life, calculate the temperature scale, rationalize the work of thermometer, read the temperature using a temperature sensor, make programming to save and display data results in web form, design programming to apply the use of temperature sensors in everyday life, make application programming from the thermometer, and solve problems by using arithmetic, algebra and integer calculations. the indicators are representing c4, c2, c1, and c6 respectively. after accomplishing this sections, students can remember, understand, analyze and create items related to iot at temperature. the reason of the indicators is this section focused on the application of temperature in daily life by iot. student will measure room temperature with a temperature sensor and presenting experimental results about measurements 98 syllabus design for computer extracurricular beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) with sensors and displayed in web or lcd screen. this learning activity will encourage students to use python programming language to determine and show the result from the experiment. teachers need to prepare practicum teaching module to guide the students to do experiment, power point to help the teacher explain the material, game to make the class fun, video to show the example of experiment application, practicum tool module as the media practice of the student and lcd projector to help when show the power point. the assessment is obtained from the writing test, the practicum process and products created by the students. the sixth learning material is about internet of things on work. the students are expected can comprehend the working of work and force in daily life by iot. the basic competency is analyze work concepts in daily life and presenting the experiments results of work. the indicators of competence achievement are: students are able to analyze the workings of the force of work, measure the speed of an object using a speed sensor, measure object length using a distance sensor, measure the weight of an object using a heavy sensor, count using timer on python programming, demonstrate saving and displaying data results in web, design programming to apply the utilization of work in daily life, and solve problems by using arithmetic, algebra and integer calculations. the indicators are representing c4, c5, c3, and c6. in the end of this section, students can apply, analyze, evaluate and create items related to iot on work. this section focuses on the utilization of work in daily life by iot. syllabus design for computer extracurricular 99 students will measure work by sensors and presenting experimental results about measurements with sensors and displayed in web or lcd screen. this learning activity will encourage students to use python programming language to determine and show the result from the experiment. teachers need to prepare practicum teaching module to guide the students to do experiment, power point to help the teacher explain the material, video to show the example of experiment application, practicum tool module as the media practice of the student and lcd projector to help when show the power point. the assessment is obtained from the writing test, the practicum process and products created by the students. conclusion the process of designing a syllabus for computer extracurricular at the junior high school level based on iot has been successfully made in accordance with indonesian government regulations and refer to revised bloom taxonomy. there are six competency standards related to iot and develop into six basic competencies for syllabus design. six basic competencies are adapted to iot-based learning materials, then elaborated in indicators of competency achievement from revised bloom taxonomy. the results show that all indicators mentioned in the syllabus are in accordance with the competency standards of junior high school students. in terms of the knowledge dimension, the factual, conceptual, procedural and metacognitive points of knowledge have been fulfilled with the emergence of cognitive domain verb in each indicator of achievement of competence in the syllabus that has been designed. learning activities in the syllabus are comprehensively made so that students can perform practical work in accordance with the learning materials. learning facilities in each section cover practicum teaching modules, power points, videos, practicum tool modules, and lcd projectors. the preparation of modules, power points and videos will be compiled in different research later on. the making of learning facilities will later refer to the syllabus designed in this study. the assessment for students in the first section is limited to written tests, while in the second to sixth section include written tests, practicum and making products. each assessment is adjusted to the basic competency and learning materials that have been formulated. to find out the effectiveness of the syllabus that has been designed in this study, researchers need to do further research by examining the syllabus implementation in the destination school first. . © dias agata, adnan rachmad anom besari, iwan kurnianto wibowo, and berliana cahyaniati purnomo putri dias agata, s.s., m.pd. is a lecturer at politeknik elektronika negeri surabaya, where she teaches english, communication skills and entrepreneurships. she is experienced in the preparation of curriculum and preparation of semester learning plans (rps) of english in the computer engineering study program at pens. dias is also proficient in public speaking and an entrepreneurial enthusiast. please email diasagata@pens.ac.id to contact dias. 100 syllabus design for computer extracurricular beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) adnan rachmad anom besari, s.st., m.sc. is a lecturer at computer engineering study program, politeknik elektronika negeri surabaya, where he teaches operating systems, syntax and programming language, computer vision and others. he is experienced in software development. anom recently serves as head of the student activity center and provides access for students to excel in the non-academic field. please email anom@pens.ac.id to contact anom. iwan kurnianto wibowo, s.st., m.t. is a lecturer at computer engineering study program, politeknik elektronika negeri surabaya, where he teaches basic programming, robotics, embedded system and electronic network. he is experienced in designing soccer robots and autopilot system for navigation of unmanned ships. iwan has successfully supervised many students to win robot contests at national and international levels. please email eone@pens.ac.id to contact iwan. berliana cahyaniati purnomo putri, is a final year student at computer engineering study program, politeknik elektronika negeri surabaya. berliana is currently working on her final project about syllabus design for internet of things based computer extracurricular. please email berlianacpp@gmail.com to contact berliana. references anggraini, flatya indah & huzaifah, siti. 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(2017). mengenal indonesia lewat data: generasi millenial dan terbukanya peluang ekonomi baru indonesia. http://ideannisa.com/2017/ 05/04/peluang-ekonomi-bonusdemografi-millenial/. alfama, adelian. (2017). increasing persistence of collage students in science technology engineering and mathematic (stem). sekolah tinggi teknologi dumai. sanner, m. f. (1999). python: a programming language for software integration and development. north torrey pines road, la jolla. kemendikbud. (2003). undang-undang republik indonesia nomor 20 tahun 2003 tentang sistem pendidikan nasional. hardyanto, r. hafid. (2017). konsep internet of things pada pembelajaran berbasis web. universitas pgri yogyakarta. rao, a. r., clarke, daniel. (2018). development of an embedded system syllabus design for computer extracurricular 101 course to teach the internet-of-things. fairleigh dickinson university. kemendikbud. 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(2010). internet of things. springer-verlag berlin heidelberg. the need analysis stem internet of things / / / the fifth learning material is about internet of things at temperature. the basiccompetency formulated is analyze the concept of temperature and its application in daily life and do experiments to investigate temperature use in everyday life. / offline vs. online flipped instruction 111 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya the effect of online vs. offline flipped instruction on efl learners' writing ability ali rahimi school of social sciences and languages vit university vellore, tamil nadu, india & mortezahasheminasab english department university of kashan kashan, iran article history abstract this study aimed at examining the effectiveness of computer-assisted flipped instruction on the writing ability of upper-intermediate iranian efl learners and their attitudes toward it. a mixed-method approach was used. a quantitative method enjoying the quasiexperimental pretest-posttest design was used. twenty participants were selected based on the convenient sampling method and were divided into an online flipped instruction group (n= 10) and an offline flipped instruction group (n= 10). a paired sample t-test and independent samples t-test were used to analyze the obtained data. the results showed that the learners who received online flipped instruction outperformed those who received offline flipped instruction, regarding their performance on the posttest. according to the findings of this study, it was argued that the learners in the online group had a positive attitude toward this method received: 07/10/2020 reviewed: 07/17/2020 accepted: 10/29/2020 keywords: computer assisted language learning (call), e-learning, efl, flipped instruction, writing ability doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v8i2.2607 introduction during the past few years, we have witnessed a gradual and, at the same time, rapid development in the field of language learning through computer-assisted language learning programs in a simple too complicated forms presented to users with varying levels of language competency. any kind of coming technology aims at leading to fresh prospects in pedagogy, and language learning and teaching are the areas that have seen significant alterations due to immediate promotions of technology. the introduction and development of computers created a new concept in this field of technology entitled "inverted or flipped classroom," which quickly became popular throughout the world. https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v8i2.2607 112 offline vs. online flipped instruction with the progress of the internet and technology, the role of computer-assisted language learning has become more significant and taken the researchers' attention in dealing with the impact of computers and the internet in learning. for example, chapelle and jamieson (1986) pointed out that instructors need to understand how call can best be used to offer practical instruction to language learners. innovation in technologies relating to computer and online interactions, improvements in telecommunication and information technology, and the growing market of computer technology gave rise to the utilization of computer technology as an always-available device for teaching and learning languages. various investigations on language teaching have emphasized using these technologies in teaching because learning a new language requires and demands interaction and autonomy, two basic notions in computer-assisted language learning. due to the rapid alterations in this technology and because of continuous improvements in forms of their usage, teachers, researchers, and scholars have tried to find other new applications of this utility that may be helpful and advantageous in teaching languages. these days, language learning and teaching cannot be regarded as separate from technology (warschauer & meskill, 2000). this dependency had existed since a long time ago when the grammar-translation approach was based on applying blackboard. later this continued in more modern forms of technology flourished in computer and mobile programs such as the audio-lingual method and the cognitive and sociolinguistic approaches to language teaching, the prerequisite of which was computer-aided programs implemented in the teaching situations. this forward movement of technology led to introducing the computer assisted language learning in the 1990s.salaberry (2001), in opposition to the application of technology in education though, insists on the traditional forms of pedagogy in teaching language; and beatty (2013) similarly believes that teachers should not consider using technology in the teaching process while nothing has been proved about its usefulness. kiernan and aizawa (2004), exploring the efficiency of language learning tools, conclude that the best way for learning a second language is task-based learning, not technology-based learning. they found the prominence of face-to-face activities over the technologybased ones in promoting the learners' linguistic performance. hubbard (2009)notes that while the early promise of computer-assisted language teaching (calt) has not been achieved to revolutionize second-language learning, there has been a fascinating amount of development in the last quarter-century. this is not only because of language learned from research and practice but also due to the fast changes that occurred in the technology. timuçin (2006)suggests that institutional l2 teachers are focused on the possibility of incorporating teaching technology. yet the method of using emerging technology and handling rapid changes is far from being a simple task. the successful use of emerging technology needs significant effort, in particular by the administrative people involved in this process. there has been a steady but persistent change in the way learning is done in a classroom over the last decades or so. with the introduction of modern pedagogical methods, more and more faculty members are implementing a blended approach to learning experience for students(hughes & offline vs. online flipped instruction 113 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya bruce, 2013).the "blended learning" approach puts together the persuasive elements of the online, classroom, and social learning to improve students’ involvement and interaction in a classroom. also, it aims to accomplish the expected learning success steps. the "flipped classroom" is a sort of blended learning approach where the curriculum and knowledge mastering function fall back to the students. with these strategies, the role of the teacher has gone through a metamorphosis from being the "sage on board" to being the "guide on the hand," and classes are now shifting from a conventional and passive teacher-centered learning atmosphere to an engaging studentcentered one with the teachers taking on the role of facilitators. technology does not positively impact teaching all the time, though face-to-face instruction is often not the ideal way to train. researchers have recently discussed the value of learning a language through social and productive acquisition rather than through comprehension and memorization (brown, 2014).flipped learning as a part of the blended classroom is considered as a combination between both e-learning and face-to-face learning. the flipped classroom is a technique that tra nsforms classroom experience from a classr oom area toanywhere, and is not timelimited ; learners can use the tools at any time and more than one time. the most suitable method for second language acquisition (sla) is considered to happen outside the classrooms without the constraints of any educational context (brown, 2014).flipped instruction is not a universal teaching method; it tries to involve all learners in the educational process. the fundamental idea and approach to presenting flipped content involve the creation of a pre-recorded video that covers the basic theoretical principles of a given lesson that students can view at their leisure outside of the classroom to obtain some insight into the subject discussed in the next lecture(bishop, 2013).this opportunity supports the teacher by opening up classroom resources, which can be used for constructive learning events such as inclass conversations, questions answered, and community activities. considering the research done on writing and flipped instruction so far, the purpose of this study is to find whether flipped classes through computer-assisted instruction have any effect on upperintermediate efl learners' writing ability. two research questions are supporting the objectives of the present study: 1. does the online flipped model of instruction have any significant influence on upper-intermediate iranian efl learners' writing ability? 2. what are upper-intermediate iranian efl learners' attitudes toward the implementation of flipped instruction model? literature review lage et al. (2000)published a study titled “inverting the classroom: a gateway to creating an inclusive learning environment.” according to this study, students’ access to multimedia and promoting the use of multimedia tools for the faculty means that reaching students with specific learning styles is no longer restricted by time constraints or at risk of losing coverage of the course. they design a strategy that is used in two microeconomics classes at the freshman level, and both teachers and students discuss method perceptions. the aim is to meet students with different learning styles by offering opportunities for students to use in non-class 114 offline vs. online flipped instruction learning, and through a lot of exercises and activities to improve engagement between learners and instructors inside of class.the researchers noted that this approach increased the amount of burden put on the student, and additional resources were made available to the students to assist in the analysis of the subject. help and openness were also built-in, such as the availability of teachers to reply online chat room questions, interactive quizzes for the students to evaluate their skills, and worksheets for checking homework completion. inside the classroom, learners’ practice on experiments, lab exercises, held discussions, and completed hands-on activities under the guidance of the teacher. overall, student emotions and expectations of this approach and course were optimistic, and teachers reported a rise in learners' use of this program. the researchers suggested a potential explanation for the increase in stimulation, as this style of classroom permitted students to take control of their learning. the teachers observed that learners were increasingly more confident asking questions in class, likely due to the "increase in opportunities for one-on-one contact with the instructor." from the teachers' perspective, the course was considerably more motivating to teach. the researchers, comparing this approach and program with a conventional classroom, noted that "it could be that lower student participation is expected in the inverted classroom." researchers noted that one positive point of this method is the increased potential for interaction between faculty and students. such interaction is useful in two ways: the learner can automatically clear up any ambiguity, and the teacher can screen the results and understanding (lage et al., 2000). a large number of papers have been published to illustrate the beneficial impact of using the flipped classroom approach in all academic modules. wentland (2004)grouped different teaching approaches according to their effectiveness in separate classifications, including the instructional goals of bloom. the classification was based on whether the approach promoted student or teacheroriented action, whether it focused on technology, whether it included individual or group-oriented work, and whether it was time-consuming or time-saving. the research analyzed the methodologies used in teaching economics, including the cps approach, service learning, lecturing, lecturing plus, interactive (role-play), inverted classroom, technology-based, case studies, and tests, presentations, and drama. the study found that the inverted classroom had met cognitive and affective goals but not necessarily the psychomotor (hands-on) objective from bloom's taxonomy of educational purposes. the research also concluded that there is a student-oriented practice in the flipped classroom where teachers play a more supporting role while students take an active role in the learning process. finally, the study concluded that using the inverted instruction required both person and community-oriented action, and categorized this approach as time-saving rather than time-consuming. it indicates that this approach can be used in a reasonably short time to convey much information (wentland, 2004). al-harbi and alshumaimeri (2016) decided to use the flipped classroom strategy to teach english grammar to investigate its effect on the results, expectations and attitudes of secondary school students towards independent english language learning. for this analysis, offline vs. online flipped instruction 115 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya the researchers applied the flipped classroom strategy by selecting videos based on the textbook of the students and uploading those videos to the edmodo website before starting each lesson. the purpose of doing this method wasto provide opportunities for active learning interactions. the experimental group included 20 learners, who were required to watch the videos and learn on their own and to come to class ready for clarification. the experimental group practiced what they had learned under the teacher’s supervision by completing collaborative and competitive tasks in groups or pairs. besides, the control group was 23 learners and received only inclass traditional teaching. they were taught grammatical lessons without watching videos. the statistical analysis of the posttest showed that implementing the flipped classroom strategy had a significant role in improving the students’ grammar performance. moreover, the mean score of the experimental group was more than that of the control group, but this difference was not statistically significant. responses from the participants to a questionnaire and semistructured interviews showed positive attitudes about using the flipped classroom approach in the efl class, and they were pleased with this teaching process. in a recent study, hung (2015)attempted to implement flipped teaching into language classrooms that use a webquest active learning strategy. the object of this research was to explore the impacts of flipped instruction on english language learners’ academic performance, participation levels, and learning attitudes. the researcher adopted a quasiexperimental design, and three different formats for flipped teaching were employed in this study. in a study conducted by enfield (2013), the influence of the flipped classroom teaching model on multimedia undergraduate students at csun has been investigated. this study has been done on two classes at california state university, northridge. participants in this study stated that the method of flipped instruction engaged them in learning experiences, and it has a significant role in learning new content. besides, it helped learners in enhancing self-efficacy in their ability to learn by them-selves and independently. bhagat et al. (2016)investigated the effect of the flipped teaching approach on the performance and motivation of the students. the researchers grouped students into three separate groups, and the total number of participants was 82. researchers benefitted from pretests and posttests in this analysis. the findings demonstrated the positive role that the flipped teaching approach plays, particularly on average students. methods participants to collect the required data, a total of twenty iranian learners at the upperintermediate level of language proficiency took part in this study. their ages rangedfrom18 to 34 years old, and they studied at an english language institute. the approach of sample selection was based on convenience, and allparticipants were female. these participants were taking the course of topnotch3b and were divided into two groups of online (experimental group) and offline instruction (control group). both groups have been homogenized because they were selected based on their 116 offline vs. online flipped instruction performance on the oxford placement test (opt). procedure after dividing the participants into experimental and control groups, they took an opt and were homogenized accordingly. then a writing test was given to them as the pretest. as their treatment, the experimental group received the flipped model of instruction with a selection of writing tasks taken from different course books on a computer-assisted platform, i.e., whatsapp in contrast, the control group was presented with the same passages in the class on a powerpoint platform, which were given to them through teacher presentations in the class and a copy of which they could have at home. after the treatment sessions, which lasted for six weeks, both groups took a posttest. it is worth mentioning that the pretest and posttest were in parallel forms. instruments oxford placement test (opt). oxford placement test, as a test of proficiency homogeneity, was administered at the beginning of the term. this test has 60 multiple choice items on grammar, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. they were allotted to take it in 40 minutes. this test was used to homogenize the learners in two groups of this study. pretest and posttests. two writing tests were administered in this study, one for pretest and the other one for the posttest of the study. both tests had the same writing prompts to make sure of the reliability and validity of the research. the prompts were selected from the top notch 3b final test manual, and to ensure the content validity of the tests, the participants were asked to write a 150-word essay on that. the essays were corrected, and the number of grammatical errors was recorded for further analysis. the essays were scored based on kentucky analytical writing scoring rubric. the reason behind choosing this rubric was the fact that it was a valid scoring reference for language teachers, and it provided analytic scoring criteria including coherence, structure, cohesion, etc., which could add to the consistency of scoring and, in turn, improve the reliability of the scores. since a single rater scored the drafts, there was a need for intra-rater reliability of the ratings, which was calculated to be 0.83. interview. an interview was conducted to explore the attitudes of the learners toward the computer-assisted flipped learning method used in each group. thus, the researcher conducted a semi-structured interview to explore their attitudes toward the issue. the reason behind the adoption of the semi-structured interview was that in the first two cases of interview sessions, the learners did not elaborate on the issues raised in the structured interview, and the researcher had to ask several detailed questions which could affect the subjectivity of the interview. accordingly, the researcher decided to conduct a semistructured interview considering the ages of the participants and let them pour out whatever they thought about their experience of the new method. results according to the results depicted in table 1, variables' distributions on the essential central index (mean) and the most important dispersion index (standard deviation) are indicated. the table sheds light on the mean in the offline group, which is 40.90, with sd of 7.125. the mean score of the online group is 41.90, with sd of 6.026. moreover, the minimum and maximum scores of the offline group, according to the table, are offline vs. online flipped instruction 117 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya (minimum, 29.00) and (maximum, 55.00). these values for the online group are 33.00 and 52.00, respectively. table 1. descriptive statistics of opt results n mean std. deviation minimum maximum level-offline 10 40.90 7.125 29.00 55.00 level-online 10 41.90 6.026 33.00 52.00 valid n (listwise) 10 descriptive findings to become more familiar with the nature of the research variables, it is necessary to describe them before analyzing the data because the statistical description of the data precedes the statistical inference and helps to identify the patterns that govern the data. in this section, as described above, some descriptive characteristics of the research variables are examined using some central and dispersion indices table 2. descriptive statistics of the research variables variable n mean std. deviation minimum maximum 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper pretest offline 10 13.70 1.16 12.00 16.00 12.98 14.42 posttest offline 10 14.60 0.669 14.00 16.00 14.83 16.17 pretest online 10 13.40 0.97 12.00 15.00 12.80 14.00 posttest online 10 16.00 0.816 15.00 17.00 14.71 15.89 valid n (listwise) 10 according to table 2, the mean score of the pretest in the offline group is 13.70, and in the online group, this value is 13.40. on the other hand, the values of the mean for posttests in both groups are 14.60 and 16.00, respectively. inferential analysis in the inferential analysis section, the normality of the variables is examined using the kolmogorov-smirnov test. the relationship between the dependent variable and independent variables is investigated, and the research hypotheses for confirmation or disapproval are investigated. check for the normality of variables to check the normality of the research variables, using the kolmogorov-smirnov test, the null hypothesis (h0) indicates that the variable is normal and the opposite assumption (h1) indicates that the variable is not normal. the following table is the output of this test: h0: data distribution is normal. h1: data distribution is not normal. 118 offline vs. online flipped instruction table 3 one-sample kolmogorov-smirnov test considering the significance level values obtained in table 3 which are all greater than 5%, the null hypothesis that the distribution of samples is normal at the 5% error level is confirmed, meaning that there is not a significant difference between the distribution of samples and the normal distribution of data. thus, given the central limit states that when the number of samples is greater than 30, it shifts to normal, it can be concluded that the distribution of data is normal. thus, it can be concluded that the offline and online groups enjoyed the same level of data distribution. result of the first question. the first question addressed in this study is defined as below: does the online flipped model of instruction have any significant influence on the writing ability of upper-intermediate iranian efl learners? the next defined hypothesis for answering the first research question is: to examine the above question, researchers first ran the two-tailed independent t-test, as shown in the following table. table 4 independent samples test levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2tailed) mean differe nce std. error differe nce 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper pretest equal variances assumed 0.150 0.703 0.629 18 0.538 0.300 0.477 -0.703 1.303 equal variances not assumed 0.629 17.432 0.538 0.300 0.477 -0.705 1.305 in this hypothesis, levon’s test was first used to test for variance equality. it is considered that the value of sig is 0.150 and higher than 0.05, thus assuming equality of variances is accepted. according to the results of the t-test, the sig values are 0.477 and more than 0.05. therefore, the equality of averages is accepted at 95% confidence. in other words, the mean scores in two offline vs. online flipped instruction 119 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya groups of online and offline in pretest were not significantly different. research hypothesis. there is a significant difference between posttest scores in the online and offline groups. to examine the above question, the independent t-test has been run. in this hypothesis, levon's test was first used to test for variance equality. it is considered that the sig value is 0.00, and less than 0.05, thus assuming equality of variances is rejected. according to the results of the ttest, the sig values are 0.00 and less than 0.05. therefore, the equality of averages is rejected at 95% confidence. in other words, the mean scores in the two groups of offline and online posttests were significantly different. according to table 2, the mean of pretest of the offline group equals 13.70, and, in the posttest group, this value is 14.60. on the contrary, these values in the online group are 14.60 and 16.00, respectively. therefore, it is indicated that the progress in the online group's performance is more evident than that in the offline group. results of the second research question. the second research question addressed in this study is defined as below: 2. what are iranian upper-intermediate efl learners' attitudes toward implementing the flipped model of instruction? as mentioned earlier, the volunteering learners from the experimental or online group participated in the interview conducted one by one after the treatment was over. seven learners from this group participated in the interview. the following themes emerged from the interview: organization and scheduling: the first theme arising from the interview data was the sense of organization, scheduling, and time-management. that is, the learners from the experimental group stated that the flipped instruction helps them organize their language learning in general and practicing writing in particular. it helped them identify the essential points taught in the previous session since they had to review lexical and grammatical points covered in the previous session before handling writing practice to avoid facing problems when writing. they stated that they had to look at the notes of the teacher's explanation or the persian equivalents in their books – or their notebooks in a few instances – and then start flipped learning programs. however, this approach helped them have a track of the new content for each lesson and session so that they could remember the points for classroom tests better. meaningful review: as mentioned by the learners from the experimental group, they had a chance to review the passages regularly so that they could learn one aspect of writing as well as answering strategies over time rather than few days before the test or quizzes held by the teacher. they believed that the frequent review and established timed review by the teacher on flipped instruction helped them have an external pressure to be attentive to writing skills and course content as well. another point was that, traditionally, students had to translate and write the meaning of the words in persian, in most cases, next to the words and sentences in their books which was not too quick in doing writing activities or difficult to understand over time since they did not review them instantly after the session and came back to them sometime later so that they were out of the picture of the description given by the teacher. this flipped model instruction helped them change their study habit and focus on other strategies like guessing the meaning of 120 offline vs. online flipped instruction words and taking the risk of paraphrasing sentences and choosing an answer without feeling ashamed when they chose a wrong answer. quick and easy material: the students believed that when the flipped model of instruction was presented in an organized format for each lesson and each session, they had no stress for the exams and tests, and they could have a wellestablished source of the writing. moreover, they believed that they did not have to spend the time in class, taking notes, and could easily engage in doing exercises. prep-course material: the efl learners in the experimental group, who enjoyed the flipped instruction, stated that the presentation helped them to have a better understanding of the way they had to deal with the writing tasks on the exams. since the exercises followed the presentation and practice phases were similar to those of the writing test of their quizzes and final test, the learners had a chance to get familiar with the same type of items on the quiz or final test. discussions the findings of the present study revealed that employing the strategy of flipped or inverted classroom imposed an exercised an impressive effect on upperintermediate efl learner’s writing ability. thus, the results of this study are in harmony with other studies conducted by other researchers (al-harbi &alshumaimeri, 2016; bhagat et al., 2016; hung, 2015). besides, ting hung (2015) stated that flipped instruction has the power of engaging learners at home, and the results of this study in the interview confirmed this study's finding. moreover, wentland (2004) declared that the flipped or inverted classroom could save time. wentland stated that inverted instruction makes learners responsible for their learning, and instruction's orientation is toward learners, not teachers. participants' expressions in the interview confirmed this study by wentland (2004). ebrahimi et al. (2013)investigated the impact of using technology and the internet on the experience of students in their classroom environment and suggested that students in a technology-enhanced language learning classroom have a more positive attitude towards their classroom learning environment because it is more effective, learner-centered and motivating. overall, these studies found out the positive effects of implementing flipped instruction in language learning, and this study confirmed their findings. concerning the first question, this study found out that learners can enhance their learning process by integrating technology and considering the possible effect of call in the learning environment. the results of the first question revealed that the flipped instruction of the online group has been more successful, and participants got better scores in their posttest in comparison to their counterparts, the offline group. in this regard, tahmasebi and rahimi (2013) stated the possibility of using computer-assisted assessment as an alternative to the mainstream testing systems. the results also revealed that the experimental group had a significantly higher mean on the posttest than the control group. as the results indicated, it can be concluded that the upper-intermediate learners benefited the flipped technique and outperformed the learners who were deprived of the online flipped model of instruction. to assess the offline vs. online flipped instruction 121 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya effect of flipped instruction on the learners' progress in writing, the posttest scores of the online group (treatment group) and the offline group (control group) were analyzed through statistical tests, and they were compared. the analysis of the posttest scores at the end of the study showed that online flipped instruction had a significantly positive impact on the posttest scores of the online group, while no significant changes were traced in the posttest scores of the offline group in comparison to their scores in the pretest. by the same token, rahimi and bigdeli (2014)found that students taught using ict techniques achieved a higher degree of self-regulation compared to those taught using conventional teaching methods. such results, which confirmed the efficacy of flipped instruction on the efl learners' language efficiency, were consistent with findings from similar studies conducted before the present study. concerning the second issue, which was aimed at defining the attitudes of efl learners towards the flipped instruction model, the results of the frequency analysis showed that efl learners had mostly positive attitudes towards the flipped instruction model, and agreed that flipped instruction model would be useful in improving their writing abilities. interview findings from the participants showed that most participants preferred to use flipped instruction online for language learning purposes. in general, the positive results of learning english writing among a community of efl learners in a short period of study could be attributed to various factors, one of which is the enthusiasm and the new dimension of language learning by studying through this method. the results of the interview also showed the participants' eagerness to apply the process. this major result may have been attributed to different factors. one possible explanation for the results observed is that flipped classrooms allow students to enjoy more time in the classroom and have more time for interaction, learning, evaluation and exploration (wentland, 2004). in general, flipped learning received the most supportive remarks from students in the research about the participation of the students in the classroom, allowing them the ability to plan for the exams, giving them a sense of structure and scheduling concerning the views of students about the efficacy of the flipped classroom approach in enhancing their writing skills and supporting their self-learning opponents. moreover, they had more and more time to spend on writing. conclusions as mentioned earlier, the main goal of this study was to explore an effective way of teaching writing and inference making to efl learners. after reviewing the available literature, two promising techniques were developed based on computer-assisted instruction. a quasi-experimental design using pretest and posttest was used to compare flipped instruction and traditional instruction in terms of their impact on learners' writing. considering the results of the statistical analysis presented above, the researchers found that flipped instruction was effective in both cases. according to the findings of the study regarding the first and second null hypotheses of the present study, it was revealed that the learners receiving instruction in both groups could significantly improve their levels of writing. although this pattern was visible in both groups, the results showed the superiority of the flipped instruction method used in the experimental 122 offline vs. online flipped instruction method over the method in the control group. flipped model of instruction and efl learners’ writing proved to be interactive variables, and the link between the two and their impact on language learning is considered crucial in second language teaching and learning. on the other hand, as cockrum (2013)states, this model offers a learning environment focused on the students to enhance their learning. the results of this study showed that not only did the flipped teaching model increase the performance of the students on writing, but it also improved their overall attitudes and beliefs towards writing and enhanced the enthusiasm and commitment of the students to the class. there are two implications of the present study: one for teachers and the other for syllabus designers. according to the results of the current research, it can be argued that teachers at different levels should strongly rely on different computerassisted flipped instruction since it is proved to be more efficient. moreover, it is suggested that teacher training programs and teacher trainers attending pre-service or in-service programs encourage teachers to apply flipped instruction methods through computerassisted teaching. also, they should have the candidates develop and practice flipped instruction so that they can master the application of these techniques. furthermore, syllabus designers and textbook developers are advised to incorporate computer-assisted flipped instructional material in their materials through devising companion electronic material, companion websites, and smart books. it is worth mentioning that both offline and online material could be useful for learners ©ali rahimi &mortezahasheminasab ali rahimi, ph.d. is a full professor at the school of social sciences and languages, vit university, vellore, india. he was previously an associate professor of applied linguistics and intercultural studies at bangkok university. he is the author of 14 books. he has also published extensively in various reputable international journals and has presented his articles at national and international conferences. morteza hasheminasab is an ma student at english department of university of kashan, iran. he has presented his papers at national conferences. he has 8 years of teaching experience. his areas of interest include computer assisted language learning, elt, and languageproficiency. references al-harbi, s. s., & alshumaimeri, y. a. (2016). the flipped classroom impact in grammar class on efl saudi secondary school students' performances and attitudes. english language teaching, 9(10), 60-80 . beatty, k. (2013). teaching & researching: computer-assisted language learning. routledge . bhagat, k. k., chang, c.-n., & chang, c.-y. (2016). the impact of the flipped classroom on mathematics concept offline vs. online flipped instruction 123 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya learning in high school. journal of educational technology & society, 19(3), 134-142 . bishop, j. l ( .3102 .) the flipped classroom: a survey of the research. age, 23, 1 . brown, s. (2014). open and distance learning: case studies from education industry and commerce. routledge . chapelle, c., & jamieson, j. (1986). computer‐ assisted language learning as a predictor of success in acquiring english as a second language. tesol quarterly, 20(1), 27-46 . cockrum, t. (2013). flipping your english class to reach all learners: strategies and lesson plans. routledge . ebrahimi, n. a., eskandari, z., & rahimi ,a. (2013). the effects of using technology and the internet on some iranian efl students' perceptions of their communication classroom environment. teaching english with technology, 13(1), 3-19 . enfield, j. (2013). looking at the impact of the flippedclassroom model of instruction on undergraduate multimedia students at csun. techtrends, 57(6), 14-27 . hubbard, p. (2009). educating the call specialist. international journal of innovation in language learning and teaching, 3(1), 3-15 . hughes, h .& , bruce, c. s. (2013). international students’ experiences of informed learning: a pedagogical case study. international journal of pedagogies and learning, 8(2),106-119 . hung, h.-t. (2015). flipping the classroom for english language learners to fosteractive learning. computer assisted language learning, 28(1), 81-96 . kiernan, p. j., & aizawa, k. (2004). cell phones in task based learning-are cell phones useful language learning tools? recall, 16(1), 71-84 . lage, m. j., platt, g. j., & treglia, m ( .3111.) inverting the classroom: a gateway to creating an inclusive learning environment. the journal of economic education, 31(1), 30-43 . rahimi, a., & bigdeli, r. a. (2014). ict and efl students’ self-regulation mastery: educational meat or poison. asiacall online journal (issn 1936-9859) . salaberry, m. r. (2001). the use of technology for second language learning and teaching: a retrospective. the modern language journal, 85(1), 39-56 . tahmasebi, s., & rahimi, a. (2013). computer-assisted assessment: highlights and challenges. teaching english with technology, 13(2), 55-74 . timuçin, m. (2006). implementing call in an efl context. elt journal, 60(3), 262271 . warschauer, m., & meskill, c. (2000). technology and second language teaching. handbook of undergraduate second language education, 15, 303-318 . wentland, d. (2004). a guide for determining which teaching methodology to utilize in economic education: trying to improve how economic information is commun-icated to students. education, 12 (4 .) acknowledgements first of all, on behal of all beyond words editors, i want to send our huge thanks to all reviewers: prof. larry dwan chong, ph.d., professor at gyeongju, south korea, and founder of asia call. dr. jati gumawang senior lecturer at institut teknologi bandung, dr. benedict dwijatmoko, dr. made hery santosa, ganesha university, singaraja, bali, and dr. fx mukarto, senior lecturer at the graduate school of sanata dharma university, yogyakarta, indonesia, mark feng teng, ma senior lecturer at the department of education studies, hong kong baptist university, hong kong, rouhollah askari bigdelli, ph.d., university of otago, new zealand, prof. anita lie, ed.d., prof. dr. veronica l. diptoadi, mateus yumarnamto, ph.d., and siti mina tamah, ph.d. , dede oetomo, ph.d., professors and senior lecturers at the english education department, graduate school widya mandala surabaya catholic university, indonesia. the peer reviews have contributed very significantly to maintain both the quality of this online journal and as a feedback for authors. the same thankful expressions also came from authors for the reviewers’ scholarly comments and feedback. and last but not least, our great appreciation goes to all authors for their writings. for those whose manuscripts have not been accepted for this issue, please do not get discouraged. please, kindly read the guide to authors and the article template. we invite you to do more research and submit articles again. your juniors need vivid examples from you, besides, being able to write a good article is a value in itself. beyond words editors javascript:openrtwindow('http://journal.wima.ac.id/index.php/bw/about/editorialteambio/234') effects of three vocabulary learning methods 49 beyond words vol. 9 no.1 may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya the effects of three l2 vocabulary learning methods through reading activity keita kodama jody@ccalumni.meijo-u.ac.jp faculty of foreign studies, meijo university & tomohiko shirahata shirahata.tomohiko@shizuoka.ac.jp faculty of education, shizuoka university article history abstract this study examines the effectiveness of the three vocabulary learning methods the authors adopted. in search of this research issue, the study used longitudinal experiments with 93 university japanese learners of english (jles) for fifteen weeks. once a week for six consecutive weeks, participants of the three experiment groups were given different treatments for learning 110 targeted english words when they were mainly reading an english textbook: (i) group a: the implicit vocabulary learning group with questions in english/answers in english task, (ii) group b: the explicit vocabulary learning group with a cloze test task, and (iii) group c: the explicit vocabulary learning group with multiple-choice word test task. a pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest were conducted. the results showed that (i) all the groups improved their performances at the immediate posttest and almost maintained their performance levels at the delayed posttest, which indicate that all the learning methods were more or less effective. however, the developmental degrees of the vocabulary increase were different: group c showed the highest improvement among the three. from these findings, the authors claim that using a (multiple-choice) word test is fairly effective for jles to develop their knowledge of english words. received: 29-10-20 reviewed: 11-05-21 accepted: 13-05-21 keywords: learning of l2 vocabulary learning vocabulary through reading activity explicit and implicit learning doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i1.2778 introduction the authors’ ultimate purpose is to find out the most effective learning/teaching method of second language (l2) vocabulary learning in japan. as the first step for achieving the purpose, the present study examines the effectiveness of the three vocabulary learning methods the authors adopted: which is the most effective method for japanese learners of english (jles) to learn english words through reading activities in the classroom. the authors designed and conducted three longitudinal experiments. each experiment had a different learning method of l2 vocabulary. the authors believe that vocabulary plays a fundamental role for developing l2 https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i1.2778 50 effects of three vocabulary learning methods learners’ four skills: speaking, writing, reading and listening. without the knowledge of vocabulary, we would not practice any linguistic activity and cannot communicate with others. it seems true that people with plenty of vocabulary knowledge will speak and write logically and think deeply in order to express their ideas accurately. moreover, under the new course of study by the ministry of education, culture, sports, science and technology of japan (mext), which was in effect from april 2020 through 2022, the number of english words introduced throughout ten years (from the 3rd year of elementary school till the 3rd year of senior high school) increases from 3000 words to 4000 5000 words, which may make the burden too heavy for jles. thus, nowadays, there is a growing interest for jles in search of effective ways of learning english vocabulary. based on these educational backgrounds, this study attempts to find out an efficient vocabulary learning method for the jles in japan. let us briefly describe the organization of this paper: in the background section following the introduction, the authors will discuss the type of learning english conditions in japan, explicit and implicit learning in the classroom, and a review of related previous studies. then, the authors will explain the procedure of three longitudinal experiments they conducted. after the experiment section, results and discussion of the experiments follow. finally, the authors will address some proposals for teaching and learning english vocabulary in japan. whatever teaching method an english language teacher in japan adopts, the method must be suited for learning conditions jles face. they are shown in (1). (1) a. jles learn english from teachers by using textbooks in the classroom. b. in most of the cases, teachers are nonnative english speakers, that is, japanese teachers of english (jtes). c. lesson hours for english are limited: twice a week at elementary school and four or five times a week at high school for 35 weeks a year, which cannot be said to be enough for acquiring a foreign language subconsciously. d. usually there are over thirty students in the classroom, and there is a limited opportunity to receive the one-to-one instruction from the teacher. e. there can be a big difference of english proficiency among the students even in the same classroom. it is rather hard for teachers to decide which level of the students they should focus on. f. students must learn new english words as well as new english grammar one after the other following the order of the textbook. g. students are expected to learn the four skills, reading, writing, listening and speaking, with equal value and time. teachers in japan must find an effective and easy way to practice a teaching method by taking these learning conditions into account. otherwise, the method would be useless for jles. considering the learning conditions shown in (1), the authors will propose the method of learning english words through reading activities. a reading activity in the classroom at junior and senior high schools as well as at university probably serves the major opportunity for jles to come across a wide range of new english words. they can learn and enlarge their vocabulary size more at the reading activity than at the other activities (listening, speaking and writing) because they can encounter many words visually when they read textbooks. thus, in the experiment of this study, the authors decided to make use of the reading classes when jles learn new english words. learning new words through the reading activities can be a most realizable way of teaching and learning vocabulary in japan. effects of three vocabulary learning methods 51 beyond words vol. 9 no.1 may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya literature review explicit and implicit learning there are essentially two types of learning strategy when we learn a foreign language: explicit learning and implicit learning. explicit learning is defined as “explicit learning through the focused study of words” (schmitt, 2000, p.116). in explicit vocabulary learning, l2 learners may focus their attention directly on new l2 words through the input materials. they will acquire new l2 words with activities that activate the vocabulary learning process. on the other hand, implicit learning is defined as learning “through the exposure when one’s attention is focused on the use of language, rather than the learning itself” (schmitt, 2000, p.116). in implicit l2 vocabulary learning, they will acquire new l2 words through mere exposure to the input materials without conscious intention to learn. it is interesting to know which learning method, explicit learning or implicit learning, is more effective for jles to learn new english words who are under the learning environments described in (1). as will be described below, there are two opposite opinions. some researchers claim that l2 learners can attain more knowledge from the explicit vocabulary learning, while others take the opposite side. explicit learning is better than implicit learning explicit l2 vocabulary learning by looking up words in a dictionary. there are studies that claim that explicit learning is more effective than implicit learning. marzban and kamalian (2013) compared the effect of explicit vocabulary learning with that of implicit vocabulary learning by using iranian university students learning english as a foreign language (efl). in this experiment, three groups of the participants received different treatments. the participants of the first group were given reading passages and were told to answer comprehension questions of the passages, which means that they were given the implicit learning method in terms of vocabulary learning. the participants of the second group were given a marginal glossary of the target words in the passages, which means that the participants learned the words explicitly. the participants of the third group were told to check the target words in the passages with a dictionary, which is another explicit learning method for learning vocabulary. after the five sessions, a posttest was administered by using a multiplechoice vocabulary test to compare how much the participants of the three groups learned the words respectively. the results showed that both explicit groups performed better than the implicit learning group. moreover, the third group, which used a dictionary, indicated the most effective result among the three groups. the findings of marzban and kamalian (2013) provide support for the effectiveness of the explicit learning method in learning l2 vocabulary. what is more, the use of a dictionary can be a good way of learning l2 words. (see also mizarii (2012) and yagoubi and seyyedi (2017) for the similar experimental results). explicit l2 vocabulary learning through cloze task. there are studies that indicate the effectiveness of the use of a cloze task under the explicit l2 vocabulary learning method. khoii and poorafshari (2015), for example, compared the effect of a simple text-reading task with that of a cloze test task for l2 vocabulary learning. their participants were 70 iranian learners of english. they were divided into an 52 effects of three vocabulary learning methods experimental group and a control group. during the 10-session treatment, 10 cloze tasks were used for the experimental group. the participants in the experimental group were told to read the 10 passages, and then complete the cloze task cooperatively with other learners and try to fill out the deleted words for each blank. on the other hand, participants in the control group were also told to read the same 10 passages for the purpose of the comprehension of the text as the experimental group did, but they did it without any blanks. the pretest and the posttest mean scores of the vocabulary test were compared between the two groups. the test results showed that the experimental group gained a significant amount of vocabulary as compared with that of the control group. a mean score of the pretest for the experimental group was 15.6 points and that of the posttest was 33.7 points out of 40 points. there was an increase of 18.1 points from the pretest to the posttest. on the other hand, a mean score of the pretest for the control group was 15.5 points and that of the posttest was 16.3 out of 40 points. thus, the findings of the study shed light on the effectiveness of the cloze test task with explicit instruction for l2 vocabulary enhancement in the reading class (see also laufer and osimo (1991) for the effectiveness of the cloze test task). explicit l2 vocabulary learning through word test. some studies supporting explicit learning also claim that a word test is an effective learning method for l2 vocabulary. for example, karpicke and roediger (2008) investigated the effect of repeated studying and repeated testing by using american university students as participants. their participants were told to learn a list of 40 l2 swahilil1 english word pairs. participants were first repeatedly exposed to l2 swahili-l1 english word pairs on computer screens (i.e., repeated exposure). then, they took a word test several times. in the word test, l2 swahili words appeared on the computer screen and the participants were told to type the meaning of these swahili words into l1 english with the computer keyboards (i.e., repeated typing). these phases were repeated four times during the treatment session. then all the participants were tested on their retention of the target words one week later. the results of the experiment showed that repeated exposure had no effect at the delayed posttest. on the other hand, repeated typing had a significant effect at the delayed posttest compared with the performance before the treatment. therefore, karpicke and roediger (2008) claim that taking an l2 into l1 translation test by typing l1 meaning on the keyboard several times can be effective for learners to learn l2 words. they also claim that taking a word translation test repeatedly has a ‘testing effect’, which is said to strengthen l2 learner’s memory for promoting vocabulary learning. a phenomenon in which learning can be effectively performed by testing the content to be learned repeatedly is called testing effect. this phenomenon was first advocated by the researchers such as abbott (1909). it seems that the testing effect can activate l2 learners’ retrieval processes that help them to store vocabulary effectively in their mind. thus, findings of karpicke and roediger (2008) indicate that learners who experience the word tests during the lessons could retain more l2 words than those who are repeatedly exposed to l2-l1 word pairs. researchers such as sökmen (1997) and mochizuki, aizawa and tono (2003) also address the same claim. thus, the use of word test with repetition in the classroom could be one of the effective explicit learning methods in l2 vocabulary learning. effects of three vocabulary learning methods 53 beyond words vol. 9 no.1 may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya implicit learning is better than explicit learning implicit l2 vocabulary learning through reading short stories. there are studies which claim that implicit vocabulary learning is more effective than explicit vocabulary learning. let us review these studies. rashidi and adivi (2010), for example, compared the effect of implicit vocabulary learning with that of explicit vocabulary learning by recruiting 40 iranian learners of english. the participants were divided into an experimental group and a control group. those who were in the experimental group were assigned to read five short stories to learn the vocabulary implicitly. on the other hand, participants in the control group explicitly learned the target words by using the presentation, practice, and production (ppp) method. the participants in the control group did not use the short stories. then, a posttest was held. it was a multiplechoice word test asking the participants to choose the most appropriate meaning of a target word from a set of four choices written in l2 english. the results showed that the experimental group (implicit group) learned more words than the control group (explicit group). to explain the results, rashidi and adivi (2010) argue that the participants had to read the texts for the purpose of comprehending the contents, so they must have paid attention to the contextual clues to infer the meaning of the unknown words. they further argue that these results are likely to due to the repeated exposure to the target words in the five short stories. since the target words tested were mainly related to the general theme of these stories, the participants in the experimental group (implicit group) had quite a few encounters with the same target words through the stories. the findings of their study indicate that the reading of short stories constructed with similar words can facilitate implicit l2 vocabulary learning. implicit l2 vocabulary learning through narrow reading. khamesipour (2015) compared the effect of implicit vocabulary learning through narrow reading, which means to read multiple texts related to a particular topic, with that of explicit vocabulary learning which was done through pre-learning definitions of the words before reading. the research involved a total of 30 iranian efl university learners as participants. all the participants were supposed to learn the target words in two different ways. in the first phase, they took a pretest prepared for the explicit vocabulary learning treatment. then, they explicitly learned the target words by using pre-learning definitions of the target words before reading the three texts. after three sessions of this treatment (explicit learning), the posttest (explicit vocabulary posttest) was given to them. in the second phase, they took another pretest prepared for the implicit vocabulary learning treatment. after taking the pretest, they were assigned to read six texts selected for narrow reading without any focus and explanation on the target words. after six sessions of the treatment (implicit learning), the posttest (implicit vocabulary posttest) was conducted. the results showed that the participants performed better with implicit vocabulary learning than with explicit vocabulary learning. the findings also indicate that repeated 54 effects of three vocabulary learning methods exposure to the target words can play an important role in learning l2 vocabulary. summary of previous studies let us critically summarize the findings and discussions what we have argued so far. marzban and kamalian (2013) show that the explicit l2 vocabulary learning method they used is more effective than the implicit l2 vocabulary learning method. regarding the use of word-focused tasks, khoii and poorafsha (2015) indicate that the cloze task is more effective than the text-reading task. however, these studies did not examine the issue of long-term vocabulary retention. it should be necessary to examine not only shortterm vocabulary attainment but also long-term retention by conducting a delayed posttest after a long interval (see also waring and takaki (2003) for the same claim). additionally, karpicke and rodiger (2008) mention that the explicit learning method by using word tests has a significant impact on l2 vocabulary learning. however, the study did not design its effect in relation to a reading-centered activity. thus, it is not yet clear of a validity of l2 vocabulary learning through reading activities, which the authors will conduct in this experiment. on the other hand, rashidi and adivi (2010) show that learning l2 vocabulary implicitly through reading short stories is better than learning l2 vocabulary explicitly. similarly, khamesipour (2015) report that implicit vocabulary learning through narrow reading is more effective than explicit vocabulary learning through the pre-learning definition of the l2 words. however, a further study should be done to compare the effect of implicit l2 vocabulary learning with that of explicit l2 vocabulary learning because we have not yet fully reached the conclusion which method is a better method under the english learning environment in japan as shown in (1). with these in mind, by selecting three vocabulary learning methods, the present study will attempt to find out the most effective way of learning l2 vocabulary in reading classes. research method purpose of the study the purpose of the study is to compare the effects of three different methods of learning l2 vocabulary carried out through english reading lessons. the authors will examine which type of vocabulary learning is the most effective for jles. participants a total of 93 university jles participated in the study. there were 67 jles in the experimental group and 26 jles in the control group. there were 4 classes that were selected to be the participants of this study, and students were randomly assigned to be in the experimental group and the control group by the researchers. they were all first-year university students in japan and were nonenglish majors enrolled in general english reading classes. their english proficiency level based on the university’s independent placement test is comparable to a range of 400 to 450 in toeic. moreover, 67 participants in the experimental group were further divided into three subgroups (group a, group b and group c) in order to give different learning conditions to learn the target english words. these three groups were group a: the implicit vocabulary learning group with questions in english/answers in english task (n = 20), group b: the explicit vocabulary learning effects of three vocabulary learning methods 55 beyond words vol. 9 no.1 may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya group with cloze test task (n = 24), and group c: the explicit vocabulary learning group with multiple-choice word test task (n = 23). in addition, there was a control group: cg (n = 26). materials all the participants in the three experimental groups were expected to read through the english textbook assigned by the authors. it was “snow falling on cedars” originally written by david guterson and retold by christopher tribble. it is one of the graded reader series published by pearson english readers, which are targeted for university students as well as adult learners of english. the textbook has 107 pages and includes 3000 head words. all the participants in the three experimental groups began to read it from the second week of the class (week 2) and finished reading it on the 13th week (week 13). see figure 1. procedure selection of 110 english words tested. one hundred and ten english words were tested at the pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest in the form of “translating the english words into japanese”. these 110 target words all appear in the textbook. they were selected by using the tryout lessons given by one of the authors in the previous year, 2019. he asked 20 non-english major japanese students at the university who would not participate in this experiment to translate 200 english words, which were all in “snow falling on cedars”, into japanese equivalents. then, the authors collected the answer sheets from these 20 students to check the results. they decided that the words over 50% of the students answered correctly would not be used in this experiment. as a result, 110 target words were selected for the present vocabulary test. week 1 pretest ↓ week 2 introductory lesson start reading “snow falling on cedars” ↓ week 3 – 8 treatment (once a week for 6 weeks) ↓ week 9 immediate posttest ↓ week 9 13 no treatment ↓ week 13 finished reading “snow falling on cedars” ↓ week 14 delayed posttest figure 1. overall schedule of the experiment effects of three vocabulary learning methods 57 beyond words vol. 9 no.1 may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya schedule for the experiment. an overall schedule for the whole experimental design is shown in figure 1. on week 1, all the participants took the pretest. they were asked to translate the 110 english target words into japanese. although there was no time limitation for completing the answers, the participants finished the task within 30 minutes. then, the answer sheets were collected to record their scores. on week 2, an introductory lesson on the historical background of the textbook, “snow falling on cedars”, was given by the authors, and the participants began to read the textbook following their teacher’s directions. from week 3 to week 8, the participants in each experimental group received different types of treatments once a week for six consecutive weeks. group a. in group a, every time after reading several chapters of the textbook, the participants were engaged in the reading comprehension tasks about the story of the textbook. they worked individually in completing the comprehension questions about the contents of the textbook. see table 1. they grappled with questions written in english. they were supposed to answer them in english. the comprehension questions were divided into six-chapter chunks which included whquestions, true or false questions and multiplechoice questions. there were 10 to 20 questions at one time ready for the participants. they were allowed to use a bilingual dictionary to answer the questions. then, the participants compared their answers with each other. they were asked to take turns in reading aloud the answers to the class in pairs by identifying the passages that illustrated the answers in the textbook to justify their answers for the questions given. then, one of the authors gave answers and feedback to the participants on the content of the textbook without any focus on the words that appeared. the materials used for the comprehension questions were collected at the end of each lesson. during these activities, there was little explicit focus on vocabulary. thus, as far as the vocabulary learning is concerned, it can be said that, most of the time, the participants implicitly learned english words they were unfamiliar with by reading the textbook and answering the comprehension questions in english. table 1 examples of comprehension questions for group a d description true or false multiple-choice qs q: write short answers to these questions. q: are these sentences true (t) or false (f)? a). ishmael was injured in the war. b). after the war, he found it difficult to settle in san piedro. c). ishmael expects the sheriff to lie to him. d). the sheriff is sure that carl heine was murdered. q: who is talking? who are they talking to? a). ‘a limited research.’ b). ‘in a half-hour you might be in canada. c). ‘i do it out of habit.’ d). ‘did you hear any part of their conversation?’ 58 effects of three vocabulary learning methods d description true or false multiple-choice qs q: write short answers to these questions. a). what help does ishmael need to write about the weather in his paper? b). who is ishmael able to help on the road out of the town? c). how does evan powell help ishmael? d). why is it difficult for ishmael’s mother to help her son? q: are these sentences true (t) or false (f)? a). ishmael was injured in the war. b). after the war, he found it difficult to settle in san piedro. c). ishmael expects the sheriff to lie to him. d). the sheriff is sure that carl heine was murdered. q: who is talking? who are they talking to? a). ‘a limited research.’ b). ‘in a half-hour you might be in canada. c). ‘i do it out of habit.’ d). ‘did you hear any part of their conversation?’ group b. in group b, every time after reading several chapters of the textbook, the participants were assigned to complete cloze tasks which were based on a series of summaries of the textbook which contained the target words. see table 2. they were given six cloze tasks with blanks of target words in it. as a form of the list, the target words were given below the cloze test at random as choices. each cloze task included 10 to 20 target words. at first, the participants were asked to use a bilingual dictionary to look up the l1 meaning of each target word and write down the japanese translation beside each english word. then, they were assigned to complete the cloze task in pairs. after that, each pair took turns and read aloud the sentences to the class with their answers. one of the authors gave the participants feedback and the answers with the meaning of the words in translated into japanese. after the participants marked their answers and finished scoring the correct answers in pairs, the cloze task sheets were collected. table 2 an example of the cloze task for group b one day kazuo miyamoto attended at a (1.)__________ as the (2.)__________ ishmael chambers, the local reporter, was in the (3.)__________. he is acquainted with kabuo’s wife. art moran, the county (4.) __________, found that there was a fishing boat in white sand bay. there was nobody on the boat, but there was a net underwater. carl heine’s dead body that the left (5.) __________ sank from the net was found. kabuo miyamoto’s lawyer, nels gudmundsson asked some questions to the sheriff. one of the questions was about a (6.)__________ d-6 battery that was found in the (7.)__________’s battery holder that should only be fitted with a d-8 battery. the sheriff explained that the battery holder was (8.) __________ away to make room for the d-6 battery. unexpectedly, the (9.) __________’s boat had the exact d-6 battery and he did not have any spare battery which was quite suspicious. lastly, the lawyer asked the sheriff if he had any (10.) __________ that there was a possibility that the man banged his head after his death as he was bringing him into the boat. (banged, skull, sheriff, accused, uncertainty, court, spare, deceased, defendant, trial) effects of three vocabulary learning methods 59 beyond words vol. 9 no.1 may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya group c. in group c, every time after reading several chapters of the textbook, the participants took the multiple-choice english word test once a week for six weeks which contained the target words. see table 3. the participants had been told beforehand that they would take the multiple-choice english word test. the 110 target words were divided into the first half part (version a) and the second half part (version b), consisting of 55 words for each version. the multiple-choice english word test was given out to the participants repetitively in the sequence of “(version) a→(version) b→b→a→a→b” order. they were asked to choose the most appropriate meaning of the target words from a set of four candidates translated into japanese. this test was carried out at the beginning of each lesson followed by peerscoring. the answer sheets were collected each time after they had marked their scores. table 3 examples of multiple-choice english word test for group c (1) the man accused of robbery was put on trial in chicago. ①裁判 ②施設 ③執行猶予 ④留置場 (2) the accused sat in a box opposite the jury. ①専門家 ②被告人 ③犯人 ④鑑定士 (3) both lawyers gave very convincing closing arguments to the court. ①記者 ②審判 ③法廷 ④競技場 (4) the sheriff gave the young lady a speeding ticket the night before. ①管理人 ②保安官 ③修理人 ④司令官 (5) a skull of a monkey was on the anthropologist’s fireplace. ①模型 ②剥製 ③頭蓋骨 ④見本 properties of the three experimental groups are summarized in table 4. in the term ‘task type’, whether a particular treatment for each group can be applied to implicit learning or explicit learning is shown. table 4 three different types of treatments for the experimental groups group task type class task group a implicit reading-centered questions-answers in the english task group b explicit reading-centered cloze task group c explicit reading-centered multiple-choice word task after the treatment session. on week 9, one week after the final treatment, the participants took the immediate posttest. the participants of all the groups had not been informed that they would take the vocabulary test again as the immediate posttest. as same 60 effects of three vocabulary learning methods as the pretest, the participants were asked to translate the 110 english words into japanese. the order of the words tested was randomly scrambled. after the final treatment (week 8) was finished, no treatment was given to the three experimental groups for five weeks (week 9 – week 13). then, on week 14, all the participants took the delayed posttest. once again, they had not been informed that they would take the delayed posttest. the order of the words was randomly scrambled again. in the test, they were asked to translate the 110 english words into japanese. participants in the control group did not use the textbook, used by the experimental group nor did receive any additional or extraordinary vocabulary teaching. the control group worked under normal conditions focusing on reading comprehension of informational texts every week. this group took the same pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest as the experimental groups. research question the following research question (rq) is addressed in this study. rq: which is the most effective l2 vocabulary learning method among the three, a method used by group a, group b or group c? results and discussion results of pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest table 5 shows the results of the experiment: the number of participants of the four groups (n), mean scores (m), percentages of correct answers (%) and standard deviation (sds) of the three tests for the four groups. figure 2 visually represents the results of the experiment: the average point transition of the pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest for group a, group b, group c, and the control group (cg) are provided. table 5 results of the pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest pretest immediate posttest delayed posttest group n m % sd m % sd m % sd group a 20 21.3 19.3 7.2 38.3 34.5 13.2 35.6 32.2 10.7 group b 24 21.5 19.5 8.2 61.6 56.0 17.0 59.7 54.2 13.6 group c 23 19.4 17.6 11.6 91.4 83.0 18.1 86.8 78.9 16.6 cg 26 19.7 17.9 7.9 22.1 20.0 10.4 22.3 20.2 8.6 note: the maximum score per test was 110. effects of three vocabulary learning methods 61 beyond words vol. 9 no.1 may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya note: pret = pretest, immt = immediate posttest, delt = delayed posttest. figure 2. results of the pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest. the results of a two-way mixed anova (groups: group a, group b, group c and cg×tests (pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest) indicate that the main effect between groups was statistically significant (f (3,89) = 81.63, p < .001, es: ηp2 = .73). the main effects between tests was statistically significant (f (1.78, 158.48) = 454.78, p < .001, es: ηp2 = .84). also, the interaction of groups and tests was found to be significant (f = (5.34, 458.48) = 100.88, p < .001, es: ηp2 = .77). thus, the simple main effect of tests (pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest) in each level of groups (group a, group b, group c, and cg) and simple main effect of groups in each level of groups were conducted. let us carefully discuss these results by each group. results of group a. in the results of group a, the mean score of the pretest was 21.3, that of the immediate posttest was 38.3. compared with the pretest, the mean score of the immediate posttest increased by 17.0 points. thereafter, the percentage of the correct answer progressed from 19.3% for the pretest to 34.5% for the immediate posttest. there was an increase of 15.3%. on the other hand, the mean score of the delayed posttest was 35.6. therefore, compared with the immediate posttest, the mean score of the delayed posttest decreased by 2.7 points. the correct percentage of the delayed posttest was 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 pret immt delt group a group b group c cg 62 effects of three vocabulary learning methods 32.3%, which was 2.2% less than the immediate posttest. hence, compared with the pretest, the mean score of the delayed posttest was higher than that of the pretest by 14.3 points. the correct percentage of the delayed posttest increased by 12.9% from that of the pretest. the result of the simple main effect of tests show that the differences of the mean scores among the pretest, immediate posttest and the delayed posttest for group a were statistically significant (f (2,38) = 53.17, p < .001, es: ηp2 = .74). multiple comparisons based on srb (sequentially rejective bonferoni) indicates that the mean score of the immediate posttest of group a was significantly higher than that of the pretest (p < .001), and no significant difference was found between the immediate posttest and the delayed posttest (p = 0.16). the mean score of the delayed posttest was statistically higher than that of the pretest (p < .001). these results indicate that the participants in group a learned some new l2 words and maintained the score for six weeks. that is to say, they were implicitly able to learn l2 words through reading the textbook and practicing questions and answers for the contents in english. nevertheless, the amount of vocabulary learned through the method group a adopted was found to be small compared with the other two methods. in this respect, the results of the present study are consistent with those of marzban and kamalian (2013), which was discussed above. thus, the implicit vocabulary learning method with the questions/answers in english task was effective to some extent, but may not seem to be impactful for jles to greatly improve their l2 vocabulary size. results of group b. in the results of group b, the mean score of the pretest was 21.5, and that of the immediate posttest was 61.6. thus, the mean score increased by 40.1 from the pretest to the immediate posttest. then, the percentages of the correct answers improved from 19.5% for the pretest to 56.0% for the immediate posttest. there was an increase of 36.5%. on the other hand, the mean score of the delayed posttest was 59.7. hence, compared with the immediate posttest, the mean score of the delayed posttest decreased by 1.9 points. the percentage of correct answers of the delayed posttest dropped by 1.8% with 54.2% from the immediate posttest. moreover, compared with the pretest, the mean score of the delayed posttest was higher than that of the pretest by 38.2 points. the correct percentage of the delayed posttest increased by 34.7% with 54.2% from the pretest. the results of the simple main effect of tests show that the differences of mean scores between the pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest for group b were also found to be statistically significant (f (1.58, 36.28) = 152.25, p < .001, ed: ηp2 = .87). multiple comparisons based on srb indicates that the mean score of the immediate postest was significantly higher than that of the pretest (p < .001), and there was no significant difference between the immediate posttest and the delayed posttest (p = 0.48). the delayed posttest was statistically higher than the pretest (p < .001). these results show that the participants in group b averagely gained 40.1 target words out of 110 words through the reading comprehension activity with the explicit cloze tasks, and they retained their performance for six weeks. the results of the present study effects of three vocabulary learning methods 63 beyond words vol. 9 no.1 may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya filled the gap of the lack of delayed posttest data in khoii and poorafshari (2015). thus, the findings indicate that l2 vocabulary learning with the explicit cloze task activity can be effective, and its effect can be durable for at least six weeks. results of group c. in the results of group c, the mean score of the pretest was 19.4, and that of the immediate posttest was 91.4. thus, compared with the mean score of the pretest, the mean score of the immediate posttest increased by 72.0 points. the percentages of the correct answers increased from 17.6% for the pretest to 83.0% for the immediate posttest. there was an increase of 65.4%. on the other hand, the mean score of the delayed posttest was 86.8. thus, compared with the immediate posttest, the mean score of the delayed posttest was a 4.6 points decrease. the correct percentage of the delayed posttest declined by 4.1% with 78.9% from the immediate posttest. additionally, the mean score of the delayed posttest was higher than that of the pretest by 67.4 points. the correct percentage of the delayed posttest increased by 61.3% with 78.9% from the pretest. the results of the simple main effect of tests show that the differences of mean scores between the pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest for group c were statistically significant (f (2,44) = 276.99, p < .001, es: ηp2 = .93). multiple comparisons based on srb indicates that the mean score of the immediate posttest for group c was significantly higher than that of the pretest (p < .001), and no statistical difference was observed between the immediate posttest and the delayed posttest (p = 0.21). the delayed posttest was statistically higher than the pretest (p < .001). these results show that the participants in group c gained a significant amount of vocabulary with a 72.0 points increase through the reading comprehension with the explicit multiple-choice english word tests, and maintained their performance level for six weeks. as well as the findings of karpicke and roediger (2008), the results of the present study also demonstrate a strong effect of the word test conducted in the classroom. we believe that repeated retrieval of word knowledge by using the test trials has a positive effect on l2 vocabulary learning with a long-term retention for university jles in the reading-centered classroom in japan. results of control group. in the results of cg, the mean score of the pretest was 19.7, and that of the immediate posttest was 22.1. the mean score increased by 2.4 points from the pretest to the immediate posttest. the percentages of correct answers increased from 17.9% for the pretest to 20.0% for the immediate posttest. on the other hand, the mean score of the delayed posttest was 22.3, and that of the immediate posttest was 22.1. there was an increase of 0.2 points. furthermore, the mean score of the delayed posttest was higher than that of the pretest by 2.6 points. the correct percentage of the delayed posttest increased by 2.3% from the pretest. however, the results of the simple main effect of tests show that there were no significant differences of mean scores between the pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest for cg (f (2,50) = 2.11, p = .13, es: ηp2 = .08). these results show that there are no statistical differences among the pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest in the control group. therefore, the improvements 64 effects of three vocabulary learning methods observed in the three experimental groups were attributed to the effects of the treatments adopted in this experiment. group comparison now let us discuss the results of the pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest among the groups (group a, group b, group c and cg). the interaction of groups and tests was found to be significant (f = (5.34, 158.48) = 100.88, p < .001, es: ηp2 = .77). thus, further analysis was conducted to determine the simple main effect of tests and groups. the result of the simple main effect of the pretests among groups (group a, group b, group c, and cg) was not significant (f (3,89) = .35, p = .79, es: ηp2 = .01). this result indicates that the mean scores of groups show no statistical differences at the pretest with 21.3 for group a, 21.5 for group b, 19.4 for group c and 19.7 for cg respectively. thus, regarding the participants’ english language proficiency levels at the pretest, they were homogeneous. on the other hand, the result of the simple main effect of the immediate posttests was statistically significant (f (3,89) = 96.00, p < .001, es: ηp2 = .76). multiple comparisons based on srb indicates that group c had the statistically highest score with 91.4 in the immediate posttest followed by group b with 61.6, group a with 38.3 and cg with 22.1 (p <.001) respectively. moreover, the result of the simple main effect of the delayed posttests was statistically significant (f (3,89) = 118.01, p < .001, es: ηp2 = .80). correspondingly, multiple comparisons based on srb indicates that group c had the statistically highest score in the delayed posttest with 86.8 followed by group b with 59.7, group a with 35.6 and cg with 22.3 (p < .001). in summary, the results for the group comparison show that group c had the highest scores with 91.4 in the immediate posttest and 86.8 in the delayed posttest. then, group b had the second highest scores with 61.6 in the immediate posttest and 59.7 in the delayed posttest. on the other hand, group a had the least gains of 38.3 in the immediate posttest and 35.6 in the delayed posttest. discussion the research question in the present study is that: which is the most effective l2 vocabulary learning method among the three, the method used by group a, group b or group c? we answer the research question below. the results obtained from the experiment show that there are improvements in all the three groups, and that they maintained their effects till the delayed posttest (for six weeks). thus, the results indicate that the three methods we adopted all had positive effects on l2 vocabulary learning. however, the result of the group comparisons shows that the participants in group c performed much better than those in the other two groups. thus, we have confirmed that l2 vocabulary learning with the explicit multiple-choice english word tests at the reading comprehension class was found to be the most effective among the three. the results also show that those who were in group b had the second highest scores of the three groups. therefore, l2 vocabulary learning with the explicit cloze tasks at the reading comprehension class had an impact on jles’ l2 vocabulary learning. on the other hand, group a gained the least improvement of the l2 vocabulary among the three groups. hence, it seems that l2 vocabulary learning through the implicit questions/answers in english task at the reading class is not as effects of three vocabulary learning methods 65 beyond words vol. 9 no.1 may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya effective as the others for university jles. although the implicit learning method may be effective in the l2 environment where jles acquire english in an english-speaking country such as the united states, the authors believe that the explicit learning method is better suited for classroom learning conditions in japan than the implicit method, where the lesson hours for english are limited. these results are in line with khoii and poorafshari (2015), claiming that incorporating the cloze task into the reading activity was found to be more effective than reading for comprehension purpose. at the same time, the results of the present study support karpicke and rodiger (2008), claiming that giving a word test repetitively can lead to effective vocabulary learning. furthermore, the results indicate that it is more effective to learn new words by directly focusing on the words themselves (i.e., explicit l2 vocabulary learning through a word test) than to learn them by using the context of passages in the textbook (i.e., explicit l2 vocabulary through a cloze task). it is assumed that, as researchers such as mochizuki, aizawa and tono (2003) and sokemen (1997) claim, repeated word testing in the classroom may provide a good opportunity for l2 learners to explicitly review new words through the exposure to them. thus, the present study has also shown that giving a word test (a multiplechoice word test in this experiment) can be fairly beneficial for developing l2 learners’ vocabulary gain. on the other hand, the results of the present study are inconsistent with those of rashidi and adivi (2010) and khamesipour (2015). rashidi and avidi (2010) claim that implicit vocabulary learning is more effective than explicit vocabulary learning, which shows the opposite result from the present study. it seems that this controversial result is attributed to the absence of the textbook for the explicit group in rashidi and avidi (2010). they employed the ppp method for this group without any textbooks. generally speaking, the purpose of the ppp method is to learn/teach the ‘textbook,’ and the focus is mainly on the learning/teaching of grammar, not vocabulary. hence, using this kind of learning-teaching method without a textbook may defeat the purpose of the ppp method. it is not wellsuited to learn vocabulary explicitly without any textbooks. khamesipour (2015) also claim that implicit learning through narrow reading is more effective than explicit learning through pre-learning definition of l2 words. this result may be due to the fact that the implicit learning group in khamesipour’s study had twice as much time and many repetitions to the target words as the explicit learning group did. the present research has also clarified that explicit vocabulary learning, in particular using the explicit multiple-choice word test, can maintain vocabulary knowledge for a certain period of time, in this experiment, at least for six weeks. this method can be fairly effective for learning new l2 words with a reading activity. the findings from the study have shed light on the instructional methods as to vocabulary enhancement under the japanese educational contexts discussed in (1). then, it is necessary to devise some useful methods for conducting a word test in class. we will discuss the issue in the next section. pedagogical implications some pedagogical implications based on the findings of the present study are discussed. firstly, the authors believe that incorporating 66 effects of three vocabulary learning methods the multiple-choice word test into the readingfocused classroom can be available to whatever the school levels are: junior high school, senior high school and university. for example, in a class of “english communication” at senior high school, which is commonly taught three times a week, teachers can give students opportunities to review english words that they have learned earlier in their textbooks by giving them a review multiple-word test once a week. teachers do not have to give the students the word test at every class: once a week is enough. to be specific, it will be effective for the students to review the words in the previous chapter of their textbook by using the multipleword test once a week. the test should be made for the students to be able to complete in 15 minutes otherwise it would be a burden. this can also be a useful warm-up task if it is done before the students begin to read their textbook. secondly, regarding the grading of the word test, it will be effective to employ a peer or a group scoring method before the students submit their scores to their teachers. this scoring method can lead to the active learning and collaborative learning. peer reviewing can help facilitate the autonomy of the students as well as they can get feedback on their answers. also, this method can reduce the burden on the teachers. when this grading method is used, what the teachers do is to collect the word test sheets after students have marked their scores and to make sure that their scoring is done appropriately and to what extent they have achieved their word knowledge. lastly, giving a word test on a regular basis can give a clear goal to jles about their vocabulary learning. it will motivate them to prepare for the word test at home easily because they know the words they must study, which are the ones they have already learned in the previous chapter. conclusion as mentioned earlier, the authors’ ultimate purpose is to find out the most effective learning/teaching method of l2 vocabulary learning in japan. then, as the first step for achieving this purpose, the present study has examined the effectiveness of the three vocabulary learning methods. the research question was that which is the most effective method for jles to learn english words through the reading activity in the classroom. the authors designed and conducted three longitudinal experiments. each experiment had a different learning method for l2 vocabulary. the experimental group was divided into three subgroups. group a was the implicit vocabulary learning group with questions in english/answers in english task, group b was the explicit vocabulary learning group with cloze test task, and group c was the explicit vocabulary learning group with a multiplechoice word test task. the findings obtained from the study show that every treatment the examiners used was effective so that all the experimental groups improved their performances at the immediate posttest and maintained them for six weeks after the last treatment. however, there was a difference concerning the degree of improvement among these three groups. the two groups with explicit learning methods (groups b and c) scored higher than the group with the implicit learning method (group a). moreover, group c, which adopted the effects of three vocabulary learning methods 67 beyond words vol. 9 no.1 may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya multiple-choice word test task, improved more significantly than group b with the cloze test task. thus, the authors have concluded that the (multiple-choice) word test in the reading activity can be a fairly effective way to facilitate jles’ word knowledge as well as their reading ability under the learning conditions which jles have in japan. finally, for our future study, the authors will note the following. the present study has not looked into a clear picture of what type of words (that is, for example, such as nouns or verbs, and concrete nouns or abstract nouns, etc.) are learned better than other types of words. moreover, the study has not examined each participant’s individual differences. there must be some developmental differences among each individual. we should examine to what extent the implicit and explicit l2 vocabulary learning are effective on individual learners. further examination is needed to clarify these issues. references abbott, e. e. (1909). on the analysis of the factors of recall in the learning process. psychological review: monographs supplements, 11, 159-177. guterson, d. retold by c. tribble. (2008). snow falling on cedars. harlow: pearson education. karpicke, j. d., & roediger, h. l. (2008). the critical importance of retrieval for learning. science, 319, 966-968. khamesipour, m. (2015). the effects of explicit and implicit instruction of vocabulary through reading on efl learners’ vocabulary development. theory and practice in language studies, 5(8), 16201627. khoii, r., & poorafshari, b. (2011). the impact of cooperative performance on the cloze test on the development of vocabulary knowledge. retrieved january 12, 2020. from: http//pixel-online-net. laufer, b., & osimo, h. (1991). facilitating long-term retention of vocabulary: the second hand cloze. system 19, 217-224. marzban, a., & kamalian, k. (2013). effects of implicit versus explicit vocabulary instruction on intermediate efl learners’ vocabulary knowledge. elt voice, 3(6), 8495. mirzaii, m. (2012). implicit vs explicit vocabulary learning: which approach serves long-term recall better? 3l: language, linguistics and literature, the southeast asian journal of english language studies, 18(2), 1-12. mochizuki, m., aizawa, k., & tono, y. (2003). eigo goishidou no shidoumanyuaru [instructional manual for english vocabulary]. tokyo: taishukan. rashidi, n. & adivi, a.g. (2010). incidental vocabulary learning through comprehension-focused reading of short stories. journal of english language teaching and learning, 53(217). schmitt, n. (2000). vocabulary in language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press. sökmen, a. j. (1997). current trends in teaching second language vocabulary. in n. schmitt & m. mccarthy (eds.), vocabulary, description, acquisition and pedagogy (pp. 237-257). cambridge: cambridge university press. waring, r., & takaki, m. (2003). at what rate do learners learn and retain new vocabulary from reading a graded reader? reading in a foreign language 15, 130-163. yaghoubi, t. s., & seyyedi, f. (2017). the effect of explicit and implicit teaching vocabulary on iranian efl learners’ vocabulary. studies in english language and education, 4(1), 15-25. teaching assistants in international schools 47 teaching assistants in international schools: perceptions and perspectives1 clayton lehman clwale@yahoo.com english lecturer dalian jiaotong university dalian china abstract although multiple studies have investigated teaching assistants in public schools, there is little research dedicated to the study of teaching assistants in international schools. the purpose of this study was to investigate teaching assistant wellbeing in international schools in east asia through the lenses of locally-hired teaching assistants to discover what they consider to be barriers in their positions. data acquisition for this descriptive perception study occurred through an online questionnaire that was completed by 134 teaching assistants working in international schools in east and southeast asia in march and april of 2019. the main findings of this research study were that many teaching assistants in international schools desire relevant professional development, fairer working environment, more professional and career opportunities, and more equitable salary conditions. keywords: teaching assistant, support teacher, international school, sen, ell introduction there are more than 11,000 international schools worldwide (isc research, 2019), and the number is projected to reach 16,000 schools by 2026 (independent education today, 2016). the growth of international schools has been astounding, especially in china and other countries in east and southeast asia (ward, 2017). isc research (2019) has reported that local student enrollment world-wide in international schools is well above 80%. many host country parents seek to enroll their child in an international school to provide their child with an english-medium education and future opportunity for university study in a native-english speaking country (dearden, 2014). in numerous international schools, locally-hired teaching assistants (tas) are working with students that have high linguistic, academic, behavioral, and 1 this article is accepted and will be published in beyond words vol. 8 no.1. may 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v8i1.2145 emotional needs. while there has been a research specific to teaching assistants in considerable amount of research concerning teaching assistants, there is a shortage of international schools (tarry & cox, 2014). of primary concern with the deployment of teaching assistants in international schools is their readiness to perform their roles. according to fisher and pleasants (2012), the role of teaching assistants has been identified as problematic because “the least qualified staff are teaching students with the most complex learning characteristics and in some cases with little oversight or direction” (p. 288). the purpose of this research study was to investigate teaching assistant wellbeing in international schools in east asia through the lenses of locally-hired teaching assistants to discover what they consider to be barriers in their positions. this research study occurred because of the admin typewritten text admin typewritten text admin typewritten text 48 teaching assistants in international schools many observations made by the researcher while working in international schools in east and southeast asia. teaching assistants there are various terms used to label teaching assistants in schools. sometimes little regard is given to the actual meaning of the term used (roffey-barentsen & watt, 2014), while at other times, terms are deliberately used to define roles and expectations (trent, 2014). teaching assistant, education assistant, classroom assistant, support teacher, teacher aid, inclusion aid, support staff, school officer, paraeducator, paraprofessional, resource officer, and assistant teacher are some of the labels used by schools. for the remainder of this article, the researcher will use the term teaching assistant (ta). international schools often employ locally-hired host country workers to serve as tas to teachers usually hired from nativeenglish speaking countries. in many cases, tas in native-english speaking countries are not required to have a university degree. for example, blatchford, russell, and webster (2012) found that 15% of tas in england and wales had an undergraduate university degree, and three-percent had a higher degree. although teaching assistants can be found throughout a prek-12 international school, most tas work in the kindergarten and primary sections of the school. traditionally, the teaching assistant’s role was to support the classroom teacher by performing various tasks ranging from photocopying materials to monitoring student behavior and wellbeing. nowadays, it is common to see tas performing more tasks and roles in schools, including pedagogical roles, and according to whitehorn (2010), most of a teaching assistant’s time is spent working with students, followed by supporting the teacher. in some international schools, tas are the main facilitators of inclusion in the classroom (chan & yuen, 2015). previous research shows that tas are often unsure of the primary responsibilities and expectation for their jobs (gibson, paatsch, toe, wells, & rawolle, 2015; roffey-barentsen & watt, 2014), and many tas believe that behavior management is their primary function (blatchford et al., 2012). due to the wide variance between classrooms and international schools, communication between the teacher and ta is vital for the effective use of the teaching assistant in the classroom (tarry, 2012). unfortunately, lack of time for the classroom teacher and ta to communicate impairs the overall effectiveness of the classroom (ofsted, 2005). conversely, when positive collaboration and teamwork occurs between the classroom teachers and tas, the classroom environment encourages better learning and behavior outcomes (ofsted, 2005). studying the deployment of tas in british international schools, tarry (2011) found that british international school headteachers wanted tas to be engaged in supporting the learning of all students. tarry (2011) reported that some of the schools did not provide any training while a couple of schools provided tas with in-service educator training (inset) and access to conferences and online training. of the 26 questionnaires received for her study, tarry discovered that only two schools provided tas with training related to working with students in reading and math, and only two schools specified ta training in working with students with special education needs (sen) (tarry, 2011). additionally, tarry (2011) found that some of the schools participating in the questionnaire had tas on teaching assistants in international schools 49 staff with qualifications and degrees from the uk. in contrast to the schools participating in tarry’s research, many international schools in east and southeast asia use locally-hired teaching assistants. in most international schools, very rarely is a ta provided with an opportunity to teach a whole class; nonetheless, locally-hired tas have an indepth understanding of both the student culture and the arduous task of learning a second language. for these reasons, tas are often in a position to make valuable contributions to the linguistic development, social wellbeing, and academic success of locally-enrolled students. for some or all of these reasons, some researchers encourage using teachers from the same population as the students because of their ability to work and communicate with students in both the native language (l1) of the students and english (l2). the salary of a locally-hired tas is considerably lower than a teacher hired from a native-english speaking country. hardman (2001) reported on the feelings of inequality that tas can have at the differences between salary and benefits afforded to foreign teachers as compared to locally-hired staff. hardman (2001) also discussed how these feelings might emerge negatively, thereby affecting the classroom and school environments. mckenzie and scheurich (2004) cautioned administrators and teachers of the perils of equity traps when working with students that have a different background. equity traps are “conscious and subconscious thinking patterns that trap teachers, administrators, and others, preventing them from creating schools that are equitable” (mckenzie & scheurich, 2004, p. 601). although mckenzie and scheurich were focusing on equity traps that administrators and teachers may have towards minority students who have different backgrounds, locally-hired tas may present potential equity traps for foreign-hired administrators and teachers. of further concern in international schools is the potential for linguistic prejudice which arises when “one accent [of english] somehow sounds more or less intelligent than others” (kirkpatrick, 2007, p. 15). much of the educational practices in international schools are carried over from monolingual native-english speaking their working environment and job performance. research question the purpose of this research study was to investigate teaching assistant wellbeing in international schools in east asia through the lenses of locally-hired teaching assistants to discover what they consider to be barriers in their positions. the following question was used to guide the study. • what do locally-hired teaching assistants consider to be barriers in their positions? method the researcher collected 927 potential participant contact information by visiting the websites of international schools. in addition to an english version, the survey and introductory note were translated into chinese, thai, and vietnamese. the researcher used a questionnaire hosted by survey monkey to collect data. before sending the survey, a native-speaker for each translation reviewed the translation and served as an expert in the field to establish content validity (creswell, 2012). in the survey email, potential participants were informed of the intentions of the study and provided with instructions to delete the email if they chose not to participate. of the 927 50 teaching assistants in international schools potential participants, 528 (56.96%) opened the survey. of the 528 potential participants who opened the survey, 134 (25.38%) chose to complete the questionnaire. the 134 participants who decided to participate completed the questionnaire without coercion or promise of a reward. the online survey collected no personal information, and none of the questions were mandatory. there 134 participants were located in various countries in east and southeast asia, mostly in china, indonesia, thailand, and vietnam. the collection of survey responses occurred in march and april of 2019. each likert scale question had five points. additionally, the survey contained one open-ended question to acquire qualitative data for answering the research question. in line with creswell (2012), open-ended questions on surveys allow the researcher to move beyond the responses obtained by closed-ended questions. data analyses responses from the study revealed 6.7% of the participants did not have a university degree; however, 74.1% had a bachelor’s degree, 18.5% a master’s degree, and 1% a doctorate. further revealed was that 61.5% of the participants had a teaching credential issued from the host country government where the ta worked, allowing them to teach in a public school in the host country. the researcher sought to discover the participants’ perceptions of how they were treated by the foreign teacher they worked with the most. figure 1 shows the perceived level of treatment by percentage. none of the participants revealed they were treated very poorly by the foreign teacher. figure 1. ta perceived level of treatment by the foreign teacher in percentages (n=134). overall, the participants perceived differences in the amount of professional development provided to classroom teachers and tas. figure 2 provides a side-by-side comparison of the participants’ perceived levels of professional development given to foreign teachers and tas. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 very poor poor undecided good very good ta treatment teaching assistants in international schools 51 further, i sought to discover whether the participants felt valued by the foreign administrator(s). according to the participants who responded to the question (n=132), 25.8% felt they were not valued, while 74.2% felt they were valued by the foreign administrator(s) in their school. eighty-one of the 134 participants chose to respond to the open-ended question. although the question asked for a single suggestion, some participants provided more than one suggestion along with additional commentary. analysis of qualitative data began after comments not received in english were translated. after reading through the qualitative data, the researcher began matching data based on commonalities. as data were being grouped, the researcher began to identify themes relevant to the topic of this research study (braun & clarke, 2006). the researcher also used prior knowledge to make connections for categorizing data into themes (ryan & bernard, 2003). eventually, the researcher established the following eight major themes. • all good • management • career • respect • development • salary • environment • students figure 3 displays the count for each of the 111 statements that were grouped into the eight major themes. all good. ten participants responded positively about their current position. for example, one ta stated, “nothing to improve. the environment already good.” another participant responded, “ทกุอยา่งทีน่ีด่มีาก ตัง้แตผู่บ้รหิารไปจนถงึบคุลากร” [“everything here is very good, from administration to personnel”]. career. sixteen comments expressed the desire to have access to professional opportunities or career development. one participant stated, “给助教老师提供更多的职业 发展机会, 前在我的学校,基本没有任何 职业发 展机会” [“the school should provide more career development opportunities for teaching assistants. currently there is no career development opportunity in my school”]. a number of tas lamented the lack of opportunities for promotions to positions of management. for example, one ta responded, “有更多晋升的 职位选择” [“clarify the career development promotion route”]. some tas also expressed a desire to have more opportunities to use their skills and teach. for instance, a participant stated, “…allowing the support teacher to teach a subject to develop their skills and be a part of teaching field.” development. professional development and training received twenty-four comments. some comments were brief and to the point such as, “更多的相关培训” [more 52 teaching assistants in international schools relevant training] and “增加受高质量培训的机 会” [“increased opportunities for quality training”]. also commonly expressed was the ability to receive training that would enable tas to obtain qualifications. environment. comments about the working environment included the desire for tas to have access to teaching tools, better communication in the school, and a chair, desk, or room dedicated to tas. the following are examples, “having ipad for all the teachers including support teacher” and “love with actions, not only words.” another example, “ชว่ยเหลอืซึง่กนั และกนัท างานเป็นทมี” [“help each other and work as a team”]. there was also a suggestion to change the title of teaching assistant to co-teacher. another ta commented on how “students should speak appropriate english when they are in school otherwise the younger kids would learn from the older kids.” a final example pertains to sen and locally-enrolled students, “hạn chế số lượng học sinh đặc biệt hoặc số lượng học sinh việt nam” [“limit the number of special need students or vietnamese students’]. there were twenty-two responses categorized in this theme. management. participant statements towards management ranged from general to specific. one participant responded, “学校能 够明确助教的角色和职责” [“the school should clarify the roles and responsibilities of the teaching assistants”]. two more examples are, “quy định và chính sách rõ ràng hơn. cần nhiều kết nối giữa ban lãnh đạo, các giám đốc và quản lý với nhân viên” [policies should be clearer. need connection among leadership, managers, and staff] and “more transparent decision making.” seven participants responded with comments related to management. respect. responses by twelve participants fell into the theme of respect. examples of the desire to be afforded more respect include, “listen to our thought even though we just teacher assistance but we’re very close with students” and “coi trọng trợ giảng hơn, đặc biệt trước mặt học sinh” [“respect teaching assistants more, especially in front of students”]. another participant stated, “我 们同是和外籍教师占在一线教学的教育工作者, 也 在努力地工作, 帮助学校成长” [we are also educators who are teaching in the front line with foreign teachers. tas are also working hard to help the school grow”]. salary. there were sixteen comments related to salary and employee benefits but not associated with professional development or career opportunity. for example, some teaching assistants hoped the school would allow the children of locallyhired staff to attend the school. some participants pointed out how the salary between “expat and local staff” was “extremely different.” several participants expressed the desire to receive equal pay with the foreign teachers, “同工同酬” [“equal pay for equal work”]. others wanted to receive fair treatment; incentives for motivation; salary based on ability and experience; and paid holidays. the disparity in salaries between foreign staff and locallyhired teachers revealed other comments such as “建议能够提高中方员工的福利,让我们更有归 属感” [“it is recommended to improve the welfare of chinese employees and give us a sense of belonging”]. there was also a call for the salary system to be reviewed and made more transparent. students. there were four comments that the researcher placed in the theme of students. several participants expressed improvements that would directly impact students. one responded called for “nhieu hoat dong thuc tien voi cuoc song hon cho hoc sinh” [practical activities for students]. teaching assistants in international schools 53 other participants wanted more space or new desks for students. at the beginning of this section, the researcher presented information about the participants’ level of education and teaching qualifications. then, the researcher provided data concerning the participants’ perceived levels of professional development given to tas compared to foreign teachers. next, the researcher presented information about the participants’ perceived levels of treatment by foreign teachers and whether they felt valued by the foreign administrator(s) in their school. after providing general survey data, the researcher introduced the major themes of the qualitative data and the frequency in which the themes occurred. lastly, the researcher briefly depicted each theme using examples from the statements of the participants. discussion contrary to the 15% of tas in england and wales that had an undergraduate university degree as reported by blatchford et al. (2012), 74% of the tas in the present study had a bachelor’s degree. additionally, 18.5% of tas in the current study had a master’s degree as opposed to three percent in the study by blatchford et al. (2012). further, a majority (61.5%) of the tas participating in the current study held a government-issued teaching credential which qualified them to teach in a public school in their home country. the level of education in many countries in east and southeast asia has been rising in recent years. for example, recent results on the programme for international student assessment (pisa) reflect that some countries in east and southeast asia are outperforming countries from which most administrators and teachers in international schools originate (gurría, 2018). with the majority of tas having a university degree and a teaching qualification, it is puzzling that many tas are not better utilized in international schools. overall, approximately 88% of the tas in this study reported they were treated well or very well by the classroom teacher they work with the most as opposed to 3% who revealed they were treated poorly. of note are the 10% of ta participants who were undecided in how they perceived the classroom teacher treated them. if combined with the participants who felt they were treated poorly, this combine percentage is still fairly small. on a positive note, none of the participants revealed they were treated very poorly; however, one participant chose not to answer the question. of particular interest in the survey data are the differences in the perceived levels of professional development between foreign teachers and tas. participants revealed that they perceived foreign teachers as receiving more professional development than tas. more than half of the participants revealed that they received a very low or low level of professional development compared to only 27% of the foreign teachers. when it came to ta perceptions of whether or not they felt valued by the foreign administrators, there appears to be considerable contrast. approximately 26% of tas revealed that they perceived that the foreign administrators did not value them in their school. whereas, 74% of tas believed the foreign administrators valued them. while threequarters of the tas believed the foreign administrators valued them, more than half of the participants reported having received very low or low levels of professional development. although many participants reported being treated well by foreign teachers and being valued by foreign administrators, a 54 teaching assistants in international schools majority of participants provided their perspectives concerning barriers to tas at the school in which they work. many of these perspectives revealed discontent with several key aspects of their work. these key aspects surfaced as some of the themes. the top four themes that emerged from the qualitative data were professional development, working environment, career opportunities, and salary. although the researcher eventually categorized qualitative data into eight major themes, some responses had content that overlapped into other themes. professional development. pd was the theme that received the most attention from tas. although many teaching assistants have qualified teaching status in the host country, few are provided an opportunity to receive professional development in international schools. because many tas have university degrees, host country teaching credentials, and experience at learning english, they represent an underused resource in working with students in international schools. students in international schools learning english would benefit from working with tas who have received professional development in sla. additionally, students categorized as being sen would benefit from working with tas who have received pd in working with sen students. according to the participants, there is a discrepancy in the amount of pd that tas receive in comparison to classroom teachers (see figure 2). while there have been findings showing how instruction provided by tas is generally ineffective (blatchford et al., 2012; whitehorn, 2010), many of the tas in those studies lacked university education and a teaching qualification unlike the majority of tas participating in this study. however, many locally-hired tas in international schools with university degrees and teaching qualifications lack training in western educational practices. compounding the problem is that many administrators and teachers in international schools lack training in the effective use or deployment of tas (whitehorn, 2010). blatchford et al. (2012) identified ta preparedness, deployment, and practice as critical areas that should be addressed in order to make effective and efficient use of teaching assistants. furthering the call for better deployment of tas, bosanquet and radford (2019) stressed the need to provide tas with training in scaffolded interaction, especially since tas tend to work with small groups or one-to-one with students. bosanquet and radford (2019) pinpointed specific professional development in scaffolding to be provided to tas by referring to the three key characteristics of scaffolding, as identified by van de pol, volman, and beishuizen (2010). these three key characteristics are contingency, fading, and transfer. contingency involves guiding the student forward, fading works toward developing student independence, and transfer shifts the responsibility of learning to the student as independence is developed (bosanquet & radford, 2019). overall, students benefit more when tas use structured literacy interventions with one student or with small groups (sharples, webster, & blatchford, 2015). in sum, tas need more training (roffey-barentsen & watt, 2014; sharples et al., 2015; trent, 2014), and short-term training sessions or insets may not be the best form of pd for tas (lamb, 1995). furthermore, ta training needs to be differentiated (baker, 2016; echevarria & graves, 1998) and sustained in duration (darling-hammond, hyler, & gardener, 2017). teaching assistants in international schools 55 working environment. the working environment encompasses many elements for tas from being provided with tools that allow them to be more effective in the classroom to merely have a dedicated chair or desk. one ta commented on the need for older students to speak english so the younger students would learn from the older students. another ta suggested that the school should limit the number of sen or vietnamese students, which is interesting since the respondent was a vietnamese ta. this comment suggests that some tas are struggling with the number of sen students and locally-enrolled students with limited english proficiency. there was also the suggestion of a title change from ta to coteacher. while the title of co-teacher may not be appropriate for most international schools, many international schools should investigate the title given to locally-hired staff to ensure it aligns with the expectations of the position. many tas believe they are working as hard as foreign teachers and are equally contributing to the success of the school, justifying their call for equality in treatment and benefits. although it is unlikely that all tas are working diligently towards the success of the students and school, it may be advantageous for school administrators to examine the school’s policy towards the title of tas and consider how a change may provide an incentive and retain promising talent. when responding to the open-ended question on the survey, participants did make calls for more explicit policies, more transparent decision making, more communication between staff, and more cohesive organizational behavior, all of which trace back to the school’s leadership and administration. career opportunities. some of the participants expressed their desire to be a part of the teaching staff, and one participant asserted that tas are educators who are also working to help the school grow. similar to previous research (roffey-barentsen & watt, 2014; trent, 2014), ta responses in this study showed that many international schools are not providing career advancement opportunities for tas. one participant expressed the desire to see the school management clarify the roles and responsibilities of tas. the need to clarify ta roles has been a finding of previous studies (blatchford et al., 2012; gibson et al., 2015; roffey-barentsen & watt, 2014; tarry & cox, 2014; trent 2014). responses from the participants made it clear that tas wish to have opportunities to use their skill sets and develop their teaching skills by being able to teach. noted should be that some tas are reluctant to teach a full class seeing this as the classroom teacher’s responsibility, and in some schools, tas will cover classes in the absence of the classroom teacher, which saves the school money by not having to hire a cover teacher (roffeybarentsen & watt, 2014). these situations could be potential drivers for negative feelings that some tas have towards the classroom and school, as discussed by hardman (2001). salary. salary was the theme that received the fourth-largest number of comments. the call for a higher salary, fairness, salary per experience and ability, a transparent salary scale, and monetary incentives echoed findings of previous studies concerning tas (hardman, 2001; roffey-barentsen & watt, 2014). furthermore, responses by tas made it clear that there is concern about the disparity in salary and benefits between foreign staff and locally-hired staff. for example, some of the participants made comments about their desire for the school to open placements for 56 teaching assistants in international schools the children of locally-hired staff or to provide reduced tuition. with inclusion becoming more common in international schools (isc & nfi, 2017), it is interesting to see that much locally-hired staff are not provided with an opportunity for their child to attend the school where they work. according to bradley (2000), “examples of truly comprehensive, inclusive education are very hard to find” (p. 33), yet the most common issue with the children of locally-hired staff members would be their english language ability. with more than 80% of enrollment in international schools being local students (isc research, 2019), language learning assistance should be a relatively common element in most international schools. conclusion the main findings of this research study were that many teaching assistants in international schools desire relevant professional development, fairer working environment, more professional and career opportunities, and more equitable salary conditions. the international school market is continuing to expand and now is estimated to be generating more than $51 billion in tuition revenue (isc, 2019). additionally, the average tuition fees at international schools in east asia and oceania are reported to be $16,403 per year and as high as the country average of $33,591 in china (expatfinder, n.d.). while some of the assertions made by participants of the study may be open to debate, the international school market is clearly capable of providing more relevant professional development, fairer working environment, more professional and career opportunities, and more equitable salary conditions to the tas working in international schools. recommendations. the researcher recommends that international schools offer long-term, meaningful professional development to teaching assistants. additionally, the researcher encourages international schools to seek ways to improve teaching assistant working conditions and to provide opportunities for career development and advancement. lastly, the researcher recommends that international schools provide transparent salary scales and benefits that take ta experience, skills, and motivation into consideration. assumptions and limitations. the researcher assumed that participants answered the questionnaire truthfully and without fear of reprisal. a limitation of this study was that the participants were requested to answer questions that may be beyond their scope. to illustrate, tas were asked their perception of the level of professional development received by the foreign teachers. a further limitation of this study was that the researcher sought participation from potential participants for which contact information was found via school websites. suggestions for further research. because of the depth of the qualitative data received, the researcher encourages future qualitative research into the lives, perceptions, and perspectives of tas in international schools investigating an array of topics. due to the contrast in data between the participants’ perceptions in the level of pd provided to tas and whether or not tas feel valued by the foreign administrators, the researcher encourages further exploration in this area. overall, the researcher suggests further research into the professional relationships between classroom teachers and tas and administrators and tas in international schools to find best practices and elevate the awareness of how tas can be teaching assistants in international schools 57 effectively used to support students, teachers, and schools. concluding remarks. the purpose of this research study was to investigate teaching assistant wellbeing in international schools in east asia through the lenses of locally-hired teaching assistants to discover what they consider to be barriers in their positions. it has been expected that the findings of the study will encourage international school communities to examine their policies and practices concerning teaching assistants. in closing, the following participant’s comment summarizes the position of many teaching assistants in international schools in east and southeast asia. 给予更多培训和自我体现人生价值,完善教 学生涯的机会.没有人希望永远做助教, 几 乎没有任何一家国际学校考虑过这一点.同 工同酬,给予本国老师更加参与管理 层机会.让互相更佳了解对方文化,从而从根 本层面改变工作环境. [give more training so teaching assistants can find more value in themselves, which will help them improve their teaching career. no one wants to be a teaching assistant forever, and almost no international school has considered this. teaching assistants hope the school gives them equal pay for equal work and provides opportunities to move to management positions. doing these things will change the working environment and help the school staff understand each other’s cultures]. disclosure statement the researcher received no payment or reward for this study. © clayton lehman dr. clayton lehman has worked in international english-medium education for a number of years. his most recent position was as an esl curriculum coordinator at an international school in ho chi minh city, vietnam. he holds a master of education (med.) in tesol and reading and an education doctorate (ed.d.) in educational leadership. dr. lehman’s research interests include language policy, language and content acquisition, and international english-medium education. references baker, l. l. 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(2010). school support staff topic paper. london: dfe https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/415163 2.pdf 60 cultural contents in english textbooks in indonesia cultural contents in two english textbooks in indonesia: representations and sources of culture gisela elshadelin filadelfia christian school surabaya email: fanuelgisel31@gmail.com & mateus yumarnamto widya mandala surabaya catholic university email: mateus@ukwms.ac.id article history abstract this study explores the representations of the cultural contents in english textbooks used in indonesian contexts. the data sources for this study were two textbooks for grade 12. the first one was bahasa inggris, a textbook published and endorsed by indonesian government and the other one was think, an international textbook published by cambridge. analyzing the two textbooks in terms of content analysis, we aimed at understanding different cultural sources represented in them. the findings show that the two textbooks have different emphasis regarding the culture they represent in texts and their accompanying visual illustrations. bahasa inggris puts the emphasis on global and local cultural sources. other cultures that are not representative to the two main sources are very limited. on the other hand, think provides a wide array of representations for global and other cultures but not local indonesian culture. we end our discussion with a conceptual implication on cultural sources in english language teaching (elt) materials. received: 05/15/2020 reviewed: 06/03/2020 accepted: 08/18/2020 keywords: cultural contents, elt textbooks, local, global, indonesia doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v8i2.2511 introduction this study was conducted to explore how cultural contents were represented in two english textbooks, one published by a national publisher representing a local coursebook and the other one by cambridge, used in indonesian context representing a global coursebook. the representations of cultural contents in local and global coursebooks may bring different perspectives on how we see language teaching and how we see ourselves and the world. they may present “a particular view of reality and is value laden.” (garton & graves, 2014, p. 5) in the context of teaching english as a foreign language in indonesia, cultural contents are sensitive and could bring about tensions on learners and teachers. in one hand, foreign cultural contents are often admired and wanted but on the other hand suspicions do exist, creating a love-hate relationship to foreign language like english (lauder, 2008). in fact, based on the sources of culture, there are at least three main goals of the inclusion of cultural contents in english language teaching (elt) materials: introducing the source culture (l1 culture), https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v8i2.2511 cultural contents in english textbooks in indonesia 61 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university introducing the target culture (l2 culture), and introducing other cultures that do not belong to l1 or l2 culture (lo culture) (garton & graves, 2014; messekher, 2014). the inclusion of the three cultural content sources in elt textbooks is signified by the needs for cross cultural understanding and cultural awareness. as subsumed by adaskou, britten, and fahsi (1990), the needs of cultural contents integration in elt at least cover five areas of learners’ needs: (1) to counter negative stereotype, (2) to better understand and appreciate l1 culture, (3) to facilitate possible visit to l2 countries, (4) to integrate interdisciplinary and thematic curriculum, (5) to motivate the learners. the five areas of learners’ needs related to culture can fall into two categories, the needs of cross cultural understanding and the pedagogical needs. the first three fall into the first category of cross cultural understanding while the last two fall into the pedagogical needs. considering the importance of the cultural contents in elt textbooks, the current study reports on how they are represented in two elt textbooks used by students of grade 12 in indonesia. the first textbook, bahasa inggris, is a domestic english textbook—a textbook published in indonesia for indonesian students and it is endorsed by the indonesian government. this textbook follows the national curriculum (the 2013 curriculum). the second one, think, is an international textbook published by cambridge. it is widely used by private and public schools especially in urban areas in indonesia. the cambridge textbook follows the cambridge curriculum and the common european framework of reference for languages (cefr). examining the two different elt textbooks, this study aims at finding out how different cultural sources are represented in them. the research question leading the inquiry is formulated as follows. how are the global culture (l1 culture), the local culture (l2 culture) and the other cultures (l0 cultures) represented in the two elt textbooks? literature review culture in english textbooks culture, as broadly define, is the products of human civilization that includes institutions, ideas, artifacts, and many other cultural aspects, the tangible and the intangible ones (alonso & ponte, 2016; baker, 2011; weninger & kiss, 2013). in the context of foreign language education the inclusion of culture is generally accepted but debated in terms of whose culture to include and to what extent it can serve the purpose of language education. the debate related the inclusion of culture has been outline in three major stages, showing the development and progress of culture inclusion in foreign language teaching (weninger & kiss, 2013). the first stage is dated roughly between 1950s to 1990s where culture was understood as objects or artifacts or a set of facts need to be understood when students learn a foreign language. learning culture in this stage was intended to immerse the learners in the target language culture. the second stage is between 1990s and 2000 when targeted culture is difficult to pinpoint because english has become an international language and the ownership of english was questioned as many different people from different countries speak the language. finally, the third stage is from 2000 up to 62 cultural contents in english textbooks in indonesia present time where cultural hybridity and identity have taken shape by the advancement of information technology and the internet. in each stage, we realized the importance of culture in language education and it is becoming more important with the complex interconnected cultural webs. as messekher (2014) suggested, “culture, whether taught explicitly or implicitly, permeates many aspects of foreign language teaching” (p. 69). therefore, learning a foreign language may involve learning different aspects of culture of the speakers of the language, of the future interlocutors, and of the global audience. in this case, the learners should be aware of various cultures that can affect their learning and their future. in the new reality where hybridity is the norm, various cultural aspects and their representations in english language materials and textbooks become more important. yuen (2011) highlights the importance of culture in language learning and how the representations of various cultural aspects in language textbooks are unavoidable when saying: “in general, learning a language involves learning different aspects of the culture in which the language is used and sometimes also how other cultures are represented in that particular culture because language depicts culture of its own and other cultures too. ... when learning a language, learners are also exposed to the cultures represented in these materials” (yuen, 2011, p. 459). the importance of culture and the context where the language is taught also echoed by baker (2011) when he wrote, “given the closely intertwined nature of culture and language, it is difficult to teach language without an acknowledgement of the cultural context in which it is used.” (p. 62). from here, then we can ask about whose culture should be included to benefit language learners. mckay (2003) identified that local culture (l1 culture) should be included in teaching english as an international language. in supporting this idea, she asserted that one goal of learning a foreign language is communicating l1 culture to the international audience, making it central that english should be taught as an international language that can empower the learners. the recognition of local culture is in line with the expanding scope of the purpose to learn a foreign language (freeman, 2009). while in the first two stages of culture inclusion in language teaching (weninger & kiss, 2013) power is not equally distributed to different cultures, the current practices acknowledge the power of l1 culture as equal and worthy for inclusion. consequently, the shift of perspective and the expanding scope has changed the materials for english language teaching. there should be diversity and plurality among the cultures included in the materials (toh, 2014). the inclusion of culture in elt materials expands from the inner circle to the outer and to the expanding periphery. the third stage of cultural inclusion (weninger & kiss, 2013) in elt addresses the reality of cultura franca (gilmore, 2007, 2012, 2015), in which the inclusion of culture in elt materials are detached of the association with the l1 culture and the l2 culture. the detachment can be done by putting english in the international context where the l1 and l2 culture cannot be easily identified and a form of hybridity of identity is taking place in the learners and the native speakers of the language. cultural contents in english textbooks in indonesia 63 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university the sources of cultural contents in elt materials considering the expanding scope of elt and the expanding inclusion of various culture sources, matsuda (2012) identified three sources of cultural contents in elt materials: (1) the global culture, (2) the future interlocutors’ culture, and (3) language learners’ culture (l1 culture). while the last source is clear and can be easily identified, the first two sources of cultural contents can be problematic. what is meant by global culture and who are the future interlocutors? matsuda, in this case, only acknowledged the problematic nature of the second source of culture, the future interlocutors. she did not acknowledge that the global culture, in fact, can be derived and developed from the center of global power, the inner circle, when we talk about english users. with the caveats on the first two sources of cultural contents, we embrace matsuda’s definitions on the sources. first, global culture covers an array of cultural contents that cut across the international boundaries and consider universal. issues such as world peace, global warming and other global issues such as the pandemic of covid-19 are the examples of global issues that encompass the international boundaries. the inclusion of global cultural contents is intended to promote the learners’ awareness as global citizens and to prepare them to communicate in english in the global context. second, the future interlocutors’ culture refers to future english speakers from outside the inner circle which are not from the learners’ culture. in short, the difficulties to identify the future interlocutors provide a wide array of future interlocutors’ culture. for indonesian learners, future interlocutors can be singaporean, or thai, or brazilian, or various people from african countries. they can be future interlocutors for indonesian and their cultures are worth to learn and included in the elt materials. the inclusion of the future interlocutors’ culture in elt materials may enhance intercultural competence and cross-cultural understanding. finally, the learners’ culture or local culture (l1 culture) refers to the culture belongs to the learners. in the case of indonesian learners, the l1 culture is indonesian culture that covers various subcultures within indonesia. for the learners, the cultural contents from their own culture will be beneficial since they are familiar with the issues. these familiar cultural contents can motivate the learners and improve the interaction between teacher and learners (mckay, 2003). these l1 cultural contents can also reinforce their national identity as well as promoting and communicating their own culture to the global audience (gilmore, 2007; yuen, 2011). cultural contents in elt materials cultural contents in elt materials can be represented in various ways and forms. yuen (2011) identified four major cultural contents in elt materials: (1) products, (2) practices, (3) perspectives, and (4) persons. products are the traditional forms of cultural contents; they are artifacts of culture such as food, fashion, works of arts and literature as well as various forms of entertainment in the society. practices refer to socio-cultural practices done and maintained by the members of a community. they include customs, laws, ways of life, and other aspects of socio-cultural practices in the society. perspectives are more abstract entities referring to the ways people see the 64 cultural contents in english textbooks in indonesia worlds. the world views generate abstract ideas such as democracy, feminism, capitalism, and many other ideas which can also shape and reshape the world views of a society. finally, persons can be a representative of a culture in that the persons are culturally influential and famous and he or she could show a cultural identity representing his or her community. besides the cultural aspects of textbooks, there are cultural topics that can be used to analyze further the cultural contents. the categorization was made by alonso and ponte (2016). the cultural topics which they proposed cover everyday living, cultural heritage, national identity, popular culture, society, geography, stereotypes, language, worldwide issues, institution and organization, varieties, and social interaction. alonso and ponte’s found that everyday living topics such as food, fashion, and festivals are the most common cultural contents found in elt textbooks. the food and beverages that usually appear in textbooks are wine, coke, pasta, tea, and junk food. in elt materials, cultural contents can be found in texts and on visual illustrations. stories, news reports, and other written genres introduced to the students can bring the cultural contents. similarly, illustrations, which are not only decorations (romney, 2012), can be a powerful media to bring cultural contents to the learners. visual images offer the universal language, which can be easily interpreted and understood, even by a novice learners of english (elmiana, 2019). considering that both textual and visual cultural contents can be powerful to shape the learners’ world views, this current study reports the cultural contents on both textual and visual contents. the inclusion or exclusion of cultural contents in an english textbook may reflect the worldview of the producers (tomlinson, 2012). therefore, the users, especially english language teachers should see the textbooks they use critically as they may not only communicate the face value of the intended contents but also the hidden values that the producers want to communicate to their audience. research methods this study is a qualitative content analysis of texts and visual illustrations. we follow krippendorf (1989, 2004) in defining content analysis as it “seeks to analyze data within a specific context in view of the meanings someone—a group or a culture— attributes to them.” (1989, p. 403). the goal of this study is to describe the meanings of messages and symbols found in the reading texts and illustrations of two elt textbooks. therefore, this study is more interpretative to the cultural contents representations found in the two textbooks. the lens we used to understand the meanings was the sources of cultural contents as suggested yuen (2011) and matsuda (2012). cultural contents in english textbooks in indonesia 65 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university fig. 1. the sources of data textbooks). it represented a global coursebook as it was intended for international audience. it was our intention table 1 the local and global elt textbooks as data sources no book title authors description 1 think (presentation plus 5)  herbert puchta  jeff stranks  peter lewis-jones  based on cambridge curriculum  student book  12 units, 128 pages  global textbook 2 bahasa inggris (“english language”) (sma/ma/smk/mak kelas 12)  utami widiati  zuliati rohmah  furaidah  indonesian national curriculum (the 2013 curriculum)  student book  16 chapters, 256 pages  local textbook bahasa inggris has 16 chapters and 256 pages. in each chapter, there are at least two reading passages with follow-up activities such as writing and discussion, vocabulary, and pronunciation. think consists of 12 chapters and 128 pages. each chapter typically has a reading passage followed by reading comprehension section and other activities, such as vocabulary as well as discussion for speaking and writing. in addition, a cultural section is embedded in each chapter. both textbooks have rich illustrations that usually represent and illustrate the corresponding reading passages for contexts and enrichment. the main data for this study were focused on cultural contents found in the reading passages taken from the two textbooks as well as the illustrations companying the reading passages. the data, therefore, were in the forms of textual data and visual illustration data. the unit of analysis for the textual contents was the reading passage. for the visual illustrations, the unit of analysis was the picture or photo. the data were collected, abstracted and coded for further analysis by using matsuda’s (2012) framework on the sources of cultural contents in english language teaching materials. she suggests that there are three major sources of cultural contents: (1) the global culture, (2) the culture(s) of the future interlocutors and (3) the learners’ own culture. 66 cultural contents in english textbooks in indonesia however, for the purpose of this study, what is meant by the global culture includes the l2 culture as reflected in our criticism to the vague meaning of the term global culture. as we believe, the global culture has developed from the very culture of the inner circle of english speakers. the attitude, however, has been changed in that the culture is intended to raise the awareness that we are global citizens and as human beings, we live in the same boat and face the same problems. the second note on the sources of cultural contents is related to the future interlocutors. as they are also difficult to determine in terms of the current l1 in indonesia, we interpreted future interlocutors’ culture as similar to other culture (l0 culture) the culture that does not belong to l1 culture (the learners’ culture) and l2 culture (english native speakers’ culture). in addition, we also used the four aspects of culture as summarized by yuen (2011) the four aspects include: (1) products, (2) practices, (3) perspectives, and (4) persons. more detailed descriptions on the categorization can be found in alonso and ponte (2016) in which they suggested a wide array of cultural topics. these topics were also used to align the topics found in the reading passages and visual illustrations in the two textbooks. in analyzing the data the writers followed these steps. first of all, the writers put a sign mark to the page which has the reading passage and visual illustrations. after that, the writers read the reading passage and made a summary of the reading. for the illustration, the writers made notes by describing the illustration. then, the writers identified the sources and the aspects of cultural contents inside the reading passage and the illustration. after identifying the cultural contents, the writers classified the sources and the aspects of the cultural content in terms of yuen’s (2011) and matsuda’s (2012) framework. to minimize biases in analyzing the data, triangulation was conducted by having the two triangulators to confirm some problematic areas in the analyses of the data. the two triangulators were english teachers who used the textbooks in the teaching. the problematic areas among others were in in determining the cultural sources, especially the global culture. these problematic areas were solved by involving the triangulators for their second opinions. findings and discussion the central question of this study is to identify how different sources of cultural contents are represented in the two elt textbooks used in indonesia, bahasa inggris, a textbook endorsed by the government to be used national wide, and think, a textbook published by cambridge. to answer the central question, the representations of global culture, local culture, and other culture are presented below. the representations of global culture the global culture, while indicating the wide acceptance of certain practices, products, and ideas as a result of a culture, in fact can be traced back to the inner circle, where powerful countries expand their cultural influence. therefore, in the analysis, what is meant by l2 culture (the target language culture) can overlap with the global culture in a wide proportion (see table 2 and 3). cultural contents in english textbooks in indonesia 67 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university table 2 the representations of global culture in bahasa inggris bahasa inggris (endorsed by the indonesian government) no reading texts/ illustrations cultural representation in the texts/visual illustrations product practice perspective person 1a six things to do if you visit seattle places: places to visit in seattle (restaurants, cafe, coffeehouses, boutiques, galleries, harbor) travelling: visiting places for leisure, vacationing worldview: enjoy your life by visiting places unknown food: chocolate, coffee promotion: promoting tourist destinations using flyer or brochure. 1b accompanying illustrations places: farmers' market, gallery, chocolate factory practice: buying and selling in a market place. unknown white product: cruise ship 2a job application (email) product: email/job application, computers, internet doing business: writing job application worldview: improve your career common people doing business: working computer skills 2b no illustration 3a bullying product: academic writing on bullying academic writing: expository writing explaining a phenomenon. worldview: bullying is our problem at schools unknown, students, teachers 3b no illustration notes: the descriptions here exemplify how global culture incorporated in the text and illustrations. it is not intended to exhaustively describe all the cultural contents and sources found in bahasa inggris. 68 cultural contents in english textbooks in indonesia table 3 the representations of global culture in think think (published by cambridge) no reading texts/illustrations cultural representation in the texts/visual illustrations product practice perspective person 1a a helping hand product: airplane travelling: travelling by plane worldview: autism is a global problem unknown place: on an airplane idea: be kind to others, help others in needs. 1b a mother and a son in an airplane with a laptop product: airplane, laptop travelling: travelling by plane unknown (white, western) 2a news mad? product: tv, media daily life: watching tv worldview: news is ubiquitous, news is everywhere unknown idea: be careful with tv and news media 2b abstract image: various news media/tv channels product: tv, media, tv channels daily life: watching tv worldview: news is ubiquitous, news is everywhere n/a idea: be careful with tv and news media 3a pride and prejudice (summary) product: work of literature daily life: reading novel (literature work) idea: love famous person: jane austen (writer) place: setting in uk 3b picture of elizabeth & darcy (the characters in pride and prejudice) product: work of literature idea: love characters in the novel: elizabeth and darcy. notes: the descriptions here exemplify how global culture incorporated in the text and illustrations. it is not intended to exhaustively describe all the cultural contents and sources found in think. cultural contents in english textbooks in indonesia 69 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university typically, the global culture represented in bahasa inggris is in the forms of travel brochure, email, and academic or scientific reports on a certain phenomenon, such as bullying. there is no work of literature introduced in bahasa inggris as the representative of the global culture. this may reflect the wide audience of the textbooks, indonesian students all over the country with varying degree of english. in think, on the other hand, global culture is represented in various topics and genres, from sports, to arts, to literature, and to famous people. this wide array of representations may also reflect the nature of the intended audience of the textbook, students living in urban areas studying in private schools. in short, the audience of the textbook is highly expected to encounter with the global culture or the target culture in person. the representations of local culture what is meant by local culture in this study is the indonesian culture, which is not monolithic but diverse. therefore, identifying local culture includes all cultural sources that can be traced back to any locations in indonesia. table 4 and 5 describe the representations of local cultures found in the two textbooks. table 4 the representation of local culture in bahasa inggris bahasa inggris (endorsed by the indonesian government) no reading texts/ illustrations cultural representation in the texts/visual illustrations product practice perspective person 1 a baduy people product: baduy clothes, houses custom: baduy people's customs: rejecting modern life, live a simple life worldview: life is simple for baduy idea: from the outsider, the life of baduy people is interesting and can become tourist attraction (economy and exploitation) unknown baduy people 1 b picture of baduy village product: houses, clothes unknown baduy people 2 a news report on the action of indonesian army in fighting illegal logging product: military practice: military responsibility in fighting illegal logging idea: illegal logging has threatened the ecosystem and the future of indonesia major general subagyo (military commander) 2 b no illustration 70 cultural contents in english textbooks in indonesia 3 a indonesia opens regional recycling conference (nes report) product: government system, waste management system practice: international cooperation and collaboration in waste management worldview: waste is not only a local problem, it is a global problem idea: waste management through 3rs: reduce, reuse, and recycle mayor tri rismaharini 3 b mayor tri rismaharini in the conference practice: international cooperation and collaboration in waste management mayor tri rismaharini notes: the descriptions here exemplify how global culture incorporated in the text and illustrations. it is not intended to exhaustively describe all the cultural contents and sources found in bahasa inggris. table 5 the representations of local culture in think think (published by cambridge) cultural representation in the illustrations (visual images) no reading texts product practice perspective person 1a saur marlina manurung product: education custom: traditional custom of orang rimba: separate from modern world worldview: indigenous people i.e. orang rimba are out of modern world. saur marlina manurung (anthropol ogist and teacher) 1b picture saur marlina manurung notes: in think, we only found one reading text that can represent indonesian culture. in bahasa inggris, the local culture is represented in a more diverse way, from different indigenous people living in indonesia, such as baduy people, to various news reports related to local governments, and environment. all those topics, as local or national issues, are presented to raise the awareness about various problems and issues encountered in indonesia. in contrast, think has only one reading text that can be traced back to indonesian culture. it is the text related to an activist and anthropologist saur marlina manurung who teaches an indigenous people living deep in the forest. so, in terms of local culture, think may underrepresent indonesian cultures. considering that the textbook is used by various private schools in big cities in indonesia, this underrepresentation of local cultural contents in english textbooks in indonesia 71 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university cultures can be a drawback of the book. however, the emphasis of the global culture can be understood as meeting the demands of the intended english learners using the textbook. the representations of other cultures other cultures are cultures that cannot be traced back to local culture and the global culture. they are not from the inner circle countries and they may represent future interlocutors’ cultures. table 6 and 7 describe the representations of other cultures in the two textbooks, bahasa inggris and think. table 6 the representations of other cultures in bahasa inggris bahasa inggris (endorsed by the indonesian government) cultural representation in the illustrations (visual images) no reading texts product practice perspective person 1a zebra (expository text explaining zebra) product: oral history and etymology identity: africa 1b no illustration 2a persian pottery product: pottery, history, identity the use of pottery in daily life and other purposes by persian worldview: our current world is the continuation of the past; other culture have influenced our current culture unknown archeologist s 2b no illustration notes: in bahasa inggris, we only found two readings texts that can represent other cultural sources. 72 cultural contents in english textbooks in indonesia table 7 the representations of other cultures in think think (published by cambridge) cultural representation in the illustrations (visual images) no reading texts product practice perspective person 1a multilingual communities around the world product: languages, identity daily life: the use of more than one language in many different regions worldview: multilingualis m is common unknown 1b signs written in different languages product: languages, identity daily life: the use of more than one language in many different regions worldview: multilingualis m is common unknown 2a the world’s last uncontacted tribes product: clothes, body paintings daily life: traditional unknown tribe in the brazilianperuvian frontier. idea: the peace of indigenous people are threatened unknown 2b a group of people from unknown tribe photographed from above product: clothes, body paintings, bows and arrows daily life: hunting, gathering unknown 3a yvonne bezerra from rio de janeiro product: urban city of rio, activism: helping others by educating idea: helping the disadvantaged group of people by education yvonne bezerra (activist) 3b pictures of some human right activists activism: helping others by educating idea: helping the disadvantaged group of people by education unknown notes: the descriptions here exemplify how other cultural sources are incorporated in the texts and illustrations. it is not intended to exhaustively describe all the cultural contents and sources found in think in bahasa inggris, other cultures are represented in two reading texts related to zebra and persian pottery. these two textual representations may reflect the need of the targeted learners on more local and global culture. other cultures, which may become future interlocutors of english, might not be considered the priority. in think, there are many textual representations introducing other cultures, from africa, latin america, and many different parts of the world where english is cultural contents in english textbooks in indonesia 73 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university not spoken as the first language. this fact may represent more international audience of the book as it is also intended to be used in many different countries, not only in indonesia. implications of different cultural representations in the local and global elt textbooks from table 2 to 7, we have learned different representations of cultural sources in the two textbooks examined in this study. we found that the emphasis of the two textbooks in representing the three cultural sources is different. bahasa inggris as written by indonesian and are intended for indonesian learners all over the country puts the emphasis on global and local culture. on the other hand, think puts the emphasis on global and other cultures, with only one text containing the local culture of indonesia. this different emphasis may be influenced by the intended target audience of the textbooks and the values that are intended to be communicated to the audience. first, bahasa inggris as a local textbook provides adequate local (l1) and global cultural contents (highly overlapped with l2 culture) to the intended learners, indonesian. it provides minimal contents on other cultures (l0 culture). this fact may reflect the alignment of the authors with the goal of english language teaching and the national agenda of indonesian education. first, the goal of english language teaching in public schools is to prepare the students to use the language for international communication. this goal, as reflected by lie (2017) is to prepare the students to compete in the global culture when she suggests: the pressures of mastering english go hand in hand with the drive among the middle-class to push their children up the ladder of success in the globalized world. the urban middle-class parents believe that mastery of english would set their children ahead for the global competition. (p. 77) while the local textbook is intended to prepare the learners to engage with the global community, it also serves the national agenda by representing adequate local cultural contents. in fact, the textbook has been developed based on the indonesian national curriculum, which incorporates value education as a tool to promote character education and national identity and unity. communicating local culture to global audience and maintaining national identity are two intended goals of teaching english as a foreign language in indonesia. it reflects the imagined affiliation with the local and global community (yumarnamto, 2017). therefore, teachers need to be aware of the cultural representations and may need to supply what lacks in the textbook. second, think put the emphasis on the global culture and the other cultures as it is intended for international audiences, not only for indonesian. it is understandable then that it does not include adequate local cultural contents that reflect the learners’ culture in indonesia. consequently, english teachers using this textbook should be aware that the lack of local cultural contents may disadvantage the learners as they need to maintain their local and national identity (lie, 2017; yumarnamto, 2017). third, considering the different representations of cultural contents in the local and global textbook as exemplified in bahasa inggris and think, the users, 74 cultural contents in english textbooks in indonesia especially english teachers, should be aware that those two types of textbooks can be complimentary. there is no best textbook and there is no best teaching method. as english teachers we need to be aware of different agendas and ideologies that want to be exposed and communicated by the producers of the textbooks to the audience. as suggested by song (2013), the ideological control and setting up agenda can be shown by the inclusion or exclusion of cultural contents. in this conception, the important implication is that english teachers should develop “constructive criticality” (tomlinson, 2012, p. 165) when they select materials for their teaching. finally, from the findings, we identify the conception of cultural sources in the literature has not been clearly described. the traditional conception includes the three main cultural sources, the l1 culture, the l2 culture, and the l0 culture (messekher, 2014; yuen, 2011). to reflect the changing ownership of english, which has moved to the outer and expanding circle (b. b. kachru, kachru, & nelson, 2006; y. kachru & smith, 2008), the inclusion of global and future interlocutors’ culture could complete the map (matsuda, 2012). however, we have two points of criticisms in the conception. the first point is that global culture is often conceptualized in a taken-for-granted concept which is widely accepted. we found, however, what is meant by global culture is often overlapped with l2 culture, the culture developed from the inner circle, to outer circle, and to the expanding periphery. the second point of our criticism is the conception of future interlocutors’ culture. the term ‘future interlocutors’ is a tricky and vague term. the future interlocutors do not exist in the time of speaking and we need to predict who will be the future interlocutors. therefore, talking about the future interlocutors’ culture may be nonsensical as the owners of the culture have not existed yet. fig. 2 a new conception of cultural sources in elt materials the implication of the findings along with our criticism to the conception of cultural sources brings to a new realization that we need a better conception of the cultural sources in elt materials. what matsuda (2012) identified as the three cultural contents in english textbooks in indonesia 75 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university sources of cultural contents, the global, the local, and the future interlocutors seems not to align with what we found in the textbooks. the three sources should not be treated as separate sources but should be treated as interrelated and overlapped one. upon looking at the data from this study, we suggest a new conceptualization with the emphasis on the expanding ownership of english as an international language— an interrelated and overlapped conception that can be described as the sources of culture in figure 2. in the new conceptualization, we have three main sources of culture, the l1, the l2, and the l0. the global culture is conceptualized as the expanding source originated in the l2 culture. the future interlocutors’ culture, on the other hand, can be originated from any sources described above, making it the future mixed of the local culture, the global culture, and the other culture. conclusion this exploratory study has examined the representations of different cultural sources in two english textbooks used in indonesia, bahasa inggris and think. in terms of cultural representations, we found out that the two textbooks have different emphasis regarding the culture they represent in texts and their accompanying visual illustrations. bahasa inggris, as written by indonesians and for indonesian learners put the emphasis on global and local culture. other cultures that were very limited in the local textbook. on the other hand, think provides a wide array of representations of global and other cultures, but not the local indonesian culture. the different representations of cultural sources in the local and global elt textbooks used in indonesian imply that the producers of the two textbooks may have different perspectives on the inclusion and exclusion of cultural contents. different agenda may underlie the inclusion and exclusion, including the control of ideologies and agenda setting of the producers. finally, we suggest a new conceptualization of cultural sources in elt materials. we move from the traditional conceptions to include the reality of the expanding ownership of english. however, different from matsuda (2012) that substitute l2 with global culture and l0 with future interlocutors’ culture, we suggest a complimentary conception to the traditional one, which reflect the reality of expanding ownership as well as the reality of the maintenance of the local identity and the inclusion of the imagined global community. references adaskou, k., britten, d., & fahsi, b. 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(2017). english language teaching in indonesia: imagined communities and identities in borderless world. paper presented at the the 10th international conference: revisiting english language teaching, literature, and translation in borderless world, salatiga, central java, indonesia. i beyond words vol. 1. no. 1. november 2013 editorial “writing … is an art of faith. i believe it is also an act of hope, the hope that things can be better than they are.” margaret atwood hope is marvelous, and beyond words, which is a brand new journal, starts with faith, trust and hope. following the three of them, a number of friends and colleagues are willing to help its presence by giving suggestions, contacting other scholars to give a hand in many ways, and submitting their works. we, hereby, greet everyone in this spirit of collegial collaboration with much gratitude. in this edition, seven articles come to inspire readers to do things better. however, the book review is still missing. i promise that it will come to you in the next publication. this journal starts with mateus yumarnamto in his current issue article critical pedagogy in tesl: how far can we go? contradicting critical and pragmatic pedagogy. the first, proposed by its advocates of english language teaching, such as suresh canagarajah, penny cook, b. kumaravadivelu, and dick alwright, is supposed to release (?) english language learners from economic oppressions. pragmatic pedagogy, proposed by among others, john dewey, jean piaget and lev vygotsky, is said as always looking for the best practice in the classroom. his attempts to discuss both philosophies applied to tesl/tefl, contradicting the issue of dominance-oppression and the needs of indonesian learners, could invite further research and discussions. george m. jacobs, who wrote the teacher’s sourcebook for cooperative learning,: practical techniques, basic principles with michael p. power and wan inn loh (2002), now presents, with harumi kimura, the topic of encouraging second language use in cooperative http://www.amazon.com/teachers-sourcebook-cooperative-learning-techniques/dp/0761946098/ref=la_b001ixmggo_1_2?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1383188622&sr=1-2 http://www.amazon.com/teachers-sourcebook-cooperative-learning-techniques/dp/0761946098/ref=la_b001ixmggo_1_2?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1383188622&sr=1-2 ii learning (cl) groups. in this article, jacobs and kimura suggest that cooperative learning could promote students’ l2 oral competence, if the teacher insists that they use l2 (english) during group discussions. they do not ignore the usual habit of students using l1 that makes discussions more comfortable and easy to conduct, and therefore, they provide twenty nine tips to overcome it. tsunami, which literally means a huge sea water waves attacking and damaging the land, has been used by eugenius sadtono, the author of “a concise history of teaching english as a foreign language in indonesia,” (asia tefl book series, 2007), as a metaphor of the abundant english words borrowed by indonesian prominent people and media when speaking indonesian. connecting data taken from formal and informal talks to some theory of loan words and coinage, he then questions whether it is caused by language imperialism, snobbery, lack of confidence, or lack of indonesian words to represent the concepts. looking from different linguistic views, from linguistic purism unto linguistic dynamism, the inquiry goes to what the indonesian language will be: indonesian english or english indonesian? a very interesting topic for future research. arianna berardi-wiltshire presents a very interesting research. her study is about second and third generation italian descent learners of italian as a foreign language. through a series of semi-structured interviews, she finds out that outside class activities, such as meeting and corresponding with friends and relatives in italy, motivate their learning the foreign language. it could be inspiring to see whether other case studies yield similar results. teaching english writing is never an easy task. yerly a. datu who teaches apprenticeship report, finds no exceptions in doing his teaching task. he has tried several strategies. one of his techniques that prove successful is using senior students’ writing as an iii authentic material to teach the juniors. he describes how he has used the authentic texts step by step in pre-, whilstand post-writing. then he validates his perceptions through a questionnaire. does a strict military discipline cause a student of a seafarer academy to a high or low self-esteem? this is not dias agata’s study. she assumes that it is difficult for extremely compliant students to have creativity, whereas in writing and getting ideas, creativity is compulsory. this is what triggers her to do this study. using two instruments, a test of english writing (tew) and a questionnaire of self-esteem (qse), as well as pearson product moment statistical formula, she finds out that the correlation between students’ writing ability and selfesteem is highly positive. even though it is not a cause-and-effect study, she suggests that the classroom environment be made conducive and non-threatening. the issue of native english speaking teachers (nest) and non-native english speaking teachers (nnest) has long been controversial. nnests are english department graduates with at least five years’ experience teaching english as a foreign language, while nests, coming from various english speaking countries, are usually non-english department graduates with approximately a year experience of teaching english in one of the asian countries. several studies have been done from the perspective of teachers. however, this report by angelia tjokrokanoko & hendra tedjasuksmana is a student-perception based study on the differences and similarities between nnest’s and nest’s teaching competence, cultural knowledge of english language teaching, teaching style, and classroom management. further, the subjects are secondary school students who happen to learn english non-formally. the report states that nests are more culturally knowledgeable. both are perceived as having the same competence in teaching grammar, vocabulary and the four language skills, but neither of nnest nor nest gives individual attention to students. iv for the second publication in may next year, we invite authors to submit their manuscript to beyond words at the latest 20 december 2013. the editors potential of screencast-o-matic 81 beyond words vol. 9 no.2 november 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya potential of screencast-o-matic to support efl teaching and learning amidst the covid-19 pandemic yustinus calvin gai mali yustinus.mali@uksw.edu english language education program universitas kristen satya wacana salatiga, indonesia & made hery santosa mhsantosa@undiksha.ac.id english language education program universitas pendidikan ganesha singaraja, bali, indonesia article history abstract the covid-19 situation causes a sudden and unexpected shift of face-to-face pedagogy to emergency remote teaching mode. in that transition, teachers often do not have enough space and time to explore various technology to support their teaching and learning practices that should be done flexibly in various places and times. in response, this article aims to introduce a technology tool called screencast-o-matic (som), its potential, and possible practices of using som that efl lecturers might adopt for their teaching and learning purposes, specifically in the current pandemic era. some of the practices discussed in this paper are the use of som to record a video lecturer on how to write a paper following an apa format, give screencast-video feedback to students’ work, and make a digital video presentation. the discussions of the paper are supported by some of the authors’ authentic experiences in using som in their classrooms, related research findings, and literature. ideas for future research are also presented. received: 15-08-2021 reviewed: 07-12-2021 revised: 16-12-2021 accepted: 17-12-2021 keywords: technology, som, efl teaching and learning, emergency remote teaching doi https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i2.3360 introduction education institutions worldwide are currently grappling with challenges of the global covid-19 pandemic (moser et al., 2021), starting from the closure of school buildings (kuchah, 2020; kuhfeld et al., 2020) to the shift of face-to-face (f2f) pedagogy to emergency remote teaching (ert) mode (rahiem, 2020; trust & whalen, 2020). this mailto:yustinus.mali@uksw.edu mailto:mhsantosa@undiksha.ac.id https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i2.3360 82 potential of screencast-o-matic ert mode is different from online teaching; it provides temporal access to instructions and instructional supports, which teachers can set up quickly and easily and use during an emergency (see hodges et al., 2020), such as for language learning purposes (sumardi & nugrahani, 2021). ert also encourages teaching and learning practices to be done flexibly in various places and times during the virus outbreak (hazaea et al., 2021). in the ert situation, teachers might need to explore various technology applications to support their students’ remote learning, whether they like it or not. however, due to the urgency of the instructional shift in a short time and unexpected way, ert often provides limited spaces for teachers to explore various technology and pedagogy they might use to support students’ learning (iglesias-pradas et al., 2021). in response, the authors would like to introduce a technology tool called screencast-o-matic (henceforth called som), potential, and practices of using som that efl teachers, specifically in university settings or higher education contexts, might adopt for their teaching and learning purposes. what is som? it is a friendly-user technology that teachers can use to capture, record a laptop screen, and create a videocast using a webcam and microphone available on a laptop (fraser & finn, 2014). with the free version of som, teachers can make a 15minute narrated video lecture with real-time screen capture, and they can save it on their laptop, publish it on youtube or som site, or share it on social media, such as facebook and twitter. teachers may subscribe to premium plans of som to access more recording and editing features of the application, e.g., recording a longer video than 15 minutes, drawing an object while recording, adding music to the video, and editing multiple tracks of audio. some other details of som are presented in table 1. table 1 the som application details details descriptions browser address https://screencast-o-matic.com/home som tutorial sites 5 best practice for creating quality screencasts https://screencast-o-matic.com/blog/5-best-practices-creating-quality-screencasts/ 5 quick tips for editing videos https://screencast-o-matic.com/blog/5-tips-editing-video/ product type web-based application language english level any media format mp4, avi, or flv video format operating system devices with an active internet connection connected to the internet and a browser hardware requirement a pc or a laptop equipped with a webcam and a microphone note. the details in table 1 follow shahrokni’s (2018, p. 105) app review guideline. https://screencast-o-matic.com/home https://screencast-o-matic.com/blog/5-best-practices-creating-quality-screencasts/ https://screencast-o-matic.com/blog/5-tips-editing-video/ potential of screencast-o-matic 83 beyond words vol. 10 no.2 november 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya som practices and potential this section presents three som practices, namely (1) recording a video about how to write a paper following an apa format, (2) giving screencast-video feedback to students’ work, and (3) making a digital video presentation. following the basic qualitative approach of ary et al. (2019), the authors present descriptive accounts of each som practice (1-3) based on their teaching experiences and digital observations on teachers’ som videos uploaded on youtube. the authors also supported the descriptive accounts using relevant research findings and literature, such as how som was used in similar contexts. then, in writing the accounts, the authors followed the questionresolution plot by holley and colyar (2009), beginning with teaching and learning related problems in a classroom, followed by factual practices in using som to solve those problems and som potential. after that, the authors communicated actively through the whatsapp application and discussed parts of the paper that needed revisions and more elaborated ideas. finally, the first author (c) read and checked the accounts presented in the next section several times. c then emailed the paper and asked the second author (m) to double-check all ideas presented in that section. according to link et al. (2014); ary et al. (2019), this peer debriefing technique might enhance the credibility of the stories presented in a qualitative study. the authors allow readers of this paper to make personal connections to the accounts and modify any ideas or som practices to work well in their classrooms or teaching and learning situations. writing a paper following an apa format problems. the authors concur with previous researchers (e.g., bian & wang, 2016; hinkel, 2004; prihantoro, 2016) that academic writing is often challenging for efl students. one of the challenges is to follow writing styles appropriately (gunawan & aziza, 2017), such as apa (7th edition). for example, when visiting the apa websites (see figure 1), the authors can see ten different categories of formatting to follow. it might not be feasible for academic writing lecturers to explain all those formats to their students in just one or two (online synchronous) classroom sessions. 84 potential of screencast-o-matic figure 1 apa formatting style note. for more details, visit https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format. solutions. in that case, the lecturers can record their apa formatting explanations using som, upload the recorded video to their youtube channel (e.g., like what kauffman, 2020; muller, 2020 did) and assign their students to watch the video outside the class. if not comfortable, the lecturers can save the recording on their laptop and upload it to their learning management system (lms), such as moodle, edmodo, google classroom, or schoology, so only students in the class can download and watch the screencast video. using available screencast apa-related videos on youtube might be an option too. nevertheless, as research indicates, a screencast-video lecturer should be short (e.g., around five to 10 minutes) and cover major issues in the course content, not the minor ones (kilickaya, 2016). som potential. previous studies reported the potential of using screencastbased videos to support students’ learning. in their study of a cohort of 108 first-year undergraduate students, morris and chikwa (2014) reported that most respondents watched screencast videos several times from home to understand a topic. it is not always feasible to comprehend everything only from the classroom lectures. specifically, students can pause, slow down, rewind, and watch the videos repeatedly to learn a topic (cowie & sakui, 2020) at their own learning pace. in an experimental study with 77 undergraduates in new england, fallon et al. (2018) concluded that “the students accessing screencasts outperformed students who referred to the apa manual on tests of apa knowledge and error correction on a microsoft word document” (p. 330). giving screencast-video feedback problems. before the covid-19 pandemic, some lecturers in an academic writing class usually ask their students to print their paper and submit it to them. then, the lecturers typically give written feedback (e.g., by circling or highlighting some https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format potential of screencast-o-matic 85 beyond words vol. 10 no.2 november 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya phrases or sentences and writing some suggestions) on the same paper. however, providing this type of written feedback might not be possible in the current coronavirus pandemic. solutions. in response, some teachers use som to give screencast video feedback to their students’ writing (e.g., see jati, 2017; santosa, 2020b). with this type of feedback, the students can watch their lecturer’s video that gave them comments, highlighted some words or sentences, and discussed their writing contents (dewi & jati, 2017), “providing more individualized feedback and greater detail” (kılıçkaya, 2016, p. 86). the students can pause and repeatedly watch the recorded feedback outside the classroom; therefore, som might play a role in their “self-paced learning” (kılıçkaya, 2016, p. 85). the students can also learn from writing problems on their classmates’ papers, especially when teachers upload the recorded feedback on youtube (e.g., like jati’s and santosa’s videos) and allow all their students in the writing classroom to look at one another’s feedback. som potential. this screencast video feedback has some other advantages, as reported by previous researchers. for example, it can afford more detailed feedback for students, create a sense of teachers’ social presence through the added visual and audio feedback, improve students’ connections to their teacher, and, therefore, motivate the students to revise their work well (cheng & li, 2020). the video feedback was also found to help efl firstsemester university students improve their academic writing performances (see dewi & jati, 2017). in an argumentative writing classroom, some university students also preferred watching and hearing written feedback through a som video rather than reading written feedback from their peers or lecturer on their written work (maharani & santosa, 2021). solhi and eğinli (2020) also highlighted that video feedback significantly affected students’ writing content and organization and therefore, might help students in their learning (yiğit & seferoğlu, 2021). it might also be suitable to the learning style of the 21st-century students – known as gen z in today’s classroom (bush, 2021). however, teachers need to understand that not all students find this video feedback fruitful. therefore, teachers should prioritize what to record in their screencast video feedback, such as only recording any comments that might be challenging to understand from teachers’ text-only feedback (cheng & li, 2020). moreover, as teachers possibly need more time to create their screencast-video feedback and send the video file to their students, we agree with kılıçkaya (2016) that giving the screencastvideo feedback might be practicable only for small classes, not the large ones (e.g., consisting of more than 15-20 students). making a digital video presentation problems. some university students are sometimes nervous or not ready to do their f2f classroom presentation, indicated by some pauses, confusions, and hesitations on what to say in their talk. as a result, the students exceed the allocated presentation time (mali, 2018), get a low presentation 86 potential of screencast-o-matic score, and they usually cannot have another chance to redo their performance. solutions. in that case, assigning students to make a video presentation using som (e.g., watch santosa, 2020a) might innovate the traditional classroom presentation, specifically in the current covid-19 situation where the f2f classroom meetings are still prohibited. the innovation can be done as the students can do their presentation at home and do not need to present f2f directly in front of their classmates. recently, the trend of doing the video presentation was also experienced by the first author when he joined the 18th jogja english teacher association (jeta) conference. all presenters were asked to record their 10-minute video presentations and submit their videos before the conference day. the moderator could play the video for exactly 10 minutes; therefore, he could save more time doing the questionand-answer session (watch ukdw yogyakarta, 2021). som potential. when assigned to make the video presentation using som, some efl university students said that (mali, 2018, pp. 14-15): doing a presentation using som was entirely different. when we mispronounce a word even at the end of our recording, we can retake the recording from the beginning to make our digital presentation look good (student 1); we can practice our speaking skills. it is like a mirror. we can see and listen to how we spoke to evaluate parts in which we still made mistakes (student 2). the excerpts above indicate that the som might be used as a digital mirror that students can use to see themselves talking, evaluate their speaking, and make necessary improvements until they are satisfied with their speaking performance. abbajay (2020) also acknowledged the importance of recording a presentation session and taking some time to playback, review the recording, and look for areas that might need improvement or areas that have worked well to have a satisfying virtual presentation. to improve students’ presentation skills, this practice assists their technical and conceptual abilities in delivering effective and engaging video presentation materials (luongo, 2015; martin & martin, 2015). final words the authors have described the practices of using som for efl-related teaching and learning purposes. it is hoped that the affordances of som can be explored further in other (indonesian) efl classrooms. empirical studies also need to confirm or refute what the authors have discussed in this paper, e.g., whether assigning efl students to watch screencast apa-related videos can help them comprehend apa formatting in their academic writing class well. it might also be interesting to investigate if efl students who practice and record their presentation using som (group 1) will outperform those who practice their presentation without using som (group 2) when these groups of students are asked to do a classroom presentation. practically, three speaking lecturers can be given a speaking rubric to score the speaking performances of those groups of students. potential of screencast-o-matic 87 beyond words vol. 10 no.2 november 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya besides ideas of using som as described in this paper, som might also be used to create virtual field trips, book review trailers, tourism videos, and virtual pen pals (as suggested by screencast-o-matic, 2020). these can be ideas for future explorations of som, especially how they can provide language learning opportunities for university students in efl contexts. last, we believe that teachers have to use technology to serve educational purposes. they should not jump on the bandwagon because other people do; many teachers use technology without considering whether it helps, or gives true value to educational objectives (torat, 2000). it is not a matter of infusing a course of study with the latest and the most sophisticated educational technology but is more on utilizing a technology that suits the unique needs and interests of teachers and students (chaney et al., 2010), especially those of gen z in the 21st-century learning era (bush, 2021). references abbajay, m. 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(2020). should teachers be trained in emergency remote teaching? lessons learned from the covid-19 pandemic. journal of technology and teacher education, 28(2), 189–199. ukdw yogyakarta. (2021, august 4). the 18th jeta-ukdw conference: merdeka belajar 4.0 (day 2) [video]. youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kirh ex0dl-o yiğit, m. f., & seferoğlu, s. s. (2021). effect of video feedback on students’ feedback use in the online learning environment. innovations in education and teaching international, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2021.1 966489 90 potential of screencast-o-matic authors’ short bios: yustinus calvin gai mali is a researcher and lecturer in the english language education program at universitas kristen satya wacana in salatiga, indonesia. he is also a board member of itell (indonesia technology enhanced language learning). calvin earned his phd in language, literacy and technology education from washington state university, pullman, wa, usa. his research interests are in the areas of english language teaching, education technology, and literacy education. made hery santosa is a researcher and lecturer in the english language education program at universitas pendidikan ganesha, bali, indonesia. he has published articles, books, and chapters in national and international contexts while serving as an editor and a reviewer in sage open, springer, tesol, tesl ej, kasetsart, among others. his research interests include english as a foreign language (efl), computer assisted language learning (call), digital literacy, and innovative pedagogies. cooperative learning and positive psychology 1 beyond words vol. 9, no.1, may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university two approaches for promoting student centered language learning: cooperative learning and positive psychology george m jacobs george.jacobs@gmail.com international association for the study of cooperation in education singapore & meng huat chau chaumenghuat@um.edu.my universiti malaya malaysia article history abstract this article links two approaches to promoting less competitive, more positive, and more student centered learning environments for language learners: cooperative learning and positive psychology. the article begins by explaining each of these two approaches. first, the article provides background, including research support, for cooperative learning and explains eight cooperative learning principles: maximum peer interactions, equal opportunities to participate, individual accountability, positive interdependence, group autonomy, heterogeneous grouping, teaching collaborative skills, and cooperation as a value. second, the article supplies similar background, including research support, for positive psychology (also known as positive education), including seven principles: relationships with others, many adults and children see the world as a place dominated by competition, a place in which this competition often leads people to have negative feelings toward others and even toward themselves (bregman, 2020). fortunately, alternatives exist to competition and the resulting negativity. two of these alternatives are cooperative learning (johnson, johnson, & holubec, 2013) and positive psychology (seligman & csikszentmihalyi, 2000). cooperative learning encourages students and others to work together toward common goals, and positive psychology encourages people to look for and build upon what is good in people and situations. this article begins by explaining cooperative learning and positive psychology, and how they overlap. the article then discusses how cooperative learning and positive psychology can be combined in language education, and illustrates this combination with two sample lessons. submitted: 25-2-21 reviewed: 16-4-21 accepted: 15-5=21 keywords: cooperative learning; positive psychology; positive education; extensive reading; language learning doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i1.3042 introduction cooperative learning cooperative learning (cl), also known as collaborative learning, is a theoretically grounded, research-based approach that involves students learning together in small mailto:george.jacobs@gmail.com mailto:chaumenghuat@um.edu.my https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i1.3042 2 cooperative learning and positive psychology groups (students in groups as few as two students are considered a group) to meet cognitive and affective goals. cl is consistent with various theories of learning. for instance, socio-cultural theory (vygotsky, 1978) posits that support from others can promote learning, and in cl contexts, students receive support not only from teachers and learning materials but also from peers, as well as providing support to others. since about 1970, a great deal of research across age groups and subject areas has suggested that cl helps students achieve cognitive and affective goals (ibáñez, garcía rueda, maroto, & kloos, 2013; johnson, johnson, & stanne, 2000; slavin, 1991; van ryzin, roseth, & biglan, 2020). implementing cl requires preparation on the part of students, teachers, and others, as cl involves much more than students merely forming groups and sitting together or communicating via internet tools. in other words, cl is so much more than a seating arrangement, face-to-face or virtual. instead, various principles have been developed to guide student-student interaction so as to promote active cooperation (johnson & johnson, 2013). one set of eight such cl principles was proposed by jacobs and kimura (2013). these principles (highlighted in bold) are briefly described below. 1. maximum peer interactions. this principle has two meanings. first, activities are organised to promote peer interactions among multiple students at the same time, i.e., maximising the quantity of peer interactions. for instance, in a class of 50 students learning in groups of two, potentially 25 peer interactions take place simultaneously. second, these interactions often involve the use of thinking skills and collaborative skills, thereby maximising the quality of peer interactions. 2. equal opportunity to participate. the idea behind this principle is that allj group members have opportunities to take part fully in group activities. one or two members do not dominate the group. 3. individual accountability. while equal opportunity to participate strives to give all group members chances to take part, the principle of individual accountability encourages students to use those chances to do their fair share in the group. 4. positive interdependence. this principle provides guidance on how to encourage students to care about their groupmates’ learning and socio-emotional outcomes, to see their groupmates’ outcomes as positively correlated with their own. in other words, students feel that they sink or swim together in the “ocean” of language learning. 5. group autonomy. this principle looks at how to encourage students to seek support first from their own group members and then other students before turning to teachers and other resource people. 6. heterogeneous grouping. this principle encourages students to learn in mixed groups which represent the diversity existing within their class. groups can be mixed on such variables as past achievement, age, gender, social class, and ethnicity. 7. teaching collaborative skills. working together is not easy. this principle draws attention to students’ development and use of skills that promote effective group interaction. these skills include thanking others, praising others, giving reasons for their responses, and disagreeing politely. 8. cooperation as a value. based on this principle students and teachers adopt a view of positive interdependence toward all their interactions, not only interactions within small classroom groups. for instance, this ‘sink-orswim together’ perspective can be applied to interactions between community members, between countries, and between species. cooperative learning and positive psychology 3 beyond words vol. 9, no.1, may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university positive psychology traditionally, psychology has focused on people’s problems and negative experiences. in contrast, positive psychology (pp) is a branch of psychology which adopts a different approach. pp looks at what is going well in people’s lives and seeks to build on that to enhance their lives and their impacts on others’ lives. the roots of pp can be traced most clearly to humanistic psychology, such as maslow’s concept of self-actualisation (maslow, 1954) and csikszentmihalyi’s (1990) concept of flow, i.e., optimal experience. studies on pp suggest that a positive attitude is associated with greater success in many areas of life (hogan, 2020; lyubomirsky, king, & diener, e., 2005; seligman, ernst, gillham, reivich, & linkins, 2009; seligman, steen, park, & peterson, 2005). various principles have been suggested for pp. seven of these principles (highlighted in bold) are discussed below. please note how these principles overlap with cl principles. 1. relationships with others. we humans beings are social animals. positive associations with others provide us with emotional support and task assistance. furthermore, bonds with others offer additional motivation, as people are motivated to do at least their fair share toward achieving goals shared with others (coyne-foresi & nowicki, 2020). 2. responsibility. doing one’s fair share links to the pp principle of responsibility. yes, circumstances have a powerful impact on everyone’s life and the lives of others. however, at the same time, everyone needs to maximise their own positive impact on their own life and others’ lives. this is similar to the concept of internal locus of control (sujadi, 2020). 3. gratitude. showing gratitude to others can encourage positive feelings and promote success for both those expressing gratitude and those receiving the expressions of gratitude (collange & guegan, 2020). 4. positivity. positive feels can arise from how people view their past, present, and future, as well as the other individuals in their lives. optimism grounded in reality features prominently in positivity (gierlinger & barden, 2020). 5. strengths. one principle of pp that fits well with positivity is a focus on strengths, strengths of others and strengths of oneself. strengths include abilities, such as the ability to lead groups, as well as strengths of character, such as self-control (ruch et al., 2020). 6. kindness. a strength that forms another principle of pp is the strength of kindness. kind acts can be planned or can occur at random. otake, shimai, tanakamatsumi, otsui, and fredrickson (2006) reported that doing kind acts increased participants’ happiness. 7. meaning. flowing from the pp principle of kindness is the principle of meaning, i.e., one way to feel our lives have meaning lies in doing kind act for others. in this way, our lives have meaning beyond our own selves (seligman, 2020). 4 cooperative learning and positive psychology links between cooperative learning and positive psychology. many links exist between cl and pp, as can be seen by comparing the eight cl principles with the seven pp principles. table 1 explores some of these links and how they might be implemented in classrooms. first, it should be noted that the application of pp to education is frequently called positive education (joseph, murphy, & holford, 2020). table 1 links between cl and pp with implementation ideas cl principle link with pp principles implementation ideas maximum peer interactions relationships with others provide opportunities for students to collaborate with a range of people (peers and others) equal opportunity to participate strengths help students see and develop the strengths in themselves and others individual accountability responsibility encourage students to exercise and develop their strengths by doing their fair share in their groups positive interdependence kindness facilitate the view among students that by helping others they are also helping themselves group autonomy positivity promote optimism among students so that they can learn via collaboration with peers and do not need to rely solely on teachers heterogeneous grouping relationships with others help students appreciate the advantages of connecting with people different from themselves teaching collaborative skills gratitude encourage students to express gratitude for specific qualities and actions of groupmates cooperation as a value meaning teach the view that cooperation bears the promise of not only greater individual success but also greater fulfilment from helping others an example of linking cooperative learning and positive psychology part 1. instructions this section of the article illustrates the points in table 1 via a language classroom engaged in extensive reading. extensive reading involves students in reading large quantities of material at a level of difficulty roughly equal to students’ current reading levels (extensive reading foundation, 2020). the eight cl principles will be used as the foundation for planning the lesson, with the seven pp principles used to enhance the lesson. the students’ task is to create a short online advertisement for a book they read and enjoyed. the advertisement should contain both words and visuals. each student has a partner who acts as their editor, and the editors are credited at the end of each advertisement. a rubric developed by the class guides the students in their editing of their partner’s advertisement. table 2 shows one possible rubric. cooperative learning and positive psychology 5 beyond words vol. 9, no.1, may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university table 2 one possible rubric for online advertisements of materials students used in their extensive reading characteristic exceeds expectations meets or approaches expectations plot summary the book’s plot is clearly summarised in no more than 50 words a summary is provided, but one or more key elements of the plot may be missing or may be unclear details about the book that assist others in locating it to read themselves title, author(s), date of publication, publisher and perhaps a url are provided some of the information may be missing types of readers who might enjoy the book ages, interests, favoured types of reading materials, reading level are provided some of the information may be missing reasons to read the book persuasive reasons are given to attract others to read this particular book reasons lack persuasiveness and elaboration visual the visual is likely to draw viewers’ attention, and the visual links to the reasons for reading the book the visual could be more attractive and more closely linked to the reasons for reading the book contact information for the creator of the advertisement to promote dialogue, contact information via a safe channel has been provided contact information is not provided or the contact information could expose the creator to spam, etc. the class consists of 50 students. using the cl principle of heterogeneous grouping, students form 12 groups of four students and one group of two students. while reading is usually a silent, individual activity, students can benefit from peer discussion of what they have read (jacobs & gallo, 2002). the groups of four divide themselves into heterogeneous pairs. while many factors can be used in forming heterogeneous groups and these factors can be used in combination, in this case, past achievement in reading will be used, such that the groups will be a mix of students who are relatively high and low in past achievement in reading. it should be noted that past achievement (a relatively changeable factor) is not the same as ability (a relatively fixed variable). the pp principle of relationships with others may help students appreciate the benefits of their mixed groups. for instance, the higher achievers can benefit from explaining language points with which their groupmates have difficulty (webb et al., 2009), and they can extend their friendship circles by working together with students with whom they might not normally interact. 6 cooperative learning and positive psychology lower achievers can benefit from the language help that higher achievers provide, and as this is a multiple ability task, the lower achievers might be able to return the favour by providing assistance with the artistic and/or the technological parts of the task (cohen & lotan, 2014). as students edit their partner’s advertisement, they operationalise the cl principles of group autonomy and teaching of collaborative skills. the groups of two show autonomy, because rather than depending on the teacher as the sole arbiter of the quality of the advertisements, students consult their partner (the collaborative skill of asking for help) and the partner provides feedback with reasons (the collaborative skill of giving feedback with explanations). furthermore, students can turn to the other pair in their group for additional consultation (maintaining the quantity aspect of maximum peer interactions). other peers who give feedback are also credited in the advertisement. of course, the teacher remains ready to provide feedback, but the teacher is not the first option. in offering feedback to their partners, students use the pp principle of positivity, as they highlight aspects of the advertisements that fit the points in the rubric. areas for improvement also receive attention, and students express their gratitude for both the positive feedback and the constructive criticism. both giving and receiving feedback require the use of collaborative skills, and teachers can aid students’ acquisition and use of these skills, e.g., via a six-step procedure described in johnson and johnson (2013). the extensive reading lesson promotes the cl principle of maximum peer interactions in at least two ways. first, the quantity of peer interactions rises as the 50 students interact in pairs, i.e., 25 peer interactions potentially taking place at the same time, and even when students interact in foursomes, 12 interactions take place. high quality peer interactions are more likely to take place, as students use the rubrics the class developed, with the teacher’s guidance, to give and explain feedback. additional quality interaction potentially flows from students using collaborative skills as some of their feedback highlights strong points in the advertisement drafts and as students express gratitude for the feedback. students highlighting strong points in the peers’ work fits with the pp principle of strengths. the hope is that this focus on strengths builds students’ self-confidence, as well as their appreciation of the value of working with others. strengths bolsters the twin cl principles of equal opportunity to participate and individual accountability. it is only when students believe that their peers possess, or at least can develop, strengths that all group members are likely to receive equal opportunities to take part in group activities. furthermore, it is only when students take responsibility and use these opportunities, in this case the opportunities to work on their own advertisement and to give feedback on others’ work, that they can develop and display their strengths. in other words, students need to exercise individual accountability. positive interdependence links with the pp principle of kindness. the students sink or swim together, because both group members have their names on each other’s work, and if students provide feedback to classmates outside of their own twosome, and such interaction is promoted by the principle of maximum peer interactions, their names also go in the credits section of the advertisement. thus, they share a common goal of creating effective cooperative learning and positive psychology 7 beyond words vol. 9, no.1, may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university advertisements, and this may encourage students to be kind to each other as they work on their advertisements and respond to each other’s work. the hope is that kindness creates an environment in which students can experiment and step outside their comfort zones, achieving something along the lines of what maslow (1954) called selfactualisation, what csikszentmihalyi (1990) called flow, and what seligman (2012) called flourishing. however, some advocates of extensive reading, e.g., krashen (2007), have warned against asking students to do anything after reading a book other than finding something else to read. perhaps, the positivity generated by the cl principles and the pp principles will result in the advertisement task being an engaging and successful experience for students, one that will encourage them to read more and to think more deeply as they read, and krashen (personal correspondence) has acknowledged that group activities could have a positive impact on students’ reading. the eighth cl principle, cooperation as a value, potentially builds on this positivity, as students may see their online advertisements promoting a dialogic reading culture beyond their class, school, even country, thereby generating meaning for students, transforming reading from a solely individual activity that people do just for themselves into a collective activity that benefits oneself and others by promoting a reading and lifelong learning culture (martin, 2019). in such a reading culture, people read more, regardless of the medium (electronic or hard copy) in which they read. furthermore, reading becomes a more cooperative experience, as people share about what they read. taking this collaboration, a step further, readers and writers can interact, and, as in the case of the students’ online advertisements, readers can become producers of texts. how cooperative learning and positive psychology promote student centeredness student centered learning, also known as learner centered, may best be seen as a continuum in which students have an increasingly large degree of input as to what and how they learn, a greater involvement in assessment, and a higher level of overt activity. many overlapping approaches in education promote student centeredness, e.g., critical thinking, problem-based learning, self-directed learning, service learning, and cross-cultural skills. indeed, student centeredness can be seen as part of a larger paradigm shift in society in which the citizenry are more knowledgeable and more involved in shaping society’s future for the benefit of all. cooperative learning fits readily with student centeredness, as in cooperative learning, students are more obviously active as they communicate and play a variety of roles within their groups. in a teacher centered class, often only one person at a time, usually the teacher, speaks, whereas in a class of 50 students studying in groups of two, potentially 25 people speak at the same time. also, in a teacher centered class, teachers play such roles as facilitator, understanding checker, timekeeper, encourager, and devil’s advocate. in contrast, when the class does cooperative learning, students have opportunities to play all those roles and more, alongside the teacher. 8 cooperative learning and positive psychology furthermore, with cooperative learning, groups need to exercise some degree of autonomy, and each member is held individually accountable for the learning of everyone in their group. positive psychology does much to create an atmosphere where student centeredness can thrive. to fully utilize the opportunities that student centeredness offers, students need to feel they can take risks, express their feelings, express gratitude for how others contribute to the learning of all, be proud of their strengths as they understand, seek help with, and work on their weaknesses, and create an overall culture of positivity among the class members and beyond. cooperative learning also promotes such an environment, especially with its emphasis on positive interdependence, cooperative skills, and equal opportunity to participate. a student centered activity for teaching cohesion the above extensive reading lesson models how cooperative learning and positive psychology can be integrated into teaching, and, of course, that lesson also embodies student centeredness. the following lesson can be characterized as an intensive reading lesson. intensive reading, in contrast with extensive reading, involves shorter texts at students instructional, not independent, reading level. teachers organize intensive reading lessons to highlight particular reading skills that students can later employ in their extensive reading and in the reading, they might do in their content area reading, e.g., in mathematics class. cohesion (halliday & hassan, 2014) is one way to unify texts. table 3 shows some cohesive devices in english. language works a bit like a jigsaw puzzle, with many pieces that need to fit together, and cohesion provides one of the tools people use so that all the pieces of the texts they create and all the texts they hear, read, and view from others fit together. thus, learning about cohesive devices can be fun, just like playing with a jigsaw puzzle. all languages have various devices for unifying spoken, written, and visual texts. the present article contains a sample lesson plan involving cohesion in english. table 3 selected cohesive devices in english cohesive device non-technical explanation example repetition a word or another form of the word is repeated. in the example, ‘salad’ is repeated, and ‘enjoy’ appears as ‘enjoyment.’ yesterday, one of my housemates and i prepared a big salad and shared it with everyone. the other housemates enjoyed our salad. their enjoyment made us happy. conjunctions words used to connect other words. well-known conjunct-ions are ‘and,’ ‘but,’ ‘however,’ and ‘also.’ different conjunct-ions have different meanings. some people enjoy eating meat, but meat is bad for health, the environment, the animals, and pandemics. reference we can only understand a word or word in the text by referring to another word or words. in the example, to understand ‘it,’ we need to refer to ‘beyond words.’ i enjoy reading the journal beyond words. in every issue, it has many useful articles. cooperative learning and positive psychology 9 beyond words vol. 9, no.1, may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university a sample lesson plan this section of the article illustrates the points in table 1 via a language classroom engaged in an intensive reading lesson. the eight cl principles form a foundation for designing the lesson, and the seven pp principles enhance the lesson. it should be noted that different educators have different lists of cl and pp principles. the students’ task is to identify some of the cohesive devices in a short text. each student has a partner with whom they take turns to go about the task. box 1 contains the text and the part 1 task instructions, followed by the answer key and the part 2 discussion. part 1. instructions work alone to read the text “we are all scientists.” check with your partner or online if anything is not clear. then, take turns with your partner to do the 17 underlined items with superscript numbers. identify the word(s) that each item connects back to. #1, “for example1” refers back to “science has done much to improve the lives of humans” and #2, “scientists2 refers back to “science.” one of you will have the answer key for the odd-number items, and the other will have the answer key for the evennumber items. we are all scientists science has done much to improve the lives of humans. for example1, scientists2 have developed ways to clean the water that we3 drink. everyone can be a scientist, not just professional scientists. one area of science is sociology. this science4 studies how people connect with others5. whenever we do something with other people, we can be sociologists, and we can do sociology experiments. here is an example of a sociology experiment6 that we can try with our7 family or friends. the next time someone does something we like, for example, the person helps someone, we can praise them8. our experiment can be about how we feel when we praise others. to measure the results of our experiment, after we praise, we can do a measurement9 of how we feel on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 as not happy and 5 as very happy. maybe we can try praising other people five times, and each time after we do10, we can record how happy we feel. next, we add our scores together. the total11 can be between 5 and 25. then, we think about and discuss with others the impact of praising on our12 feelings. did praising make us happier? did some ways of praising make us happier than other ways of doing it13? maybe this latter question14 can be the focus of another experiment. science is all around us. it15 can improve our lives in many ways. therefore, the world needs many scientists. fortunately, there are many different sciences16. so, please be a scientist every day, please do many experiments, and please share their17 results with others. thank you. 10 cooperative learning and positive psychology students’ task cooperative learning and positive psychology 11 beyond words vol. 9, no.1, may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university part 2 discussion questions instructions: in your groups of four, each member chooses a question, 1, 2, or 3, and shares their answer to that question with the group. the group works together to answer the questions in #4. 9. the reading passage said that clean water was one way that science improved our lives. what is another way that we benefit from science? 10. do you like people to praise you? 11. do you sometimes praise your teachers? 12. what is something that you want to know about? how could you do research about your question? do you know anyone who might like to do the experiment with you, or who might like to know the result of your research? bonus task: do a role play in which the words in a paragraph show how they connect with each other. for example, one person can be “it” and form a pair with the person who is a word to which “it” refers. the class, as in the previous example lesson, consists of 50 students. using the cl principle of heterogeneous grouping, students form 12 groups of four students and one group of two students, with each group of four divided into pairs. pairs provide the greatest quantity of peer interactions. past achievement in reading will be the main variable used in forming these 25 groups of two, such that the groups will be a mix of student who are relatively high and low in past achievement. in this way, relatively weaker readers can receive more assistance, and their peers have more opportunities to learn by teaching. duran (2017) reviewed research on students learning by teaching peers and found that more complex teaching activities provided students with greater openings for learning by teaching peers. the pp principle of relationships with others can come to life, as people who might not otherwise communicate now have a need to interact. the hope is that students from different backgrounds can come to appreciate each other by working together toward a common goal (aronson, 2020); thereby students can increase their friendship circles, with the result being less of a tendency for divisive cliques to form among the class members. students have the answer key, thereby promoting the cl principle of group autonomy, because they have less need to check with the teacher, although the teacher and the other pair in their foursome are available in the case of questions and doubts. because teachers spend less time providing answers, they are able to spend more time observing how students interact, e.g., observing the peer teaching and thinking how to guide students to enjoy more effective peer teaching in the future. the active cohesive devices provide scope for the cl principle of teaching of collaborative skills. any interaction involves multiple collaborative skills. one such skill that students can work on is waiting patiently. opportunities to use this skill might arise when the higher achiever waits for the lower achiever to try alone to do one of the items. too often, students become impatient and answer for their partner. waiting patiently operationalizes the pp principle of kindness, as it shows kindness 12 cooperative learning and positive psychology when students who need more time are not pressured to rush. the cl principle of maximum peer interactions comes into play in two ways. first, as students mostly are in groups of two or four, the quantity of peer interactions can be high. second, the quality of peer interactions can also be high, as students discuss their answers and as they use the collaborative skill of waiting patiently. students may need guidance both on how to have in depth discussions and how to wait patiently. because students each have half of the answer key, even the less proficient readers will be able to offer feedback to their partners. this provides students opportunities to use the pp principle of positivity, as they praise their partners for correct answers and for trying again if their initial answer was labelled wrong. also, please notice the positive theme of the reading passage. indeed, the topics of the texts used in class offer an additional avenue for raising values, thereby being in concord with the cl principle of cooperation as a value. also, expressions of gratitude links with the pp principle of meaning, as when student express and receive gratitude as part of an activity, the importance of an activity increases, i.e., by participating in the activity, students are not just moving 30 minutes nearer to the end of the school day; they are also helping others and themselves and building bonds with those around them. at the end of the lesson or before the class moves on to the discussion questions, students can enact the pp principle of expressing gratitude. this gratitude could be expressed for ideas shared, for time spent waiting patiently, for answers provided and explained, etc. gratitude can be expressed in words or by visuals, e.g., various emojis can be used, as well as hand signs, such as thumbs up. furthermore, teachers can express gratitude to the entire class, a particular group, or particular students for contributing to the success of the lesson. students praising their peers’ fits with the pp principle of strengths. focusing on strengths bolsters individual students’ selfconfidence, along with giving students confidence that group activities are not a case of the lost leading each other to be even more lost. this focus on strengths encourages students that they can successfully take responsibility to do their fair share in their group, i.e., to live up to their individual accountability. seeing their peers’ greater confidence and responsibility, plus knowing that their partners possess half the answer key, makes it more likely that all group members will be afforded equal opportunity to participate, in accordance with cl principles. many ways exist of mobilizing the cl principle of positive interdependence. two of the ways used in the cohesion activity are resource positive interdependence and role positive interdependence. each member of each pair has a unique resource, as they each have one half of the answer key. they need to share this resource in order to check their group’s understanding of cohesion. they each have the rotating role of answerer as they take turns to try first to do the items in the activity. please remember that positive interdependence is about everyone in the group needing to learn, not about the group as a whole completing a task. if the best reader in the group does all the items, the group could very likely finish the task quicker, but by giving each member an equal opportunity to participate, the resulting role positive interdependence increases the likelihood that everyone will indeed learn as a result of the activity, rather than being a bystander. cooperative learning and positive psychology 13 beyond words vol. 9, no.1, may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university last but not least, this lesson promotes student centered learning in a number of ways. for example, students need to be very involved as they rotate roles to do the cohesion activity. also, the reading passage was designed to connect to students’ lives. the discussion questions that follow the reading passage encourage students to use their thinking skills as they think of their own examples and work together to design an experiment that addresses a question of their own creation based on their own lives conclusion in conclusion, this article has explained cl and pp, proposed links between the two, suggested the cl and pp fit well in the overall framework of student centered learning, and provided two example lesson plans that illustrate cl and pp in action together. in combination, the whole−cl and pp together−becomes greater than the sum of its parts in two ways. one, the interaction promoted by cl provides a foundation for the principles of pp: 1. relationships with others as students learn and enjoy together in groups; 2. responsibility for doing one’s fair share in the group; 3. gratitude as students and teachers help each other accomplish shared goals; 4. positivity as students and teachers see what they can accomplish together; 5. strengths as students appreciate what each other bring to the group and how all develop via their collaboration; 6. kindness as students and teachers build a cooperative environment; 7. meaning derived from doing activities that are useful for self and others. two, the magic of cl lies in students’ interaction as they scaffold (zarei & alipour, 2020) for each other, and pp gives students and teachers a new set of tools for enabling collective scaffolding. george m. jacobs, ph.d. has many years’ experience teaching language and education to students from many countries and sharing about his teaching with fellow educators. among his favorite topics are student-centered education, language variation, and humane education. he has more than 300 publications, and his favorite journal is beyond words. meng huat chau, ph.d. began his career as an english language teacher and has taught students across all levels at different schools and institutions before he joined universiti malaya in 2010. among his favorite topics in language education are student and teacher agency. he has a feeling that beyond words is going to be one of his favorite journals soon references bartlett, m. y., & desteno, d. 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(1978). mind in society. ed. by m. cole, v. john-steiner, s. scribner, & e. souberman). harvard university press. webb, n. m., franke, m. l., de, t., chan, a. g., freund, d., shein, p., & melkonian, d. k. (2009). ‘explain to your partner’: teachers' instructional practices and students' dialogue in small groups. cambridge journal of education, 39(1), 49-70. zarei, a. a., & alipour, h. (2020). shadowing and scaffolding techniques affecting l2 reading omprehension. applied research on english language, 9(1), 53-74. illocutionary acts of opinion articles 101 beyond words vol 7, no. 2 november 2019 illocutionary acts of environmental persuasion in u.s. online newspaper opinion articles diana dewi dianadewi310380@gmail.com surabaya, indonesia abstract persuasion, especially in written form, has been acknowledged by scholars as difficult. success in its attempt requires complex use of, among others, pragmatics. persuasive texts have therefore been highly researched using the speech act theory. however, a research gap existed for a study of illocutionary acts in newspaper opinion articles. to fill the gap, the current study did a qualitative textual analysis on 10 u.s. online newspaper opinion articles that talk about climate change. the analysis was conducted to discover types of illocutionary acts and persuasive strategies the writers use to successfully persuade readers. it was then found that the writers predominantly performed assertives. the second most frequently used were directives. the most preferred subtypes under these categories were, among others, informing, urging, assuring, and demanding. these preferences further revealed the writers’ persuasive strategies. the strategies were as follows: being highly implicit, being occasionally explicit, giving more information about the issue, conveying certainty and uncertainty, arousing fear, also creating a sense of urgency. these acts and strategies, according to existing theories, could increase the texts’ persuasiveness. hence, this study establishes that when used in persuasive texts, the previously mentioned illocutionary acts and strategies can help writers to attain persuasion. keywords: illocutionary act types, persuasive strategies, textual analysis introduction persuasive attempts can be found abundantly in both spoken and written forms. through speeches or texts, persuaders try to convince their addressees to change their opinions, attitudes, or behavior. some examples are political speeches, sermons, promotional leaflets, television advertisements, newspaper editorials, public health campaigns or even facebook posts. in short, persuasion is inescapable in daily life. however, achieving persuasion is challenging or difficult. people are not easy to get persuaded by influence attempts, whether explicit or implicit. such efforts, according to some scholars, could only result in minimal effect (fransen, smit, & verlegh, 2015; woodward & denton, 2014). persuasion success is even harder to achieve when attempts to persuade are made in written forms. in written persuasion, an audience is absent. a writer therefore cannot make a real-time adjustment to the audience’s verbal or non-verbal responses. such constraint makes spoken or face-to-face persuasion to be considered more effective in changing people’s minds or bringing about compliance than is written persuasion. speech has been found to be able to produce stronger persuasive effects than writing. in view of that, newell, beach, smith, and va der heide (2011) recognize the need for the use of complex language in writing persuasive texts (pp. 125-126). due to this fact, mills and dooley (2014) discovered that 102 illocutinary acts of opinion articles middle year (year 6) students in australia had difficulty when writing expositions. newell, et al. further acknowledge that teaching persuasive writing poses difficulties for teachers. as persuasion success entails the use o complex language, persuasive texts have been extensively studied using theories of pragmatics, particularly speech acts. based on the theory,when a writer is uttering, for instance, a declarative sentence, s/he is performing a locutionary act.then, as the writer intends such utterance to have a certain function or force (e.g. stating, inviting, requesting, warning, etc.),a second act, i.e. illocutionary act, is simultaneously carried out. additionally, by committing these two acts, the writer is also performing a perlocutionary act, that is, the bringing about of consequences or effects on readers (e.g. persuading, inspiring, convincing, and so on). since persuasion emphasizes free choice and works rather to encourage than to force an individual to share the persuader’s viewpoint, perlocutionary act is less likely to be the subject of investigation in speech act studies. in existing research, researchers tend to focus on illocutionary acts. some attempted to identify types of illocutionary acts that prevail in written persuasion. such purpose was achieved by studying airline slogans (arrosid & munandar, 2018) and by conducting a comparative study of british and romanian advertisements (guga-cotea, 2014). other studies aimed to identify the patterns of illocutionary acts found in online fast food commercials (khalis, 2017) and newspaper/magazine adverts (simon & dejica-cartis, 2015). to get more insight as to how advertisers use illocutionary acts to achieve persuasion, two other studies analyzed illocutionary act features of nigerian advertisements. peter and durobello (2014) studied pentecostal gospel program advertising, while olamide and segun (2014) examined editorial comments of tell magazine. the above review of previous studies suggested that little attention has been accorded to the illocutionary acts present in newspaper opinion articles. these acts were performed in the opinion section of a newspaper with the purpose of convincing readers of certain viewpoints on current issues or moving them to action. they could have the potential to be persuasive and impactful as opinion articles are aimed at a wide audience and have been regarded as one of the most persuasive writing in the world (reah, 1998). besides, they are deemed worthy of further analysis because the language of opinion articles have been regarded as a good source to study persuasive language in newspapers (breuer, napthine, & o'shea, 2008). yet, to date, these illocutionary acts have been relatively underexplored. recently, many opinion articles contain persuasion on environmental issues, particularly on climate change. climate change has become an urgent issue globally because some of its catastrophic impacts are happening much faster than was first predicted by the scientists. extreme weather events like storms, heatwaves, droughts, floods and fires have become more frequent worldwide. moreover, there have been some major and discernible impacts of climate change on health as well. as a result, according to abc news, calls for climate action have been intensified (willis, 2019). globally, politicians, scientists, activists, journalists, authors, scholars, etc. try to shape public opinion on the issue and further motivate people to take action. they do so, among others, by writing opinion articles and getting them published in major daily illocutionary acts of opinion articles 103 newspapers, printed or online. in the texts, they address the causes of climate change and persuade people to mitigate such problems through both personal and collective efforts. however, persuading public to take actions to prevent or mitigate the impact of climate change seemed difficult. despite the frequent publication of newspaper opinion articles that highlight the issue, global warming has been accelerating faster than predicted and global carbon-dioxide emissions have been on the rise. in fact, carbon dioxide levels have hit record high in may 2019 (noaa headquarters, 2019). evidently, people are still reluctant to change their polluting lifestyles. the number of cars on the roads has increased and many countries continued to rely on fossil fuels to produce electricity. at the same time, the destruction rate of carbon-rich tropical forests in indonesia, brazil, and argentina has increased rapidly (picheta, 2018). furthermore, according to a gallup survey in 2015, a great number of americans continued to have low levels of concern about climate change or global warming. out of more than 1,000 adults surveyed, only 32% stated they were extremely worried about the phenomenon. a larger portion of the public (45%) said they only worried a little or were not concerned at all (gallup, 2016). similarly, the european social survey (ess), which did a survey to 44,387 people in 23 european countries, suggested that just over a quarter (28%) of the europeans said that they were deeply worried about the changing climate (grover, 2018). interestingly, in the us, mass media seemed to be able to induce attitude change. in 2016, the gallup survey showed that the americans have become more concerned about climate change or global warming. a total of 37% of those polled stated they worried a great deal about the phenomenon. this was a five-percentage point increase from 2015. there was also a four percent increase in the number of the americans who had a fair amount of concern. on the other hand, the number of people who did not worry or only worried a little had decreased nine percent to 36% (gallup, 2016). this rise in concern might be triggered by the mass media, including newspapers. in 2015 and beyond, many major newspapers in the us contained opinion articles and editorials that addressed the climate change issue. as a part of media content, these articles were deemed able to influence the americans to have certain feelings towards the issue (adams, 2015). they have also been acknowledged to have the significant potential to stimulate and call for public action on climate change (martyniak, 2014). in view of the above, to fill the gap in the literature, the present study would like to investigate illocutionary acts in u.s. newspaper opinion articles that talk about climate change or global warming. the articles were published in four online sites of u.s. major newspapers, which were ranked among the top 25 u.s. newspapers by digital traffic and top 10 daily newspapers in florida by circulation (barthel, 2015; cision media research, 2016). the news sites were usatodayco,, latimes.com, seattletimes. com, and miamiherald.com. review of related literature identifying illocutionary acts speech act theorists have suggested some differentiations that need to be made in identifying illocutionary acts. according to searle, an illocutionary act should first and foremost be distinguished from an utterance’s propositional or semantic content (ifantidou, 2001). the propositional content 104 illocutinary acts of opinion articles refers to what is conveyed by an utterance, while the illocutionary act signifies the action it performs. next, searle also distinguishes between illocutionary meaning and literal meaning. the illocutionary meaning of an utterance is not directly related to its literal meaning (oishi, 2011). accordingly, oishi equates understanding an illocutionary act with recognizing the writer’s mind or inner psychological state. she explained that in producing an utterance, a writer usually has a certain intention in his/her mind. instead of literal meaning or semantic content, an analysis of illocutionary act must capture such intention. in view of this, illocutionary acts can be defined as the type of functions that writers intend to fulfill or the actions they aim to accomplish when producing utterances. examples of such functions are making a claim, a warning, a request etc. subsequently, readers are expected to make some interpretations to understand what types of illocutionary acts writers intend to perform in uttering certain sentences. this is because an utterance will potentially perform more than one illocutionary act, yet writers usually intend to convey only one message to the readers (allan, 2010). besides that, illocutionary acts have been regarded as “non-communicated acts” (blakemore, 1992, p. 94). this definition suggests that readers must make interpretations to identify the writers’ intention and the illocutionary act types. in making such inferences or interpretations, syntactic, semantic, and morphologicalor lexical features of an utterance can provide essential information (van dijk, 1977). the syntactic references include sentence forms (declarative, interrogative, imperative), syntactic functions (subject, object, etc.), tense and/or aspect. the semantic features consist of denotation of speech participants, states, events, actions, modalities, and so on. further, explicit performatives and word choices fall into the category of morphological or lexical aspects (p. 225). contextual clues are also determinants of the actual illocutionary act performed in an utterance (ifantidou, 2001). according to fetzer (2004), these clues can be in the form of linguistic, cognitive and/or extra-linguistic materials. if the clues are language materials, e.g. preceding and/or following utterances, they are classified as linguistic context. if the contextual information is in the form of cognitive materials, e.g. general world knowledge, factual assumptions, propositions, and so on, it can be categorized as cognitive context. the other type of context, i.e. social context, includes extralinguistic materials such as discourse participants, also physical surroundings including time and location. illocutionary act types as a basis for an analysis of illocutionary acts, searle (1979) developed a classification of different functions or actions that might be performed in utterances. he selected four features of illocutionary act as criteria of classification. the first feature is the act’s illocutionary point, which corresponds to the characteristic aim or purpose of each illocutionary type. this point or purpose determines the second feature, that is, the direction of fit. the third feature is the propositional content, which refer to the content of the illocutionary act. the last is the expressed psychological states or sincerity conditions. based on the above-mentioned features, searle divides illocutionary acts into five types, four of which are considered communicative. the first type is assertives, which include utterances that state what the writer believes to be the case. the second illocutionary acts of opinion articles 105 category is directives, which consist of utterances that attempt to get readers to do certain actions. the other two categories are commissive and expressive. the former refers to utterances that commit one to doing something, while the latter are comprised of expressions that are used to express the writer’s feelings. van der beek (2009) aimed at a more detailed taxonomy of illocutionary acts. similar to searle, the taxonomy was created based on illocutionary point, direction of fit, propositional content and sincerity conditions of each illocutionary act type. to be more detailed, he added the mode of achievement, preparatory conditions and the degree of strength of the sincerity conditions. the mode of achievement describes the particular way, if any, in which the illocutionary point of an illocutionary act must be achieved. the preparatory conditions refer to a set of presuppositions or contextual conditions that must be met for the illocutionary act to be successfully performed. the degree of strength of the sincerity conditions is the dimension of strength of the expressed psychological states. then, vanderveken performed six types of operations. these operations consist in imposing a new special mode of achievement, increasing or decreasing the degree of strength, and adding new propositional content, preparatory or sincerity conditions. as a result, under each category, vanderveken could list all other illocutionary acts that are more complex than the four basic types. his list of assertives consists of illocutionary act verbs as follows: assert, claim, affirm, declare, suggest, and so on. he listed other verbs such as direct, request, ask, urge, encourage, etc. under the category of directive acts. his list of commissive acts include commit, promise, guarantee, assure, and so on. verbs that represent the writer’s feelings or attitudes like approve, praise, complain, blame, etc. are put under the category of expressives. later, each illocutionary act in this list is described in terms of its features. in the description, the act of demanding, for instance, is specified as to tell the reader to do it, while expressing a strong will (for a complete description, see vanderveken, 2009, pp. 169-219). persuasion and illocutionary acts persuasion has always been characterized by its goal or purpose. the goal or purpose to affect the feelings, attitudes or viewpoints of an individual or group of individuals on an issue and to make them perform an action (salmi-tolonen, 2005). to achieve such goal or purpose, a writer employs a variety of efforts, commonly known as persuasive strategies. these strategies could be identified from, among others, the types of illocutionary acts present in the text. this is because persuasion, according to virtanen and halmari (2005), involves linguistic behavior or choices. in this case, to attain persuasion, the writer will choose the most appropriate and effective types of acts. features that contribute to persuasiveness the choice of persuasive strategies or illocutionary act types can be made by considering features that contribute to persuasiveness. some of those features are explicitness and implicitness, certainty and uncertainty, information giving, urgency stressing, and fear or guilt appeals. explicitness and implicitness. according to miller (2015), the strength or intensity of language, which can be conveyed with explicitness and implicitness, has an effect on persuasiveness. in his theory, miller suggested that explicit or high-controlling language tends to stimulate high levels of 106 illocutinary acts of opinion articles resistance to persuasion. this is because such language is strongly directive in nature and hence threatens autonomy. moreover, it makes plain the source’s intent. implicit language, on the contrary, can generate low levels of resistance and thus increase persuasiveness. it is because, as stated by miller, implicit persuasion can disguise the writer’s intention to persuade. besides, it is autonomy-supportive and less forceful. it does not pose a threat to readers’ freedom. as a matter of fact, readers are encouraged to draw their own inferences and implications. different from miller, halmari and virtanen (2005) introduced the idea of a “balancing act” (p. 230). in this concept, persuasion will likely to be successful if there is a balance between explicitness and implicitness. in particular, writers need to code their persuasive messages explicitly to alter or maintain certain behaviors, yet not so explicitly as to dispel readers. this balancing act is carried out to address the strengths and weaknesses of explicit and implicit persuasion. explicit messages are prone to resistance, but they are easier to comprehend and can sometimes produce positive emotional reactions. the implicit ones can reduce the “levels of resistance”, but are more ambiguous and thus more difficult to understand (miller, 2015). certainty and uncertainty. despite the intensity of language, tormala (2016) found that expressing certainty and uncertainty can also affect persuasiveness. in tormala’s point of view, certainty can persuade people to “think differently, make different decisions, form different evaluations, and act in different ways…” (p. 6). on other hand, although it is certainty that can shape people’s thoughts, attitudes and behaviors, expressing uncertainty is also deemed persuasive. tormala found that if people feel uncertain, they are more engaged or occupied with persuasive messages and have a greater desire for information. in this condition, utterances in a persuasive text can have greater persuasive effects. accordingly, tormala asserted that an optimal persuasive strategy should project both certainty and uncertainty (p. 9). information giving. in their study, dotzour, houston, manuba, schulz, and smith (2002) found that information giving can increase persuasiveness (as cited in neelima & reddy, 2014). particularly, they discovered that a lack of information can discourage most people to participate actively in public action. people are more likely to change their behavior or action if they have sufficient information about the issue at hand. in view of these, information is deemed vital for persuading people to take a certain stand on an issue and take action (p. 5). urgency stressing. in some cases, persuasive attempts may not be successful because the issue or problem discussed. in the case of climate change, such efforts may fail because people tend to see the problem as distant and occurring mostly in the future or to other people (barasi, 2018). in view of this, following rank (1984), gambrill and gibbs (2017) noted that stressing the urgency of an issue also contributes to persuasiveness. in this technique, a persuader emphasizes the urgency of the matter and encourages the addressee to take immediate action accordingly. fear or guilt appeals. according to perloff (2017), fear or guilt appeals can also make a piece of text persuasive. fear appeals are made by describing negative effects that will occur if one does not act in accordance with the message recommendations (p. 389). alternatively, a persuader can create guilt appeals by telling people that they have failed to do what they should do. citing illocutionary acts of opinion articles 107 mongeau (1998), perloff noticed that persuasive messages containing such types of appeal can change attitudes significantly. he therefore stated that arousing fear or guilt is a necessary and useful persuasive strategy (p. 388). purposes of the study following the line of research, the present study was undertaken to identify types of illocutionary acts that were used to achieve persuasion in the selected newspaper opinion articles. to shed more light on how persuasion occurs in the articles, the illocutionary acts were not only classified based on searle’s (1979) taxonomy, but also based on van der veken’s (2009) list of illocutionary act verbs. additionally, the study also aimed to discover the opinion article writers’ persuasive strategies by analyzing the types or features of illocutionary acts found in each article. accordingly, two research questions guided the study: what types of illocutionary acts did the writers intend to perform through the utterances to persuade readers? what strategies, related to the type of illocutionary acts, did the writers use to achieve persuasion? methods research design this study was a qualitative textual analysis intended to investigate media texts. it was qualitative in nature as it aimed at analyzing a smaller number of texts in depth and detail. then, following mckee (2003), the qualitative textual analysis was carried out by making “an educated guess” at some of the texts’ possible meanings (as cited in bainbridge, 2008, p. 224). in line with the purposes of the study, the educated guess was made by applying pragmatic theories, i.e. theories on speech acts. the theories include the concepts and taxonomies of illocutionary acts. in addition, since this study was also conducted to identify persuasive strategies, theories on persuasion were also employed as theoretical framework. source of data, data and units of analysis the source of data for this textual analysis study was 10 opinion articles gathered from four online sites of u.s. leading newspapers. in general, these articles talked about climate change or global warming (see appendix). three of them (text 1, 4 and 5) addressed air pollution that has been known to contribute to climate change. in the articles, the writers tried to persuade readers to support laws or policies that have been drafted or enacted to tackle the problem. the other three (text 3, 9 and 10) proposed some actions that need to be taken to stop climate change, like supporting the global agreement at un conference or working in a bipartisan manner. in one article (text 7), an arctic activist tried to mitigate the impacts of climate change by encouraging readers to protect the arctic. the remaining texts (text 2, 6 and 8) focused on the efforts to slow global warming. these articles attempted to convince readers to take certain actions, for instance, cutting carbon emissions. all the above-mentioned texts contained utterances, which are referred to as locutionary acts in speech act terms. in a certain context, those utterances could be used to perform illocutionary acts of various types. accordingly, the data of this study was utterances in the above-mentioned opinion articles that could be counted as performing certain types of illocutionary acts. the units of analysis in this research were utterances. following hurford, heasley, and smith (2007), these denoted a sentence and sequence of sentences that were written by the opinion article in a certain context and thus could be recognized as performing a certain type of illocutionary act. 108 illocutinary acts of opinion articles in addition, since an illocutionary act might be performed in more than one utterance, the performance of a single illocutionary act type in a series of sentences was counted as one occurrence in the analysis. data collection the data for this research were collected from four newspaper online sites, namely usatoday.com, latimes.com, seattletimes.com, and miamiherald.com. the articles were selected using two predetermined criteria. the first criterion dealt with the topic, while the second was related to the goal or purpose of persuasion. based on the first criterion, the data for this study would include opinion articles that addressed the causes of climate change or global warming (e.g. pollution, deforestation, etc.) and proposed solutions to solve the problems (e.g. emission reduction, renewable energy use, recycling, etc.). then, in accordance with the second criterion, the selected texts would be those that were written to influence readers’ feelings, attitudes or viewpoints on the aforesaid issues or to make them perform certain actions to resolve the issues. to get the most relevant articles, the data collection was carried out in two steps. first, in each newspaper online site’s search engine, some environmental words and phrases such as climate change, global warming, pollution, and so on were used as the search terms. this was in line with the first criterion. next, the articles resulted from the online searches were reviewed based on the second criteria, that is, whether the text has a persuasive purpose or not. after performing these steps, a total of 10 articles were chosen to be analyzed further. data analysis the data analysis in this research was conducted by adapting creswell’s (2014) qualitative data analysis steps and bainbridge’s (2008) textual analysis model. it consisted of five stages, namely organizing and preparing the data, reading each text, dividing the texts into units of analysis, assigning illocutionary act types, and identifying the persuasive strategies. the first step involved retyping all articles resulting from data collection and labeling them as text 1, text 2, text 3, etc. each utterance was also numbered for easy referencing. in the second step, the main idea and specific purpose of each text was identified and restated or paraphrased. then, the texts were divided into units of analysis or units of meaning. after dividing the texts into units of analysis, two primary steps in the illocutionary act analysis were carried out. in the fourth step, the utterances were analyzed and categorized in terms of the illocutionary acts being performed. in this step, searle’s (1979) taxonomy and van der veken’s (2009) list of illocutionary act verbs were applied. the taxonomy and list, which include description of each illocutionary act type, were used as criteria in the categorization. besides, a checklist was also developed to find the predominant types of act. the results were used in the fifth step to identify the writers’ persuasive strategies. as mentioned, the strategies could be identified from the types or features of illocutionary acts used in each text. in the same step, theories of persuasion were also used to discover the strategies. the findings from these steps were then triangulated. at the end, conclusions and suggestions were drawn based on those findings. triangulation to increase the validity of the findings, investigator triangulation was employed. in this study, two native speakers of english became the triangulators. both of them were master’s candidates and have been teaching illocutionary acts of opinion articles 109 english for more than two years. in the triangulation process, due to a busy schedule, the first triangulator could only analyze four texts, namely text 3, 5, 6 and 8. the other six texts (i.e. text 1, 2, 4, 7, 9 and 10) were analyzed by the second triangulator. to confirm the findings, both triangulators were given the taxonomy and list, which contained descriptions of each type of illocutionary act. then, they also received brief explanations about the theories and data analysis procedures. they further read the texts and assigned the illocutionary act type for each utterance. when differences were found, the triangulation results would be used to enrich the discussions of the findings. finding after analyzing the texts using the taxonomies, this study found that, to call for actions to stop or mitigate climate change, the writers performed more than one illocutionary act in each article. in total, there were a total of 196 illocutionary acts. all four types of communicative illocutionary acts in searle’s taxonomy were present in the texts. table 1 presents the number of occurrences and percentages for each type. the analysis results presented in table 1 shows the predominance of assertive illocutionary acts with 123 occurrences (62.76%). this finding suggests that the opinion article writers had preferred to spur climate action by stating what they believe to be the case. in this case, to move readers into action, the writers chose to make assertions which do not impose any obligations on themselves or their readers. an example can be found in text 4. to get readers’ support for the adoption of a cleanfuels standard, kenworthy, frumkin, and klein (2015) made the following assertions: “the concept is proven. the problem is urgent.” in these utterances, the adjectives “proven” and “urgent” suggested the illocutionary act type. they signified what the writers believed to be the case concerning the standard and the problem of climate change. the second most frequently performed type of illocutionary act was directives, which accounted for 34.18% (67 occurrences) of the total number of acts. evidently, to achieve their persuasive goals, the writers not only made assertions about a state of affairs in the world. they at times also expressed their desire or wish for readers 110 illocutinary acts of opinion articles to do something. in other words, they sometimes put readers under an obligation to perform certain actions. one writer who did so was john kerry in text 1. as a way to address climate change, the writer asked readers to support the clean energy policy and to speak out for its implementation. he did so by performing directives in the following utterances: “this earth day, i ask americans and concerned citizens everywhere to crank up the volume… take action and demand action on climate change” (kerry, 2015). in these sentences, the verb “ask” and the imperative mood indicated the illocutionary act type. table 1 also reveals that commissives and expressives were the least preferred types of act in persuasive articles that promote action on climate change. in their efforts to persuade readers, the writers rarely produced utterances that commit themselves to future action or create an obligation on them. they also seldom expressed their feelings or psychological states to convince readers of their point of view. thus, in the articles, both commissives and expressives only accounted for 3.06% of the total number of acts. further, as mentioned previously, vanderveken (2009) had listed several illocutionary act verbs under each type of act proposed by searle (1979) and described their features. the analysis based on this classification reveals that, under each category, the opinion article writers had preferences over some verbs with certain features. table 2 indicates the writers’ preferences towards several illocutionary act verbs under the category of assertives. as seen in table 2, under the category of assertives, the act of informing accounted for the highest proportion with 24 occurrences (19.51%). this result suggests that, to attain their persuasive goals, the writers preferred to make an assertion or a series of assertions with the preparatory condition that readers do not have any knowledge about the thing informed. in the context of climate change, the thing informed might include the effects of the changing climate on health, mitigation measures, new energy policies, etc. an example of this was found in text 8. to convince readers to mitigate short lived climate pollutants or slcps, the writers performed the act of informing in the following utterance: “these pollutants are about 25 to 4,000 times more potent warmers than carbon dioxide, but they remain in the atmosphere from mere days in the case of carbon soot to 15 years in the case of hfcs” (ramanathan & press, 2015). in this utterance, the preparatory condition that readers did not already know about the pollutants was indicated by the social context. at the time of utterance, slcps were just discovered. besides the act of informing, to promote climate actions, the writers also considered that it is important to assert some propositions about such actions. these propositions were put forward with the intention of convincing readers who had doubts about their truths. an example of such propositions was found in text 10. in the proposition, the writer, carlos curbelo, wanted to motivate readers, particularly the floridians, to address climate change in a bipartisan manner by assuring them that south florida was vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. he did so by uttering, “rising sea levels and the erosion of our coastal communities have made it abundantly clear that south florida is at the frontline of climate change” (curbelo, 2015). his intention of convincing readers about the truth of the proposition was suggested by the use of the phrase “abundantly clear”. the same (perlocutionary) intention was also illocutionary acts of opinion articles 111 present in the other six texts. thus, under the category of assertives, the act of assuring was the second most frequently performed illocutionary act, accounting for 11.38% (14 occurrences). table 2 also indicated that the writers frequently made assertions with the propositional content that is future to the time of utterance. in these acts, they mentioned what would happen if readers did not take actions to stop climate change or global warming. moreover, they also suggested that it is still possible to avoid such disasters if 112 illocutinary acts of opinion articles appropriate actions were carried out. one example of such acts was identified in text 2. to call for real action on global warming, lowenthal and shank (2015) asserted what would happen in america’s coastlines if no climate actions were taken. they used the first conditional with unless in the following utterance: “floods will destroy america's coasts unless we fight climate change.” this type of act was classified by vanderveken (2009) as an act of warning. in the selected articles, it was the third most used illocutionary act under assertives, accounting for 9.76% (12 occurrences) of the total number of acts. the same number of occurrences was found for the act of describing. as shown in table 2, there were 12 occurrences (9.76%) in which the writers provided more complete and relevant information on certain topics to add persuasiveness. that information could be in the form of adjectives (e.g. “dire”, “disturbing”, “dramatic”, etc.), definitions (of a new policy or plan), etc. the following utterance taken from text 7 is an example: “the icy top of our planet is suffering effects of climate change more severely than elsewhere, with dramatic ecological and cultural consequences” (steiner, 2015). in this utterance, the verb “is suffering” and adverb “more severely” signified the act of describing. the verb and adverb gave more information to readers about the situation in the arctic. such information was considered relevant by the writer to get readers to protect the arctic. similarly, under the category of directives, there were some illocutionary act verbs with certain features that were used more often than others. table 3 specifies the number of occurrences and percentages for each illocutionary act verb that belongs to the class of directives such as encourage, forbid, warn, and advise. as seen in table 3, among several verbs under directives, the act of urging accounted for the highest percentage with 32.83% (22 occurrences). evidently, to get readers to do something, the writers preferred to advocate a certain course of action with some strength or sense of urgency. in the utterances, they used words like “time running out”, ”it is time”, “crucial” or “imperative” and modal auxiliaries such as “must” or “have to” to convey the strength or urgency. one writer who did so was cava (2015) in text 9. to get readers to tackle climate change, she wrote, “confront climate change now, not later.” in this illocutionary act, the adverb “now” and phrase “not later” indicated the strength or urgency of the advocated action. the results in table 3 also show a significant preponderance of the act of demanding with 19.40% (13 occurrences). similar to an act of urging, these acts have a high degree of strength. the writers expressed their strong desire for readers to take climate actions with no option of refusal. to express the high degree of strength, they used, among others, the modal verb “must”, verb “need”, and adjective “vital”. an example of this can be found in text 3. to get readers to protect the earth, the writers showed their strong will by uttering, “with our faith at the forefront, we must do what is necessary to protect and care for creation” (schori, eaton, hiltz, & johnson, 2015). in this utterance, the modal verb “must” be employed to show the high degree of strength in the writers’ act of demanding. illocutionary acts of opinion articles 113 beyond words vol 7, no. 2 november 2019 in addition to telling readers to do something, the writers also requested readers to do something and, at the same time, intended to inspire them with courage. they presupposed that taking action against climate change often involves courage. as a result, in the texts, there were seven occurrences (10.45%) in which the writers performed the act of encouraging. one of those occurrences was found in text 5. after being blocked on imposing a carbon cap setting in the legislature, the writer, gov. jay inslee, tried to get public support. to achieve that, he performed the act of encouraging in the headline of his article as follows: “‘fear mongers’ will not stop us from setting carbon cap” (inslee, 2015). in this headline, the phrase “fear mongers” showed that the advocated course of action required courage, while the pronoun “us” signified the writer’s perlocutionary intention of inspiring readers with courage. next, the act of suggesting was present in the texts with the same number of occurrences and percentage as the act of encouraging, accounting for 10.45% (7 occurrences) of the total number of directive acts. in opposite to the act of demanding, in these acts, the writers only made a weak attempt to get readers to take certain actions. one writer who made such attempt was a.j. kitt in text 6. to get readers to support a policy that would slow global warming, kitt performed the act of suggesting by uttering, 114 illocutinary acts of opinion articles “for the sake of our communities, our children and our livelihoods, let’s celebrate the clean power plan as states implement it over the next two years” (kitt, 2015). in this illocutionary act, the writer chose to use “let’s”, which is the short form of let us, to convey the weak degree of strength in an act of suggesting. on the other hand, several illocutionary act verbs under the category of commissives were rarely performed by the writers. there were only two occurrences (66.67%) in which the writer performed the act of committing him/herself to doing something. besides the act of committing (to doing something), there was one occurrence (33.33%) in which the writer performed the act of guaranteeing (a proposition) or a conditional promise. all these occurrences were found in text 1 and text 5, which were written by government officials. similarly, some illocutionary act verbs under the category of expressives were only performed occasionally in the selected articles. those illocutionary act verbs were approving and rejoicing. the act of approving or expressing approval toward a state of affairs or an action was only present in two utterances, accounting for 66.67% of the total number of expressives in the data. the act of rejoicing was only found in one utterance with a percentage of 33.33%. discussions types of illocutionary acts regarding the first research question, the findings firstly showed that the opinion article writers had mostly used assertives to persuade readers (see table 1). this finding was consistent with the findings made by olamide and segun (2014), simon and dejica-cartis (2015), also arrosid and munandar (2018). in these previous and current studies, assertives might be preferred because, as non-directive acts, these acts are more implicit and autonomy supportive. they could make the writers’ persuasive attempts or intention less obvious. besides, they are less forceful and therefore do not pose a threat to readers’ freedom. according to miller (2015), these features may reduce the levels of resistance in persuasion. this implied that the high use of assertive acts in the articles might help the writers to achieve persuasion success. secondly, under assertives, the results of the analysis had also revealed four illocutionary act types that were predominantly present in the articles (see table 2). one of them was the act of informing, which got the highest percentage (19.51%). this high percentage for the act of informing was consistent with what simon and dejica-cartis (2015) found in their study on written advertisements. it was also in line with neelima and reddy’s (2014) theory that listed information as a behavior change variable. further, the present study results extend those of previous studies by identifying other types of assertive acts that were preferred in environmental persuasion, i.e. describing, assuring, and warning. a possible reason for these preferences might be related to the features of those acts, which, according to some theories, can increase the texts’ persuasiveness. similar to the act of informing, the act of describing contains information, which has been deemed important for promoting behavior change. the act of assuring conveys certainty that can shape readers’ views, attitudes, and behaviors. the act of warning contains a prediction of a misfortune that can arouse fear and motivates readers to take action. thirdly, the findings demonstrated that the writers sometimes employed directives to move readers to action (see table 1). they sometimes told readers clearly and directly illocutionary acts of opinion articles 115 what must be done and therefore made their persuasive intention clear. as a result, directives were the second most frequently used type of illocutionary act (see table 1). this finding was in line with those of simon and dejica-cartis (2015), also arrosid and munandar (2018). in these previous and present studies, the writers sometimes need to perform directives to overcome the weaknesses of assertive acts and to create positive emotional effects. yet, the same finding did not emerge in khalis’ (2017) study on online fast food advertisements. in the study, directives were found as the most frequently used type of acts. this difference in result was possibly due to the fact that newspaper opinion articles are less intrinsically persuasive than advertisements or political speeches. thus, it can be seen that the discourse features also dictated the choice of illocutionary act types. next, the findings extend those of earlier studies by identifying several illocutionary act verbs under directives that were frequently performed by the writers to add persuasiveness. those verbs were urging, demanding, encouraging, and suggesting (see table 3). this preference was in line with the existing theories on persuasive features. based on miller’s (2015) theory about explicit language, the act of urging and demanding, which make use of modals such as must or have to, are easier to understand and can produce positive emotional effects. on the other hand, the use of weaker directives like the act of encouraging or suggesting, which provides selfdetermination and choice, can protect or restore readers’ freedoms and thus reduce the resistance to persuasion. conversely, the results indicated that commissives were less preferred by the writers (see table 1). this result was consistent with the results from previous studies (arrosid & munandar, 2018; khalis, 2017; olamide & segun, 2014). however, it contrasted with the findings of peter and duro-bello (2014) who studied pentecostal gospel program adverts. this was likely because the topic or issue being discussed influenced the choice of illocutionary act type. peter and duro-bello discovered that commissives were favored when discussing religious issues. the performance of such illocutionary acts in religious program adverts could raise readers’ expectations and then move them into action. finally, expressives were also found in a low percentage (1.53%). the relation between the topic or issue and the writers’ preferences may also explain this result. discussions on environmental issues, particularly on climate change, mostly require scientific or objective knowledge, while expressives has a subjective nature and thus cannot be verified (capone, 2009). due to this, this type of act might be less preferable in environmental persuasion. further, the relation can also give reasons for the different result obtained by olamide and segun (2014). olamide and segun who studied editorial comments of a nigerian magazine conversely discovered that the editorial board preferred to use expressives to change the readers’ views on nonenvironmental issues like politics, economy, sports, etc. strategies to achieve persuasion the writers’ persuasive strategies could be identified from their illocutionary act performance. thus, the second research question was addressed by reviewing the types of illocutionary acts present in the articles. the following were the writers’ strategies to attain persuasion success. being highly implicit. in this strategy, the writers tried to disguise their persuasive intentions by employing less forceful or low116 illocutinary acts of opinion articles controlling language. they encouraged readers to make their own interpretations by using language that promoted freedom of choice. in the texts, this strategy was evident from the proportion of assertives, commissives and expressives which outnumbered the proportion of directives (see table 1). the use of this strategy was in line with perloff (2017) and miller (2015). in perloff’s view, forceful and controlling directives can produce resistance to persuasion. according to miller, being highly implicit can reduce such resistance. being occasionally explicit. according to miller, despite its helpfulness, being highly implicit can lead to ambiguity. this has also been confirmed by the triangulation of results, which yielded 18 differences for the analysis of assertives and only eight for directives. the call to action can therefore go unnoticed by readers. to avoid this, in the articles, the writers were occasionally being explicit in getting readers to do something. this strategy could be recognized from the number of directives, also strong directives in the texts. as seen in table 1, directives were the second most frequently performed type of act. moreover, of the 67 directives found in the data, 41 (61.19%) were strong directives (e.g. urging, demanding, requiring, etc.), which are more forceful and controlling than the weak ones. all these are in consonance with the idea of a “balancing act” (halmari & virtanen, 2005, p. 230). the idea suggests that, to achieve persuasion, writers should create a balance between explicitness and implicitness. giving more informationabout the issue. the writers indicated the use of this strategy when they predominantly performed illocutionary acts that give information to readers regarding the issue or subject of discussion. as seen in the results, of the 196 illocutionary acts found in the data, 65 (33.16%) contain such information. examples of such acts were reporting, reminding, and revealing. correspondingly, under assertives, the act of informing and describing, were found to be dominant (see table 2). this information-giving strategy was consistent with the findings of dotzour et al. (2002) as cited in neelima and reddy (2014). dotzour et al. found information to be one of the behavior change variables in environmental persuasion. conveying certainty and uncertainty. besides giving information, the writers also tried to achieve persuasion by conveying both certainty and uncertainty through their illocutionary acts. in the articles, there were 22 (11.22%) occurrences in which the writers performed the act of affirming, postulating, sustaining, assuring, committing (to something) and guaranteeing to express certainty. similarly, there were 25 (12.76%) occurrences in which the acts of claiming, suggesting, and predicting were performed to show uncertainty. this persuasive tactic was in line with tormala’s (2016) concept of an “optimal persuasion strategy” (p. 9). according to tormala, an optimal strategy would involve using uncertainty to make readers process information more deeply and certainty to promote actions. arousing fear. the other strategy that could be identified from the results was to arouse fear in the readers. the writers showed the use of this strategy when they performed illocutionary acts that contain threats or highlight possible dangers that would arise if readers do not implement the writers’ recommendations. those acts were the assertive act of predicting, warning, forewarning and alerting, also the directive act of warning. according to perloff (2017), performing these fear-arousing acts might help the writers to attain persuasion. it is illocutionary acts of opinion articles 117 because fear can trigger attitude change and motivate readers to take action. creating a sense of urgency. the last strategy was to create a sense of urgency. this strategy was evident from the proportion of the directive act of urging in the articles. of the 67 directives found in the data, 22 (32.83%) used words such as “now”, “urge”, “critical”, and so on to stress the urgency of the problem and spur readers into action. these illocutionary act performances can be considered an effective persuasive strategy as barasi (2018) noted that the problem of climate change has been seen as distant by most people. moreover, rank (1984) has also mentioned urgency stressing as a factor that contributes to persuasiveness (gambrill & gibbs, 2017). conclusions and suggestions as mentioned previously, due to the complexity of its language, persuasion has been extensively researched from a speech act perspective. a lot of research has been carried out to investigate illocutionary acts used for persuasion in both spoken and written texts. however, this study has been able to identify a research gap for the study of illocutionary acts in newspaper opinion articles. in the us, such articles seemed to be able to influence public views on one of the most challenging environmental issues, climate change. thus, the present study sought to analyze the illocutionary acts that were present in 10 u.s. online newspaper opinion articles that discussed climate change or global warming. in particular, it aimed at exploring the types of illocutionary acts and persuasive strategies that were used by the writers to attain persuasion. the results of the analysis revealed that, in the articles, some illocutionary act types were preferred more than others. of searle’s four main categories, the writers most frequently employed assertives to convince readers of their views and to spur them to action. in particular, they persuaded readers mostly by performing the act of informing, assuring, warning, and describing. then, they also occasionally performed directives to reduce ambiguity. among the subtypes of directives, the act of urging, demanding, suggesting, and encouraging were favored. on the contrary, the other two types of acts, i.e. commissives and expressives, were rarely performed. these preferences were relevant to the nature of the topic or issue being discussed and also the discourse features. moreover, they were also supported by previous research findings and theories about features that contribute to persuasiveness. this consistency suggested that when used in environmental persuasion or other persuasive texts, the prior mentioned illocutionary acts may increase the texts’ persuasiveness. in terms of the strategy types, the study found that, to achieve persuasion, the writers employ at least six strategies. those strategies were as follows: being highly implicit, being occasionally explicit, giving more information about the issue, conveying certainty and uncertainty, arousing fear, and creating a sense of urgency. these strategies were in line with the prevailing theories about features that affect persuasion. hence, they can be considered as effective strategies for persuading readers on environmental issues or other difficult public issues. the aforesaid findings could then have implications for other persuasive writers and teachers of writing. other writers can perform the same types of illocutionary acts or implement the same strategies to persuade readers to, for example, reduce plastic waste or adopt a healthy lifestyle. then, as newspaper opinion articles had been proved to contain effective persuasive strategies, 118 illocutinary acts of opinion articles teachers can use them as models to teach students how to write persuasively. further, since the current study only focused on illocutionary acts, future study can examine perlocutionary acts or effects. these acts or effects can be observed from readers’ comment section of an article, which contain readers’ opinions or views on the issue discussed in the article. the results from such study can be a great source of data to make stronger conclusions about types of illocutionary acts and strategies that are effective in enhancing persuasiveness. ©diana dewi diana dewi is a graduate of the master’s program in english language education at widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia. her main research interests include 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(2014). persuasion and influence in american life. illinois, united states of america: waveland press, inc. illocutionary acts of opinion articles 121 68 effects of three vocabulary learning methods a cross-disciplinary study of hedging expressions in english articles of iranian writers reza rezvani rezvanireza@gmail.com yasouj university, iran & mohammad javadi, mohammad_javadi1990@yahoo.com yasouj university, iran article history received: 30-05-20 reviewed: 03-06-20 accepted: 15-05-21 keywords: hedging expression; research article; discipline; iranian writer doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i1.2778 abstract research on the use of hedging strategies as one of the key issues of rhetorical organization of academic texts has gained growing attention during the past few decades. the present paper aimed to explore the frequency and form of hedging expressions in the abstracts of iranian writers’ english research articles where findings and claims were more explicitly projected. to this end, a random sample of 200 abstracts (50 each) was drawn equally from the four subfields of chemistry and mathematics, and philosophy and english randomly selected from the two academic fields of soft sciences and hard sciences respectively as suggested in biglan’s (1973) typology of academic disciplines. the tally and analysis of the tokens of the hedge expressions indicated that the abstracts from the soft sciences differed from those from the hard sciences in terms of both frequency and form. the results revealed that the writers from the soft sciences tended to employ more hedge expressions than hard sciences writers. more specifically, whereas soft sciences writers utilized more modals, verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, their counterparts opted for more conditional expressions. moreover, epistemic and cognition verbs were found to be the most frequently used hedging expressions in both sciences. this study discusses the research and pedagogical implications of the findings in the context of iranian academia introduction following the growth of a considerable amount of attention pertinent to hedging strategies, no adequate and precise definition of the term "hedge" has been proposed so far and there has existed endless debate on the understanding of the term. indeed, the concept of hedging in linguistics was first used by lakoff (1972) to mean "words whose job is to make things more or less fuzzy". since then, more definitions of hedging came into view to ostensibly clarify the issue. crystal (1997) defined hedging as "a number of words https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i1.2778 hedging expressions in english articles writer 69 beyond words vol. 9 no.1 may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya showing uncertainty or limitation" in his modern linguist dictionary (p.227). another definition of hedging refers to hyland (1998) who puts it as any linguistic means used to indicate either a lack of complete commitment to the truth of a proposition or a desire not to express that commitment categorically. a discrepant approach to hedges was posed when george yule introduced grice’s cooperative principle into the definition of hedges as he mentioned that: “[w]e assume that people are normally going to provide an appropriate amount of information […] we assume that they are telling the truth, being relevant, and trying to be as clear as they can. because these principles are assumed in normal interactions, speakers rarely mention them. however, there are certain kinds of expressions speakers use to mark that they may be in danger of not fully adhering to the principles. these kinds of expressions are called hedges” (yule 1996, p.37-38). on the other hand, schroder and zimmer (1995) asserted that “the term hedging is used to refer to the textual strategies of using linguistic means as hedges in certain contexts for specific communicative purposes, such as politeness, vagueness, mitigation, etc” (p.36). moreover, hedging expressions are generally regarded as the words such as 'i mean, you know, sort of, i think, maybe, possibly' and others employed them to verify the eligibility of a speaker's confidence concerning the truth of a proposition and to put the statements at a low ebb in terms of commitment and responsibility. in addition, hedging considered as the mitigation of claims and regarded as a rhetorical device is often employed to convince and exert a strong influence on the reader. thus, taking everything into consideration, hedging could be defined as a non-obfuscated strategy so as to shirk the responsibilities of the utterances made by a speaker along with the statements put out by a writer, the strengths of which are attenuated and their commitments to the propositional truth become dimmed for the most part. in parallel, taking hedging into account as one of the significant factors of the rhetorical organization of a text, much has been done to investigate the use of hedges across a variety of disciplines from which some information is gained and would bring about the argumentative strategies applied in a broad spectrum of different disciplines because each discipline is susceptible to its own specific terminology as well as its own favorable rhetorical strategies (vold, 2006). that is why it is highly recommended that the content of an academic writing course should therefore be adjusted to the appropriate research field. a text becomes challenging once it is written academically in a foreign language, thus academic writing has received a considerable attention during the few past decades especially when internationally published. in this regard, english language has been accepted worldwide as the lingua franca of academic discourse. thus, fledgling and the highly experienced investigators must express themselves cogently in the language that is internationally accepted and become members of the academic community. over the recent years, this issue has gradually been contemplated as one of the critical issues of international discourse community and a pressure so as to produce scientific and academic texts in english for the sake of publishing internationally. owing to the fact 70 effects of three vocabulary learning methods that english has taken up the impregnable position of lingua franca throughout the academic settings, various academic english courses are being presented at all levels for the students and researchers in all the universities over the world where the classes also need to direct their standards of teaching practices towards research (vold, 2006). in so doing, analyses of contemporary usage of academic english are considered essential, especially while writers of articles tend to employ hedging expressions from different disciplines. as regards the significance of hedging, not surprisingly, scientific research writing is to a large extent touched by hedging strategies, good illustrations of which can be found in the corpora of different researchers such as adams smith (1984), hanania and akhtar (1985), skelton (1988), and hyland (1996) who claimed that one hedging expression occurred every two or three sentences in their own corpora. moreover, the most frequently used hedging expressions were lexical verbs (1), epistemic adverbs (2), epistemic adjectives (3) and modal verbs (4) as seen in their corpora as follows: this would appear to be in significant conflict with… i believe that the overall orientation of . . . possibly, phosphorylation of acc synthase… there is apparently a relationship between… ...is likely to be due primarily to a deficiency of functional… ... it appears possible that the mechanism causing the … these results may have relevance to… it should be possible to test predictions… therefore, the corpora of each discipline are followed by its own specific terminology along with the use of hedging expressions. for example, academic articles are good examples which reflect hedging strategies, no matter in which fields of study they have been written. it is also true that the recent advent of e-journals and the widely facilitated access to the scientific journals through the internet may have brought about outstanding issues of development in the content of scientific and academic articles across many a discipline (ayers, 1993). one of the most salient sections of an article is the abstract section which has received increasing attention as an ideal vehicle for mirroring the picture of the whole article as stated by a host of researchers (ulijin & pugh, 1985; salager-meyer, 1990; berkenkotter & huckin, 1995; melander, swales, & friedrickson, 1997), and it seems that it is turning out to be more alluring and informative in yielding the overall results as well as the other correspondingly associated parts (berkenkotter & huckin, 1995). it is worthwhile mentioning that abstracts of articles are generally composed of a fairly expectable four–part structure as in introduction – methods – results – conclusion/discussion (imrc/d) that is considered a benchmark (see for instance harvey & horsella, 1988; weissberg & buker, 1990) against which writers put this sequence into practice whether traditionally or obligatorily in spite of some sort of swerve in a host of published articles to a large degree (graetz, 1985; salager-meyer, 1990; hyland, 2000; samraj, 2005, etc.). one also should not overlook the fact that abstract sections mostly give prominence to the important information for easy access, are indicative of an early screening device, scaffold the foreground of the article in the light of distinct global dimensions, and provide a blueprint of the hedging expressions in english articles writer 71 beyond words vol. 9 no.1 may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya major points of the article for the subsequent references (berkenkotter & huckin, 1995). as other sections of an article such as the discussion part, have been considerably investigated and touched upon in terms of the use and frequency of hedging expressions from among a number of academic articles, much has not been done to explore the frequency and form of hedging expressions in the abstract sections across different disciplines. as argued above, article abstracts as the most accessible section have been paid scant attention as compared with a large volume of published studies describing the frequency and form of hedging expressions in other sections of the articles. therefore, the main concern of this study is to discover the frequency and form of hedging expressions in 200 abstracts of iranian writers’ english research articles derived from the four subfields of chemistry and mathematics, and philosophy and english (50 each) chosen on a random basis from the two academic fields of soft sciences and hard sciences respectively as proposed in biglan’s (1973) typology of academic disciplines where results and assertions were more explicitly anticipated. literature review spoken language is much more prone to hedge words (stubbs, 1986; coats, 1987) rather than the written works; however, less has not been done to examine hedging as a linguistic unit in the research articles. there is an element of truth in the notion that, publication, particularly publication of articles, has always been deemed to be a method through which a large number of researchers try their utmost to become in touch with their colleagues. by the same token, writing is of import in each academic and scientific context as an advantageous activity which demands an immediate certain audience over and above a skill so as to transfer the required information (yavuzkonca & nasiri, 2014). in this regard, hyland (1996) argues that the distribution of hedges across various sections of research articles reflect their essentially rhetorical role in discourse. as such, in order to introduce an organization for research articles, the most prevalent way is to divide them into the sections of "introduction, method, results, and discussion" which are employed by a group of different researchers to embark upon the distribution of hedge words through this organization (swales, 1990 & lau, 1999). in this connection, one hundred articles were analyzed by lau (1999) in taiwanese language to investigate the text structures of different sections in scientific research articles. the results of lau's study revealed that discussion sections were the most widely sections in which hedge words were to be used because "writers are dealing with logical reasoning when they present experimental results in discussion section" (p.433). he further stated that why hedge words are not used in methodology section is that "the truth is simply reported rather than commented" (p.433). another study has been carried out by durik, et al (2008) which investigated the impact of hedging on attitudes, source evaluation as well as perception of argument strategies, the results of which revealed that hedge words lie mostly in discussion sections, the reason for which was the interpretation of data conducted by the author that was replete with hedge words. 72 effects of three vocabulary learning methods accordingly, hyland (1996) conducted a study on the use of hedging in academic writing which showed that non-native writers (nnws) were at a loss how to hedge their own assertions in "english as a main language of communication among the researchers around the world" (nasiri, 2012b, p. 3). consequently, he affirmed that nnws "invariably require training in the appropriate use of hedging" (hyland, 1996a, p.278). this could be for the simple reason that nnws had arguably trouble expressing their commitment to and detachment from the verification of their statements. but then again, why the nnws have difficulty hedging their claims while they are writing academically lies in the fact that there have been profound differences between nnws' and nws' texts (kaplan, 1987). notwithstanding the claim posed by kaplan (1987) on the difficulty of academic nnw writers for using hedging expressions, iranian writers as the non-native authors of discourse community beat the odds regarding applying hedging devices almost but not quite similar to their native counterparts. this could be illustrated by a study taken up by nasiri (2012a) who drew some conclusion from the use of hedges in the discussion sections of civil engineering articles written by american and iranian authors. the result of his study revealed that the discipline by its very nature plays a significant role in the utilization of hedging expressions as the linguistic phenomenon more than the cultural backgrounds or nationality of the writers. when seen in this light, the current paper addressed the following research questions: 1) how do hedging expressions in article abstracts from the hard and soft science disciplines differ in terms of both form and frequency? 2) is there a significant difference between the use of hedging expressions in the english article abstracts of soft science and hard science disciplines written by iranian english writers? 3) what were the most and least frequently used hedging expressions in both sciences? to answer the second research question, the following null hypothesis is also formulated: h0: there is no significant difference between the use of hedging expressions in the english article abstracts of soft science and hard science disciplines written by iranian english writers method corpus and theoretical framework this study is an attempt to analyze the frequency of the hedging expressions in the abstract sections of iranian writers’ english research articles. in so doing, 200 abstracts; 50 abstracts for each group of disciplines, were chosen as the corpus of the study on a random basis from the four subfields of chemistry and mathematics, and philosophy and english randomly selected from the two academic fields of soft sciences and hard sciences respectively in accordance with biglan’s (1973) typology of academic disciplines as shown in table 1. hedging expressions in english articles writer 73 beyond words vol. 9 no.1 may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya table 1 clustering of academic task areas in three dimensions (biglan’s (1973) typology of academic disciplines) task area hard science soft science nonlife system life system nonlife system life system astronomy botany english anthropology chemistry entomology german political sciences pure geology microbiology history psychology math physiology philosophy sociology physics zoology russian communications ceramic engineering agronomy accounting educational administration and supervision applied civil engineering dairy science finance secondary and continuing education computer science horticulture economics special education mechanical engineering agricultural economics vocational and technical education according to table 1, biglan (1973) listed "the areas included in each cluster and each cluster centroid is located in a different octant of the three-dimensional space and can thus be characterized according to whether it is hard or soft, pure or applied, and concerned with life system or not"(p.207). based upon this categorization, on one hand, pure research and non-life system deal with less people than do those in applied research and life system as illustrated in table table 2 differences between the three dimensions of academic task areas (biglan’s (1973) typology of academic disciplines) hard sciences soft sciences -more people on research -great collaboration with fellow faculty members -more coauthors -great performance for research -great commitment to research -less commitment to teaching -less people on research -meager collaboration with fellow faculty members -less coauthors -great performance for teaching -less commitment to research -more commitment to teaching pure research applied research -less people -more research activities -spending less time on research -less technical reports -low quality of graduate students' first jobs -more people -less research activities -spending much time on research -more technical reports -high quality of graduate students' first jobs life system non-life system -more people -more sources of influence on research goals -less commitment to teaching -less time on teaching -less people -less sources of influence on research goals -more commitment to teaching -more time on teaching 74 effects of three vocabulary learning methods data collection and analysis procedure in order to recognize, analyze and interpret the hedge words according to biglan's (1973) category of sciences, a search was required among different iranian scientific and academic journals. to this end, an attempt was made to collect the required data from different iranian journals available in data bases as in magiran (http://www.magiran.com/), noormags (http://www.noormags.ir/), sid (https://www.sid.ir/en/journal/),etc. besides, for the purpose of this study, four majors of chemistry and mathematics as well as english and philosophy have been randomly selected in domain of pure research and nonlife system within the two paradigms of hard and soft sciences. additionally, in order to analyze the hedge words in these journals whose authors are iranian writers with english as their foreign language, a total of 200 articles was opted for investigating the degree of frequency in the use of hedged words in their abstract sections, seeing to what extent they differ in terms of form i.e. modals, verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs and conditional expressions, and finally exploring a significant difference, if any, between soft and hard sciences iranian english writers in the use of hedging expressions. moreover, the most frequently used hedging expression of all in both sciences was also reported. in the same vein, authors’ names were examined to make sure they are iranian writers. therefore, through spss, each type of the hedged expression was analyzed and their forms and frequencies were calculated. also, a chi-square analysis was run to find any meaningful difference of hedging devices use for both sciences in between.. results the abstract sections of the selected articles in both research genres were analyzed and the hedging devices were identified. table 3 shows the frequency of hedging expressions used by the iranian writers in the abstract sections of two academic fields of soft sciences and hard sciences. considering all the categories, it is obvious that the soft science writers had more inclination to use these hedging expressions than the other group because they used 308 times of the total, while the hard science writers employed 85 times. moreover, table 4 shows that the total number of words in 100 abstracts of chemistry and mathematics (50 each) was 9989 words (6041 and 3948 respectively for each discipline) out of which only 85 hedging expressions were used and the total number of words in 100 abstracts of english and philosophy (50 each) was 17262 words (8818 and 8444respectively for each discipline) out of which only 308 hedging expressions were used. . table 3 frequency of hedges in two academic fields of soft sciences and hard sciences hedging categories modal verb noun adjective adverbial conditional total soft sciences 85 102 29 55 31 6 308 hard sciences 13 23 3 22 14 10 85 http://www.magiran.com/ http://www.noormags.ir/ hedging expressions in english articles writer 75 beyond words vol. 9 no.1 may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya table 4 frequency of hedging expressions across disciplines hard science writers soft science writers forms chemistry mathematics english philosophy adjective 9 13 42 13 adverb 10 4 24 7 modal 7 6 27 58 verb 8 15 40 62 noun 1 2 12 17 conditional 0 10 2 4 total 35 50 147 161 85 hedges out of 9989 words 308 hedges out of 17262 words as depicted in table 4, it is apparent that the soft science writers made use of modals, verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs proportionately more than those of the hard science writers in terms of frequency (respectively, 85>13, 102>23, 29>3, 55>22, and 31>14) whereas conditional expressions were to be used more by the hard science writers (10>6). by the same token it is quite obvious that more forms of hedging expressions were used by the soft science writers than the hard science writers in that they used adjectives, adverbs, modals, verbs, and nouns which outnumbered the only conditional form of hedging expression used by the hard science writers. therefore, in order to answer the first research question of the study, table 3 and 4 seemingly represent that the iranian soft science writers outnumbered the iranian hard science writers in terms of both frequency by 308 to 85 and form by 5 to 1 while using hedging expressions in the abstract section of their articles, previously published in different iranian journal websites. as regards the second research question, in order to find out any significant difference, if at all, between soft and hard sciences in the use of hedging expressions in the abstract section of articles by the iranian english writers in the aforementioned disciplines, a chi-square analysis was run. (see table 5) table 5 chi-square analysis for the use of hedges in the disciplines in both sciences tests value df asymp. sig. (2-sided) pearson chi-square 12.596a 4 0.000 likelihood ratio 12.682 4 0.000 linear-by-linear association 8.760 1 0.002 n of valid cases 200 as it is evident from table 5, there is a statistically significant difference between the frequency of hedging expressions in the abstract sections of chemistry and 76 effects of three vocabulary learning methods mathematics, and philosophy and english disciplines from soft and hard sciences. to put is more simply, the amount of chi-square value is 12.596 at 4 degrees of freedom, indicating that the significance level of this test is lower than 0.05 (sig.=0.000, p<0.05), hence a significant gap between both sciences. in other words, the pertinent research null hypothesis of the study is refuted. accordingly, in order to answer the third research question of the study with respect to table 4 and figure 1, one can claim that epistemic and cognition verbs were the most frequently used hedging expressions in both sciences (102 out of 393 in soft and 23 out of 393 in hard). the overall importance of these hedging expressions out of 100 percent is shown in fig. 1. fig.1 relative frequency of hedging expressions in science articles as can be seen from figure 1 (and table 4), cognition or epistemic verb is the most frequently occurring hedging item within the abstract sections of academic corpora of iranian articles. the analysis of the token indicate that verbs are the most frequently used hedging expressions of all forms in this line of investigation representing 31.8 % of the total, then modals (24.93) and adjectives (19.59 %) followed by a restricted range of adverbs (11.45 %) along with nouns (8.14 %) and finally conditional expressions (4.09 %) as the least frequently used hedge form. in other words, it was found that there are some preferences toward the use of different kinds of hedging expressions, especially verbs by different iranian authors in writing their scientific articles from among diverse academic disciplines. discussion, conclusion, and implications in order to be considered as one of the members of a discourse community and to exert an influence on others, it is recommended that one should be capable of writing academically since writing itself is viewed as an important language skill in the context of academia. also, writers should be able to recognize the rudimentary elements and knowledge of effective communication in english throughout the academic and scientific contexts because english is marked as the lingua franca of almost all countries (crystal, 2003, p.5). it is also estimated that already over a quarter of the world's population are competent in english (crystal, 2003, p.6). therefore, in the world of academia, an accomplished researcher must be cognizant of the way a broad spectrum of textual genres is drafted in different cultures and disciplines. to illuminate it more, it is usually the case that academic writing is mostly hedging expressions in english articles writer 77 beyond words vol. 9 no.1 may 2021 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya concerned with the use of cautious language, hence hedging strategies. more importantly, it is essential to bear in mind that one who writes academically attempts to justify his stance on a special subject, or the strength of many utterances he is making should be heedfully adjusted to the proven facts whatsoever. if not, the writer should possibly be able to make good his escape from an air of considerably lingering uncertainty as to whether his relevant brainchildren of the claim were contemplated humorous spotlights on others' frailties, prejudices, and concerns, or not. this is perhaps due to the rejection of absolute assertions in the realm of humanities sciences since they may be manipulated in forthcoming investigations. in addition, the investigators should present their results to such an extent that the other researchers access to options for their free decisions. thus, analysis of hedging expressions in international discourse community requires to be studied on the part of non-native writers. taking the above-mentioned discussion into account, the current study was an attempt to analyze the frequency and the use of hedges in 200 abstract sections of iranian writers’ english research articles drawn equally from the four subfields of chemistry and mathematics, and philosophy and english, randomly selected from the two academic task areas of soft sciences and hard sciences respectively as suggested in biglan’s (1973) typology of academic disciplines. it was found that soft science writers tended to employ more hedging expressions than do their counterparts in hard sciences in terms of frequency. this result is consonant with nasiri’s (2012a) study who affirmed that the discipline plays a pivotal role in the use of hedging expressions not the nationality or cultural background of writers. regarding this study, english and philosophy as two disciplines from the subfield of soft sciences, or somehow human sciences, were concerned with more hedging devices. to put it bluntly, the soft science writers employed more forms of adjectives, adverbs, modals, verbs, and nouns than do their counterparts in hard science articles, while the hard science writers applied conditional form more than their counterparts in soft science articles. this may be due to the assumption that the two disciplines of chemistry and mathematics are more concerned with non-life system, pure research, and conditionality of the problems and materials in the laboratory as suggested in biglan’s typology (1973). additionally, although abstract section in itself manifests an overall blueprint of the whole article, discussion section of the articles mirrored the most incarnations of the hedging devices of all (lau, 1999; durik, et al, 2008, & nasiri, 2012). probably, it may refer to the total length of each section in that the discussion section of the article is usually longer than the abstract section so that the writer has more freedom to maneuver over the writing in a hedging manner. the next reason could be the logical reasoning behind the justification of results the writers employ to present and analyze the experimental findings; hence more hedge devices are required naturally (lau, 1999). possible reason for the use of hedge words on the behalf of the soft science writers more than their counterparts in the hard sciences could be due to the nature of the disciplines or majors under investigation. since chemistry and mathematics disciplines need to be exact in almost the whole aspects of abstract section, english and philosophy disciplines are soft and more susceptible to a cautious language i.e., hedging, in which anything goes (soodmand afshar & bagherieh, 2014). furthermore, similar to the results of studies carried out by adams smith (1984), hanania and akhtar (1985), skelton (1988), and hyland (1996), the analysis of 78 effects of three vocabulary learning methods the gathered data revealed that cognition or epistemic verbs were concomitantly the most occurring used hedging expressions in both sciences. moreover, the findings of this paper are in a way in agreement with the study of mirzapour and rasekh mahand (2012). they maintained that frequency of hedges is discrepant among native and non-native writers in that non-native writers tend to apply much less hedging expressions in their academic articles. this is probably owing to the claim held by kaplan (1987) who maintained that why non-native writers are not that much able to express themselves in a hedging way is because of the huge differences existing in native and non-native writers’ texts and writing styles. clearly, there is also a need to investigate the effect of non-nativeness on a way that hedge words are used in different sections of iranian english research articles. taking everything into consideration, studies conducted on the use of hedging expressions in the articles do bring about many implications and suggestions for further research. the present paper could be of relevance to the non-native english academic writers who are not well-aware of taking advantage of the hedging devices in their academic writing. therefore, much should be done to encourage the nnws in applying more hedges and focus on the issue more than before. in this regard, hyland (1994) maintained that there should be “a need for greater and more systematic attention to be given to this important interpersonal strategy” (p.246). another implication to suggest for further research could be the possible factor of gender as to whether masculinity or femininity will affect the writing styles of authors when it comes to the use of hedging expressions. ultimately, textbook designers can benefit from the findings of this study by including the hedge words, their forms, and their significant positions in the textbooks to make the students well-aware of the issue and overprepared for employing them in their academic manuscripts. in future, these avenues of investigation could be potential of being scrutinized to yield more novel findings references adams smith, d. 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(1996). pragmatics. oxford: oxford university press . http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/7.1.1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/7.1.1 61 a book review: case study title: case study research and applications: design and methods (6th ed.) author robert k. yin publisher sage publication, inc year 2018 (6th ed.) pages 319 a book review: case study research and applications yustinus calvin gai mali (yustinus.mali@uksw.edu) faculty of language and arts satya wacana christian university salatiga, indonesia this recently published book might add to our understanding of conducting case study research and eventually writing a highquality case study paper. in general, chapter one defines a case study and when and why a researcher needs to conduct that study. chapter two suggests ways to formulate a research question, select a case, and ensure rigor for the research. chapters three and four similarly discuss various data collection procedures and why those procedures need to be done. chapter five presents practical strategies to do quality data analysis. the last chapter is about tips to report a case study research. readable vocabulary and supporting figures should help readers (e.g., novice researchers, college or graduate students, and teachers) easily comprehend the persuasive information presented in those six chapters. the next sections will discuss some takeaways that i could learn from the book. formulating a research question yin informs that a case study might be better approached using a how or why research question than a what research question, which is likely to be more suitable for a survey study or in analyzing archival records. however, not all readers of yin’s book may agree with that point, particularly those who also like to cite other educational research books. for example, in their book, ary et al. (2019) wrote that “case studies can answer descriptive questions (what happened), and the underlying question in case studies is what are the characteristics of this particular entity, phenomenon, person, or setting?” (p. 392). besides, yin’s point might be controversial as some case studies published in peer-reviewed journals still used the what research question (e.g., see mindog, 2016; sahin & yildirim, 2016; vo & nguyen, 2010) or even did not ask the how or why question at all (e.g., see astika, 2014; beyond words vol. 11 no.1 may 2023 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya 62 a book review: case study farrell & guz, 2019; saeed & ghazali, 2019; tuğa, 2013). supporting figures in the book, two figures are helpful for the readers in designing a case study. first, “figure 2.1.” (see yin, 2018, p. 32) should address confusion among novice researchers or graduate students about what a case looks like or “what is exactly a case (cited in cohen et al., 2007, p. 257)?” with that figure, those who have just started their first case study might better understand that their case can be about “individuals, small groups, organizations, and projects” (see yin, 2018, p. 32). second, “figure 2.4.” (see yin, 2018, p. 48) can help to differentiate four basic types of case studies and be cited to explain a case study design used in a research paper. involving people outside the research yin also highlights the presence of other people to support case study research. for instance, researchers can invite their colleagues to see if they have selected the right case and discuss the rationale for conducting their case study. they can also pilot their data collection procedures or interview questions with their colleagues to receive inputs and make necessary revisions before actual data collection. researchers may also discuss their preliminary findings (e.g., do they make biased findings? do the findings answer their research question(s)? do they need to collect additional data?) and ask their colleagues to provide alternative interpretations of the findings. some researchers (e.g., ary et al., 2019; kozleski, 2017) called the people as triangulating analysts or individuals outside researchers’ project who will review their analysis independently and challenge their views to enhance the credibility of their data analysis results. making a generalization from a case critically, yin argues that a research sample in a case study is not like a sampling unit in quantitative (survey) research. case study researchers are not making a statistical conclusion from their case. therefore, “rather than thinking about your case(s) as a sample, you should think of your case study as the opportunity to shed empirical light on some theoretical concepts or principles” (yin, 2018, p. 38). yin’s view accords with who mentioned that “a case study is not intended to represent the entire population from which the participant is drawn” (p. 212). in line with this argument, bloomberg and volpe (2019) stated that the focus of a case study research is not on its generalizability. therefore, future case study researchers might not need to write the following sentences in their research paper: “as this study focused on the development of one pair of team-teaching teachers, its findings may not be readily generalizable to other team-teaching situations”(chen & cheng, 2014, p. 45) or “this study was a small-scale study, and the results obtained cannot be generalized to another educational context” (ting & qian, 2010, p. 97). ensuring the rigor of a case study further, yin discusses ways to ensure the rigor of a case study. for example, to ensure internal validity, yin highlights the essence of providing a detailed description of any factors that might affect a case study conclusion. in some case study papers, that internal validity might be related to a researcher’s positionality (as examples, see laufer & gorup, 2019, p. 170; newcomer, 2017, p. 5), which informs readers about background experiences (e.g., beliefs, assumptions, and social backgrounds) (bloomberg & volpe, 2019) that researchers brought to their research and conflicts of 63 a book review: case study interest that might affect their study (saldaña & omasta, 2018). however, yin’s point about the rigor of a case study is often neglected when some researchers describe their method. without that description, readers might be skeptical of conclusions made in a case study. they might also assume that data analysis results “have been shaped according to the predispositions, assumptions, and biases of the researchers” (bloomberg & volpe, 2019, p. 433). addressing rival explanation the book repeatedly mentions the ideas of rival explanation or “a plausible alternative-contrasting with a case study’s originally stipulated propositions-for interpreting the data or findings in a case study (whether descriptive or explanatory)” (yin, 2018, p. 288). for some types of rival explanations, see “figure 5.1.” (yin, 2018, p. 173). with that idea, yin perhaps wants researchers to have a balanced argument in their exploration; they should review previous studies that might challenge or provide alternative thoughts on their research findings (not only the ones that support their arguments). then, they should present those studies in a discussion section of their research paper. yin believed that the more rival explanations we have addressed, the stronger our findings will be. reporting a case study in the last chapter, yin suggests practical ways to report a case study so that researchers can “seduce readers’ eyes” (yin, 2018, p. 218) when reading their study. while the chapter communicates many different ways, i would like to emphasize some of them. the first one is to know the target audiences of the paper. without knowing the target audience and understanding their specific needs, case study researchers are likely to compose a paper from “an egocentric perspective, and that is the greatest error they can make” (yin, 2018, p. 224). the second one is to present simple, appealing figures to help readers understand some information. in some studies, those figures were used to illustrate a theoretical framework (see newcomer, 2017, p. 5), explain data collection procedures (see sahin & yildirim, 2016, pp. 245-246), or present research findings (see astika, 2014, p. 23; mindog, 2016, p. 12). the third one is to review previous studies “that have successfully shared their findings with the same target audience” (yin, 2018, p. 224). i support yin’s recommendation that readers need to learn how the previous researchers organize ideas, write their literature review, present and discuss their findings, and finally conclude their paper. in closing, yin highlights the essence of becoming truthful and transparent case study researchers who should acknowledge all potential limitations of their case study, present evidence as they are, and not manipulate data to reach some expected conclusions. references ary, d., jacobs, l. c., irvine, c. k. s., & walker, d. a. (2019). introduction to research in education (10th ed.). cengage. astika, g. (2014). reflective teaching as alternative assessment in teacher education: a case study of pre-service teachers. teflin journal, 25(1), 16– 32. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1563 9/teflinjournal.v25i1/16-32 bloomberg, l. d., & volpe, m. (2019). completing your qualitative dissertation: a road map from beginning to end (4th ed.) [pdf file]. sage publications, inc. 64 a book review: case study chen, c. w., & cheng, y. (2014). learning from team teaching and beyond: a case study on efl teachers’ professional development. journal of pan-pacific association of applied linguistics, 18(1), 33–47. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1047 439.pdf cohen, l., manion, l., & morrison, k. (2007). research methods in education (6th ed.). routledge. farrell, t. s. c., & guz, m. (2019). 'if i wanted to survive i had to use it’: the power of teacher beliefs on classroom practices. the electronic journal for english as a second language, 22(4), 1–17. https://teslej.org/wordpress/issues/volume22/ej88/ ej88a4/ kozleski, e. b. (2017). the uses of qualitative research: powerful methods to inform evidence-based practice in education. research and practice for persons with severe disabilities, 42(1), 19–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/1540796916683 710 laufer, m., & gorup, m. (2019). the invisible others: stories of international doctoral student dropout. higher education, 78(1), 165–181. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-0180337-z mindog, e. (2016). apps and efl: a case study on the use of smartphone apps to learn english by four japanese university students. jaltcall journal, 12(1), 3–22. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1107 946.pdf newcomer, s. n. (2017). investigating the power of authentically caring studentteacher relationships for latinx students. journal of latinos and education, 17(2), 179–193. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348431.2017. 1310104 saeed, m. a., & ghazali, k. (2019). engaging postgraduates in a peer research group at the research proposal stage in a malaysian university: support and challenges. teaching in higher education, 24(2), 180–196. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2018. 1471458 sahin, i., & yildirim, a. (2016). transforming professional learning into practice. elt journal, 70(3), 241–252. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccv070 saldaña, j., & omasta, m. (2018). qualitative research: analyzing life. sage publications, inc. ting, m., & qian, y. (2010). a case study of peer feedback in a chinese efl writing classroom. chinese journal of applied linguistics, 33(4), 87–98. http://www.celea.org.cn/teic/92/101206 06.pdf tuğa, b. e. (2013). reflective feedback sessions using video recordings. elt journal, 67(2), 175–183. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccs081 vo, l. t., & nguyen, h. t. m. (2010). critical friends group for efl teacher professional development. elt journal, 64(2), 205–213. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccp025 yin, r. k. (2018). case study research and applications (6th ed.). sage publications, inc. 71 teachers’ management planning and implementing beyond words vol.7, no. 2 (november 2019) teachers’ management planning and implementing for the success of efl learning absharini kardena absharinikardena@yahoo.co.id iain bukittinggi west sumatera, indonesia abstract group work as one of teaching techniques on the framework of communicative approach is believed to be an effective model for building students’ communicative competence. the process of applying this technique needs high skills of management of the english teacher. the english teacher has autonomy to plan and implement the group work in order to achieve an objective of efl learning. because of that, the english teacher has a responsibility to make any decisions and actions for assuring the success of efl learning. the teachers’ management in planning and implementing group work influenced the success of this teaching technique. this article, which is derived and further developed based on research conducted in 2013, analyzes and discusses the way the teachers plan and implement group work for the success of efl learning. this research was done at man kota solok as one of islamic senior high school in solok city. the research was conducted in terms of qualitative research by involving 3 english teachers at man kota solok. the research found that the teachers still need some guidance and improvements in planning and implementing group work for students at man kota solok. keywords: management, planning, implementing, group, work introduction during the development of teaching english as a second/ foreign language, many issues related to effective teaching techniques have emerged. the main focus of the development is to develop students’ communicative competence. one of the ways is activating students’ participation in the classroom. in fact, involving students to participate in the classroom is not an easy task if the students have been familiar with teacher-centered instruction. in this case, group work is promoted as an effective teaching technique to encourage students’ participation. since the group work demands the students to work together in a group, they have to discuss and participate for accomplishing the task. as stated by mcdonough (1993), group work is one of the techniques that require a cooperative environment which can allow an establishment of the cohesive and collaborative working atmosphere. in the process of implementing group work, some practitioners assume that a teacher is not directly involved in conducting the group work. this assumption is based on an argument that the students are the ones who work actively on the groups, as a widely known as learner-centered instruction. in the other side, many experts state that the teacher cannot be immediately separated from the process of group work. in fact, the teacher is the one who has a control in the classroom. although the learning principle applied in the classroom is learner-centered instruction, the teacher has a part to take a control and manage the group work in such a way. mailto:absharinikardena@yahoo.co.id 72 teachers’ management planning and implementing in accordance with teacher’s roles in controlling group work, research in group work is essentially needed. related to this point, this article is developed based on a research done in 2013 at man kota solok. based on the research, this article elaborates how the teachers manage the group work in terms of applying learner-centered instruction in curriculum 2013. this article is aimed to explain the way the teachers plan and implement the group work. it can explain teachers’ point of view about their roles during the implementation of group work. literature review many practitioners have developed some definitions of group work from different points of view. evertson (1984) proposes a definition about group work. he states that group work is an activity in which two or more students work together on a task that requires their cooperation. brown (1994: ) argues that group work is “a generic term covering a multiplicity of techniques in which two or more students are assigned a task that involves collaboration and selfinitial language.” brown’s opinion is established based on the techniques that might be used in group work and also the size for each group. previously, evertson (1984) also proposes the similar idea of what group work is. both the experts offer a point that group work must consist of two or more members because it is a kind of peer learning. other idea is given by smith (2008) who determines group work in a more detail definition. it is explained in four detail definitions that; (i)group work are two or more individual who are connected to one another by social relationship; (ii) group work is a fundamental part of human experience that may develop more complex and larger activities and provide setting where people can find help and support; (iii) group work are social relationship that involved inter independence among the members of the group; and (iv) group work are determined as an activity that involved some members in which the groups itself might be grouped directly by the members or it is grouped emergently. in other word, smith (2008) defines group work based on the size of the members for each group, functions of group work, advantages of group work, and the process of grouping the members. on the other hand, mcdonough (1993) explains group work on the range of education field, especially on the implementation of it in the classroom. he defines group work as an organization that is handled by teacher and it can be activated in most classrooms that have a comparable range of functions, have a more complex structure which may involve different roles for each member of groups as well as a certain amount of physical re-organization of the classroom. from all of those statements above, it can be academically stated that group work can be defined based on the size of the group member, the functions and the advantages, the process during the activity and the process of grouping the member for the groups. in other words, group work can be explained as an activity that may involve two or more students who are assigned a task in some techniques and require peer learning and peer support.it also offers help and support for them. in addition, the members of a group may be formed by students themselvesor grouped by teacher and it may also require different roles for each member of the groups. moreover, the teacher still has responsibility of running the group work in the classroom. in other word, the teacher has their own role in conducting group work for teachers’ management planning and implementing 73 students. one of the teacher’s roles in managing the group work is planning the group work. there are several points that should be done by the teacher. the first one is selecting the appropriate activity for students. brown (1994) classifies the appropriate activity by considering type of group work; pair works and smaller group work. brown (1994) states that there are some activities that are appropriate for pair works, such as practicing dialogue with partner, simple question and answer exercises, performing meaningful substitution drills, quick brainstorming, checking written work, etc. on the other hand, the activities that can be applied for smaller group work are games, role play, simulations, drama, project, interview, brainstorming, information gap, jigsaw, problem solving and decision making, opinion exchange, etc. brown’s opinion is strengthened by nation (1989) who states that the activity chosen for group work should be established and appropriated in line with the goal and aims of teaching and learning processes. the second step is deciding the goals of the activity. the goals of group work should be clear in this stage so that the students have a target that should be achieved in doing this activity (nation, 1989). it is supported by brooks (2010) who states that in order to obtain a higher level of thinking, it is important to the groups to focus to specific goals. in a more detail explanation, deckert (2004) explains that the teacher should explain the clear goals and expectation of the activity. it includes the description of any tasks that require group work as well as any information. because of that, the teacher is recommended to explain the goals; what students should achieve at the end of the lesson. then, the next point is determining the size of the groups. harmin (1994) explains that in determining the size of the groups, there are some important aspects that should be noticed by the teacher. the first one is smaller group work are better rather than the bigger one because it can maximize students’ participation. moreover, it is also less noisy and promotes good eye contact that helps the students to produce respectful relationship. the second one is avoiding trios because two of the three students are often more compatible with one another. the last one is group of four tends to lead to passive participation if the group members consist of different capability among them. however, it is suggested to be applied if the task calls much creativity or many different perspectives that can maximize students’ involvement since each member of the groups may offer the variety of ideas and perspective. besides determining the group size, there is also another important aspect; determining the members of the group. cohen (1994) states an important aspect in determining the members of the group. he suggests using self-selection. related to the criteria used to form the group, hayden (2010) explains that in grouping the students, the teachers should pay attention to the types of the group. she offers two kinds of groups; heterogeneous and homogeneous. in heterogeneous group, the students are combined based on a wide range of abilities. it is usually used in order to train students how to work together by people with different strengths to complete a task. in homogeneous group, the students who are grouped together have similar interest and abilities. the main aim of applying this kind of group is the talented students can speed ahead and learn at their level ability. 74 teachers’ management planning and implementing after planning the group work, the next step is the most important point in managing the group work; managing the implementation of group work. the teacher has a great contribution in monitoring, facilitating, and organizing the group work. although the students are the center of group work activity, the teacher still has a part in controlling how the students do the activity. because of that, the teacher should know how to monitor, facilitate, and organize the group work. one of the teacher’s role in this case is giving explicit detailed instructions. brown (1994) suggests three points related to the instruction given by the teacher. the first one is explaining the purpose of the activity. the teacher has to be able to explain it as it becomes the basic of aims’ achievement in teaching and learning processes. the second one is explaining the procedures. the students should know what they are going to do; the stages that they have to do. according to alexander (2000), the activity has to be started from the simple to the more complex one. for example, in doing writing task, the first procedure is writing the framework of the text before producing the paragraph. the last one is explaining the specific instructions, such as restatement of the purpose, rules the students to follow (ex: don’t show your schedule to anyone else), establish a time frame (ex: you have ten minutes to complete the task), and assign roles to students (ex: you should be the time keeper). the next point in implementing group work is offering verbal presentation about group work. as explained by brooks (2010), the teacher should explain the group work verbally in order to guarantee that the students understand about the task given and how to do it. he states that it should take place in the first tutorial. in this case, the teacher is recommended to show the commitment in implementing group work and make sure that the students know why they learn by using group work in discussing the topic given. in other words, the students should also be given a chance to ask questions about any aspects of the lesson (bloom and gardner, 2002). additionally, the teacher also has a role as a controller. brown (1994) states that a teacher should help students to determine what the students do and help them in deciding what language form they should use. the teacher is also suggested to controll and organize the class hour. it is supported by alexander (2000) and bloom and gardner (2002) in which they state that the teacher has to set a target and deadline of colleting the task given. because of that, the students can take handle in managing the time they have to finish the task. moreover, in managing the group work the teacher also has a role as a resourcer who can give advice and counsel when students seek it. furthermore, the teacher may also give support for the learners. it means that presenting an option in a way that can encourage free choices and can show respect for the learners’ decision (nunan, 2003). briefly, it can be stated that the teacher takes important roles in implementing group work. the teacher has so many functions so that the group work can be run well. these functions are analyzing students’ knowledge, giving explicit detail instructions, offering verbal presentations about group work, functions as a controller, facilitator, resourcer, and monitor. because of that, the teacher has a significant contribution in implementing group work. teachers’ management planning and implementing 75 method this study practically used a qualitative approach. the aim was to analyze how the english teachers plan and implement group work during teaching and learning processes. the study was conducted at man kota solok (high school). there are 5 english teachers in man kota solok high school. one english teacher taught at grade x, two english teachers taught at grade xi and two others taught at grade xii. for this research, the subject chosen for the study were only 3 teachers because they were only teachers who implemented group work in the classroom. the research was conducted by means of observation and interview. in collecting the data, all the english teachers were observed during implementing group work in the classroom. the observation was done several times till the data gotten were saturated. in this case, each of the teachers was observed 5 times. to get the data from observation, the researcher as an observer did not record the process in the classroom through video, but took a note. it was aimed to avoid any interference for the teacher and students. note taking taken during observation was guided by points of teacher’s role in planning and implementing group work. besides, the data were also collected through interview. the english teachers were interviewed based on what they did during implementing group work in the classroom. it was used to triangulate the data gotten from observation. thus, the data collected were valid. the interview was a kind of semi-structure interview. the data were analyzed scientifically by adapting the technique of data analysis proposed by patton (1990). the steps in analyzing the data are explained as follow: 1. epoche. in this step, the researcher differentiated between participants’ point of view, assumption or prejudice. in other word, the researcher should be able to clarify any personal bias from the data collected. 2. phenomenological reduction the researcher gathered the original data which related to the research. irrelevant data should be put out. moreover, the researcher got the real facts of the data. 3. in grouping the real data, the researcher followed the following steps: a. decided any phrases or statements that show the facts of the phenomenon. b. interpreted the meaning of the phrases or statements. c. explained the participants’ opinion about the statements. d. looked over these meanings for what the essential opinion of the participants. e. offered a tentative statement, or definition, of the phenomenon in terms of the essential recurring features identified. 4. the textual portrayal of each theme the researcher described experience of the participants. 5. development of structural synthesis the researcher described the deeper meaning of participants’ experiences; the true meaning contains in those experiences. data analysis and discussions. the data of the research were analyzed based on two main points; how the teachers planned and how they implemented the group work. the way the teachers plan the group work is indicated by 4 main points; selecting appropriate activity, deciding the goals, determining the size of the groups and 76 teachers’ management planning and implementing deciding the members of the groups. moreover, the indicators of implementing group work are arranging students’ seat, giving explicit detailed instructions, discussing the progress of group work, controlling and providing any resources, and allocating time to test students’ comprehension. all these roles are important to guarantee the group work activity can be run well. as stated by chiriac (2011), in running the group work, the teacher does not only play as a teacher, but also as a leader. the following are the result of the research related to how the english teachers at man kota solok planned and implemented group work in their classroom. planning the group work. planning the group work is a crucial stage in conducting group work. it involves the teachers to arrange the group work and to lead students to work in groups. the first stage in planning phase is selecting appropriate activity. based on the observation, the teachers did not specify a specific form of group work, such as simulation, opinion exchange, etc. however, those teachers formed the students to work in groups in order to produce an expository text based on the topics given. an interesting point is that how the teachers used simple form of group work but it worked well since it was appropriate to the goals of teaching and learning processes. it directly links to the second stage in planning in which the teachers explain the goals of teaching and learning processes for that meeting. based on the observation, the teachers stated directly and even indirectly what the students should achieve at the end of the lesson. shortly, the teachers informed the students about the goal of teaching and learning process, which was writing an expository text. all the teachers stated it orally at the beginning of the lesson. based on the description above, there is a correlation between the goal of learning and the activity chosen. the activity should be in line with the purpose of the learning activity. since the activity is a medium to achieve the goals of learning, the teacher should consider how the students work to achieve the goal. it leads the teachers to choose the most appropriate type of group work. shortly, it can be stated that the teachers have considered it well. it is relevant to the theory stated by nation (1989) in which he proposes that the activity chosen for group work should be established and appropriated as well as the goal and aims of teaching and learning processes. moreover, the teachers also demand to determine the size and the members of group work. since the teachers have a responsibility to control and manage the students, the teachers are also demanded to arrange the students on their own groups. based on the observation, all the teachers decided the members of the group by considering the total numbers of students in one class. the teachers have grouped the students into small group in which one group only consisted of 4 or 5 students. in the other side, the teachers had two ways in determining the members of the groups; grouping the students by means of their level of ability (combine smart students and slow students) and by means of their seat. two teachers decided the members of the groups based on their seat. the teacher argued that it was the simplest way to group the students. the following transcriptions shows the fact. transcription 1: r: ‘iko anak-anak dikelompokkan berdasarkan tampek duduaknyo se nak pak?’ (‘the students are grouped based on their seats, aren’t they?’) t2: ‘iyo’ (‘yes’) r: ‘baa ndak digabuang se pak yang kemampuan bagus jo yang kurang di ciek kelompok?’ (‘why don’t you put one good student for each group?’) teachers’ management planning and implementing 77 t2: ‘lamo kalau model turin. heboh, ndak cukuik waktu beko.’ (‘it takes a long time and they will be noisy.’) r: ‘lah ado bacubo tu pak?’ (‘have you tried it?’) t2: ‘alun lai. apak model ko se taruih.’ (‘not yet. i always do just like this.’) based on the transcription above, the teacher confirmed the argumentation given by r (researcher) in which the researcher tells that the students were divided based on their seats. in other words, the teacher did not group the students based on their level of ability. in fact, this decision leaded to the failure of group work. the groups that do not have any qualified member cannot elaborate their writing well. in other words, they do not have anyone who can lead them to write a good writing. thus, it can be academically argued that dividing the students based on the levels of ability is a crucial step to assure the successful of group work. on the other hand, one teacher grouped the students based on their levels of ability. the teacher put at least one smart student for each group. the class had 7 groups and the teacher united students with high level of ability with the lower ones. the data of observation proved that the smart students tried to handle the task by themselves. this phenomenon surely was not expected since the aim to unite the students was to activate students’ participation among the group members. the data of observation tell that it was influenced by how the teachers treated them during the process of implementing group work. in other words, the teacher’s task was not fully fulfilled when she grouped the students. the teacher did not monitor how the students work in group. she only grouped the students and then focus on the final product. as stated by burke (2011), group work may not give any advantages for students if some group members just rely too heavily to the other members. in this case, the teacher is the one who should guarantee that all members work together. it is in line with the idea proposed by biehler (1997). he explains that the groups formed should be heterogeneity. it is also suggested containing different levels ability of students so that they can help each other. thus, the group can work optimally. besides, he points the important aspect in conducting group work; that is teacher’s role. he said that the students can work together in their group if the teacher shows how to help each other in order to overcome problems and complete whatever task has been assigned on their group. to sum up, table 1 shows teachers’ activities in planning phase of group work. 78 teachers’ management planning and implementing beyond words vol.7, no. 2 (november 2019) in accordance with explanation above, it can be academically stated that teachers have a great responsibility to plan the group work by considering the goals of teaching and learning processes and linking it to the activity chosen. the teachers are also responsible to decide the members and the size of group work. all decisions influence the way the students work on their groups. in this case, the way the students work on their group does not only depend on how the planning arranged by the teachers, but it also requires the teachers to control and facilitate the students during the process of group work. a. implementing group work the next phase in conducting group work is implementing group work to accomplish the task. the first stage in this phase is arranging students’ seat. it is one of the significant steps taken by the teacher during implementing group work activity. in fact, the data of observation proved that 2 of 3 teachers arranged the students’ seat in a good arrangement. the students were divided into groups and the teachers decided their seat so that the teachers could monitor the students’ work. besides, the teachers could also walk around the class and observed each group easily. in this case, it can be stated that the teachers realized the importance of arranging students’ seat in order to observe students’ progress and participation. however, one of the teachers was not really aware about the importance of arranging students’ seat. she allowed the students to arrange the group seats. consequently, some groups chose to sit in the corner at the back so that the teacher could not optimally control students’ work and participation. the teacher cannot walk around the groups since there was only a little space between groups to the other groups. as a result, the teacher only monitored the groups who sit at the front regularly. in fact, there were only 3 groups there. the other groups sat at the back, specifically at the back in the corner. an interesting point is the teacher did not realize what she did. she did not recognize that she did not monitor all the groups regularly. the worst one is she was not aware that it was caused by her decision related to students’ seating arrangement. the reason behind this decision was lack of knowledge about the influence of seating arrangement. it was proved by the interview as transcript below: transcription 2: r:‘banyak yang mangecek kalau pengaturan tampek duduak ko mempengaruhi hasil karajo anak. baa menurut ibukt u?’(‘many education experts and practitioners argue that seating arrangement influence the way the students works. what do you think about it?’) t: “maksudnyo baa ko?” (‘what do you mean?’) r: “yo baa wak ma atur tampek duduak anak ko ma agiah pengaruh k hasil karajo nyo buk. misalnyo bantuak patang ko kan ado yang bara kelompok tu nyoh, duduak agak kasuduik kiri belakang kelas tu. lai ndak payah anak-anak tu atau ibuk dalam melakukan kerja kelompok dek nyo” (‘the way we arrange students’ seat give such influence to the result of their discussion, for example, just like when some students chose to sit at the back, in the corner. don’t you think it disturb the students or even you in controlling the groups?’) t: ‘indak do nak.’ (‘i am not sure’) r: ‘jadi ndak ado pengaruhnyo ka ibuk do? maksud ni, lai ndak payah gai ibuk pai bajalan ka kalompok tu?’ (‘so, doesn’t it influence you? i mean, don’t you get any difficulty in walking around the groups?’) teachers’ management planning and implementing 79 t: ‘lai indak do’ (‘i don’t think so’) the transcription of interview above tells that the teacher did not consider seating arrangement. the teacher did not even know and realize how seating arrangement influenced her in controlling students’ progress. in fact, it gave a significant influence on the way the teacher controlled and facilitated the students during group work activity. as explained by nation (1989), the seating arrangement of the members of the groups is categorized important as it affects the way students communicate on the groups. the teacher should be able to decide whether the students need to talk face to face or not. it is supported by the finding of the research done by aman (2005) in which he found that the students should work well when the teacher arranges the seating arrangement. it influences their focus in accomplishing the task given. furthermore, kasim (2015) also strengthens that lack of teacher’s control in monitoring students’ work in their group can be one of the disadvantages that should be solved. additionally, the second step in implementing group work is giving explicit detailed instruction. the detailed instruction includes explaining the purpose of activity, explaining the procedures, and explaining the rules. based on the observation, all teachers explained the purpose of group work activity when the teachers informed that the goal of learning was to produce an expository text. the teachers informed that the students had to work in groups because it can help them to write the text easier. the teachers explained that they can elaborate the ideas together and try to produce an expository text together. it is one of important steps since it points up that the students have to realize why they should accomplish a task. it is supported by brooks (2010) in which he states that the teacher should explain the group work verbally in order to assure that the students understand about the importance of task given and how to do it. he states that it should take place in the first tutorial. in this case, the teacher is recommended to show the commitment in implementing group work and make sure that the students know why they learn by means of group work. in this case, the students should also be given a chance to ask questions about any aspects of the lesson (bloom and gardner, 2002). moreover, explaining the procedures of group work is also the significant step done by the teacher. the data of observation proved that all the teachers explained the procedures of the task through verbal and/ or written form. one of the teachers wrote down the procedure on the whiteboard and explained it orally before the students joined to their groups. this activity was started before the students directly worked on their groups. the other teachers explained the procedures orally. however, the explanation of the procedures was only as general guidelines in which they explained what the students should do for accomplishing the task. it is not relevant to the theory stated by brooks (2010) in which he states that the instruction given to the students should be clear in order to avoid misunderstanding in doing the task given. it can be academically argued that the teacher has to explain the procedures of group work in a detail way to avoid any mistake or even failure. similarly, it is also supported by the research done by yunfeng (2005) in which he states that the teacher should give clear instruction of the task so that the activity that is going to be done could be clear for students. explaining the rules of group work is the next step in implementing group work. it gives a concrete impact for any action taken by students. in fact, the data of observation tell that the teachers in the classroom did not 80 teachers’ management planning and implementing give details information about the rules of group work and even any impact whenever the students break the rules. the teachers only informed the task which should be accomplished. consequently, the students did not know that they have to follow such rules so that they made their own rules. it directly impacted to the progress and quality of the group work. as stated previously, some smart students tended to take control in accomplishing the task. the worst one is those students did not invite the other members to work together in accomplishing the task. in the other side, the other members of groups also did not take the responsibility or even wanted to know how to do the task. in other words, the students did not work together because some of them did not participate at all during the discussion. it is not in line with brown’s statement (1994) in which he states that the teachers could maintain that there is no chance for students to take time for any other activity. they have to focus to the task given because there would be a consequence of what they have done. it results a positive condition to finish the task as well as possible. allocating the time to discuss the result of group work activity is the next point in implementing group work. the data of observation tell that the teachers tried to communicate with the students to check the progress of students work. the teacher walked around the classroom and asked students’ progress. however, the data of observation proved that none of the teachers asked whenever the students got difficulties during teaching and learning processes. the teachers walked around the classroom and monitored students’ progress just for asking students’ progress. in two moments observed, one of the teachers helped the students about the tense used because the student asked about it. however, the teachers did not ask the students about any problems during the process of accomplishing the task. in fact, the questions asked by the teachers dominantly related to “how far the progress of the group task is”, and “whether the group have finished or not”. it is supported by interview data as transcript as follow: transcription 3: r: ‘ni caliak patang ibuk bajalan kaliliang kelas. itu mananyoan sampai dima anakanak ko siap yo buk?’ (‘yesterday i saw you walked around the class when the students worked. is it aimed to ask students’ progress?’) t3: ‘iyo. wak kan harus bajalan juo sakalisakali kan bia anak-anak ko ndak bamain se. jadinyo tau awak tetap mamparatian.’ (‘yeah, sometimes we have to walk around to avoid any noise because they know we watch on them’) r: ‘tu apo se kiro-krio komentar yang biaso ibuk agiah ka anak-anak ko?’ (‘may i know any comment you give for them?’) t3: ‘yo ditanyokan, lah sampai dima, baa lai bakarajo sadonyo ko indak’ (‘i ask about how far the progress has been accomplished, whether they work or not.’) r: ‘biasonyo ado keluhan dari anak-anak ko ndak buk?’ (‘did the students consult any problems? ’) t3: ‘ado juo, tapi jaranglah. yo yang pokoknyo wak harus memonitor anakanak ko. kok indaknyo bias sorang atau baduo se yang karajokan.’ (‘yeah in a few moments, but the point is we had to monitor the students. if we don’t, there will be only 1 or 2 students who work.’) the transcription above proved that the teacher walked around the class was not for checking whether the students faced any difficulties in accomplishing their tasks or not. however, they tried to check students’ teachers’ management planning and implementing 81 progress and created a sense for the students that they were monitored. in fact, what the teacher did is not totally wrong. however, it should be in line with teacher’s role in group work activity as a facilitator. as the facilitator, the teacher is demanded to help and facilitate the learners whenever they get problem, check their progress, correct any students’ mistakes and errors during their group work activity. shortly, teacher’s responsibility is not limited only on checking students’ progress but also helping and facilitating them in doing their task. by moving towards every group, the teacher could see the problems faced by students and reduce the noise level of students (bloom and gardner, 2002). the teachers moved towards the groups but they did not fully listen to students’ discussion. they only made sure that the students did not do gossiping or made noise. it may affect to the successful of the group activity as this point contributes on controlling what students do. theoretically, discussing and checking students’ work and facilitating their discussion are cores of discussion. it is supported by bloom and gardner (2002) in which they state that a discussion is one of the important phases in conducting group work as it provides a chance to discuss the result of what students have done. related to this point, aman (2005) found that a teacher should give opportunities for students to communicate and discuss what they have done. academically, it can be stated that a teacher should always allocate time for students to discuss result of group work activity. the last stage that was not applied by the teachers was allocating the time to test students’ comprehension related to the topic discussed. based on the data of observation, none of the teachers allocated time for evaluating students’ comprehension related to the materials discussed. based on the data of interview, one of the teachers stated that she assessed students’ ability based on their participation during group work activity and their final results of the task. the transcript of the interview is stated as follow: transcription 4: r: ‘kan pas anak tampil ka muko patang, ndak sadonyo dalam kelompok yang ikuik mangecek do kan buk. tu baa ibuk manilainyo tu buk?’ (‘when the students were asked to perform, not all the members reported. so, how do you assess their comprehension?’) t: ‘yo baa yo, kan waktu nyo bakarajo dikelompk nyo tu ibuk caliak partisipasinyo. jadi lebih ka partisipasinyo lah.’ (‘i evaluate their comprehension when they still worked on the group. i mean, it is mostly about their participation.’) r: ‘jadi ndak masalah do buk kalau bantuak patang tu?’ (‘so, it means that the students are allowed to not perform in fornt of the class to report the result of their group discussion?’) t: ‘yo wak lebih menekankan partispasi di kelompk lah. pokoknyo berpartispasi.’ (‘i more focus on their participation on their group.’) r: ‘tu pas nyo tampil patang tu, indak ado diagiah apo namonyo ko…feedback baliak do nak buk?’ (didn’t you give any feedback when they performed?) t: ‘maksudnyo?’ (‘what do you mean?’) r: ‘yo saran, perbaikan hasil karajonyo gitu.’ (‘any suggestion, correction for their works’) t: ‘yo nilai nyo kan lah ado tu. pokoknyo tugasnyo kan siap. yo lah gitu se.’ (oh i see, they have got the scores. the point is they accomplished the task. that’s it.) the transcripts of the interviews above tell that the teacher generally assessed students’ ability based on two indicators; participation and the final result of the task. these two points represent process and product of learning. however, it cannot assure that the students understand the 82 teachers’ management planning and implementing learning materials. moreover, the others teachers argued that they did not have enough time to evaluate every single material in every meeting by doing a test. the data of observation show that the teacher spent much time for preparing the students on their groups and allocating the time to work on their group. the degree of students’ ability in english influenced their speed in accomplishing the task. in other words, the teachers did not have enough time to assessthe students individually. all teachers’ activities in implementing group work as previously explained is simplified as stated in table 2. in accordance with explanation above, it can be academically interpreted that it happened because there was no exact rules to be followed. as stated in the previous page, the teachers did not explain any detail rules and the consequence for any action taken. the students did not inform that all the members have to take a part in reporting the task. consequently, they were not ready to perform in front of the class. it demanded the smart students to take handle in reporting the result of their work. as a result, the teacher cannot evaluate students’ comprehension or ability related to the task given. it was the exact reason why the teacher only focused on the participation of the students. in other words, it can be academically stated that students’ participation is important, but students’ comprehension cannot be left behind since it is the main goal of teaching and learning processes. thus, evaluating or testing students’ comprehension is the most important stage in order to evaluate teaching and learning processes as a whole. by considering the fact based on observation that the teacher cannot fully control and monitor students’ work on their groups, it is reasonably argued to say that the teachers cannot optimally observe students’ participation on their group. the seating arrangement that disturbs the teacher to monitor all the students and the total numbers of groups in the class decline the capacity of the teacher to observe and notice every student’s progress and participation. shortly, the teacher needs to allocate the time for assessing students’ comprehension related to learning materials that they discussed on their groups. it is supported by bloom and gardner (2002) in which they explain that allocating time for group assessment or test allows and motivates students to practice working in groups. they are indirectly pushed to work seriously and try to teachers’ management planning and implementing 83 understand the materials as they know that there would be such kind of small test related to the topic discussed. accordingly, all stages in implementing group work as previously explained require the teacher to help students to be more active by means of giving advices, motivating, facilitating, and controlling group dynamics. in other words, a teacher takes a role as an advisor and a motivator who can give advice and counsel to the students (nunan, 2003). however, teacher’s task does not completely work if only helping the students when they ask. when some students are too afraid for asking questions, the teachers are demanded to be more active to observe and help students who get difficulties. in addition, monitoring students by means of walking around the class is not only to monitor students’ progress but also to motivate the students, give correction, and help them as well. as the teacher is responsible to control the achievement of the goals, the teacher should correct the points that made by the students (bloom and gardner, 2002). it is supported by bloom and gardner (2002) in which they state that listen to general group discussion is important as the teacher can gain a picture of which groups are operating successfully and which one is struggling. conclusion and suggestions teachers have a great role in assuring the success of group work activity. conducting group work needs a high consideration related to plan and implement the group work. the teachers have to decide every single step by looking at the goals of conducting group work and the goals of teaching and learning processes. whenever the teachers have planned the group work well, they still have to control the students during the implementation of group work. shortly, it can be stated that good planning can lead to a good implementation, but it is not a warranty that good planning will always have good implementation. although planning is an important stage in group work, controlling and monitoring students and any relevant improvisation during the process of implementation of group work have to be done by the teachers. additionally, it can be stated that in terms of learner-centered instruction, the teachers still have great contributions and roles in planning and implementing the group work. in other words, the students cannot work alone without any guidelines and rules. based on the discussion presented above, the teachers are suggested to apply all principles of conducting group work activity. as the teachers have great contribution of the successful of group work activity, it is expected that the teacher can stimulate students to be more active so that the goals and aims of teaching and learning process can be achieved. however, the teachers should also evaluate the process of group work in order to evaluate whether the activity has worked well to achieve the goal of teaching and learning processes. © absharini kardena absharini kardena was born in solok, west sumatera, indonesia, 19 march 1988. she studied english education for her bachelor degree at universitas negeri padang in 2006-2011 and then continued her study for master program of english education program at universitas negeri padang in 2011-2013. she taught at the english education department of bung 84 teachers’ management planning and implementing hattauniversity from 2013 to 2016, before she became an english lecturer at english education study program of institut agama islam negeri (iain) bukittinggi up to the present. references alexander, m. 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(1993). materials and method in elt. massachusetts: blackwell publisher. nation. (1989). group work.retrieved on 28 december 2009 from www.victoria.pdf.com. nunan, d. (2003). practical english language teaching. boston: mcgrawhill. . . (1998). language teaching methodology. longman: edinburgh. nurtita. (2007). ‘improving students’ motivation and speaking skill through small group’. (unpublished thesis). padang: universitas negeri padang. patton, q. (1990). qualitative evaluation and research methods. 2nd ed. london: sage publication ltd. smith, m.k. (2008). what is group work. retrieved on 3 february 2010 from www.infed.org/groupwork/. yunfeng, z. (2005). task type and teacher’s role: two important factors in effective group learning. retrieved on 3 february 2010 from www.ct-net.net/tc-sample6-3. http://www.adprima.com/managing.htm http://www.victoria.pdf.com/ http://www.infed.org/groupwork/ http://www.ct-net.net/tc-sample6-3 166 language preference on wechat moments indonesians, not using indonesian: indonesian students’ at the university of nottingham’s preference to use english and/or chinese on wechat moments nadia nathania nadia_nathania@outlook.com university of nottingham ningbo, china abstract wechat is one of the world’s leading mobile application that has over one billion users inside and outside of china. wechat is actively used by a group of approximately one hundred indonesian students studying in the university of nottingham ningbo, china due to its convenience as a communication platform while studying in china. this study focuses on how language users accommodate each other, while showing identities and language attitudes through their choice of language in their digital practices on wechat. the investigation has shown how indonesian students in unnc likely prefer to post on wechat moments using english and/or chinese instead of indonesia. it has pointed out how the participants have created a pattern of language preferences used on wechat moments to accommodate their contacts by converging with them and also diverging from them creating a unique identity as indonesian students in unnc. their language preferences result from their attitudes of the english, chinese and indonesian language individually affected by social and political factors in their community. keywords: communication accommodation theory, indonesian students, language attitudes, language and identity, english language, chinese mandarin. introduction wechat is a text and voice messaging application developed by tencent in china, first launched in january 2011 (techrice 2011). wechat has a platform called moments where users can post images, music, texts and videos publicly to their wechat contacts. wechat is one of the world’s leading mobile independent applications, having over one billion created accounts with 600 million monthly active users; 70 million located outside of china (techinasia 2014, tencent 2015). in light of wechat, there are currently more than one hundred indonesian students studying in the university of nottingham ningbo, china (unnc) who actively use wechat for communication. they use wechat since it is the most convenient platform to communicate with others while studying in china. this essay will focus on how language users communicate and accommodate each other, as well as showing identities and language attitudes through their choice of language in their digital practices on wechat, specifically in the case of indonesian students in unnc. the following literature review will provide research from previous studies to provide a background of the theories that will be used as the main frameworks of this study, which are the communication accommodation theory, language attitudes, and linguistic capitalism as the key elements of the language preference on wechat moments 167 beyond words vol. 5 no. 1 research. the methodology section will discuss the research design and methods used in the study. the findings and discussions section will analyze how the participants accommodate their wechat contacts, present language attitudes towards their choice of language and construct their identity as unnc students through their posts on wechat moments. finally, a summary of the findings together with further research suggestions as well as the limitations of the investigation will be provided in the conclusion. literature review language and identity according to sapir (1921) in edwards (2009), ‘language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.’ language is a system, implying regularity and rules of order, used for communicative purposed by a group of people who constitute the speech or language community. within certain cultures, and styles of communications, language is used as an emblem of groupness, a symbol, moreover, a psychosocial rallying-point (edwards, 2009). to add, languages are generally considered to be separate and mutually unintelligible (edwards, 2009). each language has a certain sentiment about it (edwards, 1995), e.g. french is synonymous with clarity, and english, greek, latin and italian were mediums of ambiguity (wardhaugh, 1987). the following section is going to talk about how language users accommodate each other by giving a brief explanation on the communication accommodation theory. communication accommodation theory communication accommodation theory (cat) developed by giles (1971) argues when people interact with each other, they make conscious and/or subconscious choices of which communication system to use and how it is used to accommodate each other. this theory explores the various reasons behind the emphasis or minimization of social differences made by individuals through verbal and/or nonverbal communication between them and their interlocutors. it focuses on social factors that lead interlocutors to accommodate each other. it also helps connect the relationship that exists between language, context and identity (gallois, ogay and giles, 2005). according to giles (1971), there are two main communication tendencies made by individuals to accommodate each other, which are convergence and divergence. convergence refers to the strategies used by individuals to adjust to the communication behaviors of others by reducing the social differences between them (giles, coupland and coupland, 1991). individuals shift their speech patterns during interaction to resemble the speech patterns of their audience. convergence could be achieved through communication features such as ‘pronunciation, pause and utterance lengths, vocal intensities, nonverbal behaviors, and intimacy of selfdisclosures’ (giles and smith, 1979). however, individuals do not necessarily have to utilize all of those characteristics in a simultaneous manner in order to converge. there are several reasons why individuals converge with others, which are based on factors of attraction, charisma, credibility as well as motive. convergence is used during interaction for the purpose of maintaining a positive self-identity and receiving social approval (giles, coupland and coupland, 168 language preference on wechat moments 1991). it also improves the effectiveness of communication in which usually results in the participants’ confidence and willingness to respond (turner and west, 2010). divergence, on the contrary, refers to a linguistic strategy used by individuals to accentuate the differences in verbal and/or non-verbal between themselves and their audience (giles, coupland and coupland, 1991). divergence helps reflect the need to highlight a distinct identity in a positive manner. it is achieved by presenting certain characteristics of a social group, which can be regarded as an approach of showing an appreciated uniqueness from others (giles and ogay, 2007). it also helps sustain a positive image, strengthen social identity, and maintain cultural identity of an individual to contrast a self-image, as well as to indicate power or status differences (turner and west, 2010). language attitudes and linguistic capitalism languages attitudes are the feelings people have about their own language or the languages of others (crystal, 1992). attitudes of language vary according to attitudes towards certain groups of people (preston, 2010), as well as the contexts and functions in which certain languages are associated with (holmes, 2013). language attitudes are strongly influenced by social and political factors (holmes, 2013). language attitudes reflect a particular linguistic capitalism. bourdieu (1977) introduced linguistic capitalism as the respect or authority enjoyed by a speaker. those who speak with high linguistic capital are able to give the power to influence a listener towards the desired meaning. bourdieu (1990) defines linguistic capital as the mastery of and relation to language. it is a form of embodiment of cultural capital that it represents, which acts as a means of communication and self-presentation acquired from the surrounding culture of an individual. bourdieu (1992) also states linguistic capital as the capacity to produce expressions for a particular market, given that ‘all speech is produced for and through the market to which it owes its existence and its most specific properties.’ a speaker who possesses more linguistic capital is able to exert more symbolic power through his/her linguistic production (thompson 1992). generally speaking, both attitudes of language and linguistic capitalism have the ability to affect speech accommodation. method data collection this research used both primary and secondary research. primary research was conducted via data collected and the drawing some generalizations from it (dornyei, 2007). apart from primary research, this research also carried out secondary research, which involved at looking at what influential researchers had said about particular theories, which had been mentioned in the introduction and literature review. the secondary data used in this research is to be utilized to strengthen the information and data in association with this research. this research will also conduct a validation test from all interviews, which is done by using triangulation and coding process with deductive approach. result from the research suggests that research from past studies are applicable within this case study in unnc. participants in this research, the data were collected from a criterion sample that consisted of ten participants who were selected due to the fact that they met some specific predetermined criteria (dornyei, 2007). the language preference on wechat moments 169 beyond words vol. 5 no. 1 participants were indonesian students in unnc who had posted at least ten posts on wechat moments. all of them were multilinguals, meaning that they are able to communicate in english, chinese and/or indonesian, and received education of which english is used as the medium of instruction. to increase the validity of the research, the participants had been chosen based on different genders and majors. there were five male and five female participants. their university courses vary from business, engineering, and politics. the data collected for the research were the ten most recent postings on wechat moments showing the participants’ language choice and how it affects their strategy of accommodating others as well as representing their online identity. a content analysis of these postings had been conducted, as well as informal interviews with the participants, which had been recorded and transcribed to cross-examine why they likely prefer to use chinese and/or english instead of bahasa indonesia on wechat moments, and their attitudes towards each of these languages. ethical approval ensuring the respondents’ identity and privacy to have given information to be used for the dissertation is vital in conducting a research. this way, respondents are ensured that their personal data will not be viewed by any third party that may affect them in a positive or negative way. ethics and confidentiality of data received are integral processes in a research (cooper & schindler, 2014). the researcher must be careful to keep confidentiality of the data such that the students will not be harmed by any third party. therefore, the beginning of the questionnaire was the objectives of the study and a consent whether or not the participants were willing to participate in the research, which was voluntary. all in all, the researcher must protect the confidentiality of the responses in order to conduct an ethical research. data analysis the following table is about the languages used by the participants to post on wechat moments. from one hundred wechat moments posts collected from the participants, it is found that most of the posts were written in either english (67%) or written by using different linguistic varieties in the same post (myers-scotton and ury, 1977) such as intra-sentential code-switching, which in this case is english and chinese (18%). table 1 language number of occurrences percentage english 67 67% chinese 6 6% indonesian 2 2% english and chinese 18 18% english and indonesian 7 7% chinese and indonesian 0 0% during the interview, the participants were asked whether most of their wechat contacts are chinese, english and/or indonesian speakers. according to the participants’ answers, most of their contacts on wechat consisted of local chinese students, indonesian students as well as a mixture of different nationalities all of 170 language preference on wechat moments which are studying in unnc. considering that english is the medium of instruction used to teach in the university, it can be concluded that all of the participants’ contacts on wechat are able to communicate in the english language. therefore, most of the participants’ friends on wechat are english speakers. factors of language preference in relation to cat, indonesian students in unnc likely prefer to use english and/or chinese instead of indonesian to accommodate their contacts on wechat, achieved through convergence and/or divergence. each of the data has been analyzed to acknowledge the reasons behind the participants’ choice of language to converge and/or diverge with their audience on wechat moments. minimize social differences (1) i guess it’s only fair if i use chinese and/or english so that all of my contacts can understand. (appendix 1, interview with participant 1) (2) if i use indonesian then only my indonesian contacts understand me but i also want my chinese classmates to understand me, you know. (appendix 1, interview with participant 2) (3) i will just use english because majority of people in my contact can understand english. (appendix 1, interview with participant 3) (4) i want people who do not speak indonesian to be able to understand my posts as well. that’s why i use english in my posts and sometimes i mix them with chinese as well. (appendix 1, interview with participant 4) (5) i use english because it’s a universal language. chinese people can understand it, indonesians can also understand it. (appendix 1, interview with participant 5) (6) my indonesian friends can understand english quite well, same goes to my chinese friends. by using english on my wechat moments, it won’t feel like i abandon any of them. (appendix 1, interview with participant 6) (7) everyone in my contacts can read english so they know what i mean and can understand my posts. (appendix 1, interview with participant 7) (8) even though i also have a lot of indonesian friends on wechat, using english when posting a moment on wechat makes my international and chinese friends understand it. (appendix 1, interview with participant 8) eight participants stated they use english and/or chinese to converge and make their posts understandable to their wechat contacts since most of them are a mixture of different nationalities of fellow friends who are also studying in unnc. by using those languages, they are able to converge with their wechat contacts and accommodate them with the information they have provided in their posts. one example can be seen in the case of one of the participants joining a homestay program with a local chinese student, language preference on wechat moments 171 beyond words vol. 5 no. 1 (thank you for all chinese students having been such a great companions when i did my homestay program in linhai （linhai）and hangzhou （hangzhou）. it was an unforgettable experience and you guys were very kind and friendly. i hope we can do all these things over again somebody and lastly, good luck for your future studies! [emoticon] [emoticon] [emoticon]) (this is linhai old town (linhai old town), this picture was taken when i was in linhai to do the homestay program with a chinese student. it was such a precious experience! [emoticon]) 172 language preference on wechat moments as can be seen in the above data, the participant uses english to minimize the possible cultural and social background differences between him and the addressee, a local chinese student. by writing a post in a language that both the addressor and addressee are able to communicate in, the addressor is able to express his gratitude towards the addressee while bridging a gap between the differences that may occur between them. also, the participant is able to ratify this matter to auditors who may not have been directly involved in his homestay activity and inform as well as encourage them to join the activity by giving the knowledge through a comprehensible language in his post (bell, 1984). attraction (1) to attract others to read my posts. (appendix 1, interview with participant 2). during the interview, one of the participants stated that her choice of language used to write a wechat moment determines how successful her convergence with her audience by the attraction that she receives from its audience. choosing to write using in english and/or chinese helps the participant to reach a wider audience and get more attention from the readers. for example, language preference on wechat moments 173 beyond words vol. 5 no. 1 (really miss indonesian food [emoticon] hope there is indonesian restaurant in ningbo [emoticon] (indonesian food-indonesian food limited stock! grab it fast! order now. delivery on wednesday) 174 language preference on wechat moments the data above show that the participant chooses to write in english and/or chinese to promote the indonesian culture and to attract the audience to come to indonesian events, as well as to approach a wider audience to sell them indonesian food. the participant’s approach is in line with byrne’s (1971) theory of how individuals try to in-group herself by making themselves similar with a particular social group to gain attraction from them. writing a post using similar speech characteristics will not only accommodate the interlocutors, but also gives the participant an opportunity to converge with the audience (holtgraves, 2002). credibility (1) when i use bahasa indonesia to post some articles, only my indonesian friends could understand the language. this could also make some negative interpretation that the post only goes toward fellow indonesians. so the best way to communicate and to bridge the gap is by using english (appendix 1, interview with participant 6). the participants use english and/or chinese on wechat to converge with their contacts. by converging with their friends on wechat, the participants are enabled to have the opportunity to give a sense of quality of being trusted and believed in due to their ability of accommodating others and making them understand the information they intend to provide on wechat moments. an example can be taken from the data, one of the participants shares a link of a survey that he/she posts in regard of his research, ‘2 minutes survey for your future’ (appendix 2, participant 4) and also an announcement about a lottery for expats living in china, ‘a big announcement for expats – win lots of prizes’ (appendix 2, participant 4). by using english in his posts, the participant is able to give credible information towards his contacts on wechat. motive 1. i want to reach a wider audience (appendix 1, interview with participant 10). language preference on wechat moments 175 beyond words vol. 5 no. 1 2. to practice my chinese and hopefully improve it. (appendix 1, interview with participant 7). certain languages are used in certain communities not only with the aim to accommodate others by converging with them, but also to achieve certain implied motives. by using english, the participants are able to reach a wider audience and thus receive more responds from their contacts on wechat. in this research, several participants attempt to promote the indonesian culture to their wechat friends by posting in english and/or chinese, such as, (indonesia [emoticon] indonesia) the data ‘indonesia 印 度 尼 西 亚 ’ (appendix 2, participant 7) shows how the participant reiterates her speech by using two different languages in one post to emphasize and clarify her message towards her audience (gumperz, 1982). apart from wanting to reach more audience, the participants also mention in the interview that they are also able to practice their ability to communicate in english and/or chinese, considering the fact that both languages are still considered to be foreign languages by indonesians. the indonesian education ministry established a language policy that foreign languages, such as english and chinese should be formally taught in the indonesian education system to anticipate the fast-moving globalization and also to establish relationships with other nations whose languages hold more linguistic capitalism compared to bahasa indonesia, such as the united states of america and china (nur, 2004; bourdieu, 1977). therefore, learning and practicing foreign languages such as chinese and/or english is beneficial for indonesians to cope up with globalization (zacharias, 2003) as well as the global environment in unnc. maintaining positive self-identity and receiving social approval (1) when i use bahasa indonesia to post some articles, only my indonesian friends could understand the language. this could also make some negative interpretation that the post only 176 language preference on wechat moments goes toward fellow indonesians. so the best way to communicate and to bridge the gap is by using english (appendix 1, interview with participant 6). (2) because if i use indonesian it would sound so weird and cheesy. but not with the two other languages. (appendix 1, interview with participant 9). languages used in the participants’ wechat moments are utilized to maintain their positive self-identity and to receive social approval from their fellow wechat friends as a part of their strategy to converge with their audience. firstly, through the use of english and/or chinese, they attempt to maintain their identity as unncers,‘i’m a unncer so i’ll just use chinese and/or english. i don’t feel that i need to use indonesian when i can use other languages’ (appendix 1, interview with participant 2). secondly, the participants’ choice of language reflect their desire to be accepted within the indonesian community in unnc, ‘‘[a] lot of indonesians in unnc also post in chinese and/or english so i just follow the trend’ (appendix 1, interview with participant 2). the participants’ maintenance of their identity and desire to be socially accepted can be supposed as an intersubjective achievement of their identity as indonesians, as well as unncers (bucholtz and hall, 2005). through the use of english and/or chinese on their wechat moments, the participants produce their identities as indonesian students and/or unncers. it is achieved through indexing broader cultural categories and local groups, emerging their identity through the choice of language in the discourse of wechat moments posts, positioning their identity as unncers through the way they interact on wechat, as well as producing identity as unncers to relate to their friends on wechat most of whom are also unnc students (bucholtz and hall, 2005). to add, by using other languages of which are not indonesian, these indonesian students will be accepted within their own group of indonesian students in unnc due to the possibility that other indonesians do not consider their posts as ‘cheesy’ or exaggerated and likely to be insincere, and ‘weird’ due to the fact that many indonesians often use english and/or other languages as medium of self-expression due to the consideration that those languages are regarded as more empathetic (apriana, 2006). effectiveness of communication (1) it depends on the context of the post. if it is something that isn’t related to anything in particular, i will just use english because of people in my contact can understand english. (appendix 1, interview with participant 3) (2) i think because i am studying in an international university, using english is the most effective way to expression my idea and moments. (appendix 1, interview with participant 4) (3) most of the time i use chinese to interact with my chinese friends. since they respond better when i use chinese. (appendix 1, interview with participant 10) the choice of language made by the participants in their wechat posts affects the effectiveness of their communication when they converge with their interlocutors. by converging with the audience with choosing a language that is comprehensible language preference on wechat moments 177 beyond words vol. 5 no. 1 by both the addressor and addressee, the participants are able to reduce interpersonal differences that may occur between them, such as cultural background differences (giles, coupland and coupland, 1991). the participants also stated in the interview that they use a language is related to the context of their posts to effectively accommodate and get better response from the audience (appendix 2). the effectiveness of communication can also be related with the fact that wechat the most popular mobile communication application in china, relating to a study by yum (1988) arguing that east asian communication concentrates more on the receiver rather than the sender. therefore, the language chosen by the participants to write on wechat will be able to break barriers between them and the audience, considering that most of their wechat contacts are local chinese students (appendix 1). converging with the audience through the language not only creates an effectiveness of communication, but also proves that the participants are aware of the social sensitivity, which helps provide positive relationships between the participants and their interlocutors (giles, coupland and coupland, 1991). emphasize distinct identity in a positive manner the participants attempt to diverge from their wechat contacts by emphasizing their distinct identity as indonesian students in unnc in a positive manner. the participants diverge by accentuating the differences in speech and language used between themselves and others. such example could be seen in one of the participants attempt to promote his identity as an indonesian who is studying abroad in unnc, (permit ningbo (the name of indonesian students’ organization in ningbo) congratulates the national heroes day 2015/happy national heroes day 2015. follow our instagram: @permitningbo and like our facebook page: permit ningbo to get the latest updates.) 178 language preference on wechat moments (permit ningbo delegates in indonesian students association leadership camp in china east region! #leadershipcamp #indostudentsassociate#inpeople’srepublicof china#eastregion) the examples above show that the participant’s post on wechat moments places a strong value on his national group membership and the language of his nation in a positive manner. attitudes of languages of the participants towards english, chinese and indonesian (1) i think the english language is cool. and it’s internationally known. even if i am in indo, all of my friends who use social media sites or apps like facebook, twitter, path, instagram – whatever they are – they’ll prefer to use english because it’s cool. (appendix 1, interview with participant 1) (2) i think english is very important considering that it is a global language. (appendix 1, interview with participant 2) (3) english is important because it’s globally known. (appendix 1, interview with participant 3) (4) for me, english is important because it’s an international language. (appendix 1, interview with participant 4) (5) the best way to communicate and to bridge the gap is by using english. (appendix 1, interview with participant 6) (6) english is a global language and i think almost everyone in this world knows english. (appendix 1, interview with participant 7) (7) i think because i am studying in an international university, using english is the most effective way to express my idea and moments. (appendix 1, interview with participant 8) (8) english is important and it’s useful since it is used to teach students here in the university. (appendix 1, interview with participant 9) (9) i like english because it’s the most spoken language, probably in the world. (appendix 1, interview with participant 10). during the interview, nine of ten participants gave positive responses when questioned whether or not they had a certain attitudes towards the english language. they described english as ‘cool’, ‘effective’, ‘expressive’, ‘global’, ‘important’, ‘international’, and ‘prestigious’. they also stated that using english enables them to connect with most of their wechat contacts considering that most of them attend unnc and are able to communicate in english. from the interview, it can be concluded that english possesses a higher prestige within the language preference on wechat moments 179 beyond words vol. 5 no. 1 indonesian community. firstly, english is the most important foreign language in indonesia (hasan, 1998) due to the advantages that it possesses as a language that can be used as vehicle of international communication (paauw, 2009). secondly, english is only used in certain domains in indonesia, such as international schools that use english as the medium of instruction (emi) or non-international school that uses english only to teach mathematics and science subjects (hashim, 2009). emi aims to give students content subjects and linguistic competitiveness due to the fact that english has a higher linguistic capitalism compared to bahasa indonesia. (1) i think chinese is important especially i go to university in china so i guess using chinese on wechat says “hey, at least i got something out of living in china – speaking mandarin.” it also makes me look cool if i can write chinese on wechat. i mean chinese looks difficult with all of those hanzi writings. (appendix 1, interview with participant 1) (2) and i think chinese is also important but not as important as english so i’ll practice it every once in a while so that i don’t forget the language. plus, i think people will consider me to be smart if i can speak and write in chinese. (appendix 1, interview with participant 2) (3) chinese has been a key language in the world as well. (appendix 1, interview with participant 3) (4) i learn chinese to use it to do business with the chinese, let’s just put it that way. (appendix 1, interview with participant 4) (5) i feel like my chinese friends would appreciate it more if i use chinese when posting some articles and/or photos. (appendix 1, interview with participant 6) (6) chinese is a rather difficult language. it has many characters and different tones. if one can master chinese, it’s amazing. (appendix 1, interview with participant 7) (7) if i could master chinese, i guess it would be cool to post moments in chinese. (appendix 1, interview with participant 8) (8) i don’t really like chinese because it’s hard to learn but still – it might be useful in the future. (appendix 1, interview with participant 9) (9) i really enjoy learning chinese as i find it very very useful. (appendix 1, interview with participant 10). in a similar fashion, the participants also presented positive responses towards the chinese language as shown above. they regard chinese as ‘difficult’ due to the many different characters and tones that it has, however writing a wechat moments post in chinese will let others to think of them as ‘cool’ and having more ‘prestige’ than others due to their ability to communicate in chinese. also, writing chinese on wechat will let them be appreciated by their contacts supposing that most of their wechat friends are local chinese students in unnc due to their willingness to immerse themselves within the chinese community in unnc. in addition, several participants mentioned in the interview that chinese is an important language and it is necessary for them to learn how to communicate in it considering that it is a useful tool for doing business in relation to china’s growing economy. their attitudes towards the chinese language are developed and affected by china’s rapid economic growth in recent years. with prospects that are available in china, indonesia hopes to ‘speed up its economic integration and connectivity to grasp market opportunities in china’ (the jakarta post 2014). to due china’s growing economy, chinese has more linguistic capitalism compared to indonesian, which has led the 180 language preference on wechat moments number of indonesian students in china to increase from 1,000 students in 1998 to 9,535 in 2012 pursuing higher education in china (antara news 2012). with higher linguistic capital positions both english and chinese hold in the indonesian community, this has led indonesians to have less positive responses towards their mother tongue. for example, (1) i think that indonesian is better used when you’re speaking to one another but when you want to write something down and post it online – indonesian will definitely sound so weird and informal. (appendix 1, interview with participant 1) (2) i think indonesian – hmm even when i am in indonesia i’ll also post in english – so i guess the indonesian language can be considered as neglected. (appendix 1, interview with participant 2) (3) bahasa indonesia is not that important because you can only use it in indonesia. (appendix 1, interview with participant 3) (4) i don’t think indonesian has the same level of prestige as english and chinese. i don’t think my mother tongue really matters in the world, just to people in my country or perhaps malaysia because our languages come from the same root. (appendix 1, interview with participant 7) (5) i like using indonesian only when i speak but not when i write because it sounds cheesy and weird. (appendix 1, interview with participant 9) several of the participants has stated in the interview that they consider the indonesian language to be informal, not as important or prestige as english and chinese and weird. one of the participants even stated that bahasa indonesia could be considered to be a neglected language considering it is useful only within the indonesian community. how language users communicate, change their identity and showing attitudes the study’s findings and discussions have shown that there are several factors showing how language users communicate with one another, whether it is to accommodate others by converging or diverging, as well as showing language attitudes and changing their identities (as explained in the literature review). language users can converge by minimizing social differences between them and those who are engaged with them. by minimizing these social differences between two parties, they are able to attract and receive more attention from another party. in addition, having both parties communicate in a certain style of communication, they are showing a particular identity, e.g. a certain cultural group, in the attempt of showing that they belong or fit in in the same social group. converging is also meant to give credibility for people who communicate with each other, showing positive attitudes towards one another, and identifying themselves thus they can fit in together by maintain positive self-identity and receive social approval from others. all in all, when language users accommodate each other, they have certain motives behind the accommodation, which is either to converge or diverge from one another, with the intention to create effective communication. conclusion overall, this research has shown why indonesian students in unnc likely prefer to post on wechat moments using english and/or chinese instead of indonesian. it has pointed out how the participants have created a pattern of language preferences language preference on wechat moments 181 beyond words vol. 5 no. 1 used on wechat moments to accommodate their contacts by converging with them and also diverging from them creating a unique identity as indonesian students in unnc. their language preferences result from their attitudes of the english, chinese and indonesian language individually affected by social and political factors in their community. this research has several weaknesses. first, the research covers only one particular sample out of all the university population, which are indonesian students in unnc. in addition, only 10% of the sample are chosen to be the participants of the research. this limits the research, as it is unable to give an overall generalization of the sample. second, other features of the posts have not been covered in this research, such as hashtags, emoticons, comments, and multimodality of the posts. in the future, it is possible to include other features of wechat moments mentioned previously and also more participants in the research to draw an overall generalization of the sample. © nadia nathania nadia nathania, b.a. 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(2003). a survey of tertiary teachers’ beliefs about english language teaching in indonesia with regard to the role of english as a global language. university of thailand. the researcher must be careful to keep confidentiality of the data such that the students will not be harmed by any third party. therefore, the beginning of the questionnaire was the objectives of the study and a consent whether or not the participant... 110 pedagogical competencies and actor network theory pedagogical competencies in the prescribed and enacted curriculum for graduate students francisca k. tondoprasetyo fran4jc@hotmail.com ivy highschool surabaya, indonesia article history received: 16-06-2020 reviewed: 17-06-2020 revised: 20-06-2020 accepted: 31-05-2021 keywords: ant; pedagogical competencies; prescribed curriculum, enacted curriculum; human entitie; nonhuman entitie;, actor; actant doi https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i2.2525 abstract this case study is aimed to find out far the curriculum in a teacher education institute has integrated these pedagogical competencies in both their prescribed and enacted curriculum using the actor network theory (ant). ant is applied in this research to see the network formed in both the prescribed and enacted curriculum so as to find out how students master the pedagogical competencies in the coursenet of three investigated courses, namely principles of english language teaching, teaching reading and writing, and teaching listening and speaking. therefore, this research analyzes how the human and nonhuman entities influence each other in both prescribed and enacted curriculum in two perspectives: 1) to what extent are the pedagogical competencies intended for graduate students in tefl program? 2) to what extent are the pedagogical competencies delivered to the graduate students in tefl program? the result of the study shows that most pedagogical competencies are delivered in the three investigated courses. lecturers and students are human entities in the network formed in the courses while the nonhuman entities involved within the network are noises, light, class settings, and class location. lecturers then become key actors that impact upon the actants–students– to act upon the translation process to master the pedagogical competencies. as for the non-human entities, they influence the learning atmosphere in which graduate students in tefl are situated as they learn to master the pedagogical competencies. the coursenet formed within the three investigated courses have shown that evaluation and improvement need to be done by the education institution to enhance the quality of teachers’ education curriculum introduction students of the 21st century are expected to acquire and master skills, such as creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration in order to be able to survive in a more complex life and working environment of the century. teachers of the 21st century then are demanded to be able to help students develop and improve their skills and content master in order to succeed. this leads to the teacher’s competencies, which education institution for teachers must provide and develop in order to shape competent teachers to teach the future generations. these competencies include pedagogical competencies, which are the teachers’ ability in doing things that they know and do when teaching students, such as creating the environment suitable for learning, modifying approaches in teaching, and improving students’ skills in learning (cannon &newble, 2000, p. 8-12). the case study chooses the graduate student of tefl as the case and participants of the study. these students are exposed to some courses that include and teach pedagogical competencies, such as principles of english language teaching, teaching reading and writing, teaching listening and speaking, and some other related courses (buku pedoman akademik, 2013, p. 3). as these competencies are acquired by graduate tefl students, they are meant to help these graduate students to be better teachers or school administrators. in addition, the expected outcomes are to be teachers who are skillful in teaching at all education levels, leaders of educational organizations, educational entrepreneurs, and educational consultants. this way they will be able to contribute to the transformation of their students, peers, society and meet the needs of the 21st century skills. this study thus identifies the human and nonhuman entities to see how these entities influence the graduate students in tefl in the prescribed and enacted curriculum delivered to them. the research questions are as follows: mailto:%3cfran4jc@hotmail.com https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i2.2525 pedagogical competencies and actor network theory 111 1. to what extent are the pedagogical competencies intended for the graduate students in tefl program? a. which pedagogical competencies in the prescribed curriculum match the required pedagogical competencies delivered to tefl graduate students? b. how does the prescribed curriculum enable students to master the pedagogical competencies? 2. to what extent are the pedagogical competencies delivered to the graduate students i pedagogical competencies in the prescribed and enacted curriculum for graduate students in tefl program? a. which pedagogical competencies in the enacted curriculum match the required pedagogical competencies delivered to tefl graduate students? b. how does the enacted curriculum enable students to master the pedagogical competencies? review of related literature the review of related literature covers four parts that are discussed in this study. theoretical frameworks are in the first part, which discussed in this research. the second part includes the previous related studies correlated to the pedagogical competencies and actor-network theory. theoretical framework the study was based on the three types of professional knowledge that a teacher has to master by l.s. shulman (1986, p.9). they are subject matter knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and the pedagogical content knowledge. teachers integrate both of their subject matter knowledge and pedagogical knowledge in the pedagogical content knowledge. pedagogical content knowledge, therefore, helps teacher to create ways that serve as resolution for practical issues in learning, language learning in this case (richards, 2011, p. 6). in other words, subject matter knowledge emphasizes more on the level of mastery that a teacher must have and reach in order to understand a concept within a subject which will be taught to students. the pedagogical competencies refer more to the teaching strategies that a teacher uses in the process of transferring the knowledge to the students in class and helps teachers determine which subject to be taught and how to teach it to the students. thus, it serves as a bridge between the subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. pedagogical content knowledge emphasizes more on the way a teacher teaches a subject to the students than merely on transmitting the subject matter. thus, pedagogical content knowledge helps teachers mostly on how to make difficult subject easy to comprehend shulman’s theory on pedagogical content knowledge is still relevant nowadays since his theory clearly mentioned how a teacher is required to understand whether a specific topic is easy or difficult, along with the conceptions or preconceptions that students have (shulman,1986). to see how the graduate students master the professional knowledge, this study used the actor network theory as a tool to see the connection between the entities interacted in the network as the in-service teachers learned and internalized the knowledge. the theory emphasizes the interconnections of human and non-human entities in which human intention and action are no longer the center of its performances. this theory’s objective is to understand how they form a “network” and how it is managed to keep the network together (fenwick & edwards, 2012, p. x). it focuses on how things work rather than explaining why they are operating the way they are (fenwick & edwards, 2012, p. xi). pedagogical competencies of english teachers. a teacher is considered effective when he or she masters the pedagogical competencies. according to apelgren and giertz, pedagogical competence covers skills, knowledge, and attitude of teachers in promoting students’ learning (ryegard, 2010, p. 30). murray (1996) stated that the main purpose of the mastery of this competence is merely to help students achieve the objectives of the course. teachers’ pedagogical competencies then include the ability to share the courses’ objectives to their students, alternate instructional methods and teaching strategies, and select methods of teaching. teachers then must be able to provide opportunities and accommodate students’ diversity. this competence requires that teachers adapt their teaching strategies or methods to meet students’ ability in order to assist students in mastering the skills taught. due to this matter, maintaining pedagogical competencies has become the obligations for teachers to keep. moreover, updating teachers’ skills to the latest teaching strategies has become an inevitable part in teaching since it will help students learn the relevant knowledge and skills as well as providing equal opportunities for different groups of students (p. 5). therefore, murray (1996) stated that a failure in mastering pedagogical competencies would be a failure to give adequate opportunities for students to learn and practice the skills included in the courses’ objectives which would result in a failure in the tests. various studies shows that these pedagogical competencies are categorized into some classifications (richards, 2011; suciu and mâţă, 2011, shresta, 2008; carriel.et.all, 2008). these categories then can be concluded 112 pedagogical competencies and actor network theory into three categories of pedagogical competencies a teacher has to acquire. they are teaching preparation competencies, classroom management competencies, and teaching presentation competencies. actor network theory (ant). quantitative and qualitative research in language education tend to focus on the influence and role of the human entities (teachers, students, etc). ant shows that the nonhuman entities have influenced and role in helping students achieving the competencies (fenwick & edwards, 2013). actor-network theory (ant) is a theory in the social sciences developed at the centre de sociologie of the ecolenationale superieure des mines de paris in the early 1980, which was initiated by bruno latour, john law, and michael callon. ant was considered as having contributed a series of analytic approaches and considerations that open the ways to understand the central assumptions about knowledge, subjectivity, the real and the social. this theory focuses on the sociomaterial and on how objects relate up to its minute relation among itself which drive an event to occur as it is. ant maps out the trace on how entities both human and non-human met, influenced each other as they were associating and exercising forces toward one another, and continued to exist or disappears over time (fenwick and edwards, 2012, p. ix). here, fenwick & edwards underlines that the key assumption to this theory is that no different treatment is given to human and nonhuman entities. in other words, it puts both entities at the same level in which they can influence each other. bruno latour, one of ant’s initiator, called this assumption as ‘symmetry’. he assumes that all things have the capability of giving out forces and being changed or changing each other as they join together. therefore, supporting latour’s assumption, ant has the capability to expand networks that come across broad spaces, long distances, or time periods. although some networks may be broken down, disappeared, or abandoned, ant can still help researchers to describe how both entities are included or extracted from these networks, how some linkages work while others may not, how connections are established and maintained so as to reach its stability and durability as it links to other networks or entities (fenwick & edwards, 2012, p. x). another key point of this theory is that ant’s focus on what objects do rather than on the meaning of texts and other objects. it then observes on how objects enact, then try to explain why things work the way they are. therefore, as these objects interact, they connect and create links that result into an identifiable entity. this identifiable entity is the one that is referred to as ‘actor’ that has the ability to give out force (fenwick and edwards, 2012, p. xi). in addition, an ‘actor’ is the working entity and ‘actant’ is the workedupon entity. according to latour, when actants' behavior matches to what seems to be particular intentions, morals, and even consciousness and subjectivity, it has been a successful translation. this translation changes the actants’ role into a particular role that performs knowledge in a particular way. it then changes its role as an actant and become an actor (fenwick & edwards, 2012, p. xii). some researchers believe that ant may offer insights that will help explain the processes and objects of education in the educational research. fenwick and edwards (2012) describe ant as a virtual “cloud” that is dynamic in its own way as it keeps on changing due to the network that continues to expand. it is, therefore, the reason why ant is more sensible as it provides a way that draws researchers closer to a phenomenon. moreover, related to the multidimensional issues of education, ant’s language may lead to open new questions as its approaches help researchers to sense phenomena in the educational field which is often filled with ambivalences, messes, multiplicities, and contradictions (fenwick & edwards, 2012, p. ix). therefore, as shown by the previous educational research in which ant is applied, it is obvious that ant is applicable for this research due to its unique power to analyze the network that may define the success or failure of the prescribed and enacted curriculum delivered to the graduate students of tefl. this theory helps tracing out the actors and actants, which are involved in the network and how they finally intertwine and weave a sustainable and stable network that support the continuum of the curriculum. research method research design this research is a case study research. it observes what pedagogical competencies are acquired by students in both the prescribed and enacted curriculum. heigham and croker (2009, p. 69) summed up a case study as the “bounded system”, which is made up of individual, institution, or entity and the site and context in which the social action happens. this way, case study creates the in-depth analysis on the event or events (mcmillan, 2008, p. 288). by focusing on a particular competency or competencies, case study can help obtain a detailed description and pedagogical competencies and actor network theory 113 understanding of the case. by obtaining the detailed description, this approach then helps to describe how the elements in the “bounded system” create a network in the process of acquiring pedagogical competencies among the graduate students of tefl. the design of the research is as follows: the researcher, as the key instrument of this research, determined the pedagogical competencies that the graduate students of tefl had to acquire in the three courses, namely the principles of elt, teaching reading and writing, and teaching listening and speaking. the list of the competencies was collected from various sources. the list then matched to the prescribed curriculum documents, which were found in the courses syllabi and covered the courses’ descriptions, objectives, activities, textbooks and other references, and evaluation systems. these were going to be used to answer the first research question. the reading lists, students’ assignments, and other requirements needed for graduate students in tefl to accomplish in a semester were included in the syllabi. another verbal data that were derived from these syllabi are the purpose and objective of the course. based on the actor-network theory used in this research, the list of human and nonhuman actors is included. nonhuman actors that do not have enough impact on the students were eliminated. the second research questions were answered by using the data, which described students’ response on what and how the pedagogical competencies are delivered to them during their study at the graduate school. the verbal data were derived from the class observation and interview. the word spoken by both students and teachers during class and answers to the interview questions were served as the verbal data. these data then compiled based on coding. as emphasized by heigham and crocker, the function of coding is keeping the information in track since it helps researchers to form the basis of their inferences on the data collection process, categories, themes, a pattern. this basis then supported the claim made in the conclusion. in other words, coding helps researchers in presenting the evidence which support their inferences to the reader (2009, p. 78-79). the researcher then analyzed the competencies written or implied in the syllabus as the prescribed curriculum and observe the class in which these competencies are taught to the graduate students in tefl implicitly and explicitly. next, interviewing students and asking them to fill in the questionnaires, which described how they acquired the pedagogical competencies implicitly and explicitly was the next step used to answer the second research question. in the end, drawing conclusion and describing the network established to answer the research questions were done in order to find about factors that strengthened the network for graduate students of tefl as they acquired the pedagogical competencies. findings and discussion finding of the study the findings and discussion were the result of the study and based upon the research questions. findings of the study were taken from the document analysis and matched with the results of interview and questionnaires, which were done by the graduate students in tefl. the data credibility was confirmed through triangulation. the triangulation uses a variety of data collection method. the ant analysis were used to identify both human and nonhuman actors. these actors were then mapped out in the data analysis after the triangulation to determine which actor(s) had the most influence upon the actants. this was used to find out how the pedagogical competencies in the prescribed curriculum were delivered to the graduate students of tefl through the enacted curriculum. 114 pedagogical competencies and actor network theory pedagogical competencies as prescribed in the curriculum. there are three types of curricula involved in this research. they are the recommended curriculum, the written curriculum, and the taught curriculum. the prescribed curriculum in this research then referred to the synthesis of the recommended and written curriculum. this meant that the prescribed curriculum was being involved as the policy recommendation as well as a curriculum of control with more specific and comprehensive content (2006, p. 7-9). in accordance to the alignment of curriculum, as explained by glatthorn that alignment in the written, the taught, and the tested curricula had to be closely related (p. 278), coding was applied. the coding was used to find the similar content between the learning outcome in the syllabus to the course books content, class activities, teaching schedules and assignments given to tefl graduate students. this was done in order to find out which pedagogical competencies were delivered to tefl graduate students. the result of the coding showed the pedagogical competencies in the prescribed curriculum intended for tefl graduate students and was summarized in figure 2. the courses were planned for tefl graduate students to master the pedagogical competencies in three main scopes. they are the teaching preparation competencies, classroom management competencies, and teaching presentation competencies. these pedagogical competencies were planned to have been delivered by the lecturers to tefl graduate students during class sessions. in principles of english language teaching (elt), teaching reading and writing and teaching listening and speaking, tefl graduate students learn mostly on preparing the lesson as well as managing the class. the learning goals in these courses are translated clearly in the books that are used for this class. the interaction between the teaching approaches, lecturers, and students’ response during the class presentation and discussion formed the coursenet, which is similar to edwards’ hospitality coursenet. the coursenet form in these tefl courses is similar to the coursenet shown in edward’s “translating the prescribed curriculum into enacted curriculum in college and school”. this coursenet was established from the lecturer’s knowledge and his experiences in the hospitality industry, prior to his experience as a chef before teaching. this background had interacted with his teaching approaches which he gained during his working period. the way this lecturer uses the teaching approach to model the workplace apprenticeship in the hospitality – cookery teaching process has formed the hospitality coursenet (2012, p. 32). the coursenet formed during this process, thus, is shown in figure 2 below. pedagogical competencies in the enacted curriculum prescribed curriculum in the enacted curriculum. the enacted curriculum is the taught curriculum, which refers to the curriculum that is delivered in action. it is the curriculum that is applied by the teachers and thus can be seen obviously in the learning process. (glatthorn, 2006, p. 14). as the teaching and learning processes were ongoing, the pedagogical competencies were delivered to the students through the enacted curriculum. the teaching schedules as well as students’ presentation schedules were used to confirm the time when these competencies were delivered to the tefl graduate students as shown in figure 2. the principles of english language teaching course delivered most of the pedagogical competencies to the students. the course’s objectives were aiming students to learn mostly on how to prepare the lesson and figure 2. the network of teacher preparation in the prescribed curriculum pedagogical competencies and actor network theory 115 manage the class. group presentation then was chosen to achieve these objectives. students were divided into groups to present the divided chapters from the book. as students were presenting these chapters, they also learned how to make an in-depth preparation for teaching. it was obvious then that the presentation in the class activities had helped tefl graduate students to master the pedagogical competencies. in its correlation to the pedagogical competencies, the content of the course book provides students with theories and strategies to teach listening and speaking. the book also gives samples that show how to create a syllabus for teaching listening as well as speaking. for example, this book has a subtopic in its second chapter that discusses planning a listening and speaking program for beginners. this part discusses some easy-tofollow guidance regarding to some techniques, such as listening and drawing or listening to pictures. these techniques are applicable in teaching listening for english learners at the beginners’ level, both children and adults. the book also provides the same guidance for teaching speaking. the theories and techniques then provide knowledge for tefl graduate students in planning for subject teaching, which is one of the teaching preparation competencies. in short, the course book has become the actant that helps tefl graduate students to master the competencies. to find out which pedagogical competencies were delivered to tefl graduate students in both prescribed and enacted curriculums and how these curriculums enable students to master these competencies, questionnaires were distributed. a forum group discussion (fgd) was also held to confirm the data, which were derived from the questionnaires. the fgd was conducted to serve also as the triangulation to these findings. the participants were tefl graduate students of batch 19 and 20 for the questionnaires. as for the fgd, the participants were mainly from batch 19. there were 13 participants out of 20 students who attended the fgd. these fgd participants were teachers who have been teaching for at least more than two years. they also teach english at various levels. two teachers teach kindergarten level, another two teach elementary level, four others teach junior high level, the next two teachers teach high school level, and the last two teachers teach adult learners of english. a discussion on the results of the questionnaire and fgd are based on the items asked in the questionnaire. the results of the questionnaires are displayed on the bar graphs. there were three graphs which described the result of the questionnaire. the first graph (figure 3) describes the result in the teaching preparation competencies, the second one for the classroom management competencies (figure 4), and the last graph depicts the result for the teaching presentation competencies (figure 5). these graphs show how these graduate students in tefl rated the availability of the pedagogical competencies delivered to them in both the prescribed and enacted curriculum and it was based on a fivepoint likert scale (1=not at all; 2=minimally; 3=some; 4=quite a bit; 5=intensively). figure 3. teaching preparation competencies delivered to graduate tefl students 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 elt r&w l&s 116 pedagogical competencies and actor network theory the next graph, figure 4, described the classroom management competencies delivered to graduate students of tefl in three courses, principles of english language teaching (elt), teaching reading and writing and teaching listening and speaking. the graphs shows that these pedagogical competencies were mostly delivered in the principles of english language teaching (elt) course. figure 5, then, shows the teaching preparation competencies learned by the efl graduate student. the teaching preparation competencies were the pedagogical competencies that were required for graduate students in tefl to prepare their syllabus and lesson plan for teaching (shresta in cerid, 2008, p.23-28). the teaching reading and writing course delivered most of the pedagogical competencies in teaching preparation competencies. this may due to the fact that this course provided lots of learning strategies and activities, which graduate students in tefl could apply directly for their classroom. in the classroom management competencies, these pedagogical competencies were mostly delivered in the principle of english language teaching course. it can be seen that both human and nonhuman actors have influenced and formed a network that helps tefl graduate students in mastering the pedagogical competencies. the human factors were the lecturers who assigned these students to read the book. since they were assigned to do the presentation, students must read the book and comprehend the concepts well to make a good presentation. as they presented the concept, students were expected to grasp the concept. the book was one of the nonhuman factors that mobilized students to take some actions, such as reading the translated version of the book or searching for an article in the internet and even reading the book over and over again. the teaching presentation competencies delivered to the graduate students in the three courses as resulted from the questionnaire shows that teaching reading and writing class has delivered most of the teaching presentation competencies. when asked about figure 4. classroom management competencies delivered to graduate tefl students 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 1. arranging students' seat 2. using empty space in the class 3. maintaining class discipline 4. developing friendly relations between teachers and students 5. creating stimulating and enjoyable learning atmosphere 6. forming partnerships inside and outside school elt r&w l&s figure 5. teaching presentation competencies delivered to graduate tefl students 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 2 1 . in st ru ct io n 2 2 . m a n n e r 2 3 . t o p ic s li n ka g e 2 4 . le ss o n m a st e ry 2 5 . t e a ch in g a id s… 2 6 . a sk in g q u e st io n s. 2 7 . s tu d e n ts '… 2 8 . le ss o n s' … 2 9 . e q u a l tr e a tm e n t… 3 0 . m e a n in g fu l… 3 1 . o p p o rt u n it ie s in … 3 2 . t e a ch in g p ri n ci p le s 3 3 . m o ti va ti o n … 3 4 . f e e d b a ck . 3 5 . le ss o n s u m m a ry 3 6 . in n o v a ti ve ,… 3 7 . in d iv id u a l a n d … 3 8 . m o n it o ri n g & … 3 9 . li n k a g e t o … 4 0 . s tu d e n t… 4 1 . t u to ri a l m o d a li ti e s elt r&w l&s pedagogical competencies and actor network theory 117 these findings during the fgd, participants mostly refer to the course book and the lecturer. the lecturer, the students, the class presentation and the books had formed a network in which the pedagogical competency was delivered to and mastered by the students. the lecturer then was the actor in this network. he established the course objective, which was improving students’ knowledge in teaching listening and speaking english as a foreign language. he chose the appropriate course book that was aligned to the course objective. this was shown and translated directly from the objective as it was titled “teaching esl/efl listening and speaking”. he decided that presentation must be included in one of the class activities which would help students learn from the book, his experiences, and their own experiences as teachers. the course book, on the other hand, was one of the actants in the network. in its correlation to the course objective, the course book’s content matched to it and this had made the lecturer choose it among other books. the students were another actants, who made the lecturer choose presentation as the class activities. in order to help students improving their knowledge in teaching listening and speaking to esl/efl students, these students were expected to read the book, which is one source of knowledge, and share the knowledge to other students. this way, students would get feedbacks they need in order to improve their teaching. the other actant was the class presentation in the class activities. the presentation in class urged students to read the course materials and share the knowledge they got from it to other students. the process of preparing the presentation required students to comprehend the material well enough so as to be able to present it well too. nonhuman entities in teaching and learning processes. there are four nonhuman actors that influence students to master the pedagogical competencies delivered to them as shown in figure 7. these actors are noises, class location, class settings, and the lights in the classroom. the noises in the class had prevented students from learning the principles in teaching english and this noise was a translation from the classroom presentation that students found to be not less interesting since it discussed only the materials from the book. as for the lecturers’ appearance, movement, and gestures, the last two played more roles than the first. some students even considered a lecturer to be considerate and thoughtful when they moved around the class and gave explanation when needed. these actions were also translated as giving an example of how these in-service studentteachers should be doing as teachers for their students one day. class location and class settings were also the determining actors for tefl graduate students to master the pedagogical competencies. the easy access to the class was translated by the class location and the class size was translated by the class setting. when the class was easily accessed and the seating arrangements were adjustable to the needs of the class, this made the firstfloor class an actor that supports the mastery of pedagogical competencies to students. the lights furthermore played an important role too for students in mastering the pedagogical competencies delivered to them. the morning class was considered as a more agreeable class for students since the light was much brighter than the evening class. the brighter light in the classroom was considered to have lifted the class atmosphere better. figure 6. the network of teaching presentation competencies delivered to mpbi students in the enacted curriculum 118 pedagogical competencies and actor network theory human entities in the teaching and learning processes. human entities that influence the tefl graduate students are both the lecturers and the students. they were playing a role in helping tefl graduate students to master the pedagogical competencies delivered to them. as for the syllabus and objective of the courses, these students tended to rely on the translation that the titles of the course had in order to understand the content of the courses. they inclined more on the experience that they would encounter as these students joined the class rather than predicting in details what the class would be like. in addition, the lecturer in teaching listening and speaking class had become the key actor as he impacted students’ mindset through the insights and advices he gave during the class. as for the lecturers in teaching reading and writing, their appearance, gesture, and movement have become the actants that triggers students to act in order to master the competencies. this had helped the in-service student teachers to know and adapt the values they gained from the course as the added values to their pedagogical competencies. figure 7. non human entities influencing students in mastering the pedagogical competencies figure 8. human entities influencing mpbi students in mastering the pedagogical competencies pedagogical competencies and actor network theory 119 the network. actor network theory (ant) maps out the trace on how entities both human and nonhuman met, influenced each other as they were associating and exercising forces toward one another, and continued to exist or disappear over time. its key assumption gives no different treatment to human and nonhuman entities and puts both entities at the same level that enables each entity to influence each other. latour, one of the ant’s initiator, calls this assumption as ‘symmetry’. these symmetries then will form into networks and these networks keep expanding and extending, crossing broad spaces, long distances, or time periods (fenwick and richards, 2012, p. ix-x). a network in ant, therefore, has resulted as the gathering materials which were driven together and linked by the translation process and thus performed together a particular enactment (p. xiii). this enactment then creates the relational effect as explained by fenwick and richards by an example that took place in the social studies 6 class. in this class, the teacher has become the effect of the timetable since it puts her in the specific classroom with a particular group of students. the network creates the relational effect as the teacher interacts with the textbooks, class plans, bulletin boards, and stacks of graded papers (p. xv). this relational effect was also obvious in the network in which the human and nonhuman entities were interacting in the courses where the pedagogical competencies were delivered to the students. the network in figure 9 shows how these entities interacted and finally helped these students to master the pedagogical competencies. conclusion and suggestion conclusion the pedagogical competencies are divided in three groups. they are the teaching preparation competencies, classroom management competencies, and teaching presentation competencies. these pedagogical competencies were delivered in both the prescribed curriculum and enacted curriculum of tefl graduate courses through its three courses, the principles of figure 9. the network of pedagogical competencies in prescribed and enacted curriculum delivered to graduate students in tefl 120 pedagogical competencies and actor network theory english language teaching, teaching reading and writing, and teaching listening and speaking. most of the pedagogical competencies in the three categories were delivered successfully in both prescribed and enacted curriculum. they were delivered in such an integrated way that one competency may be delivered more than once in the courses. because of this, there are overlapping coverage for the delivery of these competencies to the students. however, it is also found that a skill in the teaching preparation competencies, which was organizing and promoting different tutorial modalities, was not delivered through the prescribed curriculum. in addition, the pedagogical competencies in the prescribed curriculum were delivered mostly in principles of english language teaching as well as teaching reading and writing. as for the enacted curriculum, the pedagogical competencies were mostly delivered although some of the competencies were not delivered, especially in teaching listening and speaking class. four skills in the teaching preparation skills were not delivered. they are competencies number 7, 10, 11, and 13. as for the classroom management competencies, there were fourteen competencies that were not delivered; 2 competencies in principle of english language teaching, 3 competencies in teaching reading and writing, and 9 competencies in teaching listening and speaking courses. the mastery of pedagogical competencies by tefl students could not be separated from the coursenet formed in these courses. both human and nonhuman entities were working together, enabling students to master the competencies in those three groups of pedagogical competencies. the prescribed curriculum was mostly translated by the learning outcomes in the syllabus of the courses. these learning outcomes then became the key actors in the coursenet with the course book, class activities, and students’ presentation as the actants. similar course net was also shown in the result of the questionnaire that confirmed the pedagogical competencies delivered to tefl graduate students through the enacted curriculum which happened in the teaching and learning process in the class. the interaction between the course book and group presentation with the students and lecturers had resulted into the translation process done by the students to master the competencies. these processes were found in the three courses. in addition to this, other nonhuman entities such as noises, light, class settings, and class location were also involved in the mastery of the pedagogical competencies. as these nonhuman entities influenced the coursenet, tefl graduate students confirmed that the learning atmospheres were affected by the existence of these entities. last but not least, the human entities, which are the students and the lecturers and include lecturers’ appearance, movement, and gestures, were also affecting the coursenet. the lecturers are often found to be the key actors impacting upon the actants, the students, to do some actions, also known as the translation process to master the competencies delivered to them. in conclusion, the actor network theory (ant) has been used as a helpful tool in this research that helps the researcher to describe how the tefl graduate students master the pedagogical competencies delivered to them during the teaching and learning process. the coursenet created based on the theory has provided the information for the education institution to evaluate and improve the strength or potentials entities in the network. pedagogical competencies and actor network theory 121 the network, furthermore, can be a useful input to improve the quality of teachers’ education curriculum. suggestions as this research is limited only to the teaching and learning process in the tefl graduate curriculum, the following suggestions are given. first, an alignment in the objectives of the courses investigated by this research should be given more attention in both of the teaching reading and writing and teaching listening and speaking courses. this study finds that the learning objectives of teaching reading and writing and teaching listening and speaking courses are not aligned. secondly, a continuous professional development of the lecturers should also be the consideration of the tefl graduate programs since they are the human entity that influences the coursenet of the curriculum mastered by the tefl graduate students. for the tefl graduate program, paying attention to the network in the coursenet is important due to the impact it has on the students, such as improvement for the nonhuman entities that influence the human entities. in addition, the application of actor-network theory to map out the interaction of the human and nonhuman entities can be used to help maintain the network so as to maintain and improve the quality of the curriculum applied in tefl graduate courses. moreover, further research on how the curriculum has impacted the life of its alumni may be conducted. since the alumni of tefl graduate are expected to contribute in the education field, it is important to know how far the curriculum has helped these alumni to make the contribution. it will also become a tool of evaluation and improvement to the curriculum of tefl graduate as the changing world of education 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(n.d.). author’s bio fransisca k. tondoprasetyo is currently a teacher at ivy school surabaya. she has been teaching since 2004. her work focuses on teaching science for the middle school level and collaborating with human resource department for teacher training department in providing trainings for professional teaching development and empowering teachers. finding and exploring new ways to teach her students is one of her favorite things to do. 10 lexical and grammatical collocation the effect of story reading on incidental lexical and grammatical collocation learning1 mina naderi mina.naderi9018@gmail.com m.a. in elt university of sistan and bluchestan & fatemeh barani barani.f.4552@gmail.com m.a. in elt university of sistan and bluchestan abstract the purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of story reading on incidental lexical and grammatical collocation learning. moreover, it was an attempt to scrutinize whether there was any significant difference between incidental lexical and grammatical collocation learning. to this end, 36 iranian efl learners attending sadra english institute in yasuj participated in the study. they were selected based on the result of quick placement test (qpt) as 28 out of 36 elementary efl learners. a total of 28 learners were assigned into one experimental group (n=15) and one control group (n=13). the result of the pre-test and posttest analysis using one-way ancova and mancova revealed the fact that there was statistically significant increase in collocation knowledge of the learners. in addition, participants performed significantly on grammatical post-test than lexical post-test after the treatment. keywords: incidental learning-lexical and grammatical collocation-story reading introduction vocabulary, an indispensable constituent of language, has constantly been a major area of interest within the field of english language teaching (elt) as hammer (1991, p. 153) states “if language structure makes up the skeleton of language, then it is vocabulary that provides the vital organs and flesh.” by the same token, it has been generally recognized that much of our vocabulary comprises diverse kinds of prefabricated chunks and shows a tendency to occur in multi-word units (lewis, 2000; schmitt, 2010), among which collocations were found problematic for second language 1 this article has been accepted to be published in beyond words vol.8 no.1 may 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v8i1.2126 (l2) learners based on the previous studies (produromou, 2003; shehata, 2008; pei, 2008; miyakoshi, 2009; vural, 2010). there is a consensus among scholars that knowing the essence of language knowledge requires knowing collocational knowledge (hill, 2000; ellis, 2003; shehata, 2008; lewis, 2010; alsakran, 2011). as hill (2001) reported approximately 70% of language comprises fixed expressions, in which the number of collocations outnumbers that of single-word items. firth introduced the term collocation in 1957 and defined it as “the company that words keep” mailto:mina.naderi9018@gmail.com admin typewritten text admin typewritten text admin typewritten text admin typewritten text lexical and grammatical collocation 11 (p.183). two paramount classifications including grammatical and lexical exist for collocation. benson, et al. (1986, p.10-25) categorize the former into eight types composing of: (1) noun + preposition (apathy towards), (2) noun + to + infinitive (a fool to do),(3) noun + that clause (an agreement that), (4) preposition + noun (on time), (5) adjective + preposition (curious about),(6) adjective + to + infinitive (necessary to work), (7) adjective + that clause (afraid that), (8) verb + preposition (go for) and), and (9) 19 verb pattern types (e.g. base the conclusion on) (as cited in abedi & mobaraki, 2014). the latter is categorized into six types consisting of: (1) verb + noun (launch a missile), (2) adjective + noun (reckless abandon), (3) noun + verb (adjectives modify), (4) noun1+ of + noun2 (a piece of advice), (5) adverb + adjective (deeply religious), (6) verb + adverb (to apologize humbly). verb-noun type out of the six lexical collocation combinations is found to be the most problematic for l2 learners due to following reasons. first, it could be pertinent to the already known words which learners fail to make appropriate combinations (e.g., make a mistake vs. do a mistake). second, in addition, lack of semantic distinctiveness (e.g. make rather than do in make an effort) and/or near-synonymous competitors (e.g. tell rather than say in tell lies) cause learners to find it hard when it comes to remembering (webb, newton, & chang, 2013; boers et al., 2016). ample of studies substantiated reading is a prominent powerful source of both vocabulary acquisition and collocation learning in particular in a second language context, besides, the hypothesis of reading with no explicit instruction results in incidental vocabulary development ( krashen, 2004; lehmann, 2007; lee & hsu, 2009; ponniah, 2009; yali, 2010; ramos, 2014). there exist inconsistent views in this regard; on one hand, swanborn and de glopper (2002, pp. 95-6) state “during reading, new word meanings are derived and learned even though the purpose is not the learning new vocabulary”. on the other hand, nation (2001; as cited in richards & reynanda, 2002) challenges the incidental approach and proposes a systematic approach. debate continues about the optimal pedagogic method for teaching collocation; however, extensive research conducted lends support to varied means of instructions, namely extensive reading accompanied by task-based post-reading activities (khonamri& roostaee,2014; hu, 2015; pereyra, 2015; shabanpour & marzban,2015; boers, dang, & strong, 2016) , collocation in enhanced and unenhanced conditions, e.g. highlighted (bold), non-highlighted and glossed forms (sonbul& schmitt ,2013, szudarski & carter,2016), explicit and implicit instructions (karami,2013; kamal,2014). despite the proliferating evidence in these studies that l2 incidental learning occurs incrementally particularly through extensive reading in input-rich environments, majority of them has further conceded ineffectiveness of just using incidental vocabulary instruction and corroborated the integration of intentional learning, explicit instruction, and addition of text-based tasks into a language course to expand the collocational knowledge. nonetheless, few studies have targeted the impact of stories, notably novel, as a classroom material on the collocation knowledge of iranian efl learners. as a result, the existing study aims at shedding more light on incidental collocation learning by investigating the effect of story reading in a l2 classroom context. additionally, so far, 12 lexical and grammatical collocation however, no single study has been found that surveyed the difference between lexical and grammatical collocation learning via story reading. sla research on incidental collocation learning to date a considerable amount of literature offers intriguing contradictory findings about collocation learning. reading has consistently been a pivotal source in numerous studies showing a facilitative effect on the incidental acquisition of not only vocabulary but also collocation knowledge. for instance, shabanpour and marzban (2015) integrated the instruction of 90 pre-intermediate efl learners under study with three tasks: fill in-the-blanks, sentence writing, and translation sentences to delve into incidental grammatical collocations learning through reading. subjects were allocated to three classes randomly completing one of the task complexities. after ten sessions of treatment i.e. reading text followed by five questions, findings showed that there was a significant gain in grammatical collocation knowledge of all three experimental groups. in the same vein, khonamri and roostaee (2014) incorporated form versus meaning-focused tasks into an extensive reading (er) program to study the development of lexical collocations among iranian intermediate efl learners. all the participants (n=25) of this study were assigned to read ten books in different genres. form-focused task group (n=11) were required to read a book every week outside of the class and to write down the unfamiliar words with their contemporary collocation family examples along with dictionary definitions and the sentences the words were located in, in a notebook. while the meaning-focused task group (n=14) were required to orally present their books to the class after reading each book, and they were asked to fill in a book report form as well. in accordance with that of shabanpour and marzban’s (2015), the findings in khonamri and roostaee’s (2014) study confirmed the fact that task-based instruction contributed in learners’ collocation development. considering a more critical aspect, boers et al., (2016) put forward a practical recommendation for textbook authors based on the compelling results engendered on the comparison of effectiveness of three fill-inthe-blank exercises among which select the phrase format was found to generate the best result in contrast to the select the verb and first letter cue formats. according to the analysis, almost 85% of the phrase-focused exercises in contemporary efl textbooks (e.g. new headway, four corners, and english result) clearly subsume matching and gap-fill exercises. accordingly, in order to foster good knowledge of l2 multiword units (collocations) in activities embedded in textbooks, the findings of this study alleviate the burden on authors’ shoulders but insufficient body of research call for ongoing experimental studies to derive clear and concrete guidelines for the design of phrase focused activities. an additional important line of collocation investigation encompasses the utilization of stories as a reading material. by way of example, pereyra (2015) consolidated the er with lexical approach tasks in a case study to examine the lexical chunks acquisition. seven adult spanish speakers with an intermediate english level volunteered to be the participants. three of them read eight graded reader books. two of them read one graded reader, journals and one authentic novel, and the other two read diverse texts including journals, magazines lexical and grammatical collocation 13 and short stories. the activities employed were personal and text-focused post-reading activities such as oral book reports, comparing characters in the story and so forth. the conclusion accords with khonamri and roostaee’s (2014) on that the more the students read the more they learnt. however, as suggested by the author, a wider scope research with control group is needed to measure and accredit, and if, the lexical acquisition would be improved. another study focusing on modified versions of a story with 4-8 exposure frequency targets was by pellicer-sánchez (2017) in which six adjective–pseudoword collocations inserted throughout the version a and b of the story. forty-one l2 learners were randomly assigned in version a group (8-repetion) and version b group (4repetition). participants read the story in a classroom setting and one week afterwards they were individually interviewed about the receptive and productive knowledge of the form and meaning of the collocations. results revealed formmeaning link of collocational knowledge can be learnt incidentally from story reading; and repetition within 4-8 frequency did not seem to have a significant effect on the acquisition of any of the aspects examined in the study. surprisingly, on the contrary, webb, et al. (2013) concluded frequency manipulation between five and 10 encounters in a readingwhile-listening condition to a modified graded reader (i.e. oxford bookworms graded reader new yorkers ) contributed to the incidental learning of 18 collocations and led them to declare that 15 times exposure may be necessary to gain a considerable incidental collocations learning. in a more comprehensive study carried out by teng (2016), acquisition of four dimensions of vocabulary knowledge: form recognition, grammar recognition, meaning recall, and collocation recognition in a reading-only vs. reading-while-listening condition was gauged. the love of a king, a level 2 graded reader for elementary learners published by oxford university press, was read aloud by a native english speaker for the learners in the reading-while-listening condition. the results revealed that both conditions could be sources of incidental word acquisition, however, reading-whilelistening condition was more effective than the reading-only condition and exposure frequency and elaborate word processing were needed. in addition, it empirically approved collocation is the most difficult type of vocabulary knowledge than meaning, grammar, and form respectively for the students. parallels can be drawn between the results observed in webb, et al.’s (2013) study and teng’s (2016) regarding repetition which in both studies learners benefited from reading and contradicts with that of found by pellicer-sánchez (2017). similarly, macis (2018) looked at the literal and figurative meanings of collocations through reading a single semiauthentic novel (i.e. a romantic thriller) that contained 38 verb+noun and adjective+noun target combinations. three relatively advanced participants were asked to read playing dead, the prison break trilogy by allison brennan (2008) for pleasure, in their free time and at an appropriate pace. using dictionary was not allowed. the novel was around 115,000 words long in 462 pages. the results adds to the evidence in current literature that reading semi-authentic texts seeded with the instances of the collocations can enhance the figurative meaning knowledge of duplex collocations. concerning repetition, however, findings are in congruent with pellicer-sánchez’s (2017) indicating no significant dependable factor. likewise, admin typewritten text admin typewritten text admin typewritten text admin typewritten text admin typewritten text admin typewritten text admin typewritten text admin typewritten text admin typewritten text admin typewritten text 14 lexical and grammatical collocation heidari and naderi (2017) used an authentic novel to probe the incidental collocation learning of 21 upper intermediate english translation students at university of sistan and bluchestan and outcomes concurred with macis’s (2018) reinforcing the influential effect of story reading. undoubtedly, with little empirical research at disposal on the effectiveness of reading authentic materials in a l2 classroom setting to develop incidental collocation knowledge further investigation is still needed. first reason is that abundant recent studies have mostly employed graded readers in which the target words were substituted with their counterparts in the context to inspect the encounter frequency (webb, et al., 2013; pereyra, 2015; teng, 2016; pellicer-sánchez, 2017). even though graded readers with repeated encounters seem to be influential, text naturalness in term of practicality is brought into question and it has to be acknowledged that other factors also play roles in incidental collocation learning. it has been affirmed that acquiring such vocabulary is a complex and dynamic process which is contingent on several factors including the repetition and salience of such words in l2 input, the exposure amount to english, learning context, and learners’ l1 and l2 phraseological differences (szudarski, 2017). second important reason involves the nature of the collocation. using real collocations, as having a higher ecological validity, makes it difficult to control for prior knowledge of the collocation individual components which tends to affect the overall learning gains. webb et al. (2013) suggested the use of pseudowords to overcome this limitation and eliminate the need to use pre-tests. however, study with a certain collocation typology may not be generalized to other types of collocations learning and teaching (teng, 2016; macis, 2018). last foremost impetus for the current research is reconduction of heidari and naderi‘s (2017) research which lacked a control group. to address to these issues and fill the void, efl teachers can provide opportunities by exposing the learners to authentic materials as part of the classroom syllabi. various advantages for the use of literature in efl/esl classes are proposed by scholars which are: an authentic source, improving motivation, cultural/intercultural awareness and globalization development, an intensive/extensive reading practice source, sociolinguistic/pragmatic knowledge development, grammar and vocabulary knowledge promotion, language skills reinforcement, emotional intelligence (eq) improvement, and fostering critical thinking (khatib, rezaei, & derakhshan, 2011). likewise, teng (2016) justifies this fact according to his teaching experience and indicates “students prefer to read stories because they are interesting and do not require background knowledge to contemplate the text.” since there seems to be a necessity to conduct a study on collocation learning through story reading (e.g. an authentic novel), this study draws on the following questions: 1) does story reading have any significant effect on incidental collocation learning? 2) is there any significant difference between incidental lexical and grammatical collocation learning? method participants subjects were chosen through cluster sampling as 36 iranian efl learners taking lexical and grammatical collocation 15 four corners (fc) 2c and 3a courses at sadra english institute who all inhabit in yasuj province, iran. descriptive statistics unveiled the age of control group ranged from 12 to 30 and experimental group age ranged from 12 to 24. over half of the sample in control group, 76/9%, was male (n=10) and 23/1 % was female (n=3). out of 15 subjects in the experimental group 26/7 % (n=4) was male and 73/3% (n=11) was female. they came from the same language backgrounds in yasuj. although subjects’ language proficiency level was determined by a rigorous rater in the institute, qpt version 2, an english language proficiency test developed by oxford university press and cambridge english for speakers of other languages (esol), was administered to homogenize and harness their entry behavior based on a single criterion. this version consists of two sections including 60 multiple choice items assessing participants in reading, vocabulary, and grammar. of the cohort of 36 participants’ performance on the test, 28 were assembled as elementary. four were excluded from the sample on the basis of the degree of their proficiency level (lowerand upperintermediate) and four dropped out during the research process. they were then randomly assigned to two different leaning condition groups: story reading group and conventional teaching method group. as reported in table 4.1, the pre-test mean scores of both groups were 3.230 and 3.333 indicating that the collocation knowledge among learners was relatively at the same level. reading material and target items an authentic novel, the adventures of huckleberry finn by mark twain (1805), was chosen as the reading material. three different softwares: readability test tool, vocabulary profiler, and ant concordancer were utilized to analyze the context of the first ten chapters. according to vocabulary profiler on compleat lexical tutor website, the novel contains 23454 token words and 2413 word types spread across 78 pages. in addition, 84.68% of the words belongs to the first 1000 word list and 5.37% to the second 1001-2000 word list. computed by six readability indices (e.g. flesch kincaid grade level, gunning fog index, and smog index) on webfx website, average grade level of the text is about 6 and it should be easily understood by 11 to 12 year olds. as revealed by ant concordancer software, the highest frequency level was allocated to collocations such as make up one’s mind and hair-ball with 5 and 8 times repetition respectively. however, the majority of the target words were merely repeated naturally once or twice throughout the text. the number of the collocations under study which all were extracted from the novel itself were 26 grammatical (e.g. keep an eye on, make up one’s mind, run through the audience, find fault with, etc.) and 24 lexical collocations (e.g. downhearted, low-down, low-spirited, cry-baby, etc.) instruments the target collocations were measured with teacher-made tests: a) a pre-test b) a post-test and to appraise the learners’ attitude toward incidental leaning through story reading post-treatment open-ended questions were created. teacher-made pre-test and post-test. the tests measured the productive and recognition knowledge of the collocation written forms. it consists of both fill in the blanks and matching grammatical and lexical collocations items. the first included 26 productive fill in the blanks items in which the learners were required to write the correct nod word (verb) of the provided collocates. 16 lexical and grammatical collocation the second was composed of 24 matching items measuring recognition and production knowledge of the lexical collocation written forms. all the stems of the questions were taken from online cambridge dictionary. the reliability of the teacher-made pre-test was calculated by cronbach's alpha as 0.74 in which it was administrated primarily to 24 upper intermediate efl learners studying at farhikhtegan institute of international languages (heidari & naderi, 2017). both the pre-test and post-test had the same format and to minimize the test effect and maximize incidental learning the students were not informed there would be a post-test. after ten session treatment, the teacher gave the participants the open-ended questions regarding learners’ opinions on story reading in the classroom. procedure the treatment took place during the fall semester of 2018, at sadra english institute in four elementary english language classes, namely two fc 2c and 3a. all students attended english classes at least two sessions a week, each one lasting 90 minutes. the objectives of the study were not explained to the participants because it tried to explore the incidental learning of the collocations. at the very beginning, learners took a teacher-made pre-test. the treatment lasted for 10 consecutive sessions in the story reading group for approximately 30 to 40 minutes and the control group enjoyed the conventional teaching method. every session nearly one chapter of the story was read by either the teacher or the students were encouraged and consentient to read aloud in the classroom. the students were asked not to use dictionary during the reading process. furthermore, each session started with warm-up questions to summarize what happened in the previous chapter and to involve students in the plot of the story. also, since a few participants reported during the treatment that the reading material included some unknown words causing an inability to follow the storyline, and there were a number of dialects such as missouri negro, extremest form of backwoods southwestern, and ordinary pike county, the teacher provided the learners with a list of difficult words definitions (except the target collocations) to increase the comprehensibility of the context of the story. once the ten session exposure completed, an oral summative test of the whole ten chapters was taken from the students individually to make sure they read the entire chapters. finally, post-test and open-ended questions were administered immediately after the oral test. a strict marking system was employed as giving 1 point to correct answers and 0 to incorrect answers. results the descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) associated with dependent variables in treatment and control groups are illustrated in table 4.1 to promote a quantitative and efficacious analysis. preliminary obtained results in table 4.1 revealed that numerical mean score of collocation variable (m=9/200) with its components (grammatical and lexical collocations) in treatment group has developed after post-test indicating an improvement in incidental collocation knowledge. lexical and grammatical collocation 17 table 1 descriptive statistics of pre-test and post-test pre-test post test variables groups n mean standard deviation mean standard deviation gram col control 13 1/692 1/750 1/923 1/552 treatment 15 1/800 1/422 4/400 2/292 lexi col control 13 1/538 2/503 4/692 2/657 treatment 15 1/533 1/807 4/800 2/144 collocation control 13 3/230 3/443 6/615 3/524 treatment 15 3/333 2/794 9/200 2/956 to investigate the efficacy of story reading on incidental collocation learning, the researcher ran one-way ancova. results of kolmogorov–smirnov and levene’s tests ensured there was no violation of normality assumptions concerning scores distribution and variance homogeneity. table 2 represents the result of one-way ancova. table 2 from the table above we can see that the difference between treatment and control groups ’performance with reference to incidental collocation post-test scores of learners in this variable at 95% level was statistically significant, f(1,25) = 5/227, p =0/031< 0/05, 2 =0/173. based on this analysis it can be concluded that the group effect was meaningful which means there was a difference in dependent variable between groups. to evaluate the effect size, eta squared formula was performed and it yielded 17/3 % of the difference was due to independent variable (treatment). thus, the treatment group in comparison to the control group varies significantly in incidental collocation learning. the composite nature of the dependent variable (lexical and grammatical) made it possible to run mancova in order to delve further into whether there is any significant difference between lexical and grammatical collocation learning. prior to conducting mancova, box’s m test was run to check 18 lexical and grammatical collocation the homogeneity assumptions of variancecovariance matrices. the equality assumptions of error variance of both groups for dependent variable was confirmed. the analysis of manocova is presented in table 4.3. table 4.3 table 4.3 shows that eliminating the pretest impact on the dependable variables and with respect to obtained f coefficient, there existed a significant statistical difference in the grammatical component (f =14/664, p <0.05) between the modified mean scores of participants in pre-test and post-test stages. thereby, the research question is confirmed and a conclusion which can be drawn is that a meaningful change in the experimental group compared to the control group in the grammatical collocation variable in the posttest was inclined to be the influence of the intervention. based on the ita coefficients, the greatest effect was on the grammatical sub-scale, with the effect and difference being equal to 0.379 accounting for 37/9 % of the difference in grammatical sub-scale post-scores owing to story reading. discussion an initial objective of this experimental study was to identify the effectiveness of reading an authentic story the adventures of huckleberry finn on incidental collocation learning. the descriptive statistics and the data analysis demonstrated learners could learn collocations incidentally from reading a novel in the classroom, thus corroborating the findings of much of the reviewed literature that have clearly confirmed the importance of reading in enlarging the collocation knowledge (webb, et al., 2013 ; khonamri and roostaee, 2014; pereyra, 2015; shabanpour and marzban, 2015; boers et al., 2016; teng, 2016; heidari and naderi, 2017; pellicer-sánchez, 2017; macis, 2018). the most relevant finding was by heidari and naderi (2017) which is in an agreement with that of the current study asserting that reading has commonly been recognized as a crucial source for incidental learning of collocation forms. even though the results should be interpreted with caution as a result of an absence of a control group which limits how far the results can be generalized. a constructive criticism which can be provoked relates to the effect size of the mean scores that heidari and naderi’s (2017) study yielded a larger statistical effect size as .686. one possible corollary finding is the higher the proficiency level, the better the collocation acquisition. one notable difference is a delayed post-test administration in which the results showed no retention over time in heidari and naderi’s (2017) investigation. in line with finding of the first research question, macis’s (2018) also accords with the observations, which found a consistently positive effect of reading a semi-authentic novel with one to 25 repetition insertion, although not always statistically significant lexical and grammatical collocation 19 regarding the number of occurrences. a weakness with this argument, however, lies in the level of the collocational knowledge in which macis’s (2018) study was restricted to meaning-recall, on the contrary this study focused solely on the form. teng (2016) compellingly pointed out that to develop a form meaning link, the first step is building memory of word form which can be achieved incidentally from reading input. the material chosen in both studies was on the basis of the researcher’s intuition and learners in posttest open-ended questions reported “i think it’s useful because students can learn new words and it improves speaking. i’d like to read a short story in the classroom.” a possible explanation could therefore be comprehensible input and that efl learners should be exposed to texts which are a little beyond their current reading level (krashen, 1982). there was no exposure to the target words than the novel read in the classroom which was accompanied by several tasks and also participants said they enjoyed reading such an interesting novel, though a few preferred short stories and different genres including romantic. overall, results suggest reading story in the classroom context can enhance incidental collocation knowledge given that they were exposed to the receptive skills and from the participants’ point of view, they thought it benefits the vocabulary improvement. the second objective aimed at finding the significant difference between incidental lexical and grammatical collocation learning; contrary to expectations, this study found a significant difference in grammatical subscale compared to the lexical collocations (table 4.3). in contrast to heidari and naderi’s (2017) findings, however, no outperformance evidence of grammatical variable was detected. the reported mean of gain score for lexical collocation was higher as 9.381. remarkably, all earlier studies reviewed so far failed to consider the differing major categories of collocations and focused solely on one restricted type namely, khonamri and roostaee (2014), pereyra (2015), and pellicer-sánchez (2017) on lexical typology and shabanpour and marzban (2015) on grammatical variable. one single study conducted by macis (2018) sought to answer whether repetition affects the different grammatical forms of lexical verb+noun and adjective+noun collocations and not which type was acquired better. the observed difference can thus be explained in part by proficiency level of the learners, if not the only one, as aforementioned learners with higher english proficiency level tended to read the text more comprehensively than the elementary level. to alleviate the comprehension problem, the teacher had to occasionally illuminate what the text portrayed. with regard to the generalization of the findings due to small sample size, caution must be applied. conclusion this study gauged the efficiency of story reading in the classroom on incidental lexical and grammatical collocation learning. because of the lack of a delayed post-test it has not been proven the participants have acquired the collocations incidentally in spite of the fact that their incidental collocation knowledge was enhanced. moreover, the unanticipated finding was that a significant incidental improvement in grammatical collocation compared to lexical collocation was shown. this study contributed as it extended our knowledge on incidental collocation learning by providing significant data analysis and as it was reported by students in post-test open-ended questions 20 lexical and grammatical collocation they believed they learned different and necessary words in spite of the fact they were unaware of being administered incidental collocation tests. what emerges from these findings provide important pedagogical implications for developing in efl language programs as an inclusion of stories preferably with bestliked genres in the classroom syllabus. shedd & duke (2008) suggest useful considerations for teachers: (1) careful selection of texts, (2) open-ended questions, (3) discussions about the book, (4) predictions of what might happen next in the book; and (5) talk that relates the real life experiences to the book. although this study did not evaluated the word repetition as a variable to pinpoint the precise number that a learner would need to learn a collocation, previous studies have shown repeated encounters in the context are likely to influence l2 collocation growth. to increase the amount of the word occurrences and the extent of the sufficient exposure, therefore, teachers can employ text-based post-reading activities such as oral reports summarizing the incidents in the story to engage learners actively in the comprehension process which as a quid pro quo they do a lot of reading. the final implication is that it may also be worthy for textbook writers’ consideration and designers of instructional materials. thereby, incorporating some supplementary texts, particularly stories which may bring about more collocation exposure in an authentic language may ultimately result in the incidental collocation learning which has been found problematic for l2 learners. as a consequence of small sample size, firstly, it is strongly recommended that more research in this field be undertaken. secondly, it would be a ground breaking work if the levels of collocation knowledge including form, meaning, form-meaning link, and recall be investigated to determine which level cause difficulties for l2 learners. thirdly, word occurrence has recently been probed in graded readers to examine whether repetition with high and low frequencies affects incidental collocation learning. thus, it seems this question has remained unanswered at present regarding the authentic reading materials such as novel. fourthly, since this study was a replication of heidari and naderi’s (2017) investigation and neither overall language proficiency nor the gender was taken into account as a variable in both studies, it would be worthwhile to examine the learners’ collocational competence at different functional levels (beginner, elementary, intermediate, and pre-intermediate learners, advanced) to better understand the connection between collocational competence, language proficiency, and gender. lastly, more research on incidental collocation learning under diverse conditions including reading only, reading while listening, and watching movies is required. references abedi, z. & mobaraki, m. 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(2010). l2 vocabulary acquisition through reading—incidental learning and intentional learning. chinese journal of applied linguistics, 33(1), 74-93. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijal.12092 115 vocabulary self-selection strategy beyond words vol. 5 no. 2 nov 2017 teaching vocabulary at the upper primary levels with the vocabulary selfselection strategy natalie kang woodgrove primary school singapore & jo-ann netto-shek national institute of education nanyang technological university singapore abstract in this paper, the authors describe a classroom inquiry by a newly graduated english language teacher on the explicit teaching of vocabulary with one class of 40 pupils at the upper primary levels through the vocabulary self-collection strategy (vss) (haggard, 1982, 1986; ruddell, 2008a). findings from this inquiry reveal that the vss strategy designed primarily for the development of vocabulary in academic or content areas in learners was also suitable for the learning of thematically-related words in fiction texts as well. in addition, it is argued that since the strategy was new to this class of pupils, prioritising word study skills over the identification of key words in a text is a useful primer to the use of the strategy. the article ends with the implications of the strategy implementation on the pupils, the teacher and her own classroom practice as an english language teacher. keywords: teaching vocabulary, english language teaching at the upper primary levels, professional development for english language teachers, vocabulary self-collection strategy introduction one of the most frequent concerns that newly graduated english language teachers raise after they are assigned their first class of pupils at primary schools is the deficit vocabulary of their pupils. at the upper primary levels in singapore, this concern is particularly worrying since upper primary pupils (11-12 year olds) have a short run of two years before they must be ready for a terminal and critical national placement examination that impacts their academic progress into secondary schools. similar concerns have been raised particularly in the united states (biancarosa & snow, 2006; graves & watts-taffe, 2008). as such, the teaching of vocabulary for improved reading performance quickly becomes a priority for most teachers assigned to teach at these levels. in response, research into the relationship between vocabulary development and improved reading performance is a developed argument. in fact, hirsch (2003) and blachowicz & fisher (2004, p. 66) point out that the “most articulated lines of research in literacy education describes the strong connection between readers’ vocabulary knowledge and their reading comprehension (national reading panel, 2000)”. vocabulary self-selection strategy 117 yet, the teaching of word knowledge and vocabulary remains a challenge for teachers for three reasons, (a) a deficit of strategies for vocabulary instruction (tompkins, 2010, p. 228) and (b) a lack of knowledge about vocabulary development, in particular, what constitutes needful vocabulary for pupils at any grade level (blachowicz & fisher, 2004, p. 69) and (c) the instructional frequency required for improvement (blachowucz, watts-taffe & fisher, 2005, p. 266). the teacher the inquiry was conducted by a teacher has just graduated with a bachelors of arts (english language) from the national institute of education in singapore, majoring in the teaching of english language. soon after graduation, she was employed to teach english language at the upper primary levels (ages 10-12 years) in a local school in singapore where she had a stint of five weeks of teaching practice and ten weeks of practicum as a student teacher. while the school is not new to her, the pupils in her newly assigned classes were. she was assigned to teach english to the best academic class at the upper primary levels and asked to improve their reading and writing performance. she observed that the most critical area of need for this class of pupils, however, was their limited vocabulary. after discussion with the mentors in her school, she was of the view that this class needed more focused and explicit instruction (nation, 2015; ruddell, 2008b). her inquiry began with an examination of her own beliefs about vocabulary instruction before she addressed her own knowledge of vocabulary strategies, particularly the strategies she could use. this article aims to describe her inquiry as a newly graduated english language teacher who sought to improve the vocabulary levels of a recently assigned class of upper primary pupils through the use of a particular vocabulary strategy, the vocabulary self-collection strategy (haggard, 1982, 1986; ruddell, 1992). literature review vocabulary self-collection strategy the vocabulary self-collection or vss strategy (haggard, 1982, 1986; ruddell, 1992) is primarily used for schema development in content areas and is described as “a cooperative structure that provides practice in identifying important terms and using context to predict meaning” (manzo, manzo, & thomas, 2005, pp. 174175). ruddell (2008a, p. 171) explains that vss specifically addresses “content words that students need to know, words that are important to them and about which they expressed interest and curiosity in”. manzo et. al. (2005, p. 175) add that the vss is usually introduced after pupils have read the text but that its ultimate goal is to teach pupils “to identify essential key terms as they read and to access suitable sources from context to dictionary and other people, in order to derive meaningful definitions”. through the strategy, pupils are taught not only word skills but also develop strategies to unlock key words in a text that will give them access to content knowledge in the text. ruddell (2008a, p. 171) further explains that it is “an instructional strategy intende 118 vocabulary self-selection strategy to foster long-term acquisition and development of the vocabulary of academic disciplines”. in order for this to occur, ruddell (2008b, p. 152) advises that vocabulary knowledge must “connect” with tasks, assignments, topics, themes and the prior and background knowledge of pupils’ experiences, interests and knowledge. this integration, deliberately fostered by the teacher, makes for “effective vocabulary instruction” (nagy, 1988). ruddell (2008a, p. 176) concludes, however, pointing out that “without these planned opportunities that push students to use new content vocabulary”, it is unlikely that pupils’ vocabulary knowledge will improve. the research so far informs of two critical aspects about the strategy that are salient and they are (a) that it is primarily a strategy to develop vocabulary for academic and content area vocabulary and (b) that it is best paired with planned tasks that “push” (ruddell, 2008a, p. 176) pupils to use newly learnt vocabulary. vss was then assessed to be potentially suitable to meet the needs of this class of pupils for two reasons. firstly, the national curriculum for english language at the primary levels in singapore is organized around a centralized list of themes and genres (ministry of education, 2000), similar to the organization of curriculum for content area learning. secondly, early research by tinkham (1997), cited in nation (2000, p. 7) further encouraged the choice since it was found that “thematically related set [of words] was easier to learn”. the instructional procedure for vss begins with the individual student identifying a word or words in a text and explaining to the class the reason for her choice. as argued by haggard (1980) and more recently by harmon, hedrick, wood & kress (2005, p. 315), this is a significant step in the instructional sequence as there is a “strong correlation between [student] choice and the development of intrinsic motivation” to learn new words. once pupils in the class develop a list, the list is scaled and pupils select words that they wish to study. the vss strategy has since been employed with different age groups (ruddell & shearer, 2002) and in different classroom contexts (fisher, blachowicz, & smith, 1991) as a means of intrinsically motivating learners to build academic and specialized vocabulary (tompkins, 2010) that will give them access to reading more challenging texts. the vss strategy in cl settings modifications to the vss instructional procedure has since been documented in literature to include its use with cooperative or group learning. cooperative learning (cl) as explained by slavin (1995) is “a variety of teaching methods in which students work in small groups to help one another learn academic content. in cooperative classrooms, students are expected to help each other, to discuss issues and argue with each other, to assess each other's understanding of the topic, and fill in gaps in each other's learning”. the use of vss in cooperative learning contexts has been investigated by fisher, blachowicz, & smith (1991) in the context of literature discussion groups where one student in each student group was assigned the role of a vocabulary researcher. as vocabulary researchers, the students in this role were required to identify five to six words and explain it to the rest of the group. fisher et al. (1991) report that students in the roles of vocabulary researchers were able “to select vocabulary self-selection strategy 119 challenging words, derive acceptable meanings of the words, and learn new words”. more recent research on the use of vss in learner-oriented approaches direct our attention to the benefits of cooperative learning for vocabulary learning. bilen & tavil (2015, p. 153) explain that particularly for vocabulary learning in l2 and efl contexts, the use of cooperative learning is helpful since “learners have difficulties in learning new vocabulary words” on their own. they further explain that the challenges learners face such as the use of dictionaries and the identification of definitions often lead “learners to memorize words”. group or cooperative learning, they add, provide learners with the support they need particularly with locating or even articulating definitions. as such, the review informs the inquiry in terms of its use in cooperative learning contexts. the use of advance organisers inclusive to the vss procedure is the use of advance graphic organisers as support tools, particularly to assist learners with the study of identified words. advance organisers, based on ausubel’s theory (1968), direct the attention of learners to important aspects of incoming material. significantly, advance organisers make visible to learners critical aspects such as the overall structure of texts, relationships within new material explicit, and links between the known and new knowledge (woolfolk, winne, perry & shapka 2010; schunk 2008). certainly, the use of advance organisers in singapore schools today is ubiquitous and based on empirical data alone, they have been found to be useful as support tools. the range of advance organisers has also proliferated to include verbal descriptions (chuang & liu, 2014); graphics (tomlinson & mctighe, 2006), question scaffolds (osman & hannafin, 1994) and descriptions (chung & huang, 1998). for vss, an advance organiser comprising 3 columns that require learner to indicate: (a) the word selected; (b) the reason for their choice and (c) the definition of the word usually accompanies the strategy. however, there are other advance organisers described in the literature on vocabulary learning that have been been found to be useful as support tools with word learning. esteves (2016) provides specific examples of advance organisers such as spider diagrams as vocabulary support tools to “help learners group words around a particular topic” and venn diagrams as “tools for helping learners compare and contrast vocabulary”. word map advance organisers have also been proven as useful for in-depth word study (graves & watts-taffe,2008), a critical finding from beck, mckeown & kucan (2002) that enables vocabulary development. as a category of advance organisers, word maps are visual organisers that guide the study of words by making visible the component parts of an in-depth study. for example, word maps require learners to locate the meanings of words, its associations, related words and its use in a sentence. more recent word maps allow for learners to illustrate the meaning as well by drawing. research by margosein, pascarella & pflaum (1982) found that in comparison to contextual learning of new words, word maps produced better gains in the development of learner vocabularies. overall, the review of literature suggests that vss is a useful strategy for explicit development of learner vocabulary 120 vocabulary self-selection strategy and that implementation in cooperative learning contexts is possible. in addition, the use of word maps as support tools for the study of words within the strategy is likely to enhance the learning of new words. the teaching-learning process the class the class consisted of forty pupils (n=40) from middle-class, two income families. for most of the pupils, english is the language of the home in addition to the use of another language. this class of pupils is the top-performing class for the level (11 year olds) in terms of their scores in mathematics and it was the school’s desire that this beginning teacher improve their performance in reading and writing. furthermore, teachers of this class were of the view that because most of the pupils were good at learning by rote, they performed fairly well in tests and examinations despite an acknowledgement that their vocabulary was indeed limited. such observations have led this teacher to focusing on developing the word knowledge of the pupils. the text for this lesson, a text was selected by the teacher to contextualise instruction (ministry of education, 2000) and to trial the vss strategy. the text was selected to supplement prescribed texts already provided in the national curriculum (ministry of education, 2000) on the theme “amazing friendships”. the text is a folktale or fable with a moral at the end and short enough for a focused lesson on vocabulary. the structure of the text was familiar to the pupils as the structure was typical of fables and primarily written from the perspective of the omniscient third person, similar to fables they have read before. the unfamiliar words offered instructional opportunities to expand and augment the pupils’ vocabulary particularly in terms of the theme of friendship and words to do with physical space or the environment. finally, the text was suitable as a supplement because as a text type, it was different from the other texts as types already provided by the national curriculum. in terms of readability, the text was found to be prescriptively suitable for 11 year olds with a score of 4.9 based on the flesch-kincaid grade level test. a more discreet analysis of the text revealed that more than 90% of the words in the text were likely to be familiar to the pupils while the remaining residual 10% comprised words that were likely to be unfamiliar although relevant and suitable for instruction and word study. the lesson the lesson planned was for pupils to investigate key words in the text related to the theme of friendship as content and schema knowledge and to words that relate to aspects of physical space since such words occurred in the text. the duration of the lesson planned was for one hour, requiring modifications to the vss strategy and how it was to be used in the classroom. in addition, the teacher was assigned the class weeks before the mid-year examinations and a significant albeit subordinate priority for her was to ensure that the strategy selected would also hone the skills of inference and contextual clues that would be tested at the upcoming examinations. a. modifications to vss i. teacher-selected list of words vocabulary self-selection strategy 121 the lesson began with pupils reading the text, “the foolish friend”, extracted from the collection of the panchatantra. pupils were then put into five cooperative groups and assigned one word for study from a list of five words identified by the teacher from the text as shown below in figure 1. the list of five key words was selected by the teacher for important reasons. first, the words were identified around two categories, that is, the theme of friendship and the idea of physical space. in addition, the teacher needed to ensure that the key words selected were words where meaning could be inferred from the context of the text since this was an ancillary but critical priority for her. however, ruddell (2008b, p. 242) explains that a key characteristic of the vss strategy is for pupils to identify the key words in a text based on the words pupils wish to “include in their own personal vocabulary lists” (ruddell, 2008b, p. 172) . by modifying this initial step of the procedure, it was acknowledged by the teacher that this first lesson on vocabulary learning was more prescriptive and teacherdirected than the teacher would have liked. however, as the teacher was of the view that this was their first explicit lesson on vocabulary, by thinking aloud the reasons for teacher-selection of the words, pupils would be suitably supported to self-collect words in future lessons. word maps typically, the vss strategy does not include the use of word maps for word study. however, as this was the first time for both the teacher and pupils with conducting word studies, the inclusion of word maps served as a useful scaffolding tool for both the teacher and pupils to structure the investigation process and report findings from their word studies. furthermore, the word study maps allowed for more avenues to explore, refine and deepen their understanding of words more so than the advance organizer typically used with vss. the word map selected by the teacher required that pupils demonstrate word knowledge in these ways: (a) quadrant 1: the meaning of the word in their own words; (b) quadrant 2: a synonym of the word; (c) quadrant 3: a sentence where the word is used and (d) quadrant 4: a picture of the meaning of the word as they understood it. for this lesson, the following word map extracted from readingquest.org (figure 2) was employed to guide the pupils through their investigations. explicit language input in this lesson, the first trench of explicit or “deliberate input” (nation, 2015, p. 140) 122 vocabulary self-selection strategy by the teacher was at the initial stage of the lesson and took the form of familiarizing pupils with the different quadrants of the word map (figure 2) that they were to use. examples were given at this stage to delineate the extent of detail they were to pursue when demonstrating their understanding of each word in three quadrants of the word map except for quadrant 4 that required that they demonstrate understanding by drawing a picture of its meaning. a second trench of explicit language input was provided by the teacher after pupils presented their maps to the class, to discuss, confirm and consolidate their learning of each word. this allowed the entire class to learn from groups who were assigned different words to study. as the pupils listened to the presentations by the other groups, they took note of the words and their meanings in their daily writing books. researchers in vss (blachowicz, watts-taffe & fisher, 2005; ruddell, 2008a) state that a significant step of the vss procedure is when pupils present and share their word studies with the class. however, this aspect was modified by the teacher such that each group only presented three quadrants of their word maps, that is, (a) the meaning of the word in their own words, (b) its synonym and (c) an example of a sentence with the word. the teacher chose to personally assess quadrant 4 in order to determine with the change of modality (graves & watts-taffe, 2008) the depth of word learning. i. use of dictionaries another significant modification made to the vss procedure was not to allow pupils to use dictionaries and other word bank repositories to investigate the meaning of words as advised (blachowicz et. al., 2005; pikulski & templeton, 2004). the teacher did not allow the pupils to use any of these supports in order (a) to hone the skill of inferring meaning through contextual clues and (b) to replicate examination conditions where pupils will not have such supports. modifications to the vss strategy was largely made in terms of removing challenges to its implementation provided either by the profile of the pupils or by incorporating examination conditions. to that end, the modifications were rationalized in order to achieve learning outcomes beyond the goals of the strategy. first, the strategy situated pupils as active investigators of words, a role that these pupils were not at all familiar with until this lesson. second, it helped pupils derive the most accurate meaning of the words from the context in the text without the use of dictionaries. it was anticipated that the words studied would also similarly be limited to the context in the text. furthermore, it required pupils to examine contextual clues carefully in order to infer the meaning of the words. manzo et.al. (2005, pp. 174-175) in particular highlighted the significance of context in helping pupils predict the meaning of words. they argue that by inferring meaning from the context, this taps on the prior knowledge of meanings and is beneficial for the teacher as a means of assessing pupil learning for future lessons. in terms of the implementation of the strategy, ruddell (2008, p.152) confirms this by stating that content vocabulary instruction is only effective when it relates to prior knowledge and background experiences which in this case, the pupils would have gained through literacy vocabulary self-selection strategy 123 activities with other texts to do with the theme of “amazing friendships”. finally, it allowed pupils to demonstrate their understanding of the meaning of each word in different modalities, specifically writing and drawing. methods for this inquiry, the teacher developed her own lesson and the teaching resources for the explicit teaching of vocabulary through vss. her lesson was discussed with the second author who served as a nonparticipant and observer in the implementation of her lesson. the role of the second author was to audit instructional intentions, its relatedness to the unit of work from the national curriculum and the structure of the lesson. these were achieved through discussions before and after the implementation of the lesson. word maps, produced by the pupils were collected and analysed to determine the kinds of words the pupils found easy to demonstrate and the extent of word knowledge developed through the use of the strategy. to achieve this, each quadrant of the map was comparatively analysed for similarities and differences between the entries and with the text itself (ostovar & malekpur, 2015, p. 240). each quadrant of the word map was analysed for a distinctive linguistic or semantic feature as indicators of how well each word was understood, learnt and the extent that each word was used in another context. the indicators are: quadrant 1: linguistic flexibility (nation, 2001); quadrant 2: accuracy of meaning (ansarin & khojasteh, 2013, p. 17); quadrant 3: similarity of contexts (harmon, martin, & wood, 2010, p. 102) and quadrant 4: pictorial representation (blachowicz & fisher, 2004, p. 267). the initial findings were discussed and finalised, particularly in respect to the implications of implementing the strategy in future lessons, and with respect to better understanding the needs of this class. findings as an overview, the findings revealed that the pupils showed greater understanding of words related to the theme of friendship rather than with words to do with physical space. quadrant 1: the meaning of the word in their own words the focus of analysis for entries in this quadrant was in terms of whether pupils demonstrated personalisation in the definitions of words. ansarin & khojasteh (2013, p. 8) describe personalization as “linking the newly learnt lexical items to a whole network of previously learnt words”. in this quadrant, there was linguistic variation in the way pupils explained the meaning of words to do with the theme of friendship and physical space. for the words “exuded” and “shunned” that were related to the theme of friendship, the entries revealed shared understanding among pupils of the same group and little variation in terms of the way meaning was phrased. analysis of the definitions revealed that pupils may have been challenged with phrasing meaning as definitions which is a significant writing skill that pupils need to learn. this provided instructional insight to the teacher in terms of the needs of her pupils. in addition, the most variation in terms of phrasing was found for the word “scorned”, the third word related to the 124 vocabulary self-selection strategy theme, where although a key word “strong” was used in all entries, phrasing of definitions were more personalised, as seen in table 1. for the words to do with physical space, the entries for the definition for the word “vicinity” showed that all definitions used key words “surrounding” and “place”. variations to the phrasing of definitions tended to be structural rather than semantic. however, entries for the word “arbor” revealed a greater sense of personalisation of meaning. to illustrate, one pupil used the phrase “man-made” to pointedly contrast it with the sense that arbors are “natural”. entries for this set of words are presented as table 2. table 1 definition quadrant for words to do with the theme of friendship vocabulary self-selection strategy 125 quadrant 2: synonym of the word in this quadrant of the word map, it was agreed that accuracy in terms of word class was an important consideration in the analysis of entries and whether pupils used words that they had learnt from personal contexts or previous texts read, particularly for the group of words related to the theme of friendship. taking guidance from nation’s range of categories of related meanings (nation, 2000, p. 7), the entries were ranked according to the likert scale shown below. 126 vocabulary self-selection strategy however, entries for the words to do with physical space had an overall accuracy of 33.3% as seen in table 5. entries for the word “vicinity” were 50% accurate while only 25% of entries were accurate for the word “arbor”. the entries were analysed based on their accuracy to the context of the text. the analysis of entries for the words to do with the theme of friendship showed an overall accuracy of 57.1% (see table 4) with 100% accuracy for the word “shunned” and 66.6% accuracy for the word “scorned”. the entries for the word “exuded” were free associates rather than synonyms. the analysis showed that without the use of dictionaries and from the context alone, the pupils were able to provide synonyms or near synonyms for words to do with the theme than for physical space suggesting that words learnt around a theme allowed for “mental linkages” in the form of synonyms (nunan, 2001, p. 185). and, the entries for words whose meaning could be sufficiently derived from context also showed a significant degree of success. vocabulary self-selection strategy 127 quadrant 3: a sentence with the word easterbrook (2013, p. 26) explains that consolidation-memory strategies which include placing a newly-learnt word in a context and using it to create a new sentence actually contribute to deep learning of words. in this quadrant, entries were analysed in terms of whether pupils the one found in the text or whether they were able to personalize the meaning by generating sentences of the word in different contexts. entries for words to do with physical space revealed that pupils were able to use one of the words (“vicinity”) in personal contexts but not for the other word (‘arbor”) (see table 6). two of three entries for the word “vicinity” showed that pupils could transfer the meaning to other contexts such as the swimming pool, neighbourhood and the shopping mall and revealed the use of prior knowledge. only one entry re-used the context as found in the reading text. for the word “arbor” two entries were identical while the third was dissimilar. two of the entries showed that the pupil could use the word in a local context, the botanic gardens, while the third used the context as found in the readin generated sentences in a similar context to g text. for the entries of the words to do with the theme of friendship, the analysis showed that pupils were able to apply prior and personal knowledge as well as make links with their background experience (see table 7) for 7 out of 8 entries. pupils who studied the word “exuded” provided two sentences each for the word, one to demonstrate its meaning in a negative sense and another in a positive sense, revealing deeper learning for this word than the other words. the context for the sentences for the word “shunned” were shared entries, that is, that of a rubbish collector and both entries for the word showed that the pupils could use the word in a different and more personal context. finally, the sentences for the word “scorned” used four different contexts. 128 vocabulary self-selection strategy overall, most of the entries showed that pupils could use the word in another context as seen in table 7. vocabulary self-selection strategy 129 quadrant 4: draw the meaning of the word when examining the drawings of the meaning of the words, the pupils seemed to demonstrate a greater sophistication of meaning than demonstrated in the other three quadrants. for the words to do with physical space, such as the word “vicinity”, pupil a3’s entry demonstrated meaning through the use of arrows to make evident the meaning of proximal distance in a pointed manner. and, entries for the word “arbor” had a greater amount of detail particularly in terms of its context (see table 8). in analysing the drawings of words to do with the theme of friendship, the drawings showed a greater understanding of meaning through the use of speed lines to demonstrate effect and speech bubbles to demonstrate thought, motivation and emotion of characters as seen in table 9. 130 vocabulary self-selection strategy discussion a process approach to word learning one of the most challenging aspects of teaching english language in the classroom is to systematically develop the vocabulary of learners as they read, write, think and talk around different themes and genres because teachers have to identify the vocabulary that are critical to these themes. and, within a systemic functional framework of english language teaching (halliday, 1975), vocabulary, like grammar, are the resources that enable competence in the different language skills. the findings from this inquiry revealed how focused attention, as suggested by research (manzo et al., 2005; nation, 2015), will help pupils “notice” (schmidt, 1990) and learn the critical vocabulary that will help them become better readers and writers. they show that pupils’ overall understanding of words to do with the vocabulary self-selection strategy 131 theme of friendship and physical space improved as they worked through the different quadrants in a distinct order. in terms of defining words, the entries showed that pupils may need to learn how to phrase definitions since pupils seemed to struggle with it for 2 out of the 3 words. however, for 3 of the words across the theme of friendship and physical space, the pupils showed variation and personalisation in explaining their meaning. in terms of providing a word of related meaning in quadrant two, the entries showed that all entries for the theme of friendship were either synonyms or near synonyms indicating that without the use of dictionaries pupils were able to make “mental linkages” (nunan, 2001, p. 185) with other words around the same theme despite their struggle with defining meaning. for entries of words to do with physical space, though, there was only a rate of 33.3% accuracy, confirming, as found by tinkham (1997), that words around a theme are more easily learnt. entries for quadrant 3 that required sentence generation showed that the majority of entries (3 out of 5 physical space; 7 out of 8 theme of friendship) were about more personalised contexts. and, finally because quadrant 4 required a change of modality, the drawings revealed a greater depth of meaning across words in both categories. instructionally, what was notable across the words studied is that pupils’ understanding of meaning increased as they worked through each quadrant of the word map (nation, 2005) in preparation of another. as such, the demonstration of meaning became more refined for most pupils as they progressed through the quadrants in the above order. a means of assessment for learning the use of the vss strategy as a strategy for in-depth word study and vocabulary development was useful for this beginning teacher for numerous reasons. first, there was sufficient structure to the strategy such that she could use it easily in the classroom. in addition, the use of word maps further structured and deepened the study of words. while the strategy was modified in response to the profile of the class and in accordance with examination conditions, the modifications allowed the teacher to investigate more deeply her initial hypothesis of her pupils’ vocabulary levels and the extent to which the goal of the vss strategy could be maximised for learning. secondly, the findings from the analysis of pupils’ work were easily computed for future planning of “push” (ruddell, 2008a, p. 176) tasks for long-term learning. tasks such as requiring pupils to write an extended prose response to the text with the inclusion of the words studied were discussed as suitable for this class. most immediately, the analysis of pupils’ word maps provided direction for her in terms of the word knowledge skills that pupils will need to learn and master for the impending examinations. thirdly, the findings helped her deliberate more carefully on the selection of words for word study. as the strategy requires pupils to examine key words in the context of a text and its type, words that are heavily contextualised will only affirm the pupils in terms of their use of reading comprehension skills such as the skill of inference. and similarly, words that are lightly contextualised will pose much challenge to pupils and as such should be avoided if teachers wish for pupils to infer their meaning from contexts. 132 vocabulary self-selection strategy instructional frequency questions raised by this teacher at the start of this inquiry was in terms of the identification of needful vocabulary for pupils at any grade level and the instructional frequency required for pupils to make positive gains. the vss strategy helped this teacher understand with greater depth the kinds of words pupils are likely to learn more quickly and the words that they will struggle with and the reasons for it. she determined from their word maps that her pupils needed to learn how to write definitions, that they could elicit words of related meaning from other texts of similar theme and what could be done for those who were struggling with using new words in another context. she also suggested that for some, perhaps, the sequence of filling out the word map was an important factor. representing meaning in different modalities finally, this small inquiry attempts to build on the work of nation (2005) who drew attention to the components of effective teacher input when introducing learners to new words. the different quadrants of the word maps suggest that when pupils are presented with different ways of representing the meaning of new words as information transfer activities, learning is clarified and therefore, deepened giving them confidence to use the word in more personalised contexts. equally, pupil drawings offered her a bank of readily available authentic resources that she could use as authentic examples for more visual learners, bringing instruction closer to the needs of learners. coupling word maps with vss provided the pupils with opportunities to self-collect key words in a text and also examine them deeply for long-term retention. conclusion this article described an inquiry conducted by a beginning english language teacher who embarked on improving the vocabulary of her newly assigned class of pupils through the use of the vss strategy – a strategy for vocabulary learning of content areas. the inquiry sought to demonstrate how the vss strategy was modified in various ways to better prepare the pupils for more rigorous vocabulary instruction for future lessons with the strategy. the examination of pupils’ word maps produced in the inquiry served to help the teacher develop deeper understanding of her pupils, the implementation of the strategy and about vocabulary learning. as an example of teacher-initiated classroom research based on an assessment of learner needs, this inquiry also demonstrated how research of this kind, small scale and needs-based, can be conducted by newly-graduated teachers to refine their own practice. the investigation was conducted after the teacher graduated where the need for small-scale inquiries that inform micro-levels of practice or understanding, missed perhaps at the stage of pre-service training, are valued most. as such, the inquiry also serves to offer an alternative view to classroom action research as a means of building subject content knowledge and refining the classroom practice of individual teachers early in their careers as teachers. vocabulary self-selection strategy 133 © natalie kang & jo-ann netto-shek natalie kang is a newly graduated english teacher from the national institute of education, singapore. she has been working at a local government primary school since graduation. she is also a qualified early childhood teacher with credentials as a dance educator as well. email: kang_natalie@moe.edu.sg jo-ann netto-shek is a lecturer at the english language and literature academic group, national institute of education, singapore. she is the programme coordinator of the diploma in education programme (english) and coordinator for curriculum studies for the bachelor in education programme. her research interests lie in policy implementation practices. e-mail: joann.shek@nie.edu.sg references ansarin, a. a., & khojasteh, m. r. z. 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(2010). literacy for the 21st century: a balanced approach. usa: pearson education. exploring students’ imagined communities 103 beyond words vol. 10 no.2 november 2022 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya exploring efl business-major college students’ imagined communities, perceptions of english, and their agency pei-chia liao feng chia university taiwan, province of china article history abstract received: 21-08-2021 reviewed: 22-10-2022 accepted: 05-11-2022 keywords: agency; business college students; capital; efl; imagined communities doi https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i2.3361 highlighting technology as a site for learners’ agency, this study attempts to contribute new knowledge in efl learning in out-of-classroom contexts, which is the littleexplored area in the tesol field. this study employs qualitative case studies to explore efl business college students’ perspectives on english and their imagined communities. it examines how their imagined communities shaped their current language practices and investment in language learning. it also offers an analysis of the interconnectedness of the students’ perspective on english as capital and their agency. the findings demonstrate that for efl business-major college students, english embodies more than its linguistic power; it is often associated with symbolic and economic value. taking the students’ personal histories and aspiration into account, the study points that imagined communities played a vital role in shaping the participants’ learning trajectories, as well as inspiring and directing them into who they wanted to be or become. it also shows that the students were highly aware of the resources associated with their target language(s), and they strived to gain those resources. furthermore, the study reveals that the students exercised their agency using myriad forms of technology to engage in their imagined communities. implications for language classrooms will also be discussed. introduction over the past two decades, many scholars in the field of teaching english to students of other languages (tesol) have described learners’ language learning as participating in imagined communities, which refers to an idealized space to which learners wish to belong (darvin & norton, 2015; de costa, 2016; kanno & norton, 2003). studies have showed that students’ engagement in english learning or other areas where students decided to put their efforts were shaped by their imagined https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i2.3361 104 exploring students’ imagined communities communities (chang, 2015; kanno & norton, 2003; yim, 2016). norton (2001) notes that imagination provides ‘new ways of understanding one’s relation to the world that transcend more immediate acts of engagement’ (p. 163-164). i set out to contribute to this line of inquiry by shedding light on the imagined communities of business-major college students in taiwan in order to better understand students’ decisions and actions in language learning beyond the classroom context. furthermore, by looking at language learners’ learning practices beyond classroom environments, i situate my work within the conceptualization that language learning is a process of resource-acquiring as learning transforms what learners can do (norton, 2001). i explore the interaction between learners’ engagement in language learning and the resources the college students believe they need in order to successfully move into a next new context, such as graduate school or the workplace. the process of imagining one’s memberships in multiple communities may influence agency and investment in english learning (norton & pavlenko, 2019). in the field of language education, due to technological advances that have led to information explosion, the importance of self-directed lifelong learning has gained attention and many scholars have dedicated themselves to the concept of agency (i.e., benson, 2011; larsen-freeman, 2019; mercer, 2011). van lier (2008) was one of the pioneers who explored language learner agency in the classroom. however, many studies that touched upon the concept of language learner agency remain theoretically based and empirical studies centering on language learner agency have been explored less. language learner agency centering on efl contexts is even more understudied (author, 2019). furthermore, studies focusing on how language learners in efl contexts exert agency beyond classroom environments are scarce. in the present study, i examine students’ agency and the resources they hope to get from their language learning investment. the following questions guided this study: how do business college students in an efl context view english? focusing, in particular, on the beyond the classroom contexts, why and how do those students pursue english? literature review the literature review will synthesize current knowledge on three sets of scholarship that the research is drawing from: imagined communities, capital, and agency. imagined communities in the literature of second language acquisition (sla), historically scholars have dedicated their research to learners’ language engagement or investment in face-to-face communities (pavlenko & norton, 2007). for example, researchers have focused on how learners’ immediate learning environments or in-class communities mediate their learning process and practices (duff & doherty, 2015; willett, 1995). it is only over the past two decades that researchers have described learners’ language learning as participating in imagined communities, which refer to intangible or not immediately accessible groups to which a person desires to belong (kanno & norton, 2003; norton, 2001). pavlenko and norton (2007) pinpointed the crucial role that imagined communities play in the lives of language learners: we humans are capable, through our imagination, of perceiving a connection with people beyond our immediate social networks. our orientation toward such imagined exploring students’ imagined communities 105 communities might have just as much impact on our current identities and learning as direct involvement in communities of our everyday life (p. 590). through the lens of imagined communities, scholars have explored the interaction between language learners’ imagined communities and their learning actions. for instance, kanno (2003) described how rui, a japanese teenager who spent most of his life in english-speaking countries such as canada and australia, identified with his imagined japan strongly and this identification profoundly motivated rui to keep his japanese language proficiency. in the same vein, norton (2001) described and illustrated through the case of katrina how a learner’s imagined community shapes one’s engagement with learning. before immigrating to canada, katrina, an experienced teacher in poland, envisioned herself belonging to a professional community in her host country. however, as a newcomer to canada, her imagined professional community stood juxtaposed to her esl teacher, who claimed that her english was not good enough to take a computer course that could have been helpful for her career advancement. katrina thought her esl teacher treated her ‘as a mere immigrant’ (kanno & norton, 2003, p.243) and this view was in discrepancy with katrina’s imagined professional community. this incident led katrina to never return to the esl class. imagined community can also represent someone’s dreams for the future at a particular point in a learner’s life (liggett, 2011). for example, chang (2015) described how a taiwanese graduate student in the united states envisioned himself working as a professor in the context of taiwan. identifying himself as a member of the academic community, the graduate student decided to invest deeply in his research, which meant spending the majority of his time in the laboratory and in publication since these two areas were highly valued in the context of taiwanese higher education. dedicated to the study of learners’ imagined communities in the efl context, yim (2016) focused on south korean elementary students’ approaches to learning english. yim indicated that the construction of the students’ imagined communities was influenced mainly by their learning experiences outside of school which involved private lessons, english test systems, parental attitudes towards english, and an emphasis on grammar teaching and learning. however, their imagined communities (i.e., their learning outside of school) were in conflict with the national primary curriculum that focused on communicative language teaching. therefore, this resulted in gaps caused by students’ poor engagement in taking english lessons at the state schools. capital many researchers in the field of sla have pinpointed that english learning is deeply ideological and the english language is often viewed as a source of material and immaterial resources (de costa, 2016; norton, 2001). norton (2001) indicated that language learners expect or hope to have a good return on their investment in the target language. bourdieu’s (1986, 1991) concepts of capital provided helpful insights into an understanding of the resources that my participants expect to gain from english (or in one of the participants’ case, japanese). capital means material and immaterial resources that grant power to the people who have access to them (bourdieu 1986, 1991; chang & kanno, 2010). in this study, the capital that i particularly shed light on is symbolic capital, which refers to the resources available on the basis of honor, prestige or recognition, and serves as value that one holds within a culture (bourdieu, 1991). lin (1999) describes how english serves as 106 exploring students’ imagined communities symbolic capital in hong kong as it is often treated as a gate-keeper and is widely considered a language of power and high status in hong kong. in the context of taiwan, tsai (2010) through conducting a study regarding the relationships between english skills and socioeconomic status found that english proficiency can contribute to advancement in socioeconomic status more than can mandarin proficiency. in addition, tsai indicated that language skill is viewed as a form of human capital that indicates one’s ability and this ability also indicates one’s job performance. other forms of capital that i touch upon in this study are linguistic capital and economic capital. linguistic capital means one’s competence in a language and economic capital refers to one’s financial resources (bourdieu, 1986). one noteworthy point is that one form of capital can often be converted into another in bourdieu’s conceptualization of capital (oropeza et al., 2010). agency agency used to be viewed as one property of being human (van lier, 2008). later many scholars underscored the element of action in one’s agency and theorized agency as actionoriented endeavors. for example, inden (1990) indicated that agency is the power of people to ‘act purposively and reflectively’ upon their world (p.23). lantolf and pavlenko (2001) referred to agency is ‘the ability of language learners to assign relevance and significance to things and events’ (p. 143). in accord with the conceptualization of agency as action-oriented efforts, many researchers have highlighted the relationship between agency and language learning. for instance, lantolf and thorne (2006) indicated that ‘learning a language is necessarily the action of an intentional agent’ (p. 142). little et al. (2017) conducted an empirical study of the learner agency of lower secondary level danish students in an english-learning classroom setting. according to this study, agentive language learners were intentional learners and managed their own learning: they set targets, made choices, monitored their learning progress, and evaluated outcomes. furthermore, many studies have further examined the interconnectedness of agency and learners’ resources or capital. for instance, drawing on giddens (1979), sewell (1992) stated that one’s resources or capital shape one’s actions and such actions resulting from one’s agency also constitute and reproduce one’s resources. in other words, according to sewell (1992), agency is both formed by one’s available resources and reciprocally shapes one’s capital or resources (giddens, 1979; sewell, 1992). more recently, mercer (2011) argued that how and when learner agency is used depends on a number of factors including one’s resources in specific settings. larsenfreeman (2019) theorized that one manifested agency if he or she ‘optimized conditions for one’s own learning and chose to deploy one’s semiotic resources to position oneself as one would wish in a multilingual world’ (p. 70). as mentioned earlier, many tesol studies that addressed the concept of language learner agency remain theoretically based and empirical studies centering on language learner agency have been understudied. furthermore, language learner agency centering on efl contexts is even less studied and studies focusing on how language learners in efl contexts exert agency beyond classroom environments are scarce. the identified lacuna serves as the focus and, therefore, the unique contribution of the present study . exploring students’ imagined communities 107 method this study uses a qualitative case study method that helps examine and understand the experience of the participants (yin, 2006). the strength of the case-study method is its ability to examine a case within its “real-life” context (yin, 2006, p. 111). additionally, what can be learned from a single case may indicate a larger phenomenon, even though individual’s experience and descriptions are unique (wolcott, 2005). i conducted semistructured interviews to have a better understanding of the college students’ engagement with english beyond the classroom context. as a teacher-researcher inspired by the work of chang (2015), i aimed to minimize the possibility of coercion and hoped the interviews would yield genuine opinions regarding students’ views on english and their english learning trajectories. therefore, the interviews were administered after the course had finished and after the students had been notified of their grades. i emailed an interview invitation to all the students enrolled in the course and eight students agreed to participate in the interview. the inclusion of only three students in this study is due to the employment of purposeful sampling (merriam, 2009), which allows selection of those participants having representative case examples that fit the central focus of this study. the site and the participants the university where the study was conducted is a comprehensive university in central taiwan, comprising nine colleges among them, business, engineering, and humanities and social sciences. all junior students across the spectrum of majors are required to take a course called third-year english, the main purpose of which is to prepare and train students’ oral speaking skills for the workplace, such as english interviews and presentation skills. the participants were the researcher’s students in this course who majored in international business in the college of business. the students were all in their fourth year when the interviews were conducted. the graduation benchmark of the department of international business is 600 points in the test of english for international communication (toeic). those whose toeic scores fall below 600 have to take additional english courses at the school. the participants indicated that, before entering college, they all had at least eight years of formal english education at elementary and secondary schools in taiwan. in this study, two participants indicated that they had started learning english at a kindergarten or institute where the english language was one component before entering elementary schools, and one participant had started learning english in his first grade of elementary school. the following table shows an overview of the case study participants. yong len yu age 21 21 21 first language mandarin mandarin mandarin years of formal english language study 12 13 13 age of starting to learn english 6 5 5 table: overview of case study participants 108 exploring students’ imagined communities data collection and analysis the data included semi-structured oneon-one interviews and, as mentioned earlier, the semi-structured interviews were conducted after the course was finished. the interview protocol was designed and the first round of interviews was carried out with each participant individually. when necessary, the second-round interviews with individual participants were conducted in order to clarify questions or confusing statements gathered from them during the first round of interviews. all the participants chose to converse in mandarin and the interviews were audiotaped and fully transcribed. in terms of data analysis, first, since the interviews were conducted in mandarin, i translated and transcribed the interviews in english. then the interview transcripts were analyzed line-by-line and labeled with open coding (murray, 2009). i also employed content analysis and categorized the data by possible themes. during this process of open coding, i also noticed some overlapping key phrases among the interview transcripts and therefore proceeded to group codes into categories (murray, 2009). additionally, to engage the member check, i also provided the participants their individual interview transcript(s) and some potential theme. results the interview findings are organized and presented in the following discussion of the results. the first point presents the students’ comments on how and why they viewed english as a source of symbolic and material capital. the second point addresses the students’ imagined communities and how their imagined communities offered them inspiration and provided a sense of direction in their engagement with language learning. english as linguistic, symbolic, and economic capital yong, len, and yu were highly aware of the resources associated with english early on in their childhood. the students’ perspectives on english and their notions regarding the resources of english had been shaped by their family. when yong was a first grader in elementary school, his parents took him to an after-school, english-only institution and told him that english is very important. quoting his parents own mantra, he said that both his parents had stressed that ‘good english can lead to more success.’ although yong’s parents had not gone to college themselves, they very often upheld yong’s cousin as an example to encourage yong to study english. according to yong’s parents, the cousin had good english and then entered a good college, which later helped him find a good job at a well-acclaimed international company in taiwan from which he gained socioeconomic status. ever since yong was a child, he deeply believed that if he invested in english, he would earn the linguistic capital that would eventually lead to higher employability and thus, through this, gain economic capital. yong worked hard in the english-only institution and his hard work paid off when he entered junior high school. he found he was ahead of many of his peers. achieving good scores in both junior and senior high school kept yong highly motivated in the subject of english. according to yong, because of the test-oriented culture in his junior and senior high schools, good english at that time meant having good scores in the subject of english. whereas many of yong’s peers found studying english to be stressful, for yong getting ahead in the subject of exploring students’ imagined communities 109 english gave him tremendous confidence in pursuing his study. yong indicated that he felt grateful his parents had instilled in him in his childhood the idea that english is important and had encouraged him to study english. furthermore, yong believed that a having a good command of english is an important gateway into the business world and this notion regarding english’s symbolic capital led him to choose international trade as his college major. in this way, he would be motivated to continue learning english and thus gain further advantages in his future career in business. len too said that since his youth his father had underscored the value of english and had encouraged len to study it. len’s father worked in the human resources department of a business company and since childhood, len had heard him say, ‘english is the ticket to enter the business world.’ his father’s words internalized now rolled off len’s tongue with ease. len’s father often used his company employees’ delivery of english presentations as examples of how english is not just a language, but has symbolic and economic value. he told len that those who did well in their english presentations in his company usually received more recognition and were, therefore, granted more job opportunities or chances at promotions. len started to learn english in preschool where he associated the language with fun-filled english learning games. growing up, len always thought english was more interesting than other subjects in school. in addition, because of the influence of his father, in college, len decided to choose a major related to business. yu had been made aware of the power of english by her family since she was young. yu’s uncle worked in a company whose headquarters was located in the united states. when yu was in elementary school, her uncle sometimes brought his overseas clients from the u.s. or canada to his home in taiwan and yu had many chances to interact with those clients. even though yu was not able to speak english fluently at that time, she liked to interact with those people. furthermore, yu’s uncle often shared interesting stories with yu and her parents of things he had experienced in the u.s. or canada. seeing her uncle owning the linguistic capital of english and being able to interact and do business with that kind of client, yu felt motivated to learn english well and set her uncle as a role model. yu admired how her uncle was able to expand his world and vision beyond the borders of taiwan. because of her uncle, yu also felt interested in business and chose international trade for her college major. imagined communities developed aspiration within the participants and provided a sense of direction in their engagement with learning the data analysis shows that yong, len, and yu constructed their imagined communities outside school and, with the help of technology, their imagined communities offered them inspiration and shaped their language learning practices. when asked what motivated yong to learn english, in addition to the aforementioned symbolic and economic resources associated with english, yong emphasized that he did not just want to compete with his peers at school. he acknowledged that there were ‘students from the top-tier universities in taiwan’ who worked hard and learned english diligently. during his third year in college, yong and his classmates formed a team participating in a national competition hosted by a well-known business company in china. during the competition, yong met groups of other 110 exploring students’ imagined communities students from the top-tier universities in taiwan. delivering an english business presentation was one of the requirements for the competition. those students, according to yong, ‘work quite hard and they usually persist and do not give up easily. they may not feel interested in every subject; however, because they persist, they succeed in their academic pursuits.’ yong and his team eventually won third place in the competition. yong indicated that he was more amazed with getting to know those groups of students beyond his immediate academic community than with receiving the prize itself. meeting those students from top-tier universities had a huge impact on yong. after that competition, yong envisioned himself as a member of a group called ‘graduate students’ wherein he was surrounded by that group of students as his peers. this imagined academic community pushed yong to do his best in his current school work as he imagined what his peers from good universities would be doing in their school work. for example, almost all of yong’s textbooks were in english and published in english-speaking countries. unlike some of his peers who relied on translated versions of the textbooks, yong enjoyed reading his english textbooks and made organized study notes by himself. additionally, if yong had a chance to read an academic paper in english for his class, when he finished reading it, he would debrief the paper imaging himself a graduate student in class. yong further explained: i want to work harder because i know i am going to compete with that group of toptier students later in graduate school, or later, if i get a chance to work in a good company, i will definitely be working with those students as well. i want to prepare myself to be good at english so i can have a greater advantage. additionally, to let himself be more familiar with business english, yong also watched the american tv show shark tank on youtube with great passion. yong enjoyed watching how the contestants delivering effective pitches and relentlessly negotiating with the judges. as for len, his imagined community not only shaped his english learning, but also further guided him in terms of who he wanted to be. len started playing basketball when he was a child. originally, len wanted to study in a junior high school that owned a basketball team with a good nation-wide reputation. however, len’s parents wanted him to enter a more academic-oriented school. even so, len’s passion for basketball did not dwindle. len viewed nikola jokic, the serbian basketball player in the national basketball association, as his idol. in order to follow jokic and understand the ways he played, len watched sport games and put effort into learning english for the field of sports. he paid particular attention to the highlights and post-game analyses and he trained himself in listening by watching the highlights and analyses repeatedly. len also watched many interviews on youtube featuring jokic, no matter those interviews had english subtitles or not. he tirelessly looked up the vocabulary related to basketball english. to practice the words he had just learned, len would sometimes act as a commentator and give a play-by-play of a game in english or in a mixture of mandarin and english as he watched. len considered his english ability made huge strides because of his efforts. len further indicated that seeing jokic playing helped him imagine that it was himself playing in the field. this imagination, len indicated, pushed him to work harder as a student. ‘if i encountered some troubles when i studied, i often encouraged myself to exploring students’ imagined communities 111 work harder, to ask for help, and to not give up, just like jokic.’ asked why he idolized jokic so much, len explained: jokic was not the kind of nba player who owned a perfect body; he was kind of oversized. many people called him “big man.” however, jokic worked very hard and slowly earned his recognition in the nba. compared to his peers, especially his basketball teammates, len considered himself ‘fat,’ in his own words. this did not discourage len because he thought he could ‘exercise and be active and healthy.’ in addition to jokic’s body image, len also related that jokic liked to joke around and this often put people around him at ease. inspired by this personality trait, len also joked around with his peers and wanted to be seen as an easygoing person by his friends. like the imagined communities of yong and len, yu’s imagined community guided and shaped her language learning. her imagined community further guided and directed her future career choice. as mentioned previously, yu was inspired to learn english well. during the summer vacation before entering college, she googled the phrase ‘self-learning english,’ hoping to find some online english learning resources. she first found a website called voicetube, which is an english-learning website that contains movie clips or youtube videos covering various topics. she started visited this website a lot and also liked its special features for learning, such as its dictionary for vocabulary look up and its quizzes. she continuously visited the website during college and recommended it to her friends. she also found an english-learning podcast, each episode of which is only fifteen minutes long. yu liked the podcast because she could easily finish it without feeling too overwhelmed and she listened to it weekly. when she learned some useful or interesting phrases, she kept notes in hopes of one day using those phrases. it was during that search of ‘selflearning english’ that yu found a youtuber’s channel, which was mostly about the youtuber’s strategies to learn english and japanese on her own. yu mentioned that, in addition to getting a high score on the toeic exam through self-study, the youtuber had moved on to learn japanese, working very hard at it, sleeping only two to three hours a day and putting the rest of her day into studying japanese. the youtuber eventually passed the japanese language examination within a short period of time. the youtuber later got a chance to work in a japanese company based in taiwan and many of her latest youtube videos were about how she got the job and her working life in the company. yu was highly inspired by the youtuber and decided to self-learn japanese. yu stated that acquiring japanese, plus her english ability, would help her find a good job in the business field in the future. yu hoped that one day she would be able to work in a company where she could apply both her english and japanese language skills, just like the company in which the youtuber worked. watching the youtuber’s working videos also helped yu imagine what it would be like if she worked in that company. furthermore, while many of yu’s peers were busy with their part-time jobs or extracurricular activities, yu focused on learning japanese and sharpening english because she knew the linguistic capital would be highly valued in her envisioned professional community. 112 exploring students’ imagined communities discussion the study shows that the imagined communities of yong and yu represented their dreams for the future after college, and their imagined communities played a vital role in shaping the participants’ engagement with language learning. yong envisioned a graduate school community and yu imagined herself working in a business company in taiwan. yong’s imagined community shaped his endeavors into becoming a graduate student: translating, organizing, and analyzing acquired knowledge from his english textbooks and academic papers. the images of yu’s favorite youtuber also played a vital role in her deciding and taking action in studying japanese. acknowledging the efforts of the youtuber self-taught in japanese, yu was inspired to learn japanese on her own and closely followed the language learning strategies suggested by the youtuber. in addition to the impact on the students’ language practices and engagement with languages, the results of this study also reveal that imagined communities further inspired and guided the students in terms of the kind of people they wanted to be. for example, because of his passion in basketball, len’s imagination helped him connect with people beyond his immediate social networks (pavlenko & norton, 2007) and he found a way to closely connect with his basketball idol, jokic. the images of jokic significantly affected not only len’s investment in learning sports english, but also the ways he faced difficulties and how he treated people around him. len was inspired to do things with persistence and put the people around him at ease. previously, i underscored how imagined communities made an impact on the students’ investment in language and actions (kanno & norton, 2003). however, as norton (2001, p. 164) stated, imagination ‘does not necessarily result in the coordination of action.’ drawing on the work of sewell (1992) and mercer (2011), i argue that the students were highly aware of the resources associated with their target language(s), and knowing how valuable those resources would be in their future communities, the students employed their agency to gain that capital. yong reckoned the linguistic capital of english would be a valuable asset in his envisioned academic community, and therefore he exercised agency in working hard to enhance that linguistic capital. yu acknowledged that the linguistic capital of english and japanese would be highly valued in her future professional community, and thus she was determined to acquire that capital. furthermore, i would like to shed light on the students’ remarkable agency. yong was able to assign relevance and significance to the academic trainings he self-initiated (lantolf & pavlenko, 2001, p. 143). the students also optimized their learning conditions (larson-freeman, 2019) by utilizing varying online resources to achieve intended goals or desired outcomes. while online learning resources are available to everyone via the internet, it is the seeking out of learning opportunities in which the learning that takes place is self-motivated (duff & doherty, 2015) that is essentially the learners’ agency. for example, yu exerted great agency by acting purposefully and responsively in managing her own learning. she initiated googling the phrase ‘selflearning english’ and then diligently listened to episode after episode of an englishlearning podcast and kept notes of what she learned. besides, she followed a youtuber’s advice to self-learn japanese. having acknowledged the importance of the linguistic capital of english and japanese in her future professional community, yu worked hard to gain the capital. exploring students’ imagined communities 113 conclusion and implications through the lens of imagined communities, this study focuses on three efl business students’ perspectives on english and their actions dedicated to language learning beyond classroom context. the study also takes the students’ personal histories and aspirations into consideration and it demonstrates that the imagined communities of yong, len, and yu were significantly powerful in ways that inspired, directed, and shaped their language learning trajectories. furthermore, the study shows that the students’ imagination made an impact on their identification and future affiliations (kanno & norton, 2003). yong envisioned himself as a graduate student studying with other hard-working students and yu imagined herself applying both her english and japanese skills in a business company in the future. len aspired to being a person like his basketball idol who does things with persistence and puts people around him at ease. the study also finds that technology as a site for agentive language learning beyond the classroom. the participants made good use of the online resources that not only tailored to their needs but also benefited and motivated their learning. in considering the significance of imagination in the learners’ lives, language teachers could 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(2006). case study methods. in j. l. green, g. camilli, & p. b. elmore (eds.), handbook of complementary methods in education research (pp. 111-122). mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. running head: encouraging second language use 23 beyond words vol. 1, no. 1, november 2013 widya mandala catholic university surabaya encouraging second language use in cooperative learning groups george m jacobs james cook university, singapore george.jacobs@gmail.com & harumi kimura miyagi gakuin women's university, japan mrharumi@gmail.com 24 encouraging second language use abstract this article presents, explains and organizes ideas for promoting students’ use of their second language (this term includes foreign language) when they work together in cooperative learning groups. the first part of the article reviews arguments as to whether students of second languages should be encouraged to use their second language with classmates when doing group activities. these arguments are discussed with reference to second language acquisition (sla) theory. practical issues are also explored. next, the majority of the article presents ideas on how to promote second language use during peer interaction. twenty-nine of these ideas are explained. the ideas are organized into five categories: a role for the l1; understanding the issue; creating a conducive climate; providing language support; and the task. it is recommended that teachers use ideas from the literature on cooperative learning when they ask students to interact. keywords: second language learning, foreign language learning, cooperative learning, peer interaction, teacher support. encouraging second language use 25 introduction this article begins by discussing whether students of second and foreign languages (hereafter, “second language” will be used to refer to both foreign and second languages) should be encouraged to use their second language (l2) with classmates when doing group activities. reasons for both l2 and l1 (first language) use are discussed with reference to second language acquisition (sla) theory. practical issues are also explored. thereafter, the bulk of the article contains ideas about how to encourage students to use their l2 for peer interaction. twenty-nine such ideas are explained. these are divided into five sections: a role for the l1; understanding the issue; creating a conducive climate; providing language support; and the task. why encourage l2 use theory and research suggest that l2 students can learn more effectively if they spend some of their class time, as well as some of their time outside of class, using the l2 with classmates. several rationales have been offered for encouraging students to use the l2 with each other. the next paragraphs review these rationales. a first reason for promoting student-student interaction in the l2 is that it may lead to students receiving more comprehensible input (speech or writing that is understandable to learners) (krashen, 2011), because fellow students’ l2 speech and writing may be easier to understand. on a related point, classmates often build friendships or already are friends and, thus, feel comfortable interacting with each other and are more likely to interact with each other in the l2 than with l2 speakers whom students do not know well. such a friendly, low-risk, low anxiety environment may promote learning (kimura, 2011). furthermore, when students interact with each other in their l2, they can use the target language (the language they are trying to learn) to help each other understand what each has said 26 encouraging second language use or written, thereby increasing the percentage of input that is comprehensible (storch, 2002). for example, students can ask each other to repeat, rephrase, or explain. this negotiation for meaning promotes language acquisition (mackey & oliver, 1999). additionally, in groups, students have opportunities to produce more l2 output (speech or writing) of their own than they do in the normal teacher-fronted classroom in which the teacher calls on one student at a time (swain, 1999). well-conceived group learning tasks require meaningful output, can develop fluency, and encourage students to notice key features of the target language (schmidt, 2001). another rationale for l2 use among students is that group mates can help each other learn the l2 by providing peer tutoring and other types of support as they work together to achieve common goals in language learning (lantolf & poehner, 2008). this support may be more likely when students work in groups that are heterogeneous as to l2 proficiency (jacobs & goh, 2007). cooperative learning one way for students to interact in their l2 involves them in sometimes studying in cooperative learning (also known as collaborative learning) groups, usually of 2-4 members. cooperative learning provides one of many ways to move education away from a teacher centered mode and toward a student centered mode in which students are more overtly active, as they discuss, debate, plan, generate, and evaluate. teachers still have a pivotal role in lessons that include cooperative learning, and teachers still lecture and demonstrate. however, teachers now spend more time as facilitators (johnson & johnson, n.d.). cooperative learning is an area in general education that provides teachers of all subjects, including l2, with insights into how to successfully facilitate student-student collaboration (jacobs & kimura, 2013; johnson & johnson, 1999; slavin, 1995). these insights deal with such encouraging second language use 27 matters as how to encourage all group members to participate and learn (individual accountability) and how to build a feeling of mutual concern and support within the groups (positive interdependence). some educators, but not the authors of this paper, differentiate between cooperative learning and collaborative learning, with the latter giving students more control over how they work together and encouraging them to create group products that go beyond the sum of the parts. a key difficulty with cooperative learning in l2 instruction however, just asking students to work together will not always lead to successful interaction among students. one problem that often arises when l2 students work in groups is that students spend most of the time communicating in their native language, not in the l2. this article addresses the issue of how teachers can encourage students to use their l2 with their classmates. the use of l2 in groups is relatively easy to promote in classes which consist of students with a variety of l1s. by asking students to form groups with classmates who speak different l1s, teachers create a situation in which the l2 becomes the lingua franca (common language) of the group, and students have little alternative but to use it if they wish to communicate with groupmates. similarly, students can create such situations for themselves outside the classroom by putting themselves in situations in which they interact with people with whom students share only the target language. however, in many l2 classes, it is not possible to create such mixed-l1 groups for cooperative learning. below are 29 suggestions, divided into five sections, for facilitating l2 use when students are working in cooperative learning groups. the five sections are: (a) a role for the l1; (b) understanding the issue; (c) creating a conducive climate; (d) providing language support; and (e) the task. 28 encouraging second language use section a: a role for the l1? perhaps there is a valid role for the l1 when students work together in groups (deller & rinvolucri, 2002). if so, instead of attempting to completely ban the l1, maybe the best course lies in students and teachers finding what they agree is the proper balance between the l1 and l2. the proper balance depends on such factors as task difficulty, student level, socio-cultural issues, and the specific goals of a particular activity. beneficial use. some use of the l1 may be beneficial for a number of reasons. for example, some words are very difficult for students to explain to each other. thus, it may be better to use an l1 translation (folse, 2004; nation, 2001). language and identity. we teachers should remember that we are helping students add a new language, not subtract their l1. we need to appreciate that language use is involved with identity (norton, 2000). l1 tickets. each student can have l1 tickets for the day, semester, or whatever. they, then, decide together if they need to use the l1 and turn in a ticket each time the l1 is used. students can discuss how many tickets they have used and why. this, and other suggestions below, can raise student awareness of the issue. recognition can be given to those who use fewer tickets. talking tokens. similarly, each student can have, for example, four talking tokens. every time they speak, they give up one token, but when they speak in l2, they give up two tokens. when they have no tokens left, they cannot speak again until all their group members have used all their tokens. writing in l1.one corner of the classroom can be designated as the place students can go temporarily to speak the l1. alternatively, if students want to use the l1, they can write, rather than speak. encouraging second language use 29 percentage of l2 use. students can set a goal as to the percentage of l2 to use and then evaluate whether they reached their goal. this can be done every class. mixture between l1 and l2.students can speak a mixture of l1 and l2 in the same sentence or speaking turn. students use l2 when they know l2 words, but they use the l1 for words that they do not know in l2. gradually, the percentage of l2 increases. section b: understanding the issue. these suggestions concern how teachers and students view the issue of the use of the l1 and l2 when they interact with peers. teacher’s empathy. students and teachers need to take a long-term view. learning a new language is difficult. students, who can express themselves very well in the l1, suddenly have the vocabulary of small children in their l2. teachers should empathize with how their students might feel. students’ habit of using l1. students have the habit of using their l1 when they speak to one another during class as well as outside of class. everyone needs to recognize that habits take a while to change. the advantage of using l2. the class can discuss the issue of l2 use and the advantages and disadvantages of l1 and l2 use. then, the class can attempt to reach a consensus on the use of l1 and l2 when they work together. section c: creating a conducive climate. students will be more likely to experiment with l2 if they feel it is okay to use l2 even if mistakes are made. building relations. cl offers many ideas for building relations among students so that they feel as though the group, and perhaps even the entire class, sinks or floats together (gillies, 2007). thus, by using cl, the class may create a supportive, low pressure environment in which risk taking, such as using the l2, is encouraged and in which it is okay to make mistakes. 30 encouraging second language use why working in groups. similarly, some students use the l1 because they feel uncomfortable making mistakes in speaking in front of their peers. students need to understand that there is a time for accuracy and a time to focus on fluency and meaning. working in groups provides an excellent vehicle for focusing on fluency, as well as accuracy, depending on the situation. promote an l2 climate. teachers can promote an l2 climate by using l2 when speaking to the whole class and when walking around the room and speaking to individuals or groups of students. the value of praising. rather than scolding students for l1 use, peers and teachers might praise them when they use l2. section d: providing language support. it is true that “two heads are better than one,” but groups are not magic. teachers need to prepare carefully to help groups succeed. who chooses the group members. it is usually better for the teachers, rather than students or random chance, to decide which students will work together (jacobs & goh, 2007). in this way, we can create groups that are heterogeneous as to l2 proficiency. in such groups, the more proficient students are right there to help their less proficient groupmates if they are not sure how to say or write something in the l2. vocabulary for instructions. students need the vocabulary to understand l2 instructions for group tasks and communicate with groupmates. by helping them learn this vocabulary in their l2, we build language proficiency at the same time that we help groups function well. also, students may benefit from dictionaries and other references tools. demonstrations. another means of helping students understand how to do a group task using l2 is for the teachers and/or a group of students to demonstrate for the whole class. such encouraging second language use 31 demonstrations provide students with a model to follow, and these models can be written as well as oral. students can even imitate part of the model. strategies for asking. we can help students learn strategies for asking when they do not understand their instructional materials or what groupmates have said or written, e.g., asking for repetition, examples and definitions, and strategies for explaining when a groupmate does not understand, such as giving examples and paraphrasing. these strategies make it less likely that students will switch to the l1 when l2 communication breaks down in their group. language support. teachers can provide more language support before asking students to interact in their groups. examples of support include model dialogues, vocabulary building tasks, and written versions of texts that students are listening to. this support can be in the materials students use or in the teaching that we do before and during the cl tasks. teacher’s assistance. teachers should circulate among groups to provide assistance and to better understand students’ strengths and weaknesses. section e. the task. probably the most frequent reason why cooperative learning activities fail is that students lack the l2 and other skills necessary for doing the task that their groups are attempting. thus, we need to pay careful attention to this area. start easy. when we begin using cl, the tasks should be a little bit too easy or even very easy so that students can become comfortable and confident in using cl. write-pair-switch. cl techniques that give students time to work alone – writing, thinking, or drawing allow students to prepare what they will say in l2. an example of such a technique is write-pair-switch (jacobs& kimura, 2013). in this cl technique, students work in groups of four divided into pairs. in the write step, students work alone to write what they will say. in the pair step, students tell their ideas to a partner. then, in the switch step, students 32 encouraging second language use switch partners within their foursome and share with their new partner what their first partner said. the write step allows students to prepare themselves to interact with groupmates. writing-in-pairs. if students write instead of speak, they may be more likely to use l2, because of the extra time that writing can afford. also, it is easier for the teacher to help with l2 use when students write because there is a record of their writing. in contrast, students’ speaking disappears into the air. to encourage more fluent writing, we may sometimes want to deemphasize spelling, punctuation, neatness, etc. an example of a simple cl writing technique is circle of writers (jacobs & kimura, 2013). this is done in pairs. one student writes a word, sentence, etc. and then passes the paper to their partner who does the same. partners continue passing the paper among their group of 2-4 members. the main purpose of cl. students need to understand that most often, the key point of the task they are doing in the cl group is not to finish the task but to improve their l2 proficiency. thus, using the l1 as a shortcut to completing the task actually defeats the main purpose of the task. discussion and helping others. the use of competition between groups may encourage l1 use because students may use the l1 to finish faster and to do the short-term task better. students need to see how each activity fits their long-term goal of l2 proficiency. furthermore, they should understand that the group that finishes last may be the group that did the task the best, because they took time to help each other and discuss with each other. a big part of the magic of cl lies in such discussion (gillies, 2007). different l1 in the group. in monolingual groups, students can imagine that their partner doesn’t speak the same l1 that they do. as a result, they need to speak to them in l2. students might even take on different names to promote this temporary identity. encouraging second language use 33 various roles. sometimes, in group activities, each student has a designated role, such as checker (who checks to see that all group members understand). another role can be that of language monitor or l2 captain whose role is to encourage appropriate l2 use (not to discourage l1 use). talking to group mates is more preferable. in many cl techniques, students first talk with groupmates, and then the teacher calls on one group member to share with the class. in their groups, students have opportunities to try out and modify the language they will use before speaking to the whole class or to another group. all group members can rehearse what they will say if the teacher calls them or they speak to another group. in this manner, students can help each other decide how to express their ideas in l2. students can take part in multiple abilities tasks (cohen 1994), such as tasks that involve drawing, music, physical movements, and classification skills, in addition to language. such tasks give lower proficiency group members who are stronger in one of these non-language areas opportunities to give help. in contrast, if our tasks focus solely on language, less proficient students are almost always in the position of receiving help. this inequality may lead to status differences, lack of helping behaviors within groups, and lack of opportunities for less proficient students to speak in the l2. conclusion to promote l2 learning and to help students become comfortable communicating in l2, classroom use of the l2 should be understood, encouraged, promoted, and praised. this article has presented 29 ideas for doing that. of course, not all of these ideas will be appropriate to every context, and many other ways exist for facilitating l2 use. furthermore, the postmodernists advise us that when trying to understand any situation, we must take into account our 34 encouraging second language use own and our students’ backgrounds and perspectives, as well as the changing social forces which shape them. postmodernist approaches shed light on the complexity of teacher-student relationships and the fluidity of our teaching/learning environment as a whole (choi, 2006; gee, 1996; mckay & wong, 1996). in conclusion, this article has situated l2 peer interaction in the context of cooperative learning. cooperative learning is one of the most researched methods in education. this research suggests that appropriately planned group activities not only assist learning but that they also facilitate gains in affective variables, such as self-esteem and interethnic relations (johnson, johnson & stanne 2001, slavin 1995). as mentioned earlier, an essential concept in cooperative learning is positive interdependence, the feeling among group members that what helps one helps all and that anything to the detriment of one member is detrimental to all members. positive interdependence applies not only to the members of a group of 2-4 members in a classroom, it applies also to relations between people in any context and even to relations among species. similarly, l2 education strives to bring people closer together and to facilitate recognition of our common interests. therefore, in addition to the learning benefits that cooperative learning may bring to l2 education, e.g., how it can facilitate l2 use, cooperative learning also merits use for the affective benefits it offers. encouraging second language use 35 references choi, j. (2006). doing poststructural ethnography in the life history of dropouts in south korea.international journal of qualitative studies in education, 19(4), 435-453. cohen, e. (1994). designing groupwork: strategies for the heterogeneous classroom (2nded). new york, ny: teachers college press. deller, s., &rinvolucri, m. (2002).using the mother tongue: making the most of learner’s language.addlestone, surrey, united kingdom: delta publishing. folse, k. s. (2004). vocabulary myths: applying second language research to classroom teaching. ann arbor, mi: the university of michigan press. gee, j. p. (1996). social linguistics and literacies: ideology in discourses. london, united kingdom: falmer. gillies, r. m. (2007). cooperative learning: integrating theory and practice. thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. jacobs, g. m., &goh, c. m. c. (2007).cooperative learning in the language classroom. singapore: seameo regional language centre. jacobs, g. m., & kimura, h. (2013).cooperative learning and teaching. alexandria, va: tesol. johnson, d. w., & johnson, r. t. (1999). learning together and alone (5th ed). boston, ma: allyn& bacon. johnson, d. w., & johnson, r. t. (n.d.).overview of cooperative learning. retrieved from http://www.co-operation.org/home/introduction-to-cooperative-learning johnson, d. w., johnson, r. t., &stanne, m. b. (2000). cooperative learning methods: a metaanalysis. cooperative learning center, university of minnesota.retrieved from http://www.co-operation.org/pages/cl-methods.html. 36 encouraging second language use kimura, h. (2011). a self-presentational perspective on foreign language listening anxiety.unpublished ed.d.dissertation, temple university, philadelphia. krashen, s. d. (2011). free voluntary reading. santa barbara, ca: libraries unlimited. lantolf, j. p., poehner, m. e. (eds.). (2008). sociocultural theory and the teaching of second languages. london, united kingdom: equinox. mackey, a., & oliver, r. (2002).interactional feedback and children’s l2 development. system, 30(4), 1-19. mckay, s. l., & wong, s.-l.c. (1996). multiple discourses, multiple identities: investment and agency in second-language learning among chinese adolescent immigrant students. harvard educational review, 66, 577-608. nation, i. s. p. (2001).learning vocabulary in another language. cambridge, united kingdom: cambridge university press. norton, b. (2000). identity and language learning: gender, ethnicity and educational change. essex, united kingdom: pearson education. schmidt, r. (2001). attention. in p. robinson (ed.), cognition and second language instruction (pp. 3-32). new york, ny: cambridge university press. slavin, r. e. (1995). cooperative learning: theory, research, and practice. (2nded.). englewood cliffs, nj: prentice hall. storch, n. (2002). patterns of interaction in esl pair work. language learning, 52(1), 119-158. swain, m. (1999).integrating language and content teaching through collaborative tasks. in c. s. ward & w. a. renandya (eds.), new insights for the language teacher (pp. 125-147). singapore: seameo regional language centre. 78 students creating their own books the dialogic way information and communication technology to help students create their own books the dialogic way francisca maria ivone francisca.maria.fs@um.ac.id department of english universitas negeri malang malang, indonesia * george m jacobs george.jacobs@gmail.com international association for the study of cooperation in education singapore * made hery santosa mhsantosa@undiksha.ac.id english language education department universitas pendidikan ganesha, singaraja, bali, indonesia article history abstract the use of information and communication technology (ict) in language learning allows students to be more engaged and innovative. the present article explores the potential use of technology in the planning, drafting, reviewing, and publishing stages of students’ own book creation. first, the use of digital tools to create books in an interactive and engaging process and format is discussed. then, the varieties of multimedia books created using ict are explored. next, the use of technology for sharing ideas, communicating opinions, collaborating, and reviewing others’ books is explained. the article also describes some collaborative methods students may employ in creating books. finally, it discusses learners’ development of technology and media literacy in the creation of their own books. received: 06/30/2020 reviewed: 04/8/2020 revised: 07/22/2020 accepted: 15/8/2020 keywords: feedback; collaboration; communication; creating books; creativeity; ict; interaction; multiliteracies, visual literacy; writing doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v8i2.2545 introduction teachers guiding students to create their own books has been practised for many years (dupuy & mcquillan, 1997; mak, conjam, & chan, 2008; rodgers, 1997). jacobs (2020) discussed various advantages of and obstacles to students creating their own books. fortunately, information and communication technology (ict) has done and continues to do much that improves and facilitates students’ book creation. the present article suggests areas in which ict can assist students as they generate their own books in dialog with teachers and peers. areas discussed in the mailto:mhsantosa@undiksha.ac.id https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v8i2.2545 students creating their own books the dialogic way 79 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya article include students developing ideas for their books, dialoging and otherwise collaborating with peers, creating text, visuals, and other non-text elements for the books, receiving and responding to peer and teacher feedback on book drafts, and storing and sharing their books. moreover, students creating their own books with technology also promotes their technology and media literacy. empowering technology-supported interaction some researchers worry that modern technologies, such as smartphones, isolate students, as students may put in their earbuds or put on their headphones as a means of cutting themselves off from those around them (mcpherson, smith-lovin, & brashears, 2006). however, cho (2015) reported an opposite effect. perhaps, teachers have a role to play in whether students’ technology use results in isolation or interaction. students will be more likely to use technology to interact with peers if teachers help them learn and deploy the collaborative skills needed to interact harmoniously and efficiently when using technology (johnson, johnson, & holubec, 2007; 2020). examples of some of the many collaborative skills useful with ict include encouraging others to participate, asking for help, asking for reasons, thanking and praising others, and pointing out other perspectives. ict in support of learning enjoys support from many theories in education, e.g., social constructivism (palincsar, 1997). social constructivism has “constructivism” in its name to contrast it which what had been the prevailing theory in educational psychology: behaviorism (gardner, 1985). behaviorism sees learning as externally driven; teachers, family members, reading materials, etc. pour information into students’ heads just like someone pours water into a glass. everyone, according to behaviorism, regardless of age, personality, and even species, learns in this same way. all students who are taught the same information, attitudes, etc. learn that same information, those same attitudes, etc. constructivism, in contrast, focuses on internal, not external, forces shaping learning. these internal forces reflect the uniqueness of all students; as a result, what students learn will be different, as everyone constructs their own, individual learning. the word “social” in social constructivism highlights that people learn mostly from their interactions with others. in the case of students, these enriching interactions can take place not just with teachers, but with peers as well. social constructivism looks not just at cognition thinking, knowledge, and skills but also at affect emotions and attitudes (niedenthal & brauer, 2012). interactions can not only enhance thinking and bring to the fore pleasant emotions, but the resulting dialog and other forms of collaboration can improve the work students do as they learn, e.g., students can make better books when the books are made as part of a collaborative process, even when each student is responsible for their own book. for instance, the stereotype of artists shows them as solitary people who work alone, whereas in reality, many artists, in areas as diverse as painting and dance, rely on colleagues for guidance. an example is pablo picasso who did not consider one of his paintings finished until fellow painter george braque had given his comments (john-steiner, 2000). what tools do students use to do their social construction? dialog functions as one of the crucial tools (mercer, hennessy, & warwick, 2019). dialog need not always 80 students creating their own books the dialogic way take the form of face-to-face spoken interaction; it can also be written and visual, as well as taking place over a distance via ict. it can also be in the form of collaborative tasks and projects. relevant studies include those that have examined the doing of projects via digital means (dalim et al., 2019; özen & duran, 2019; gonzález mesa, 2020), interactivity (hutchison & mitchell, 2009), and animations (yıldırım & torun, 2014). this article will introduce some of the many ict tools via which students can interact with peers and others. excitingly, these digital tools are increasing in number, improving in quality, and becoming more widely available, sometimes at lower cost. some ways that ict can serve to increase student dialog (spoken, written, and via drawing) in all the areas listed in the previous paragraph will also be discussed. creating books the dialogic way using the process approach in this section, we will talk about the importance of the process students experience as they create their books. nowadays, most teachers advocate that students use the process approach (boas, 2011) in their writing, whether they are writing something 10,000 words long or something 30 words long, something with many visuals or something with no visuals. to understand the process approach, it is first necessary to understand the product approach, which is a very different way to create. in the process approach, writers believe they are transferring unchanged what is in their minds onto the paper or the screen. usually, one draft is thought to be enough to create the final product. the product approach is partly based on the inaccurate stereotype of talented writers and artists as people who create their great work with a minimum of preparation, in a linear manner from start to finish without any restarts or changes. at one time, teachers taught students to follow the product approach. however, with the ascendance of cognitive psychology and social cognitivism, researchers investigated what professional writers actually do, and this research suggested that most professional writers do something very different from the product approach (flower & hayes, 1981). furthermore, the research also suggested that same non-linear process also applies to artists in other categories (john-steiner, 2000). for instance, the researchers found that expert writers often write in recursive phases, not in a linear, consecutive, oneafter-another manner. different researchers use different names for these recursive phases in the process approach, but here is one set of names for these phases in the writing process and a description of each phase. a. idea generating phase – writers develop ideas about what to write and about how to organize their writing, e.g., will they write a regular book, an audiobook, or a comic book. ways writers use to generate ideas include reading, watching videos, note taking, talking to others, brainstorming, observing others, and self-reflecting. in this idea generating phase, technologies in such forms as websites, software programs, and mobile applications can assist in these processes. examples include virtual wall applications (e.g., padlet, linoit, online stickies), cloud collaborative platforms (e.g., wakelet, evernote, pocket, google docs, google slides), interactive whiteboard (e.g., jamboard, charlala, whiteboard.fi), and mind map apps (e.g., mindmeister, mind node, free map). these technologies aid student writers to research, brainstorm, and take notes collaboratively. students can also share resources, ideas, and students creating their own books the dialogic way 81 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya notes with each other via websites and mobile apps. b. drafting phase – writers do a draft of what they will write. sometimes, writers need to do many drafts. sometimes, before drafting again, they need to go back and generate more ideas. sometimes their drafts involve not only text but also audio, visuals, and audio-visual formats. when drafting, writers do not worry about surface matters, such as grammar or spelling. similar to what happens in the idea generation phase, in this drafting phase, writers can employ collaborative writing using virtual wall or collaborative cloud platforms. they can also create visually rich drafts in the form of storyboards using collaborative apps for drawing, such as jamboard, charlala, and whiteboard.fi. the technologies used in this stage should allow students to collaboratively draft in multimedia formats. c. editing (for content and organization) phase – in addition to selffeedback, writers can ask others to give them feedback on their drafts, but only on the ideas and the way the ideas are organized, not on surface matters. students can help each other reorganize their books on collaborative cloud platforms. they can also leave comments or feedback using review features available in word processing and presentation software and apps. plus, they can edit by annotating any file format using mark-up features that enable them to give comments in the forms of text, audio, and images. they may also suggest suitable illustrations for their peers’ books. to do this, students can simply share images through chat applications (e.g., whatsapp, wechat, line, telegram). the technologies used in this editing stage facilitate students’ collaborative drafting in multimedia formats by modifying and annotating each other’s digital drafts. d. proofreading (for surface matters) phase – when writers are happy with the content and organization of their writing (sometimes this requires many phases of idea generating, drafting, and checking for content or organization), they check, and ask others to help them check, for surface matters. technology may assist student writers in two ways during this stage. first, it can be used a tool for checking spelling, grammar, and diction. spell and grammar checkers in word processing and presentation software and apps can all serve the purpose of giving instant feedback on spelling and grammatical accuracy. students can also give such by themselves. second, technology can also be employed as a medium for collaborating. all of the collaborative apps mentioned in the previous stages can be used to serve this purpose. e. publishing – when writers are happy with their books, they can publish them in many forms, printed or non-printed. this stage may not be the ultimate goal of student writers. for instance, they can also publish for the purpose of collecting feedback from others. thus, they may revise their books even after they are published. there are many outlets for publishing books electronically, e.g., students can publish books on their blogs or other social media networks. they may also circulate them within a limited audience, for instance through class course management systems (cms), e.g., edmodo, google classroom, moodle, canvas, blackboard, etc. as noted earlier, the process approach is recursive, not linear. “recursive” means that instead of doing one phase or one part and then never going back to work on that phase or part again, sometimes writers repeat the same phase, perhaps repeating it multiple times. furthermore, they may make 82 students creating their own books the dialogic way many changes to what they are writing, even throwing away or deleting some parts. the proofreading phase comes last among the first four phases in the process, but the other three phases can take place at different times. for example, sometimes writers may think they have finished, but then, they wake up in the morning with an exciting idea to include in their project (csikszentmihalyi, 1997). it should come as no surprise that many of the researchers who discovered and explored the process approach used a social constructivist lens (slavkov, 2015; vygotsky, 1978) to look at human thinking, because unlike the product approach to writing, the process approach offers many opportunities for dialog. for example, in the idea generating phase of the process approach, students can develop ideas for their writing by reading what peers have written or by reading books that peers have recommended. furthermore, students can discuss their writing ideas with peers who can offer supportive ideas. however, being supportive does not always mean that peers only make positive comments. instead, constructive criticism can point out possible weaknesses. as a russian proverb states, “an enemy will agree, but a friend will disagree.” this dialog can take place as students write their own books or collaborate with others in writing books together. our argument is that the process book creation should be interactive, meaningful, and emotionally engaging for the students who write the books and for other students who read the books or help in the process of writing the books. we have given some suggestions about how ict can aid students’ writing process, and we will give some more specific suggestions later in this article. at this point, let us cite some studies suggesting that students creating books with digital tools can promote interaction and emotional engagement (beach, clemens, & jamsen, 2010; beetham, mcgill, & littlejohn, 2009; carrignton & robinson, 2009; kim, ng, & lim, 2009). please note that the studies cited in the previous sentence all pre-date 2010; thus, while the use of digital tools is becoming increasingly common, it is by no means a new phenomenon. digital storytelling is increasingly popular in language learning, and apps used for digital storytelling also promote student-centered, technology-enriched learning environment (dalim et al., 2019), because they allow stories to be told in more exciting, multimedia ways, with not only texts but also visual images and audio, and even in the form of videos. developing multiliteracies by creating multimedia books in this section, we explore some digital book formats that incorporate textual, visual, and audio elements. multimedia books may take the form of visual books, audiobooks, audio-visual books, and interactive books that make use of augmented reality technology. they can be in such forms as picture books, comics, animations, and branching narratives. some people feel that visuals are only appropriate in books for young children. with the rise of technology, this view has been rendered outmoded. yes, the old definition of literacy – being able to read and write and to detect the messages embedded in written texts – now has a companion: visual literacy (international visual literacy association, 2020; sinatra, 1986; stankiewicz, 2004). visual literacy involves being able to read images and to create images. just as students of all ages, as well as adults not involved in formal students creating their own books the dialogic way 83 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya education, need to be literate in reading and writing texts, so too do we all need to be literate in understanding the images created by others, as well as in creating our own images for ourselves and others. technology has made image creation so much easier. furthermore, the advent of video games, youtube, instagram, and other visual-predominant forms of communication continues to heighten the importance of visual literacy. indeed, modern education seeks to incorporate “multiliteracies” (cope & kalantzis, 2010), i.e., in the 21 st century, students need to be literate (able to understand and create) in many modes. previously, the main mode that mattered was the mode of words, and literacy mostly meant reading (understanding words) and writing (creating words for others to understand). other overlapping literacies include video literacy, musical literacy, game literacy, health literacy, critical literacy, and emotional literacy. multiliteracies fits with concept of multiple intelligences (armstrong, 2018), the idea that humans are smart in many different ways, and for education to be both effective and equitable, all intelligences should be deployed to help students learn and to assess their learning. these intelligences include not just verbal/linguistic intelligences, which focus on ability with words, i.e., the traditional view of literacy, but also intelligences that have more recently been given more attention, e.g., musical/rhythmic intelligences, bodily/kinesthetic intelligences, interand intrapersonal intelligences, and logical/mathematical intelligences. we see these changes in literacies and intelligences reflected in children’s books. for example, some children’s books include touch, e.g., books about rabbits with imitation rabbit fur, and pop-up books that provide threedimensional experiences. with all these modalities, students have more ways to learn and more ways to create; they can share more completely what is in their minds and what they are creating as the engage in various modes. all these options fit with the spirit of these times in which people are taking more control of their experiences. for instance, instead of listening only to the music available on a small number of radio stations, people make their own playlists, and instead of selecting a movie or tv shows and then watching it till the end, an end chosen by the producers, people play games in which they have a major role in determining how the story develops and ends. employing technologies the use of technology for sharing ideas, communicating opinions, collaborating, and reviewing others’ books is explained in this section. the section presents examples of current technologies that can be used to facilitate students interacting among themselves and with their teachers, creating the kind of multimedia books proposed in the previous section, giving peer and teacher feedback to book creators, and publishing their own books. technological tools, including new ones, to be utilized for digital story creations vary in features from accommodating static to interactive reading, from review to creation and publication of books. websites for reading abound. for instance, let’s read asia (https://reader.letsreadasia.org/) provides thousands of free digital stories for children. the stories come from asian perspectives and cultures, with varieties of languages and art canvas-based illustrations, https://reader.letsreadasia.org/ 84 students creating their own books the dialogic way making them rich and compelling. room to read (https://literacycloud.org) has various stories from around the world which are accompanied by supplementary materials, e.g., videos, selected reading lists, and other resources for the readers. the stories include colours and illustrations. the materials come with indications of reading level, thereby assisting readers in finding the materials most comfortable for themselves. story weaver (https://storyweaver.org.in) is another worthwhile digital story platform. besides having thousands of completed stories, the platform allows digital story creation by its readers. authors just need to provide a storyline, because illustrations are provided within the system. the use of levels is also employed here, both for reading and authoring story books. in addition, stories can also be presented in the form of videos. one example of a website with video stories is storyline online (https://www.storylineonline.net/). the website by sag-aftra foundation streams videos featuring celebrated actors reading children’s books in creative, interactive, and emotionally compelling ways. in terms of illustration-making, some other web-based and non-web-based platforms exist to assist the process of creating digital stories. storybird, for instance, provides collections of illustrations in a wide variety of themes, but it does not allow authors to use their own illustrations. on the other hand, story jumper gives story creators opportunities to use their own illustrations. some image-based platforms, such as bitmoji and avatar creator, can also help with the creation of characters (humans, animals, and even aliens) to illustrate student-created stories. photoshop and other vector graphic software are available to those who are capable of editing and creating more sophisticated characters and supporting images for their digital stories. non-copyrighted image providers, e.g., freepik, freevector, vectorstock, and pin clipart, are also handy for writing digital stories or books, as they allow writers to use relevant images and illustrations at no charge. table 1 lists some of the affordances mentioned in this article. table 1. technologies for interacting, creating, reviewing, and publishing books resources for creating digital stories free/paid what you can do let’s read asia https://reader.letsreadasia.org/ free read online via website or android app access stories in different languages, i.e. khmer, indonesian, thai, arab, etc. access and download stories (.epub and .pdf) author and edit stories design and illustrate stories publish and translate stories read from thematic stories access stories in different reading levels share stories to different platforms literacy cloud https://literacycloud.org/ free read online via website save stories for a personal library favourite stories for further reading download stories access different reading levels https://literacycloud.org/ https://storyweaver.org.in/ https://www.storylineonline.net/ https://reader.letsreadasia.org/ https://literacycloud.org/ students creating their own books the dialogic way 85 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya access different theme categories access video-based narrated stories download video-based narrated stories read aloud stories share the stories to different platforms story weaver https://storyweaver.org.in/ free read stories via website read along stories access different themes access different reading levels access free image stocks access its unique reading programme for various key highlights, like easy-to-use and not dependent to internet in different readers’ levels translate stories use any images from illustrators in the website create our own stories using its story template publish stories in the website story jumper https://www.storyjumper.com/ free and paid read existing stories via website create stories using the template use existing illustrations, background, and characters use illustrations and characters from author’s own creation or non-copyrighted resources create classes for reading stories import classes from google classroom publish stories print stories on demand with various prices. storybird https://storybird.com/ free and paid read available stories from the website create various types of story formats – picture book, longform story, flash fiction, comic, and poetry – using the templates given access freely for 7 day only involve parents in educators’ classes take various reading activities freepik https://www.freepik.com/ free vector https://www.freevector.com/ vector stock https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-freevectors pin clipart https://www.pinclipart.com/ free access non-copyrighted images, illustrations, or figures download non-copyrighted images, illustrations, or figures by acknowledging the authors bitmoji https://www.bitmoji.com/ free create personalised characters in cartoon mode download personalised characters https://storyweaver.org.in/ https://www.storyjumper.com/ https://storybird.com/ https://www.freepik.com/ https://www.freevector.com/ https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vectors https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vectors https://www.pinclipart.com/ https://www.bitmoji.com/ 86 students creating their own books the dialogic way canva https://www.canva.com/templates/search/s toryboards/ https://www.canva.com/templates/?query= comic free and paid access free images and templates for creating storyboards and comics download and print storyboards and comics makebeliefscomix https://www.makebeliefscomix.com/ free creating comic strips from pre-prepared background and characters print comic strips pixton https://www.pixton.com free and paid access free images and templates for creating comics download and print comics masterpiece generator https://masterpiece-generator.org.uk/ plot generator https://www.plot-generator.org.uk/ free create plots create characters create names create different story genres cultivating creativity and relevance according to ulu (2019), originality is one important dimension of the creative writing process. however, mccormick (2015) questioned whether originality is always essential, even for arts students. nonetheless, students should feel free to be original, at the same time that quality in all spheres of book production is promoted. scaffolded activities framed within a project-based learning approach utilizing process and technological supports can be one way of assisting students’ digital story creation. the technologies listed in table 1 are only some of the tools for digital story creation. the process of cultivating originality of ideas, themes, characters, plots, settings, and supporting elements, including colours, size, and concepts should be emphasized to ensure authenticity of writers’ creations. since story characters do not have to be human, creators can also use objects, animals, and buildings they are familiar with as their characters. they can reinvent themes, plots, settings, and additional elements in their stories. allowing students to connect to what is familiar to them encourages being observant, critical, and creative. students can also be authentic in their stories, because different people perceive things differently and experience different events in life. encouraging student writers to research before writing and re-research during writing is also a good practice during their book writing process. it is also necessary to teach them to be critical and reflective by asking each other questions such as: will the story be interesting to readers? will anything in the story be fun for readers? will readers learn anything from the story? will the story (words and visuals) be understandable to readers? will the visuals be attractive to readers? is there a problem that the main character(s) have to confront in the story? is the problem resolved at the end of the story? is there anything in the story that might make any readers uncomfortable? for example, vegetarian readers may feel https://www.canva.com/templates/search/storyboards/ https://www.canva.com/templates/search/storyboards/ https://www.canva.com/templates/?query=comic https://www.canva.com/templates/?query=comic https://www.makebeliefscomix.com/ https://www.pixton.com/ https://masterpiece-generator.org.uk/ https://www.plot-generator.org.uk/ students creating their own books the dialogic way 87 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya uncomfortable if people eat meat in the book. is there a cover with the title of the story, the author(s)’ and illustrator(s) names? are all the pages numbered? are the illustrations consistent? for example, if the cat is brown on the second page, is the same cat yellow on the fourth page? these questions can be answered in collaboration with other students during the editing phase of writing in which creators rethink the content and organization of their stories. this editing practice teaches students to not only take learn from sources but also be critical and reflective. moreover, making students aware of copyright and plagiarism issues is also important. everyone should learn that there are things which they can take and use for free, but there are many others that belong to other people. some students may be able to write a 100% authentic book, but most students, for the first one or two books, will need to lean on examples of previous works. thus, their creation may not be 100% original. instead, their books may be modifications of previous works. in this section, we will also talk about artificial intelligence (ai) technology that may hinder or assist students in creating their own books. the underlying principles of the following methods are collaboration between writers and employment of technology to facilitate collaboration as well as book creation. students may start creating books from scratch but they may need some help along the way. they need to think about such matters as the characters, setting, and plot of their stories. ai-injected websites, such as masterpiece generator (https://masterpiecegenerator.org.uk/), can help them do these tasks. students can then discuss what was generated by the websites and decide what to use in their books, i.e., what the websites generate are only possibilities; the final decisions are up to the students. book writing may also start from researching previous works. in fact, students can be encouraged to write a book which is inspired by previous works. what is interesting is that the previous works do not even have to be in the form of books. if many film makers can make movies based on someone’s life or a bestselling novel, students can certainly write books inspired by biographies, movies, comics, stories told by their parents or friends, and many other works. for instance, they can read book series and write books to continue a series. students can also transform previous works into a different book format, for instance, from a novel into comic strips, or from a movie to a short story. another possible way of creating books is by simplifying previous works. simplification can take the form of reducing the number of main and supporting characters, eliminating less important details and events, or summarizing parts of plots. students can add illustrations to a story, shorten its length, and simplify the language used in the story. book writing offers a way of personalising reading, listening, and viewing experiences. these experiences may occur within the context of students’ first, second, or foreign languages. when students read, listen, and view, they form their own interpretations, preferences, and expectations. for instance, people might discuss movies they watch and question why the ending is not a happy one or why the main character ends up marrying the ‘wrong’ guy. therefore, when students write their own books in the target language, they do not need to start from scratch. they https://masterpiece-generator.org.uk/ https://masterpiece-generator.org.uk/ 88 students creating their own books the dialogic way can modify the beginning, the middle, or the ending of a story they have read, listened to, or watched before. they can rearrange the events and change some of the details. they can introduce a new character, omit a character, replace a character or change the personality of the characters. they can also rewrite the story from the point of view of one specific character. still another interesting way of writing is by using gamification to create interactive story telling content using a narrative branching structure. branching narratives, so called because their structure resembles branches in a tree (berger, 2020), are structures that allow readers to shape their own story from a number of possible storylines. this gives readers the opportunity to determine the trajectories of stories. readers are directed to a particular scene as a consequence of the choices that have been made. students can work together on the same story, and they build in several ‘intersections’ at which the readers take part in the story as characters who need to make a decision at each intersection. the decision can be as trivial as deciding what is for lunch or as important as choosing someone to marry. student writers can compile the different ‘versions’ of the story and create a digital story with ‘branches’ of different possible con-sequences that may happen when the one character makes a decision. when stories are presented in digital form, readers can just click on hyperlinks or pictures that will take them to different plots. fostering technology and media literacy development two approaches to guiding students’ development of skills and attitudes are to: (1) teach the necessary skills and attitudes before students embark on tasks; and (2) teach the skills and attitudes as students are doing tasks. we have usually employed the second approach, as we find that instruction in skills and attitudes resonates better with students when they can immediately see the usefulness of what we are teaching (koda, 2018). for example, students may appreciate the importance of communication skills, e.g., asking for assistance and giving reasons when teaching others, when they are in the midst of communicating with classmates about the books they are creating. similarly, students will value the importance of technology in language learning when they are able to use it during language learning. students need to have sufficient technology and media literacy to be able to create their own digital books. a study by decat et al. (2019) suggested that technology provides a new modality of learning representation that allows students to learn and to show what they have learned, especially in the contest of young learners. yamaç and ulusoy (2016) also found that the use of technology assisted students in understanding elements of digital story books while at the same time enabling them to process ideas for story creations. it is worth noting that when technology is used in the creation of multimedia books, students will not only grow their technology and media literacy but also their writing ability. despite of the positive support of technologies in students’ learning of media literacy and in creation of digital storybooks, talaee and noroozi (2019) pointed out that it is still very important to look at the students’ digital divide in the era of saturated access to technology. the digital divide may handicap students’ performance in the use of technologies in the teaching and learning process. some students are technology experts, but many students creating their own books the dialogic way 89 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya use ict only for communicating on social media. thus, teachers should consider training their students, starting with the simplest technology available for creating their own books. in addition, teachers may need to train students to use various technologies to support communication and collaboration among them. conclusion book writing is worthwhile adventure on students’ language learning journey. the experience will not only lead them to produce comprehensible output but also take them on meaningful language learning paths in which reading is an essential part, collaboration is indispensable, and technology is a tool and medium of creation. there are soft skills that students will learn on their collaborative book writing mission, i.e., creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration. there are also multiliteracies to be polished along the way, such as media literacy and technology literacy. many technologies have been introduced and explored in this article, but it should be kept in mind that it is not the technology that defines the success of language learning; it is how the technology is used to support language learning and thinking skills. technology provides students and teachers many avenues for writing books the dialogic way. some educators may argue that we can at any point omit technology from language teaching and learning, but the future predicts that we will rely more and more on technology, especially during emergency times such as the covid-19 pandemic that struck in 2020. © francisca maria ivone, george m. jacobs & made hery santosa francisca maria ivone teaches at the department of english, universitas negeri malang. her areas of expertise and interests are elt, tell, call, extensive listening and viewing, er, learning autonomy, and collaborative learning. she gives training to preservice and in-service teachers on the use of technology in language teaching and learning. george m jacobs teaches and writes on a variety of seemingly disparate but actually closely related topics ranging from education to health to cooperation to paradigm shift. his current writing projects include a book to be titled 'being a community engage educator' and a mooc on extensive reading. made hery santosa is a lecturer at universitas pendidikan ganesha, bali, indonesia. he publishes and reviews works on efl, call, e-learning, innovative pedagogies, learning technologies, learner autonomy, and learning approaches. he has been extensively speaking in various tesol forums and workshops for indonesian teachers and headmasters. references armstrong, t. 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(1978). mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes (m. cole, v. john-steiner, s. scribner, & e. souberman, eds). cambridge, ma: harvard university press. https://theartofeducation.edu/2015/09/25/how-important-is-originality-in-the-art-room/ https://theartofeducation.edu/2015/09/25/how-important-is-originality-in-the-art-room/ https://theartofeducation.edu/2015/09/25/how-important-is-originality-in-the-art-room/ https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijels.v.7n.4p.169 https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijels.v.7n.4p.169 https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1083966.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1083966.pdf https://doi.org/10.29329/ijpe.2019.212.18 https://doi.org/10.29329/ijpe.2019.212.18 microsoft word bw research 5.1.5 mukarto.docx 46 project-based learning   beyond words vol.5, no. 1, may 2017   students’ lived experience of project-based learning sandy ferianda ferianda02021992@gmail.com sanata dharma university yogyakarta, indonesia & fransiscus xaverius mukarto mukarto@usd.ac.id mukartofx@gmail.com sanata dharma university yogyakarta, indonesia abstract inspired by personal experiences during the study time in the graduate program in english language studies (els) sanata dharma university yogyakarta, this research focused mainly on investigating the els students’ lived experience of project-based learning implemented by the els lecturers. this study employed hermeneutic phenomenology since it described and interpreted the meanings of els students lived experience. the participants of this study were the three els students considered to be illuminating from the three different streams batch of 2015. in this study we used one-on-one in depth interview to gain the data. the findings of this study consisted of four prefigured meanings and two emergent meanings namely a) authentic learning, b) learner autonomy, c) cooperative learning, d) multiple intelligences, e) understanding others, and f) personal development. the findings of this study gave implications not only to the els students and lecturers, but also to the audience. lastly, recommendations were also addressed to the els students as their habit formation, to the els lecturers as their inputs to give more feedbacks to their students, and to the future researchers. keywords: lived experience, project-based learning. from the very beginning of the study time until the end of the program, the els lecturers always asked their students to create certain projects or assignments in group or individually. the projects were various such as making presentations towards certain issues or topics, writing academic papers, designing an english course program, and many others. this phenomenon attracted our attention since lecturers did not treat their students conventionally or traditionally whereby the teachers always took control of the activities in the classroom, but they gave their students freedom to learn independently. grant (2002) asserted that common features to problem based learning implementation are an anchor of the activity, a task, an investigation, provision of resources, scaffolding, collaboration, and opportunities for reflection and transfer. bell (2010) also added that project-based learning is an instructional method centered on the learner in the sense that the students develop their own questions and are guided through research under their teachers’ supervision. this study focuses on how the els students perceive their lived experience of project-based learning. manen’s (1990) hermeneutic phenomenology was then employed as the most appropriate methodology project-based learning 47      in revealing the meanings of the lived experience of the els students towards projectbased learning. the study was limited to the three students from the graduate program in els sanata dharma university, yogyakarta. those three students were chosen without considering their age, gender, family background, and employment background. additional delimitation included the limited fund and time. the participants were chosen by considering the illumination aspects in the sense that they could provide rich and meaningful stories which could be further elaborated. hence, this study was then to limit the focus which was on discussing the implementation of project-based learning based on the students’ shared lived experience. in regards to the lived experience of the els students, thus, the main source of the data was mainly based on the shared stories of the students. the other limitation was the natural tendency of the participants to forget or mislead their past memories and events in the time they were being asked to remember about their experiences. literature review lived experience there is a wide range of focus in doing qualitative research. in this study, we chose the phenomenology methodology to inform the study, for which we provide a brief overview. lived experience is closely related to phenomenological research. creswell (2007, p. 57) asserts that a phenomenology study figures out the meaning for several individuals of their lived experiences of a concept or a phenomenon. manen (1990, p. 1) on the other hand, adds that lived experience itself has a close relation to the meanings of a phenomenon in which it is trying to discover the in depth meanings beyond the phenomenon as it emerges. hence, it is concluded that the lived experience seeks to reveal the deep meanings from the phenomenon that is lived by human beings. in revealing the lived experience, there are five fields that we pay attention to. these five fields represent the quality of the lived experience from the participants that we try to discover or to reveal. the five fields are understanding, belief, intention, action, and feeling. understanding deals how we discover the phenomenon and grasp the meanings through understanding them (manen, 1990, p.40). alvesson and skoldberg (2000, p. 56) also add that understanding is closely related to comprehending past experiences with empathy in each individual and it is done in the form of the indepth understanding or comprehension. belief, according to tatto and coupland (2003, p. 124), is defined as principle of some statement or the reality of certain phenomena. intention can be inferred as a plan or goal. setiya (2014) asserts that there are three areas of intention, namely, the intention for the future, intention with which someone acts, and the intentional action. action, according to manen (1990, p. 154), is mainly focused on how people behave toward their reflection. feeling refers to how people feel the experience that they have. patton (2002, pp. 104-105) emphasizes that feeling is essentially dealing with how people perceive, feel, judge, remember, make sense, and talk about certain phenomena. from those five fields in the lived experience, not all of them are likely to be visible or appear in gathering or collecting the data. only the most relevant ones which can reveal the meanings of the lived experience. the aforementioned fields of lived experience are shaped or caused by the four struc48    project-based learning    tures namely, intentionality, historicity, ideology or belief, and awareness. since each individual has a unique lived experience which is different from one another, the differences are then determined through the aforementioned lived experience structures. project-based learning in the fields or in the disciplines other than second and foreign language, the buck institute for education (bie), an american research and development organization, defines project-based learning as one of the teaching methods which systematically makes the students involved in learning knowledge and skills through an extended inquiry process structured around complex, authentic questions, and carefully designed products as well as tasks (markham, et al., 2003, p.4). solomon (2003, p.10) also points out that the project-based learning is one of the learning processes which encourage the students to be responsible for their own education. students work collaboratively to find solutions for the problems which are close to the real life situation or authentic, based on curriculum, and often interdisciplinary. learners study how to create or produce their own learning process and how to determine what and where information can be obtained. the students are studying and synthesizing the information and then applying and demonstrating their new knowledge at the end. moreover, throughout the learning process, teachers take a role as managers and advisors as well. project-based learning (pbl) was promoted into second language education during the 1970s (hedge, 1993). in one of the second language classrooms, pbl becomes an instructional method which systematically improves the language skills of the students, the cognitive domains and global personality skills through valuable projects (ribe & vidal, 1993). moss and van duzer (1998, p.1) define pbl as an instructional approach which contextualizes learning by exposing the students to questions or problems to solve or assign products for students to develop. fried-booth (2002, p.6) further develops a definition of pbl as studentcentred and driven by the need to produce an end-product. fried-booth also further states that pbl is one of the tools to produce an end-product in an authentic environment with confidence and independence. project work is led by the intrinsic needs of the learners who enlarge their own tasks independently or in small groups. this approach is to establish the links between authentic language and language in textbooks. from the above definitions and explanations of pbl in second language and foreign language studies, the definition of pbl in this study can be summed up as a comprehensive learning which focuses on authentic problems and challenges that involve the students who work individually or in a team within meaningful activities resulting in an end outcome. then there is a need to confirm that pbl is a possible and a useful means or tool for allowing students to improve their language, content, as well as their communicative skills. project-based learning is closely associated with authentic learning, learner autonomy, cooperative learning, and multiple intelligences. it is related to authentic learning since it makes the students’ learning more meaningful by connecting prior knowledge to their current study. herrington and herrington (2006, p. 2) assert that students in an authentic learning environment are engaged in motivating and challenging activities that require collaboration and support. furthermore, the students also have real-life roles which are similar to the real world outside the classroom in which it project-based learning 49      needs teamwork, negotiation, and the use of problem-solving skills. markham et al., (2003) additionally add that in authentic learning, the students can communicate with people outside the classroom, use problem solving skills, and maximize the use of other resources to help their learning. pbl is closely associated with learner autonomy, since the students are responsible for their own learning (little and dam, 1998). the students should take at least some of the initiatives that provide shape and direction to the process of learning, and should communicate the progress and evaluate the targets to be achieved. macaro (1997, p. 168) adds that autonomy is an ability learned through knowing how to make decisions. through learner autonomy as well, the learning setting is expected to be centered on the learners (stoller, 2006, p. 33). pbl has a close association to cooperative learning since in the learners are able to perform face-to-face promotive activities, individual accountability, group processing, effective communication, and conflict organization (gillies, 2007 and johnson and johnson, 1994). lastly, pbl relates to multiple intelligences since pbl creates a learning environment which enables the students to explore their own interests, increase their skills, and abilities, and enlarge opportunities to improve their learning potentials. this can easily encourage active uses of different combinations of intelligences. it has also been shown that each student has different intelligence strengths when doing projects (hargrave, 2003; moursound, et al., 1997; welsh, 2006; wolk, 1994). english language studies (els) sanata dharma university has long been recognized for its excellent teaching and research in english language studies. the graduate program els, also known as s2 kbi (kajian bahasa inggris) offers unique programs that allow students to specialise in english linguistics, english literature, english language education, or technology of english language education. the vision of this graduate program in els is that advanced learners become discoverers of truth and meaning by way of english language studies to promote human dignity, personal and social alike. in order to achieve the vision, els administer a holistic education to facilitate the stakeholders to integrate academic excellence and humanistic values for the promotion of human dignity, personal, and social alike. in doing so, els strives to help a human person, personally and socially become self-actualizing, i.e. excellent in one’s own right by engaging in education, research and commnuity outreach through english language studies. the graduate program of els aims at creating graduates who possess core and supporting competence. core competence covers conducting research in english literature, english linguistics, and english education accordingly. it also covers the educational program, community service program, and current issues in english literature, english linguistics, and english education. supporting competence covers a good communication in english, a good design of learning materials, a welldeveloped ict-enhanced or ict-based learning media, and a good english teaching skill at different levels of education and different educational contexts. the curriculum of els covers three elements namely, foundation course, core courses (icluding thesis) and elective course. every graduate student has to complete certain credits which include those three elements. it is also worth knowing that all the core courses in one stream or 50    project-based learning    concentration are elective in nature to the students of other streams or concentrations. moreover, in achieving the goal of els, the curriculum of els has its own connections to the core competence as well as supporting competence of the graduates of els. it is achived through the implementation of the foundation course, core course, and elective course. framework of pre-understanding in relation to the els graduates’ competence which is creating or generating graduates who possess core and supporting competence, one of the ways to actualize it is by using project-based learning. by using the pbl approach, the students are requested to conduct research on their streams, create an educational program, design learning materials, write academic papers, and many others. pbl serves as a tool for the students in which that they can actualize themselves, control their project, expose their knowledge and ability, as well as learn in more authentic situation. in this study, we focused our interest in trying to examine the shared lived experience from the els students who have continuously experienced project based learning. here, we defined the term livedexperience as digging out the meaning of a certain phenomon. contextually, meaning in this study refers to the lived-experience of the students towards project-based learning which is the phenomenon. the els students’ intentionality, historicity, ideology, and awareness shape their lived experience of project-based learning which is then reflected in their understanding, belief, intention, action, and feeling. depicting from the framework, our pre-understanding of els students’ lived experience of project-based learning is then described as this series of four pre-figured meanings which are derived from the theories that we have discussed in this section namely authentic learning, learner autonomy, cooperative learning, and multiple intelligences. purpose of the study in this study, we aimed at describing and interpreting the els students’ lived experience of project-based learning. by doing so, we expected to obtain the essential meanings from the students’ shared lived experience. therefore, hopefully, the students could develop more advanced reflective skills so that they can succeed in their study. furthermore, it is also expected that we could gain emphatic understanding from the students’ lived experience. in order to meet the research aim, a research question was addressed: “what is the lived experience of els students of the project-based learning like?” research methods this study was a hermeneutic phenomenology study. it was phenomenology since it had a close relation to description, and it was hermeneutic as it had a close relation to interpretation (manen 1990, p.180). the participants were three illuminating students coming from the graduate program in english language studies (els) in sanata dharma university batch of 2015. they were from three different streams namely dewi from education stream, evi from linguistic stream, and ata from literature. moreover, we administered an interview guideline as the instrument for collecting the data. the data for this study were all in a form of texts gathered through the interview. in doing the interview, we employed a one-on-one in depth interview. in analyzing the data, we used creswell’s, (2012) stages that consisted of six stages namely, collecting and organizing the data, coding the data, making descriptions and project-based learning 51      revealing the meanings, reporting the findings, interpreting the findings, and validating the findings. in order to validate the findings of the research we then used member checking to ensure the trustworthiness for the study. descriptions and interpretations dewi’s story. dewi, a pseudonym, was a third semester student in the graduate program in english language studies (els), sanata dharma university yogyakarta. her interest is in the education stream and her background education was also closely related to the english education as well. regarding her experience in doing aproject, she told us about the project in program and material design (pmd) course when she was in the second semester in early 2016. in regards to her experience in doing pmd project, she and her group was creating an english course program for hotel receptionists in yogyakarta. they firstly had to find the hotel, conduct an observation on the hotel, make a call to the hotel, deliver a cover letter, and interview the hotel staff. not only designing the course, they also needed to present their progress to their lecturers and their friends so that they could gain inputs or feedback. by doing projects in a group, dewi could solve the problems and share them with her friends. in addition, she also stated that by doing group project, they could enlarge the opportunity to improve their learning potentials. besides, she could also be more understanding to her friends and develop her personality as well. she admitted that by doing projects, she could be resilient, disciplined, open-minded, and independent. in addition, she could also be beneficial to other people by being involved in the seminar when presenting her group project. evi’s story. evi, pseudonym, was also a third semester student in the graduate program in els, sanata dharma university, yogyakarta. her interest is in linguistic stream. regarding her experience in doing a project, she told us about the project in the critical discourse analysis (cda) course when she was in the first semester in early 2015. in regards to her experience in doing this cda project, evi and her group were assigned to analyze a text using the theory of cda approach consisting of four steps. when doing the project, they needed to negotiate and distribute the theory evenly so that the members of the group could explore their own interest. after they had chosen the topic and discussed the theory, they were working on their own tasks individually, then discussed the tasks together, and revised them. having finished with the cda project, evi told us that she could be more understanding towards her friends’ characters. moreover, she also mentioned that she could gain togetherness, teamwork, new experiences, and also benefits for herself. additionally, she felt that she became more disciplined, independent, and also critical. lastly, she stated that her self-esteem was also increased at the same time. ata’s story. ata, pseudonym, was also a third semester student in the graduate program in els, sanata dharma university, yogyakarta. her interest is in the in balliterature stream. regarding her experience in doing a project, she told us about the group presentation project in british and american literature (bal) and literary criticism (lc) classes. in the interview, we asked her about her memorable experiences about doing projects in her second semester. she admitted that the group presentations were in british and 52    project-based learning    american literature (bal) as well as in literary criticism (lc) courses. in the bal class, she did the presentation with her peer. the same thing also happened in lc class. she remembered that the topic she presented in the bal class was about post-american literature and in lc class was about the eco-criticism. when doing her group presentation projects, she mentioned that she always worked with her peer together from the beginning until the end of her group presentations. in addition, they also helped each other when finding problems or difficulties in the process of making their presentations. from her story, we also found that she was happy with her project since she could learn how to appreciate others, how to understand others, and how to be responsible. lastly, she also could increase her language skills especially in her speaking and her writing skills. interpretations authentic learning in project-based learning, authentic learning allows students to experience relevant real-world tasks. such experience makes the students’ learning more meaningful by connecting their prior knowledge to their current study. authentic learning arises in this context since the concept of project based learning is finding solutions for problems which are close to real life or authentic situation. moreover, herrington and herrington (2006, p. 2) add that when students learn in an authentic learning environment, they are involved in motivating and challenging activities or projects which need collaboration and support. not only working in a real-word task, the students in an authentic learning environment can also have real-life roles which are the same as the real world outside the class room and this also requires teamwork, negotiation, and the use of problem-solving skills. even though the students seem to be the main actors in their project-based learning, the teacher or the lecturer in an authentic learning environment, acts as a facilitator to guide the students to reach their learning goals by giving support and guidance throughout the learning process. according to markham et al. (2003) authentic activities are one of the main features of project based learning as the students have an opportunity to connect to real world conditions while completing their projects. it also requires authentic situations and practices, for instance, having a communication with people outside their classroom, using their problem-solving skill, using their teamwork skill, and their critical thinking skill. the students also have an opportunity to use other than their textbooks, since they need to search and do research or investigation for their projects through the use of other resources such as internet, local community, advertising materials, and verbal communication in the real world. dewi, in her interview mentioned that she and her friends were assigned to design an english course program as well as the materials in pmd course. “at first, we were requested to create an english program. then, my friends and i discussed about making english for specific purpose (esp) or english for academic purpose (eap).” after dewi and her friends decided their english program, with the help of their friend, they chose to go to one of the hotels in yogyakarta. they sent the cover letter, and conducted the interview with the hrd project-based learning 53      representative as well as receptionist. at the end of their observation, they decided to specifically design an english program and create the materials for the receptionists only. “at that time, we were suggested by our friends to go to one of the hotels in yogyakarta. we sent a cover letter, and we were welcomed very warmly by the hotel staff. after that, we conducted interview to the hrd representative as well as to the receptionist. at the end, we decided to specifically design and create an english program and its materials for the receptionist only.” not only engaged in the authentic situation, dewi and her group also used other resources when doing their pmd projects, especially when creating the english materials. she stated that she and her friends used the internet in order to find the materials. “we admitted that it was difficult to find english materials for the receptionist since most of the materials provided are only for general english. hence, we used the internet to help us find the materials.” from dewi’s experience, it could be inferred that dewi and her friends were involved and engaged in the authentic learning environment where they had to design an english program for the hotel receptionist. moreover, she and her friends also did communicate first with people outside their classroom to gain as much information as possible in order to support their program. in addition, she was also collaborating with her friends in deciding which english program that they were going to design. at last, dewi and her friends also realized that the use of other resources such as the internet were very helpful in a way that they could find the materials for the receptionist. likewise, evi also shared the same experience as dewi in a different project. when she was in the first semester, she was assigned to do research on a selected text in the cda course. since it was a group project, evi mentioned that she and her friends had to discuss first before deciding the text they were going to analyze. furthermore, they also needed to work together in deciding who would read the theories consisting of four steps. “my group consisted of four people and we needed to discuss the text first. since in cda there were four steps according to ferkarl, we also discussed who would read the step a, b, c, and d.” to confirm whether they had correctly analyzed their text, they also did research on internet to help them strengthen and support their argument. evi stated that “since cda is subjective, we needed to do research on internet to make sure that we had correctly analyzed the text. it was also to help us strengthen and support our argument.” ata, the third participant, shared differently about her experience in doing a project. her project was more about doing group presentation in the bal and lc classes. she mentioned that in her bal and lc classes she gave a presentation with her peer. at the first time, both of them searched the materials based on the topic given by their lecturer on their own. in addition, they also needed to arrange the time to meet each other to discuss and develop their topic. when doing the presentation as well, ata needed to use video or images to support her presentation with her peer. “the process was we find our materials, we also needed to find video or images, to support our presentation in class.” “after that, we needed to arrange our time to meet each other, then we shared our topic what we were going to present. when we both had agreed, we then develop the topic and prepare the presentation.” 54    project-based learning    based on their individual experiences it can be interpreted that when they were doing their own projects, they had been involved in the authentic learning environment which requires real-world tasks, authentic situation, collaboration, teamwork and negotiation in different ways. it is also in line what herrington and herrington (2006, p. 2) have previously stated that in authentic learning students are engaged in activities which require collaboration as well as support. woo, herrington, agostinho, and reeves (2007) further explain that in authentic learning the students have real-life roles that require teamwork and also negotiation. markham (2003) also adds that project based learning invites the students to be involved in the authentic situations such as communication with people outside the classroom and the students also have their opportunity to use other resources such as internet, local community to help their project. learner autonomy in project-based learning learner autonomy is shown through the project work. the students or the learners are allowed to choose their own topic of the project and are allowed to be involved in planning and creating their project and the process of learning with support from their teachers. it can be said that the autonomy of the learning or the authority is provided so that the students can maintain their learning from the beginning of the study to the end of the course program. not only can the students maintain their learning, but they also are expected to take at least some of the initiatives that allow them to shape and direct them to the process of learning and enable them to communicate the progress of their project, and evaluate their targets. moreover, learner autonomy also teaches the students to have an ability to make decisions through their learning. macaro (1997, p. 168) further adds that autonomy is an ability to be in charge of one’s own language learning and an ability to know the value of taking responsibility for one’s own objectives, content, progress, methods, and techniques of learning. additionally, through the implementation of project-based learning, the classroom environment can generate more learner and learning-centred settings. with the autonomy of the learners, they can also possess their responsibility for their learning. in addition, the learners are also expected to be more motivated, to feel more competent, and more self-determined. hence, at the end of their project, the students can also gain their own interest and can succeed in their learning. dewi, in her shared experiences in doing her pmd project, stated that she needed to present their group’s progress to the lecturer based on their presentation topics. “at the beginning, firstly we divided the presentations including the materials to be presented. after that, we needed to present our progress based on our presentation topic.” additionally, since they had to present a weekly presentation about their progress, they had to meet each other to prepare their group’s progress to their lecturer. she also mentioned that when doing the project, she was the leader of her group so that she could took initiatives to work on the project with her friends, “….since my friends leaned on me, then i always asked them and invite them to work on our projects.” in terms of a learner-centred setting or environment, dewi also mentioned that after they designed the materials which were reviewed by the lecturer, she and her friends presented their progress in front of the class starting with the introduction, the theories, and the design. project-based learning 55      “…after designing the materials and being reviewed by the lecturers, we presented our progress in front of our classmates started with the introduction, the theory and the design of the program.” in addition, she also added that through presentation in front of their classmates she and her friends could gain a lot of suggestions rather than just from their lecturer. it was because she felt that her friends’ suggestions were more detailed and more critical than the lecturer’s. “actually, i felt that i gain so many suggestions from my classmates. so it was like an open discussion. my classmates gave more inputs for our group than the lecturer. in my opinion also, the inputs from my friends were more critical and more detailed than the lecturer’s. for example, my friends asked about how we arranged the meeting for the program. however, my lecturer rather focused on the theory. so, we felt that it was not that detailed and less realistic.” lastly, dewi added that during the completion of her pmd group project, she also found difficulties with her friends. however, she always tried to overcome the problems with her friends. “let say, compared to other groups, indeed our group was not the best. but we every time we faced or we found problems, we always tried to solve it together.” evi, differently shared her experience when doing projects in the graduate program in els. although she was not specifically mentioning her experience in terms of learner autonomy, we could gain some important points from her story. firstly, she mentioned that during her study time in the els, she felt that she was given freedom to find sources to help her understand the theories. moreover, she also added that she needed to actively ask questions to her lecturer if she could not understand her lecturers’ explanation. “in els, indeed the lecturers seem to master the theories, but they let us to find other sources to support our learning.” “… but if we did not ask question, they let us to actively ask them questions and they let us to actively find learning sources.” likewise, ata, mentioned that when doing projects in els, she indeed found difficulties with the friends. however, most of the time, she and her friends did not ask her lecturers much, rather they had greater portion to work on their projects. furthermore, implicitly, we found out that an initiative was depicted from her story as she mentioned that her friend did ask her to work on their group presentation project in bal and lc classes. lastly, when she had done her group presentation, she also told us that she could gain comments from her friends through classical discussion. “most of the time, we did our project by ourselves, i meant me and my group.” “so, the one that asked me to work on our presentation was my peer. she initiated to divide our own parts, then i agreed with her, and she asked me which part i wanted to discuss.” “in class, we were discussing our materials. so, we gain some enlightments in class from our friends.” based on their shared experiences, we infer that in the els, mostly the projects given by the lecturers includes the class discussion and learner-centred environment. in other words, the lecturers give greater portion to their students to learn and to find learning sources by themselves. hence, the students can explore their own ability. in addition initiatives are also important to start working on projects so that they could complete and submit their projects on time. lastly, in every project, the students are requested to communicate their progress by giving a presentation in front of their classmates and their lecturers as well engaging in discussion so that they can 56    project-based learning    obtain as many suggestions as possible from both their lecturers and their friends. in line with their shared experiences, stoller (2006, p. 33) mentions that in project based learning, the classroom environment can generate more learning and learnercentred settings. additionally, with learner autonomy in pbl, students arereponsible for their own learning. markham et al. (2003) further add that through projects learners can control their learning from the beginning of the study to the end of their course program. moreover, little and dam (1998) also emphasize that the students should take at least some initiatives that provide shape and direction to the process of learning, and should communicate their progress and should evaluate the targets to be achieved. cooperative learning it is inevitable that in project based learning, the students are requested to do their projects with their peer or partners. in other words, working in a project based environment require cooperative learning setting as well. gillies (2007, p, 246) asserts that cooperative learning requires working together among group members to achieve the shared purposes. moreover, in cooperative learning as well, to increase the awareness of the students’ learning, they should be able to reflect and communicate their experiences in learning with their peers or partners, or friends (kohonen, 1992). moreover, gillies (2007) and johnson & johnson (1994) mention five important elements for successful cooperative learning. first, there should be positive interdependence meaning the students should create the goal, but this can only be achieved if all of the group members commit to finish the projects together. second, there should be face-to-face promotive interaction meaning that the students have to provide effective guidance to their friends by having discussion, exchanging sources, reasoning, and giving feedback. third, there should be individual accountability which means even though the students are working on group projects, each of the members should be given individual tasks fairly so that each of them can give contributions. fourth, interpersonal and small group skills should also be taken into account. lastly, there should be group processing meaning that they have to keep their positive working relationship and keep their respect when collaboratively working with their peers to achieve their group goal. gillies (2007) and johnson & johnson (1994) mention that in cooperative learning, there should be face to face supportive interaction which means that the students have to provide effective assistance by having discussion, sharing moments, exchanging sources, and giving feedback. in line with what gillies and johnson & johnson have stated, dewi, in her shared experiences, mentioned that in doing pmd projects, she needed to engage in a discussion with her friends before designing the english program and the materials. “for example, when we needed to design the program as well as creating the materials for the receptionist, we needed to discuss it first so that each of us could give comments.” moreover, she also emphasized that when doing the group projects, each of them can also help and support each other when they have problems. “when doing projects, if we were confused, there were our friends who could help us so that we could share the problems.” from those extracts, it could be inferred that when doing her group projects, dewi and her group supported each other by giving thought through group discussion so that they could solve their problems and project-based learning 57      could determine which materials they were going to create or design. additionally, each of them could be a help if one of them finds a problem during the completion of their projects. likewise, evi corroborated that dewi had mentioned previously. evi stated that “when doing projects, if a knew about this theory, he or she could offer specific support. the same thing also happened when a knew about the findings, he or she could similar support”. additionally, she also added that “we often debated each other’s argument in our group discussion. for example, if in my opinion this was right, and if this was the right analysis. my other friends might have different opinion and they would support their argument. we often debated our own argument so that we could know whose arguments were the strongest. since there were four people in my group, so there would be who chose whose arguments.” looking at those extracts, we can interpret that evi and her group did support each other by giving arguments in their group discussion. this will also help them find whose arguments were right or wrong to support their projects. although they engaged in debate with each other, they could finally find the most appropriate analysis for their project. ata, in her interview, mentioned that when doing group projects, she and her friends often discussed their group presentation materials and shared their understanding. they could also help each other when one of them found difficulties during the process of making their group presentation. ata stated that “if in group presentation, we could share our understanding towards the presentation materials”. “so, at that time, my friend needed a video to support our presentation, hence, i helped her find one. the same thing also happened when i was difficult to find examples to support my presentation, she also helped me find some and find ideas as well.” based on those extracts, it can be said that ata and her friends were back to back in helping and in supporting one and another. additionally, during their group project, they also built a good teamwork so that they both can finish their group presentation well. individual accountability, as mentioned by gillies and johnson & johnson (2006) should also be taken into account when dealing with cooperative learning. in doing a project, individual accountability can be defined as each of the members has to be given proper tasks so that each of them can provide contributions for their group. during the first and the second interviews we found that when doing group projects, dewi, evi, and ata did indirectly or unconsciously implement or apply individual accountability in their group. dewi, mentioned that when doing group projects, they can share and distribute the tasks evenly. she also said that the reason why she liked her group was because she could cooperatively work with her friends by sharing tasks. she mentioned that “so far, when i was in my group, we could share the tasks. moreover, doing projects in groups was also enjoyful, mas. we could share the tasks for example, you do this, and you do this.” from that extract, it can be said that individual accountability happened through giving the tasks equally to each members of the group. we then also infer that when giving responsibility to do the task to the member of the group, there should also be a willingness and an agreement from each member so that each of them can work maximally on their own task. similarly, evi, also shared the same experience as dewi. when doing her group 58    project-based learning    projects evi mentioned that after deciding the text that they were going to analyze, they shared the tasks. in addition, they needed to work on their own task individually. after each of them had found the red line, they had to arrange the time to meet each other again in order to discuss the progress of their project. she stated that “after that, we had divided the tasks. then, we typed our work on our own. when we had gained the red line, we developed it. since it was impossible to meet each other just to type our work, we needed to arrange the time again to have our group discussion.” in the extract above, it is clear that with the lack of time to meet each other or to have group discussion, individual accountability was highly important to support the group project. for evi, since they had difficulties to meet each other, her group decided to divide the tasks to each member of the group so that each of them could finish their project. in addition, by having individual accountability to complete the group project, it is evident that each member of the group can learn how take relevant roles of responsibility. ata further confirmed similar points as dewi and evi. she recounted how they searched materials for their group presentation. she and her peer needed to individually find their own materials and to make their own power point presentation part. furthermore, she also mentioned that when editing their group presentation power point, they did it individually since each of them knew their part better. we can infer that trust is also needed when dividing the task to the group member. ata in her group presentation projects, implicitly trusted her peer to work on their materials. similarly, her peer also trusted ata to work on her part as well. she stated that “so we searched for our materials by our own, and we created our power point presentation part. … we also edited our presentation individually since we knew our part better, so when i met her, we compiled our presentation together.” in sum, even though not all of the five elements in cooperative learning mentioned by gillies and johnson & johnson (2006) appear, the projects that the three participants worked on were giving them lessons to promote each other’s learning through discussion and to individually give contributions to the group project by being given the tasks individually. multiple intelligences the last pre-figured meaning to appear in the logical truth discovery is multiple intelligences. in project based learning, it is expected that the learning setting can allow the students to explore their own interests, increase their skills and abilities and enlarge opportunities to improve their learning potentials. it is also evident that each student has different intelligence strengths, especially in doing group projects. hargrave, 2003; moursound, et al., 1997; welsh, 2006; and wolk, 1994 further add that in project based learning, the students are given a chance to freely choose options of learning which enable them to level up their skills and abilities to improve their potential in their learning process. this theory also implies that learners or students have different strengths. hence, different approaches of teaching which offer individuals opportunities to respond approporately with varied learning styles and strategies. during the first and the second interview, we admitted that it was not easy to unearth their experience about the multiple intelligences. however, finally, we could draw some points or examples from the three participants. although they shared different things about their experience in doing their project, we infer that in doing project-based learning 59      group projects, the students can likely explore their own interest and enlarge opportunities to improve their learning potentials. dewi mentioned that when working on the project, specifically when her group needed to present their progress, she and her friends had to read and understand their own part well. she was also sure that when she read the materials well, her friend would reciprocate. moreover, she commented that before their presentation, each of them maximized their part and when tasks were given, they also tried to finish their tasks well. she stated that “when we worked on our task, for instance presentation, you get this chapter, and we really read our part, mas. i also read my part well. and, we also had divided who had this point, and this point as well. so that each of us read our part and maximize it before we did our presentations. moreover, when the tasks were given, we also did our tasks.” “since my other two friends were also diligent, i also needed to be diligent as well. the main point is, we should maximize our effort, mas.” this implies that when doing their project, each of the members was given a chance to enlarge their opportunities to improve their learning potentials by being given the tasks. moreover, they unconsciously improve their learning potentials by giving their best when doing their presentation or by maximizing their effort. this can also be a good way to measure one’s capability in his or her learning process. evi, shareded a different point of view regarding multiple intelligences. she mentioned that when doing her cda group project, their group agreed to divide the four steps evenly to each members of the group since every step has its own difficulties. she stated that “in cda, there are four steps. for example, i got the step one, the second step was my other friends. since each of the steps has its own difficulties, and we could choose which part i could be able to read and understand.” from evi’s statement it emerges that each of the members in her group has different interest on the four steps and that was the basis of the distribution of them. moreover, it is likely that the greater the personal interest, the greater the effort towards the task goal. the same thing also happened in evi’s group. each of them has his or her own interest in the four steps so everyone in the group can give their maximum contribution on each step that they had chosen. ata confirmed that in dividing the presentation topics, she needed to communicate with her peer first and made an agreement. “i asked her, which one she wanted, and she chose this one, then i chose this one. but we worked on our topics together.” moreover, she also mentioned she knew that she and her partner had different strengths and weaknesses. however, they both always did their best in doing their group presentation project. she stated that “i was aware of our capability. we both know where we were good at. most importantly, we always did our best by maximizing what we had in ourselves.” lastly, she told that in terms of presentation, she was also aware that she and her friends had different strengths and weaknesses in doing presentation. she illustrated that her partner might be good at the introduction part, she herself might have strengths in the final section. in addition, this could also help distibute the workload. she stated that “however, in terms of the way presented our part it might also be different. perhaps my friend was good at 60    project-based learning    the introduction or the explanation part. or it could be about the distribution of the topic that we both liked.” from the extracts above, we could interpret that ata had actualy been aware of what she and her friends could do during their group presentation project. they both had different interest in terms of their presentation topic showed by how they exercised their preferences in choosing. moreover, she also realized that she and her peer had different skills in presenting their presentation and this was demonstrated in how they arranged the order of speakers in their presentation sessions. emergent meanings understanding others the first emergent meaning that appeared during the data gathering or the data gathering was understanding others. when working on the group projects, most of the time, the participants work together with their peers or partners in order to achive their learning goals. hence, it also involves communication as well as good team work so that they can work cooperatively. moreover, understanding others in doing group projects provides a warm and supportive environment in which the students can experiment constructively with new ways of relating to others, share personal experiences, express fears and concerns, and gain support and feedback. contextually, during the texts gathering, we found out that understanding others in this research refer to how doing projects affected them to be more understanding in terms of their friends’ needs and also characters. dewi in her shared experience, states that through pmd project, she could learn to understand her friends’ needs. she further illustrated that one of her friends lived in kulonprogo and she needed to go back and forth to campus. hence, in this circumstance, dewi needed to arrange the time with her friend. she stated that “from the pmd project, i could learn to be more understanding to my friends’ needs. for example, one of my friends stayed in kulonprogo, and i needed to arrange the time discuss our project.” furthermore, through doing pmd project, she could also understand her friends’ character since they had been together for one semester. hence, dewi, could be closer to them. “from pmd project, i could be closer to them since we were always together for one semester. moreover, i could understand their character as well.” from those extracts, it could be concluded that through doing the pmd project, the participants, particularly dewi, can achieve the learning goal as well as improve her view point towards her friends. she could not always selfishly force or insist her friends to follow her needs. rather, she should also understand that her friends also have their own needs or business. moreover, by understanding her friends’ characters, dewi knew how to act appropriately when she is with her friends especially in doing their pmd project so that interpersonal conflicts can also be avoided. similarly, evi mentioned that by doing her cda group project, she could feel the sense of togetherness, team work, new experiences as well as benefits for herself. she was also able to understand her friends’ characters. she emphasized that through project-based learning she understood the way her friends worked, their characters, and their personalities. “in group, i could know my friends’ characters. in fact, each of us is different from one and another. hence through project based, i could know how a, b, c, worked, and their personalities as well.” lastly, not only did dewi and evi mention they could understand their friends, project-based learning 61      but ata also corroborated this. she stated that “yes, i was not selfish at that time. i could even know my friend’s character better than before. so, i should be more understanding i guess.” in doing group or team project, understanding one and another is highly important, as what abarca et al,. (2000, p. 40) mention that effective teams require and share many common characteristics. being respectful to other team members is highly essential for team effectiveness. valuing the strengths of teammates, while minimizing their weaknesses, promotes team cohesion. cooperating as a team also requires trust from all the members of the group. they kept focusing on the project, believing in each other, striving to the end goal, arguing less and exploring more. this leads to effective team work in doing or creating a project. personal development the second or the last emergent meaning emerged during the texts gathering is personal development. personal development in this research contextually means the changes or the developments that the participants felt or gained when doing their projects. each of the participants shared differently about the development that they obtained through the completion of their projects. according to the united kingdom association of business practioners (abp) (2010, p. 7) personal development refers to developing and improving aspects of a person which include fields such as education, motivation, feelings, health, skills, abilities and more. abp also asserts that as life and the environments are changing nowadays, it is important to continue developing as a person in order to improve as individuals and to be able to adapt to the change of situations. personal development involves an individual to generate goals which define a point that can be achieved through setting the goal and plan. this also enables progress and assessment which allows a person to gain feedback in relation to change and development. on the evidence presented here, it can be concluded that after doing projects in the els, the participants felt that, they not only changed their veiw point towards their friends, but their personalities also developed at the same time. they could be tougher or more resilient, more independent, more open minded, and more disciplined. their self-esteem and self-efficacy increased at the same time. additionally, they also felt they could be critical thinkers, could increase their language skills ability, and could be beneficial to other people by being involved in the seminar. dewi mentioned that when doing her projects, she could increase her self-esteem as well as her self-efficacy by becoming a tough woman. in addition, she could also be more open-minded during and after the project. she mentioned that she could be tougher in terms of doing her assignment and she could handle the pressure. she further stated that she became a less-panicky student when dealing with her projects or her assignments. she also became less stressful and became wiser in dealing with her problems. in coping with her projects and her assignments, she could handle the pressure well. “i felt i became tougher since i could be less panicky when dealing with papers, and less stressful. moreover, i felt like i was getting wiser each day . not only was i getting wiser, but i could also handle the pressure.” being more open-minded became the next thing she mentioned. during the completion of her pmd project, she stated that after meeting and working with her friends she 62    project-based learning    could be more open to them. moreover, she could also accept her friends’ opinions or arguments and could realize that she could not insist that her friends should accept her expectation. “after pmd project, i could be more open to my friends since i worked with them” moreover, i could accept my friends’ arguments or opinions and i realized that i could not insist my expectations to my friends.” in the same way, evi expressed how through doing projects, she could be independent, discipline, and could increase her self-esteem. she stated that through doing projects, she could be more independent since she had to do research, find good theories, and many other related things. she stated that “obviously, i became more independent. since we had to conduct research, find theories by ourselves”. in terms of discipline, she felt that her discipline increased. she explained that when she studied in the graduate program, she often did many projects individually and in group. hence she felt more disciplined compared to when she was an undergraduate student. she stated that “i felt i became more disciplined. it was very different from when i was an undergraduate student”. related to her self-esteem, evi added that by doing projects, she could be resilient. she concluded that no matter what the conditions were, she had to be really tough when dealing with projects and the deadline. “i became resilient. for instance, when you felt sick, you needed to keep struggling to finish the projects and the deadline. no matter how busy you were, you really had to be tough and strong.” like the others, ata also asserted that she became more disciplined in her daily routines after working on her group project. she utterred that “i see… yes, i felt i became more disciplined now.” dewi, mentions that after doing pmd projects, she and her friends could present her groups’ paper in the lltc seminar in last october in the elesp sanata dharma university yogyakarta. she commented that doing projects could also bring benefits not only for her, but also for her friends. she stated that “by doing projects, we were able to present our paper in the lltc seminar. so i felt like this also gave us benefits”. dewi implies that after doing her pmd project, she could expand not only her ability but also that of her friends’ to inform other people outside their classroom setting about what they have learned related to their project. hence, people could also know, how they design or create an english program and learning materials for english for specific purposes. differently, evi, stated that by working on projects, especially her cda projects, she could increase or improve her critical thinking skills. she mentions that unconsciously she could be able to analyze the texts critically by not only looking at the main ideas, but also she could find the power imbalances within the texts. she uttered that “unconsciously, we could analyze the texts. in other words, we could analyze the texts critically. usually, i only analyze the texts based on their main ideas. now, i could also find the power in balance in the texts as well.” “not only in analyzing the texts, i could also think in a broader sense. moreover, i could also be more critical in facing a problem.” from this, it can be interpreted that through her cda project, she could improve her way of thinking and her ability in analyzing the texts. in addition, she could also change her habit when she read certain texts by not only looking at their main ideas, but also looking at the deeper sides. project-based learning 63      regarding critical thinking skill, tretten and zachariou (1995, p.8) mentioned that students, working both individually and cooperatively, can feel empowered when they implement effective work habits and use critical thinking to solve their problem. moreover, they also assert that students are also able to learn and or strengthen their work habits, their critical thinking skills, and their productivity. throughout this process, students may gain new knowledge, new skills, and positive attitudes. in addition, ata, mentioned that when doing her group presentation, she could increase not only her knowledge, but also her language skills especially her speaking and writing skills. she said that her public speaking skill improved by doing a lot of group presentations. she further added that she could present materials for about one hour with a varied range of vocabulary. she uttered that “i could enrich my knowledge. and by doing presentation, i could practice my public speaking skill. so, i could present my presentation for about one hour since i like speaking. i could also broaden my knowledge and my vocabularies.” “i felt like i became more fluent both in speaking and writing. i used to stop using english before entering els. however, since studying in els, i had to use my english since there were a lot of assignments and presentations requiring the use of english. automatically, i felt the positive changes in me.” in line with ata’s extracts above, fragoulis (2009) and bell (2010) state that there are six benefits of implementing pbl in teaching english as foreign language. one of them is by applying or implementing project based learning, the students can have an optimal opportunity to improve and to develop their language skills. . conclusion overall, there are six meanings worth stressing from this study. those meanings then are divided into two sections namely prefigured meanings which consists of four meanings derived from the logical or conceptual truth and emergent meanings which consists of two meanings derived from the empirical truth. the pre-figured meanings are authentic learning, learning autonomy, cooperative learning, and multiple intelligences. the emergent meanings are understanding others and personal development. © sandy ferianda & franciscus xaverius mukarto sandy ferianda <ferianda02021992@gmail.com> earned his master degree in english language studies from sanata dharma university, yogyakarta. his main interest is english language education and he is currently also interested in doing qualitative research. fransiscus xaverius mukarto <mukarto@usd.ac.id; mukartofx@gmail.com> earned his ph.d. degree in linguistics from univeristi sains malysia. he currently teaches second language acquisition, language teaching methodology, and instructional materials design at sanata dharma university. he has published numerous english course books for elementary and junior high school students. his research interest is in second language acquisition. 64    project-based learning    references abarca, j., bedard, a., carlson, d., carlson, l., 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(2007). implementing authentic tasks in web-based learning environments. retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ educause +quarterly/educausequarterlymag azinevolum/implementingauthenticta sksinwe/16183 92 english teaching and learning in korean university english teaching and learning in a korean university perceptions of international professors sang ho han singhap@gu.ac.kr logos college, gyeongju university gyeongju, south korea abstract article history the purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of international faculty towards english teaching and learning at a local university in south korea. for data collection, a comprehensive questionnaire was administered on a google survey to 71 international faculty teaching at the university. the survey consisted of items of questions concerning faculty’s second language learning experience, teaching/learning philosophy, and teaching techniques and skills. description of the responses revealed the following results: 1) second language learning experience of faculty helps improving quality of instruction through understanding students’ learning difficulties; 2) faculty’s view of language was mostly holistic while that of language learning was inclusive of different perspectives; 3) the role teachers was mainly that of a facilitator in a student-focused class; 4) for those applying clt, it was used to engage students within a student-centered classroom; 5) a general maxim of teaching was the golden rule: “do unto others, as you would have done unto you.”; 6) views on teaching explicit knowledge varied widely among faculty; 7) the majority of faculty chose to correct both global and local errors; 8) a number of strategies were utilized in order to help students overcome reluctance to speak; 9) in order to enhance students’ communicative abilities, a suggestion was made for innovation of general english education programs. received: 05/18/2020 reviewed: 06/03/2020 accepted: 07/07/2020 keywords: faculty perception, view of language, view of language learning, english teaching/learning philosophy, elt innovation doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v8i2.2513 introduction in line with the trends of globalization and internationalization, the g university, which is located in the southeastern part of republic of korea, has been increasing the international faculty force in order to improve the status of english education at the university. the students enrolled in the said university were not highly motivated mailto:singhap@gu.ac.kr https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v8i2.2513 english teaching and learning in a korean university 93 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya toward english learning and communication and their perceived level of english proficiency was mainly low to low intermediate. it was believed by the school administration that employing more native speaker or international professors would guarantee success of english education. this resulted in hiring more such faculty and securing more contact hours for students both in and out of english mediated classes. in the spring semester of 2012, more learner-friendly general english education courses have begun to supersede toeic listening and reading classes, which were the main english courses at the school for many years in the past. the names of newly introduced courses included sure talk, enjoy talk, talking over aroma of coffee, english through popular music, english through sports, english over wine, english through famous speech, english through mythology, tips for overseas travel, english for international etiquettes, and understanding multi-culture, etc. the names of these student-friendly courses were mostly the creation of brainstorming on the part of participating international faculty. as many as 18 sections of the same courses were offered to students in order to provide more contact hours within the class. at the same time, english lounge and international faculty one-to-one communication mentoring was extensively provided in areas labeled as english lounge for more personalized english learning opportunities. with the number of native and international faculty exceeding the total of 80, the atmosphere of the university campus began to change into more global especially around the building where most english mediated course were taught. this has allowed more time for reflection and sharing on the part of the faculty as to teaching methods and ideas of teaching. with this change of air on the campus, a proposal was made by international faculty coordinator for professional development of international faculty. the dynamic and diverse nature of the faculty culture was considered unique and it was thought sharing of the various experiences and perspectives would serve to contribute not only to the school they were working at but also to enhancement of the english education professionals in korea as well. the purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of english teaching from those who were rendering service at the said university. the survey questions were designed to elicit the respondents’ teaching experience, teaching/learning philosophy, and perceptions about their teaching approach toward communicative teaching methods. all international faculty were invited to input their thoughts and ideas in a google survey form created by a software engineerturned english professor, and provided by the coordinator. review of literature studies on teacher beliefs have shown that they have a significant impact on teaching practice, and provide rationale for what teachers do in the classroom. that is, teachers’ beliefs function as a core reference point during the course of teaching, and provide a basis for actions and behaviors. this is well stated in richards and lockhart (1994): “what teachers do is a reflection of 94 english teaching and learning in korean university what they know and believe, and that teacher knowledge and ‘teacher thinking’ provide the underlying framework or schema which guides the teachers’ classroom actions.” (p. 29). this statement illustrate the notion that teachers’ classroom actions reflect what teachers know and think, and this knowledge and thinking is a product of their previous learning experiences, and thus may be “personalized, idiosyncratic, and highly context specific” (tusi, 2003, p. 61). teachers tend to do things that they have observed; in what lortie (calls) an “apprenticeship of observation” suggesting that teachers internalized their observed behavior and this strongly influences their teaching practices. thus what teachers do in the classroom cannot be fully understood without considering what they bring into the classroom, what they believe about learning and teaching, and how their beliefs are received in the classroom. the majority of studies on teacher/student beliefs used horwitz’s (1985) 34-item self-report questionnaire, balli, to assess the beliefs of teachers and learners. peacock (1999) compared the beliefs of 202 students and 45 university esl teachers and found noticeable differences in their beliefs about vocabulary and grammar. while students believed that learning a foreign language is a matter of learning a lot of new words and grammar rules, only a small percentage of teachers agreed. saminy and lee (1997) found similar results in a study of 34 students and 10 teachers. on the other hand, breen (1991) observed that even the most experienced teachers in a master’s program considered language as a system rather than a means of communication despite their theoretical training. kagan (1992) also found similar results in her review of 27 empirical studies on student teachers’ beliefs about learning. the personal nature of the teacher beliefs was researched by breem, hird, milton, oliver and thwaite (2001). through multiple classroom observations and subsequent interviews of 18 esl teachers, they argue that some of the teachers’ seemingly identical classes are based on each individual teacher’s fundamentally different belief about learning and teaching. they also argue that a complex relationship is involved between teachers’ beliefs and their realization into actual classroom teaching within particular classroom circumstance (choi, 2006). with the exception of a few studies (feryok, 2008; gu, 2010), however, more attention has been paid to the beliefs of preservice teachers, and relatively little research has been conducted with practicing teachers, especially with the ns teachers in the efl context. based on semi-structured interviews and questionnaires with british specialists and chinese teachers participating in a teacher training program, gu (2010) concluded that teachers learn from their experiences and gradually develop their competence as experts, and their growth of expertise is situation specific reflecting cultural characteristics. similarly, shin (2002) conducted interviews over a ten month period with seven asian teachers (korean, japanese, taiwanese, chinese) who were enrolled in doctoral programs in the united states, and found that the participants perceived their role as a friendly caregiver, which was the opposite image of a teacher as an authority figure in their traditional education system (kim, 2011). while these studies described asian and ns teachers’ beliefs about learning and their perception of problems in the efl classrooms, they did not describe how the english teaching and learning in a korean university 95 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya individual teacher’s previous learning and teaching experiences and their cultural background have contributed to their beliefs about learning and teaching. as a result of previous research studies on teacher perceptions, it was found that more attention has been paid to the beliefs of pre-service teachers and relatively little research has been conducted with practicing teachers, especially with the ns teachers in the efl context. chin (2002) is one of the few studies on ns teachers’ beliefs in the efl context. using interviews and questionnaires with 18 efl teachers at a suburban area in gyeongsangnamdo province, she found that native speaker professors considered language learning as learning communication skills. she also found that these professors considered students’ lack of confidence in english and their perfectionist complex to be the major obstacles to improving their i. finally, they believed that making mistakes is necessary in second language learning and thus viewed their role as creating an environment in which students can participate in communication. the current study will verify what these native speaker teachers had said with analysis of multiple responses from 71 faculty who were teaching in the researched university. more recently, kim (2011) studied the ns teachers’ beliefs on learning and teaching, based on survey and interviews from eight native speaker professors. her study was conducted with reference to their educational and cultural background, and found that, similar to chin’s (2002) findings, the ns teachers believed that learners’ active participation in classroom interaction, making mistakes, and taking responsibility for their own learning serve as core elements of second language learning. she further argued that such beliefs were closely related to the teachers’ own learning experiences gained in their home contexts, and their theoretical or practical knowledge acquired through their teacher training or prior teaching experiences. however, both chin (2002) and kim (2011) dealt with the perceptions of ns teachers from inner circle countries such as usa, england, canada, and australia, and did not include perspectives of non-native international faculty who are teaching english in korea. the current study investigates perceptions of 71 native and/or international faculty through a comprehensive closed and open-ended survey, and tries to verify chin’s and kim’s findings from ns professors, while trying to complement those views and perspectives with the ideas and experiences of non-native international faculty. understanding how these native and international faculty with different educational and professional backgrounds have built up different perspectives of teaching will shed light on developing alternative approach to teaching english in the korean efl settings. focus on teacher perceptions since 1990’s teacher education research has placed more emphasis on how teacher’s cognition, knowledge, and experiences influence and shape their teaching practice. this new line of teacher education research began to highlight the ways teachers are shaped by their prior experiences as students (peacock, 1999; samimy & lee, 1997), their personal practical knowledge (connelly & clandinin, 1985), their values and beliefs (pajares, 1992), and the context in which they are engaged (feryok, 2008; 96 english teaching and learning in korean university mattheousdakis, 2007; polat, 2010). those recognized that “teachers are central to understanding and improving english language teaching” (freeman & johnson, 1998, p. 401), and teachers’ beliefs about teaching and past experiences as learners are “instrumental in shaping how they interpret what goes in the classroom” (freeman & johnson, 1998, p. 401). in light of this emerging trend in teacher education, teacher education research has begun to acknowledge the importance of teacher cognition, knowledge, and beliefs. the focus of research on language teaching has shifted from investigating merely behaviors of teachers to also investigating the cognition of teachers that prompts such behavior (yook, 2011). as part of this shift, teachers’ beliefs have been recognized as an important variable in language teaching (renzaglia, hutchins, & lee, 1997; stuart & thurlow, 2000). teachers have been shown to be decision makers in creation of classroom realities (freeman & johnson, 1998; richards, 1996; richards & lockheart, 1996; woods, 1996), and acting in "the light of their own beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions of the relevant teaching situation” (tudor, 2001, p. 17). johnson (1994) predicts that “teachers’ beliefs would ultimately become one of the most valuable psychological constructs for teaching and teacher education” (p.439). the general consensus in the literature has been that teachers’ beliefs have a critical impact on the way they learn how to teach, the way they teach in the classroom, and the way they perceive educational innovations (borg, 2001). this growing consensus signals that exploring teachers’ beliefs is particularly important in context where educational reform is a matter of serious concern. the successful implementation of any educational innovation is dependent upon how teachers perceive the reform and how their perceptions can be influenced by their beliefs about education. that is, the success of educational reform is contingent on teachers’ educational beliefs (yook, 2011). research methods participants there were 71 international faculty who participated in this comprehensive research for enhancement of english teaching and learning at the university. all 71 faculty were invited to fill in the survey form created and shared on google. details of participants are as follows. nationality. as for nationality of faculty, there were 17 different countries, out of which the largest group came from usa (33%), while the second largest group came from the philippines (31%). gender. as for gender, there were 59% of male and 41% of female faculty. age. when it comes to ages, it is intriguing to note that the largest segment (40%), were made up of faculty aged 40 to 49, with the second largest segment (36%) being aged 30 to 39. academic level. when it comes to academic credentials, there were some surprising results. the vast majority of international faculty had a masters degree (38%). however the second largest segment, by the slim margin of 1%, had a bachelors degree (19%), with the third segment having phds (18%). however, it is also important to highlight that 18% of international faculty had tesol/celta or other certificates. but whether the certificates are held by those with a bachelor, masters, or phd degree is uncertain. english teaching and learning in a korean university 97 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya data collection in order to collect data for analysis, a comprehensive google survey form was created by one of the international faculty whose major was software engineering as well as english education. since the main researcher who coordinated the research process had built a solid rapport and trust with the faculty, they all agreed to share their thought and ideas for educational enhancement. hence, the survey form was shared with all faculty a duration of two weeks for them to input their thoughts and ideas in it. all quotes in the analysis and discussion section are not the results of oral interview but participants genuine written statements on the survey form. the survey consisted of 45 questions concerning teaching experience, teaching/learning philosophy, teaching skills, and suggestions for enhancing students' communicative abilities. first, as for teaching experience, the following questions were asked: how long have you taught english? how long have you taught content subjects? what motivated you to become a teacher? what motivated you to teach english in korea? what do you consider to be the most significant experience you have had in teaching english? second, as for teaching philosophies, the following questions were asked: what is your view of language? what is your view of language learning? how would you describe yourself as an english teacher? how do you understand communicative language teaching (clt)? how do you apply clt in your classroom? do you have any maxims or guiding principles which sum up aspects of your approach to the teaching and learning of english? if so, what are they? third, in terms of teaching techniques and skills, the following questions were asked: in your own teaching, to what extent do you seek to promote the development of your students’ explicit knowledge about english? how do you handle learner’s errors? what are the basic teaching materials you use for your classes? what kind of programs do you intend to pursue for your professional development? what do you think about students' silence in class and what's your way to promote communication in the class? to what extent do you use technical terminologies in your teaching? what is the rationale for the use/non-use of grammatical terminology? lastly, in terms of suggestions for innovation in english teaching, the following questions were asked: how do you find your students’ motivation with respect to learning english? what do you think is the best way for the faculty to help students overcome their obstacles and improve their communicative skills in english? analysis and discussion as many of the survey items were open-ended, it was thought whatever they ‘say’ in the survey form count and are valuable as such. thus, it was decided to present quantitative results followed by qualitative description and discussion. it was believed by the researcher that paralleling analysis, description, and discussion in the same section would contribute to authenticity and validity in a study of rather collaborative and qualitative nature. perceptions about second language learning experience 98 english teaching and learning in korean university when it comes to the second section of the survey, learning and research, a number of questions were asked including experience of learning a second language and its effects on english teaching/learning, and their perception on differences between teaching in korea and other esl/efl contexts. positive effects of second language learning experience. as for the area of learning and research the international faculty was interested in, as shown in figure 1, the largest was social science (24%), followed by english (21%), humanities (16%), tesol (14%), education (13%), and other (12%). with the second area of interest english, it is then interesting to note that 87% of the international faculty had learned a second language. this should not be too surprising since 33% of the faculty, come from the usa, where spanish is often taught at middle or high school. another 31% of the faculty came from the philippines, where there are two official languages and twelve official auxiliary languages. then there are also a number of faculty that come from countries where there are two or more official languages, like canada (french and english), pakistan (urdu and english), cameroon (french and english), haiti (haitian creole and french), india (hindi and english), south africa (english and 10 other official languages), etc. it is also relevant to highlight that a number of international faculty also either learned or are busy learning korean as a second or third language. when discussing positive aspects of having learned a second language, a number of interesting comments were made by the international faculty. firstly, it was mentioned that having learned a second language helped the faculty empathize with their students. it meant that they could understand the difficulties that students face in learning english. then there were the positive personal aspects to learning a second language such as the ability to understand and engage in a new culture, and the availability of new opportunities, thanks to globalization. when discussing the negative aspects of learning a new language, difficulty in forming sounds different from one’s mother tongue, difficulty in correctly pronouncing words were mentioned. two other negative aspects were related to trends of globalization: brain drain and the loss of intellectual capital, and the loss or extinction of minority languages in the push to adopt english as the lingua franca. similarities and differences between teaching in korea and other efl/esl contexts. when asked if they had taught english in other efl/esl contexts, a staggering 63% answered yes. when asked what was similar, there was a wide variety of answers. some followed the philosophy that people are people. students are all the same, all over the world. others pointed out similarities like the use of route memorization, students translating english into their native tongue and then translating their answers back into english, difficulties in pronunciation. others pointed to a lack of motivation. a few examples are shown below: (prof. x). “students, for the most part, are the same everywhere.” (prof. id). “students tend to memorize vocabulary first, and try to translate words according to the structure of their own language” (prof. y). “the content being taught. the core of teaching english to foreign learners is for them to be equipped with the necessary skills to communicate confidently using the language.” english teaching and learning in a korean university 99 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya (dr. k). “almost everywhere you go in the world, students are not used to using english as a means of communicating with others. instead it's viewed as a formal (often obligatory) object to be studied.” (prof. aa). “the large-scale lack of motivation is very similar between the korean and chinese contexts. also, the preference for students to prefer rote grammar and vocabulary learning over a more conversational style. in both contexts the students were generally very unwilling to speak in class.” [a number of other faculty echoed this sentiment.] (dr. l). “students in korea, vietnam, and thailand love to gain high scores at the end of the course though they sometimes did not work as hard as they could to afford it” when it came to differences, there was a wide variety of answers. some faculty pointed to different motivation levels, others that student’ struggling with poverty was not a concern in korea. a positive aspect of teaching in korea was that there was much more freedom in korea when it came to teaching materials and curriculum. a few examples are shown below: (dr. h). “korean students (gu) lack motivation and desire to learn english. most of them are not interested in learning about western culture and are not as open and eager to learn (compared to chinese students).” [a number of other faculty echoed this sentiment.] (prof. ab). “the plus point for an english teacher in korea is that its syllabus free teaching i.e. the teacher is free to teach according to the needs and level of the learners.” (prof. v). “in different parts of korea, it's hard to get a lot of exposure to english outside of the classroom setting. i tutored international students in the states for part time jobs. they were able to get a lot of practice time in english if they choose to venture out and meet other english speakers instead of staying with their own cultural community.” (dr. m). “my experience of teaching in middle east says that korean efl learners follow their instinct for perfection and avoiding unnecessary mistakes. comparing to middle easterners, they are less willing to take risk to speak english while their urge for progress makes them eventually succeed to reach their goals.” (dr. e). “english is much more difficult for korean students because their language is so different from english; also, they have been less exposed to people, events and cultures outside korea.” it is noted that positive effects of learning a second language in teaching english and comments about similarities and differences between teaching english in korea and in other efl/esl contexts have implications for consideration in hiring international faculty. perceptions about teaching/learning philosophy in this section of teaching/ learning philosophy, a number of questions were asked, including view of language, view of language learning, view of teacher and student roles in the class, attitude toward clt as well as their general maxims for teaching. view of language firstly, when it came to views on language, as shown in fig. 1, the vast majority of faculty (62%) considered it to be a combination of structure, communication, and social interaction. this result indicates 100 english teaching and learning in korean university the fact that the majority of the faculty has a balanced understanding of the properties of language. if they had been hired only because they were native speakers or second language users without proper academic credentials, it is thought there would have been more percentages on the ‘language as structure’ choice. if a professor has a perspective of language as structure only, language classes will be filled with more or less rule-governed but ‘drill-and-kill’ activities, which will lead to de-motivation and frustration on the part of students. in this sense, it is notable that there was only 2% of faculty with language as structure perspective. it is argued though that this needs further investigation by comparing this data with other qualitative data such as ethnographic interview, participant observation, or teacher diaries, which stands beyond the scope of the current study. figure 1. view of language view of language learning. secondly, as for views on language learning, as shown in fig. 2, the majority of the faculty (55%) considered it as influenced by a combination of behaviorism (a patterned behavior), cognitivism (a cognitive tool), innatism (an innate ability), constructivism (a socially constructed tool), rather than any one of them. this result is consistent with the views on language. attitude toward communicative language teaching. there was a lengthy dialog and differing views on communicative language teaching (clt) and how faculty applies clt in their classrooms. there were a number of faculty that were unaware or not familiar with the approach. while among those that utilized the approach in their classrooms, essentially it was used to supplement, or as a way to engage the students within, a student-centered classroom. a few examples are shown below: 2% 18% 17% 62% what is your view of language? language as structure language as communication language as social interaction all of the above english teaching and learning in korean university 101 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya 12% 12% 2% 18% 55% what is your view of language learning? behaviorism cognitivism innatism constructivism all of the above f igur e 2. vie w of language learning (prof. ii). “well, it depends on what form of clt as there are two: a hard clt and a soft clt. i tend to not agree with the hard clt as it forbids error correction and grammar and as several studies have shown that students who have been trained using exclusively the hard clt can be effective communicators but struggle with accuracy. on the other hand, the soft version of the clt emphasizes communication but leaves room for some grammatical instruction (as long as such instruction is aiming at helping the learner to better communicate their ideas) and for error correction (which is needed especially in academic settings). (prof. j). “clt is a method used to engage students in communicative activities/situations applying the language rules and structures. i used clt to encourage students to communicate and relate their experiences to the situations provided relevant to the language focus.” (dr. h). “i don't agree with the approach. i have developed my own method.” (prof. k). “not familiar with it.” [a number of other faculty echoed this sentiment.] (prof. p). “for me, it is to give the students structure (very light) and motivation to speak in english. in korean contexts, it often means offering a subject as well, to get the conversation going. once conversations are moving, as long as they continue mostly in english, the class purpose is being achieved. when distractions or the end of a conversation pulls the students away from english, i introduce another topic that extends well from the first offered topic, usually gleaned from listening to student discussions and interacting with them.” (dr. m). “to apply clt in my class, i teach language components (language competence), try to teach different social roles my students need to adopt (sociolinguistic competence), teach them how to read and write (discourse competence) and finally couch them how to overcome the communication problems (strategic competence) relatively to the level of my students.” (prof. l). “a basic definition of "communicative language teaching" is simply using spoken language to learn english, rather than methods like writing, rote memorization, etc. students often ask me for "free talking" in my class, which is related to clt. the problems i see are the fact the students are often not at the level to 102 english teaching and learning in korean university "free talk", so need to go back and learn the vocabulary, grammar, etc. to achieve the ability to "free talk". the other problem is related to "practice makes perfect". some teachers/professors believe that as long as students are speaking english in a way that the teacher/professor understands, it is then "correct" english. i disagree. so, just talking through the clt method will not result in correct english unless every mistake in grammar, pronunciation, etc. is corrected.” (prof. q). “i understand clt as an approach that encourages students to actually use language in realistic situations to achieve certain goals. it is an attempt to make language study less abstract, more concrete, by setting some sort of goals for students that require the use of some target language.” maxims of teaching. when the faculty was asked if they had any maxims or guiding principles which sum up aspects of their approach to the teaching and learning of english, a number of things emerged. there were some that view maxims as being too simplistic. a number of maxims could be summarized as variations on the golden rule. “do unto others, as you would have done unto you.” there were also a number that pointed to using humor in the classroom. a few examples are shown below: (prof. i j). “my guiding principle in teaching is, ‘the best teacher teaches from the heart and not from the books.” (prof. ik). 1. "a happy student is a good learner." i think krashen's affective filter hypothesis is right. we definitely are more disposed to learn when we feel safe, are in a happy, relaxed atmosphere. 2. "practice don't memorize". languages are learned through practice. not practice in the audiolingual sense of the term, but the sense of using the language for purposeful communication. it's no use trying to memorize vocabulary. 4. "be fearless and never walk that road alone". people who are less inhibited and who are not afraid of making mistakes and looking stupid tend to be more successful language learners as they tend to use the language more regardless of mistakes they make; and as they keep fixing those mistakes along the way, they improve and ultimately acquire the language. also, a language is meant for communication, so having a buddy (preferably a fellow learner) with whom we can practice on a regular basis can be of great help. (prof. m). “i believe that here in korea, most students at the college/university level have a vast vocabulary. many of them have been studying english for many years and the amount of english knowledge that they have incurred is huge, even if they don't know it. i think the biggest problem in english teaching is the lack of confidence that most students suffer from. my approach in the classroom is to bring out the knowledge that the students already have.” (dr. k). “teaching and learning are very complex affairs and maxims too often reduce them to snake oil.” (prof. l). “be motivated by love, respect, and understanding in all you do, teaching and all other things.” (prof. ad). “a guiding teaching principle i have is that everyone learns better with laughter, because it lowers the stakes for making mistakes and encourages more risk-taking and spontaneity.” (prof. z). students are people first. just let the student be themselves yet guiding and nurturing them along the way. 2. using creative teaching methods that will aid in the classroom. 3. using constructive criticism as a platform to become a better teacher. 4. enjoy and have fun teaching the english teaching and learning in a korean university 103 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya students. (dr. n). 1. encourage, 2. be patient, 3. focus on participation, 4. let them do the things, just guide them or watch, 5. bring examples from the real world/practical things, 6. give everyone a chance perceptions about teaching techniques/ skills in this section on teaching skills and techniques, a number of things were asked including attitudes toward teaching explicit knowledge of english, attitude about error treatment, attitudes toward professional development, attitudes toward promoting communication in the class, attitude about grammatical terminology in the class. attitudes toward teaching explicit knowledge of language. when asked “in your own teaching, to what extent do you seek to promote the development of your students' explicit knowledge about english?”, the vast majority of faculty (69%) mentioned they use explanations with examples, as shown in fig. 3. when asked, “to what extent do you use technical (grammatical) terminologies in your teaching? what is the rationale for the use/non-use of grammatical terminology?”, there were a number of differing responses from not using technical (grammatical) terminologies at all, to using it as required by the situation, through to using it extensively. the rational for the use or none use of technical (grammatical) terminologies varied from not using it at all in order to build students confidence, to only using technical (grammatical) terminologies as required in order to answer students questions, through to always using technical (grammatical) terminologies since it serves as the foundation or basis of using the english language. attitudes toward error treatment. interestingly in answering the question; “how do you handle learner’s errors?” the overwhelming majority of faculty (77%) chose to correct both global and local errors. perceptions about how to promote communication in the face of silence. when asked, “what do you think about students' silence in class, and what's your way to promote communication in the class?” there were a number of responses and a number of strategies to overcome student’s reluctance to speak. some of the responses to students silence ranged from it being a massive problem, to silence not being a problem at all. it was generally held that silence could be an indication of a number of things. for example, student’s taking time to think about a response, processing information, reflection on the lesson or material, or even student’s being bored. the general consensus being that silence needed to be interpreted in light of the context. a number of strategies to overcome student’s reluctance to speak were also offered; build rapport with students, make students feel comfortable in class, ask open ended questions, call on students by their korean name to answer questions; so young what do you think?; use scripted roll-plays, use small group or partner speaking exercises, begin with students reading aloud before engaging in free talk, let students decide what they would like to discuss or learn, utilize humor to make students feel at ease and help them realize that it is ok to make mistakes. a few examples are shown below: (prof. il). “i tried to know the root cause of this problem. i talk to students after the class. once i know i had established rapport in them, i build their confidence by asking first easier questions. in the 104 english teaching and learning in korean university classroom, i always go around to see that everybody is comfortable and ready to learn.” [a number of other faculty echoed this sentiment.] (prof. im). “the way i perceive students' silence is dependent on the context of the silence and their behavior while they are being silent. their silence could have different meanings varying from complete disinterest, boredom, reflection, processing of information, etc. to promote communication, i ask question and get them to act out roles in various communicative situations.” [a number of other faculty echoed this sentiment.] (prof. j). “i don't like to have silence in the classroom. to me it is a sign that i am speaking too much and not getting them active and engaged enough. i usually do small group or partner speaking activities to get them to start communicating.” [a number of other faculty echoed this sentiment.] (prof. k). “have them read something so they can get used to speaking class without at first having to worry about creating their own sentences.” (prof. s). “i think silence isn't always bad. it gives time to think. i first ask for volunteers, then call on some of the active students first and then move to the rest of the students. i try to ask everyone. if someone doesn’t have anything to say, i ask them if they want to pass or come back to them later.” (dr. j). “i try to make them feel comfortable and at ease, that makes them communicate better in class.” (prof. t). “student silence is a massive problem, but also a great challenge. in order to promote communication i try to give the students a lot of responsibility in selecting what they would like to discuss/learn about etc. i also try to include as many openended questions as possible. i have found from my own experience that discussing the local culture of the students and particularly my own personal views and experiences of it is often a great catalyst for evoking a response from the class.” [a number of other faculty echoed these sentiments.] (dr. d). “it's not an issue because i use clt methods that keep them interactive. also silence doesn't mean student is not interacting or learning. the student might be processing the information.” [a number of other faculty echoed this sentiment.] suggestions for innovation in english education in this section, perceptions about obstacles to effective communicative teaching, those about students’ level of motivation and lack of communicative abilities are discussed. following that discussion, suggestions from the faculty for enhancing students' communicative abilities are presented. obstacles to innovation. “what are some obstacles to your teaching english to your students?” was the question asked. it was shown that the greatest obstacle (48%) was having mixed levels of students in the class, followed by lack of teaching equipment in the class (18%), strategies to motivate students (14%), small size of class (7%), and other regions (13%). students’ motivation toward learning english. when asked about how they find gu student’s motivation with respect to learning english, the majority (56%) found their students to be somewhat motivated, as compared with a little motivated (19%), well-motivated (18%), and unmotivated (7%). perceptions about students’ lack of communication ability. when asked about the percentage of students who did english teaching and learning in a korean university 105 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya not have any communication ability in their class, faculty’s response varied depending on their classes. 39% of faculty mentioned less than 20% of students were lacking in communication ability, while 7% of faculty mentioned more than 50% of students were lacking in communication. there were 23% of faculty who mentioned 20 to 30% of students were lacking in communication skills, while 17% of faculty mentioned 30 to 40 % of students were not able to communicate well. a need for innovation in general english education. when asked about the best way to help gu students overcome their obstacles and improve their communication skills in english, the majority of faculty (44%) pointed to innovation in the general english education program, followed by innovation in extracurricular program (17%), and innovation in major english program (13%). when asked about regular courses which they thought were needed to improve students’ english proficiency, the majority (11%) pointed to the conversation course, “enjoy talk.” out of the remaining courses there was an even spread of 9% for each of the following courses; easy english interview, english through speech, toeic speaking, understanding multi-cultures. differing views on teaching major courses in english. the next question elicited an unexpectedly strong response. the question was, “do you think it is necessary to have major courses taught in english by native speaker professors?” when it came to agreement, 40% of faculty agreed; 23% of faculty agreed somewhat, with 17% strongly agreeing. with disagreement, 42% of faculty disagreed; 29% of faculty disagreed somewhat, while 13% disagreed strongly. of those that disagreed (42%), 9% were from philippines, 2.8% were from the usa, 1.4% was from canada, 0.7% was from australia, 0.7% was from cameroon, 0.7% was from india, 0.7% was from malaysia, 0.7% was from nepal, 0.7% was from nigeria, 0.7 % was from pakistan, and 0.7% was from sri lanka. what is very interesting is that of those that agreed (40%), 11% were from the usa, 3.5% were from philippines, 1.3% was from canada, 0.7% was from pakistan, 0.7% was from south africa, 0.7% was from the uk, and 0.7% was from vietnam. a few examples of comments are shown below: (prof.ae). “in my humble opinion, the effectiveness of language instruction does not depend solely on the idea that the professor is a native speaker but also on other factors such as teaching strategies, attitudinal factors, etc.” [a number of other faculty echoed these sentiments.] (prof. in). “i think students need to learn english from both native and nonnative speakers. english is more commonly spoken as a second language than as a first language. they can learn standard forms of english from native speakers, but they also need to hear different accents and dialects in order to communicate when traveling abroad.” (prof.ad). “the major or core courses can be taught by anyone who has the skill and the passion to impart knowledge to students. of course, it would be better to have content professors but other professors can brush up on their reading and grasp the essentials. i've done that in my class english conversation for majors. as long as the professors never stop reading and never stop learning, he/she can get by.”” (prof. p). “the right professor/teacher with an adequate knowledge/experience 106 english teaching and learning in korean university level and ability to communicate with students is all that is needed.” [a number of other faculty echoed these sentiments.] (prof. l). “i don't think that any student should be forced into learning something like a language. it will do nothing more than hinder the learning process. content courses may be difficult for some students to understand even in their own native language. in my view, the teaching of content courses in english should be made available only based on the level of student interest in such courses.” (prof. ad). “i was reading about france's english language instruction, which is done mostly through content courses being taught in english with explicit grammar instruction de-emphasized. the article mentioned the degree of fluency that most students achieve through this type of english instruction. i think it would allow the students to be immersed in the vocabulary that would be best targeted to what they want to know and what they will use most.” (prof. y). “immersion can be a valuable teaching tool. most students speak english during their elective classes and maybe minimal during this time. this could be why some students seek to talk and improve their english through the mentor program or some other venue because they are seeking more exposure to interacting and being able to adapt to speaking english on a global scale.” (dr. q). “in general this is a decent idea, in particular at gu with its massive and diversely majored foreign teaching faculty this tract is not only ideal it is a practical method to promote gu's uniqueness.” (prof.af). “major subjects are content oriented and content has to be taught not only practiced like a language class room. i believe that major courses which are content oriented should be taught by korean professors.” (prof. p). “i don't believe there are enough students who have a high enough level of english, for this to be beneficial.” (dr. e). “students who have contact with major courses in english will be better able to function in a world that is increasing using english as the lingua franca of global communication. students will improve critical thinking skills, terminology, and content in specific areas of knowledge if they are exposed to major content courses in english. other nations are well ahead in english acquisition and use in major courses. south korea must continue to invest in this pursue it.” it is interesting to note that there was a negative response to the phrase native speaker professors, from the question; do you think it is necessary to have major courses taught in english by native speaker professors? when asked to explain the reason for their answer. there were a number of interesting responses and interestingly a backlash to the phrase “native speaker professors”, from the question;“do you think it is necessary to have major courses taught in english by native speaker professors?” south korea has held for a long time, the stance that it wants to employ native english speakers; being people that originating from the usa, canada, uk, australia, new zealand or south africa. so there is an understandable backlash from professors from other countries like, the philippines, sri lanka, and india. who even though english is not their first language, it is their second language. they feel that they are fluent in both languages and able to teach effectively in both as shown in excerpts below: english teaching and learning in a korean university 107 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya (prof. i. philippines). “non-native english speaking professors are as qualified as native english speaking professors to teach any english courses.” (prof. io. philippines). “other nationalities though english may not be their native language may articulate better and can even construct essays and the like, flawlessly, compared to native english speakers.” (prof. j. philippines). “if the native speaker is competent enough to teach, that's acceptable. however, in some cases, being a native speaker does not guarantee competence in the mastery of the content and the appropriate teaching method to be used. furthermore, there are also other nationalities who are as qualified.” (dr. p. philippines). “i somewhat disagree because for me the students need a professor who is passionate about having his/her students learn more than a professor who speaks the language fluently.” (prof. l. philippines). “the effectiveness of teaching of how to communicate in english is not dependent on whether or not you are a native speaker. for while being a native speaker is an advantage, english language teaching, or the teaching of any other course for that matter, requires adequate knowledge in methodology and teaching principles. most of all, teaching requires the heart. only when one has genuine concern for learners will there be a mutually productive teaching-learning experience.” (prof. x. sri lanka). “i have produced enough good results throughout my experience overseas even though i'm not a native speaker but my fluency and accent of the language is similar to the native speakers. in addition to this my major of first degree in english master in linguistics british council trained and my p.g.d.e(tesl) qualification.” (dr. d. india). “it’s okay to have class in english but there is no need to have native english speakers. also, there is always a question mark on who is the native speaker because when a language becomes global no one can claim the authority of language.” conclusions and suggestions for further research conclusions the current study investigated perceptions of international faculty at a local university in s. korea. the survey consisted of 45 items which tried to investigate the perceptions about effects of international faculty’s previous second language learning experiences, their views on differences between teaching english in korea and other esl/efl contexts, their perspectives on language, language learning, and roles of teacher and students in the classes, their specific views on clt, on their position on the teaching explicit knowledge in english instruction and the related use of grammatical terminologies in the english instruction. the survey also investigated the faculty's perceptions about their students’ problems in learning english, level of students’ motivation, lack of communicative abilities, and ways of error treatment. the results of the survey are summarized as follows: 1) relevant second language learning experience helps improve quality of instruction since those experiences are said to serve to understand students' difficulty in learning english; 2) a positive aspect of teaching in korea was that there was much more freedom in korea when it came to teaching 108 english teaching and learning in korean university materials and curriculum; 3) the vast majority of faculty (62%) considered language as a holistic combination of structure, communication, social interaction; 4) the majority of faculty (55%) considered language learning process as interaction of behaviorism (a patterned behavior), cognitivism (a cognitive tool), innatism (an innate ability), and constructivism (a socially constructed tool); 5) the role of teachers was that of facilitators with the emphasis on guiding students in a studentfocused class; 6) as for the use of clt, admitting that there were a number of faculty who were not familiar with it, it was found that for those utilizing the approach, it was used to supplement, or as a way to engage the students within a student centered classroom; 7) as for guiding principles of teaching, a number of maxims could be summarized as variations on the golden rule: “do unto others, as you would have done unto you.”; 8) as for teaching explicit knowledge of english there were a number of differing responses from not using technical (grammatical) terminologies at all, to using it as required by the situation, through to using it extensively; 9) as for error treatment, the overwhelming majority of faculty (77%) chose to correct both global and local errors; 10) as for dealing with the issue of silence in the classroom, there were a number of strategies being used by the faculty to overcome student’s reluctance to speak, such as letting students decide on what they want to discuss or learn, utilizing humor to make students feel at ease, and above all, helping students realize that it is ok to make mistakes; 11) it was found the greatest obstacle faculty encountered in teaching english was having mixed levels of students in the class; 12) as for the best way for the faculty to help students overcome their obstacles and improve their communication skills in english, the majority of faculty (44%) pointed to innovation in the general english education programs. 13) as for regular courses they thought were needed to improve students’ english proficiency, the majority (11%) pointed to the conversation courses such as “enjoy talk.”, “easy english interview”, “english through speech”, “toeic speaking”, and “understanding multicultures”; 14) as for teaching content subjects in major courses, 40% of faculty agreed while 42% disagreed. suggestions for further research the diverse caliber of faculty nationality with various differing educational and professional experience will provide useful ideas for consideration in enhancing english education in other higher institutions. what follows are some limits and points of departure for further research: 1) it is noted that hiring faculty with relevant second language learning experience will help improve quality of instruction. those with second language learning experience will be more open, liberal, and sympathetic to the learning difficulties faced by students. 2) though views on language and language learning were found to be holistic, each of the items needs to be further investigated by other instruments such as diaries, ethnographic interviews, and participant observation. 3) this study did not include observed practices through classroom observation. thus, faculty’s stated views on language english teaching and learning in a korean university 109 beyond words vol. 8, no. 2, november 2020 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya and language learning need to be compared with actual observation data to corroborate whether their perceptions are consistent with their own teaching behaviors. 4) in order to develop a more effective english language programs that will enhance students’ communicative abilities, needs assessment must be implemented not only with the faculty but involved students as well. © dr. sang-ho han dr. sang-ho han is a professor at logos college of general education at gyeongju university, south korea. he entertains his learners with the wisdom inspired by the philosopher of laotzu’s spontaneity. as a leading author of korean highschool korean english textbooks, he serves as presidents of korea tesol and pketa (pan korea english teachrs association_. his academic interests are glocalization of english education, the beginner’s mind approach teaching, wavicle perspectives in elt, and pedagogy of inclusion. references borg, m. 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(2011). interactions between beliefs, practices, and perceptions of korean efl teachers. english teaching,66(4), 3-26. 135 beyond words vol.2, no.1, may 2014 widya mandala catholic university surabaya about the authors andrew lian <andrew.lian@andrewlian.com> holds professorial appointments at suranaree university of technology, thailand, and ho chi minh city open university, hcmc, vietnam. he is also professor emeritus at the university of canberra, australia. he is the current president of asiacall (asia association of computer-assisted language-learning), a research and professional association. andrew lian specialises in issues of knowledge and meaningconstruction as well as postmodern approaches to learning and teaching (languages). he is one of the pioneers of technology-enhanced language-learning in australia, beginning his work in the early 1980s. he is a member of the advisory or editorial boards of eight international peerreviewed journals. maria victoria pineda <mavic.pineda@delasalle.ph> is a member of the information technology department in de la salle university, manila, philippines. she has over 20 years of teaching experience, 5 years in computer training and about 18 years in higher education. she is an advocate of web 2.0 technologies, open teaching, rhizomatic learning and the empowerment of self-regulated learning through enriched personal learning environments. she can be contacted through mavic.pineda@delasalle.ph and mavicpineda@yahoo.com. dr. wendy c. kasten < wkasten@kent.edu> is an emerita professor from kent state university in ohio in the u.s. she has co-authored 8 academic books, two which are published in turkey in turkish, and two others which are translated into chinese. she has been the 20112014 co-chair of the diversity of learning committee for the international reading association, a member of the board of directors of the children's literature assembly, and an associate editor of the reading and writing quarterly for ten years. her publications also appear in the 136 journal of adolescent and adult literacy, the anthropology and education journal, the yearbook of the literacy research association, and others. murat dagistan < mdagista@kent.edu> is a doctoral student in the curriculum and instruction (c&i) program at the college of education, health & human services at kent state university, ohio in the u.s. after working for a military facility as a technician for 6 years, he decided to do better things for the good of human beings and studied language teaching at hacettepe university, ankara in turkey. later, he obtained master’s degree on linguistics at the same university. he taught different english skills in several universities for almost 15 years and did many presentations for language teachers in different conferences and training sessions. he is currently doing some research at kent state university to enhance the quality of language learning experience of international students in the american culture. vildan sarikaya < > is an english instructor at the english preparatory school of bahçeşehir university in istanbul, turkey. she graduated from instanbul university with a double major in english and german and worked as an english and german teacher in several high schools and universities in turkey. in 2013, she earned a master’s degree in education at kent state university, ohio, usa. from an early age she has been interested in learning languages and different cultures. she is fascinated by the way how languages are formed by history and society. she is currently sharing and passing this passion to her english preparatory students in bahçeşehir university in istanbul, turkey patrisius istiarto djiwandono <patrisius.istiarto@machung.ac.id> was born in malang on 16 march 1967. he is a professor of english language education at the faculty of language and arts, universitas ma chung, malang, indonesia. he is currently dean of the faculty. he has 137 obtained his bachelor, master and doctorate degrees from ikip malang, serves as a member of editorial board for three journals, and has published six books in the areas of language learning and language testing. amir reza nemat tabrizi <arnemati@pnu.ac.ir> was born in tehran, i.r. of iran. he got his ba in english language and literature in 1993, ma and phd in english language teaching in 2000 and 2006 respectively. he has been a full time faculty member in islamic azad university and payame noor university since 2000; head of the english department in islamic azad university-roudehen branch for 3 years and payame noor university-tehran province for 2 years and the head of the english department in payame noor qeshm international center since 2011. being a member of tellsi in iran, dr. nemat tabrizi has published 6 books and more than 25 articles/papers in different international and national journals and conferences and has supervised around 32 theses in various universities of iran. deepti gupta <deepti.elt@gmail.com> is professor at the dept. of english, panjab university, chandigarh. her 28 year teaching experience ranges from literary theory to contemporary literature to european drama to the history of english literature to modern english literature to introductory and applied linguistics and stylistics. she has published books, written research reports in international and national journals, served as editor, reviewer, examiner, curriculum designer, and supervised ph.d. and m.phil. students. mohita saxena < mohita.saxena@gmail.com > is an assistant professor at ggd sd college, kheri gurna. she is pursuing her doctoral research in mobile assisted english language learning from department of english & cultural studies, panjab university, chandigarh, india. her interest lies in english language and ict, linguistics and technology 138 enhanced language learning. she is also associated with us department of state's coveted program, english microaccess scholarship program as an english language instructor. mohita saxena is an assistant professor at ggdsd college, banur and is pursuing her ph.d in mobile assisted language learning from panjab university, chandigarh. her interest lies in linguistics, language studies and ict in language learning. silvana devinta sari < silvana.devinta@gmail.com > took her undergraduate on international relations at airlangga univeristy, indonesia. then she continued to take her master degree at the english language education department of the graduate school, widya mandala catholic university, and graduated in 2013. her master study was sponsored by atma english course, where she has been teaching up to the present. working since the language school was established, she was appointed various position: teacher coordinator, english program manager, and the general manager of the institution. currently in her spare time, she volunteers to teach english to foster children at a local orphanage. she is also a chair of a local english club of which the members varied from teens to adults. george jacobs has written widely on such topics as cooperative learning, extensive reading, environmental education, and humane education. he teaches writing and various education courses at james cook university, singapore. he is a member of the board of the extensive reading foundation, the international association for the study of cooperation in education, and vegetarian society (singapore). mateus yumarnamto < yumarnamto@gmail.com> is a full time lecturer at widya mandala catholic university surabaya. currently he is a ph. d. candidate at the department of literacy, culture, and language education, indiana university bloomington, usa. he is 139 interested in tesol/tefl, especially in the area of english teacher professional development and teacher education. he is now in the process of completing his dissertation: life histories and english teacher professional identity: a case study of indonesian english teacher studying in the us. 1 cicada english youth magazine the effect of cicada english youth magazine on secondary school orphans' vocabulary mastery suliyono (suliyo.indonesia@gmail.com) baitul hijrah orphanage surabaya, indonesia article history received: 24-09-2-21 reviewed: 08-01-2022 revised: 11-01-2022 accepted: 20-01-2022 keywords: english youth magazine; vocabulary mastery; teaching vocabulary; orphan; cicada doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i1.3429 abstract the low english vocabulary mastery has caused baitul hijrah orphanage’s orphans poor achievement of english. regarding the issue, this research was conducted to find a breakthrough to help the orphans’ vocabulary improvement. in term of boosting their vocabulary need, the researcher explored english youth magazine as a media to be used. thus, this study was aimed to examine and compare between the effects of using english youth magazine and english textbook on students' vocabulary mastery. this study assigned trueexperimental research design to test the hypothesized relationship between variables. the sample of this study was second grade of 28 senior high school’s orphans that were divided into control and experimental group by systematic sampling method. the research data was vocabulary scores derived of 100 multiple choice questions test results. the result showed that the english youth magazine usage as media could significantly improve vocabulary mastery; thus, students who were taught vocabulary using english youth magazine obtained higher scores than those who were taught vocabulary using english textbook. in conclusion, english youth magazine is a teaching aid that can be used to help students gain vocabulary mastery. introduction vocabulary as a major component of language learning has been the object of numerous studies each of which has its own contribution to the field. hiebert and kamil (2005) stated that vocabulary holds a special place among these components. the components mean pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. therefore, vocabulary is such an essential role to support the other components. furthermore, vocabulary is a basic communicative aid that could be used to read and speak (a lqahtani, 2015); hence, beyond words vol. 10, no.1, may 2022 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya mailto:suliyo.indonesia@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i1.3429 2 cicada english youth magazine how learners can master reading, speaking, and also the other components if they lack of vocabulary mastery. zhihong (2000) said that if the learners have insufficient vocabulary, they will not communicate, listen to, write, and read well and effectively so the learners’ capability will be stuck. thus, vocabulary is an essential part of language that can cover all the language skills; because of that, vocabulary must be mastered by every learner. during the period of 1990s, vocabulary was neglected in teachers-preparation programs. the teachers viewed that teaching grammar was more important than just teaching vocabulary; furthermore, the teachers considered and believed that vocabulary was self-taught lesson that learners can do as long as he wanted (yagcioglu, 2016). the other teachers also recognized like what hiebert and kamil (2005) mentioned that vocabulary is not developmental skill or one that can ever be seen as fully-mastered. afterward, in teaching, the teachers focused on more english skills only−reading, writing, speaking and listening. on the other hand, vocabulary was recognized less important than the other language components. as a result, learners did not have strong vocabularies; it could influence the learners' other english skills because vocabulary is basic stuff to develop english skills (zhang, 2008); finally, they will lack english skills as well. according to sadiku (2015), vocabulary will determine the students’ achievement in mastering four skills in english−listening, speaking, reading, and writing. it means that vocabulary is prior component that is very important to be mastered by english learners to support the other english skills. nowadays, almost senior high school indonesian teachers use english textbook obtained from the education ministry in teaching english. they have been using the english textbook’s content to develop and integrate students’ english skills −listening, writing, reading, and speaking. however, the book is not enough to build up the vocabulary mastery because there is no massive vocabulary, just basic vocabulary and theory. vocabulary is very needed to expand english skills. wallace (2007) stated that students must have sufficient vocabulary to enhance english skills. in this case, students should enrich their vocabulary in order that they will get sufficient vocabulary acquisition. therefore, teachers need adjustment media to fulfill and complete students’ vocabulary mastery instead of using english textbook only. using english textbook in teaching vocabulary does not quite help. the previous researcher referred to the use of newspaper used to improve students’ vocabulary achievement. ahmmed (2016) stated that if students want to improve their english, they can read english newspapers regularly so that they will develop their english proficiency automatically. newspaper is a media that can inform much information to the readers. however, newspaper is not good enough for learners because newspaper usually contains of certain topics such as domestic violence, sexual crimes, dating agency, theft, and so on. by considering this reason, the researcher agreed that newspaper does not belong to be effective teaching-aid that teachers can use. it is not suitable and appropriate for the learners because the learners’ ages are not enough to know that. it can damage students’ mental and physique as well. in addition, the bad contents and pictures of newspaper can influence 3 cicada english youth magazine children’s growth. hence, newspaper is not proper to be used as an instructional material. because of that, the researcher should look for matching media in term of enhancing students’ vocabulary mastery. in this case, the researcher should be aware, knowledgeable, and creative toward available and affordable media. since the researcher analyzed the weakness of using english textbook and using english newspaper as media in enhancing students’ vocabulary mastery, the researcher will look for an effective media that is more interesting and adorable than both of them. here, the researcher decided and assigned magazine as a media in teaching vocabulary to increase students' vocabulary mastery. magazine is used in the classrooms as teaching device and can be found to give practice in most skills and components and in most stages of teaching especially teaching vocabulary. magazine can motivate students to read because of so interesting and nowadays motivation is found to be an important factor in learning everything. in addition, magazine is composed based on age of readers; there are for kids, teenagers, and adults. thus, the researcher decided choosing the magazine based on students’ need. hence, here, there would be a great need for research to investigate the use of using english youth magazine in term of increasing students’ vocabulary mastery. in term of using magazine to boost students’ vocabulary mastery, the researcher assigned this media, english youth magazine, to be used in teaching vocabulary to orphans at ‘baitul hijrah orphanage’ especially on eleventh grade students. this decision was based on the preliminary students’ english report scores from their schools at final test of first semester that show under expected; the average english score of the students was 70 in which the minimum criteria of mastery learning was 72. it means that the students did not reach the english achievement. after conducting interview and giving tests to the students, the researcher concluded that they were lack of vocabulary mastery. as observed regarding the students’ subject matter, the researcher insisted to gain their english scores at least above the minimum criteria of mastery learning by improving their vocabulary mastery using english youth magazine in addition to increase their other english skills. moreover, the vocabulary mastery was really needed to face text typesbased as required in 2013 curriculum; as a result, the researcher presented the english youth magazine to cover all students’ vocabulary need. research question will students, taught vocabulary using english youth magazine, achieve better than those taught vocabulary using english textbook? hypotheses there are two hypotheses as follows: h0: the students who are taught vocabulary using english youth magazine will not obtain higher scores than those who are taught vocabulary using english textbook. ha: the students who are taught vocabulary using english youth magazine will obtain higher scores than those who are taught vocabulary using english textbook. 4 cicada english youth magazine literature review vocabulary vocabulary refers to words that we use to communicate in spoken and written language. receptive vocabulary refers to the words that we understand through reading and listening. productive vocabulary refers to the words that we use to communicate through writing and speaking (hanson & padua, 2011). to make communication effectively using oral and written language, we should be able to use words that we recognize and understand. hanson and padua (2011) stated that effective reading requires two types of vocabulary; those are word recognition vocabulary and word meaning. word recognition is the readers’ ability to shape pronunciation or figure out the word by using word attack strategies. word meaning refers to words that students know or can define. teaching vocabulary according to hammer (1991), a clear perspective on vocabulary learning is useful; thus, it is clear that the teacher must help students to master vocabulary by using appropriate techniques. different techniques are used by teachers such as identifying words through lists of particular group of words, learning words from translations, identifying synonyms, identifying antonyms, guessing words meaning from contexts, and so on. vocabulary is an inseparable part of any language learning process (komachali & khodareza, 2012). it would be impossible to learn a language without vocabulary. the important role of vocabulary has been emphasized in all different methods in language teaching. hanson and padua (2011) stated that there are several techniques in teaching vocabulary: 1. identify the potential list of words to be taught. approximately more than one word should be taught in one lesson. the essence of keeping several words to a minimum is to ensure that there are ample time for in-depth vocabulary direction yet enough time for students to read the text. several teachers may be tempted to teach all of the unknown words, hanson and padua (2011) provide several reasons for focusing on only a few words at a time: ▪ the text should have too many words that require direct instruction. ▪ more time should be devoted to students’ reading than to extensive direct vocabulary instruction. ▪ students are generally able to understand most of the text without knowing all of the words. ▪ students need independent practice using word-learning strategies. 2. determine which of these words to teach. as we know earlier, some texts may be difficult to understand. it is important for teachers to preview the prior text in teaching. the following are criteria to help teachers make decisions in teaching vocabulary about which words to teach explicitly (hanson & padua, 2011): ▪ the word is too difficult to understand without any background knowledge. ▪ the word is critical to comprehending the text. ▪ the word is a content and/or process word that explains a concept or topic. ▪ the contexts clues do not help with comprehend the meaning of the word. ▪ the word is likely to be found in future reading. 3. plan how to teach the words using specific strategies. 5 cicada english youth magazine once the words to teach vocabulary have been identified; teachers should carefully plan to teach them using these four key strategies (hanson & padua, 2011): ▪ provide a student-friendly definition. ▪ use the word in context and give contextual information. ▪ provide multiple exposures. ▪ provide opportunities for active involvement. vocabulary tests vocabulary tests should be given to students to measure their vocabulary mastery. in compliance with this issue, there are various vocabulary tests from some scholars and books. these vocabulary tests can be used to diagnose students’ vocabulary mastery so that the researcher will get validity of students’ ability (pavlů, and vojtková, 2009); they suggested the vocabulary tests such as multiple choices, cloze test, dictation, true/false, questions and answers (open questions), gap-filling, transformation, matching, error correction, essay, translation, rearranging words, and information transfer. english youth magazines magazine as a media many devices can be used in teaching vocabulary. youth magazine contains of many topic and rich of vocabulary. it also can attract students’ desire because it contains of knowledge that the students need, such as sport, education, and culture. it will increase students’ desire to read the magazine and finally they want to try to understand about the content of the magazine. according to brown (2001), newspaper, magazine, comic strip, and cartoon can be used as media in teaching english. so, magazine is one of device technique that can be used in teaching and learning vocabulary because it is very effective to be used and it has rich vocabularies. magazine as an authentic material authentic material can be defined in several ways related to the context. according to education context, de vera (2015) said that authentic material is “as materials that are intended for l1 speakers and not created or developed for the purpose of language teaching, and which we use in classroom activities whether in written, spoken, audio, or visual form. i would like to think of them as objects or artifacts associated with daily life that convey linguistic and/or cultural information and may be part of a communicative discourse”. it means that authentic material is original material that is not created in use of language teaching and learning. besides, there is not specific purpose related to english grammar or others skills in english competency. however, magazine contains of many kinds of information such as culture, social, education, sport, and story, so it will help a reader in enhancing their vocabulary and knowledge besides it will interest students in reading because of magazine’s contents and colors. the following are examples of authentic materials according to oura (2001: 67-68) that she has adapted from examples written by gebhard: • listening/viewing materials such as movies, movie trailers, videos (e.g. youtube), tv programs, tv commercials, radio ads, news clips, talks/lectures/discussions (including ted talks), websites, internet and smartphone applications, documentaries, cartoons, and songs. • visual materials such as slides, photos, street signs, paintings, drawings, and picture books. 6 cicada english youth magazine • printed materials such as newspapers, magazines, advertisements, novels, short stories, song lyrics, scripts, recipes, brochures, catalogs, comic books, maps, and tv guides. benefit of using magazine as an authentic material magazine as an authentic material has valuable benefit in teaching english especially for efl students. gilmore (2007) stated that “one major advantage of authentic materials is that they provide the opportunity for students to learn real english as opposed to english textbook that has been regarded as simplified, contrived, and unnatural and does not always show how the language is used in actual situation contexts involving english speakers”. it is also mentioned that using authentic material, magazine, can give occasion to students to learn real english which is usually used in real situation; thus, the students will be quick enough to learn and use english in real context. other benefits that are mentioned by some scholars concerning teaching english by using authentic material−including magazines− in classroom activities include: • they offer different types of stimulating and informative discourse that encourage interactive learning using “realistic (and) ready-to-use language” (hwang, 2005:93). • they could be used for learning and understanding culture (kilickaya, 2004). • they allow students to see the “immediate relevance” or to easily make a connection between their lessons and what they encounter outside the classroom (oura, 2001:70). how to use magazine in efl students the use of magazine in teaching learning english in efl students can be done by some ways. the following ways are the effective use of magazine stated by lancouchová. lancouchová (2006:12) stated that “the effective use of newspapers and magazines in efl classrooms should include the following: • warm-up or discussion activity to introduce the topic; • work on selection of the techniques covered by the text, which will generate vocabulary development, guided or free writing activities, oral practice, exercises performed in pairs or small groups; • a follow-up activity , such as discussion, a role-play or project work”. magazines and newspapers, as well as similar media, are a fundamental component of all current english reading (from hereon, ce-r) classes and both the printed copies and the online versions are being used although there are instructors who opt to use only the print version. cicada cicada is a literary magazine for teenagers and young adults who are passionate about the written word. each issue offers high-quality fiction and thought provoking poetry dealing with the issues of growing up, and the ups and downs of being a teen. cicada magazine provides an inclusive community and a place for teens to speak their truth. publishing poetry, prose, comics, and art by both professional authors and artists and teens, cicada is a quirky, thought-provoking publication that celebrates diversity. featuring detailed interviews with authors and illustrators, behind the scenes blogs, group polls, contests, and humor, this unique magazine is the perfect fit for creative young people. cicada is an international magazine published in virginia, usa. 7 cicada english youth magazine methods research design the study used a true-experimental research design to test the hypothesized relationship between the two variables: students’ vocabulary mastery as dependent variable and english youth magazine as independent variable. in this trueexperimental research design, the pretestposttest control group design was applied; there were two groups, i.e. the control and the experimental group−selected and assigned by using systematic sampling method. the experimental group was taught vocabulary using english youth magazine. on the other hand, the control group was taught vocabulary using english textbook. after eight weeks, both groups were given the post pest to measure their achiements. in sum, the framework of this research was drawn as below. population in this true-experimental research design, the population was 98 orphans of “baitul hijrah orphanage surabaya”; the researcher decided and assigned it because the researcher has been advisor at the orphanage since 10 years ago. the orphans came from different families’ backgrounds and various schools’ backgrounds, private and state school at surabaya. as additional information, they were kindergarten students to university students, aged 7 to 21. they all have been living in the orphanage all days. in accordance with the orphans’ activities, they leave the orphanage every morning to study at their school and come back to the orphanage after school to get extrastudy−mathematics, english, arabic, indonesian language−from several tutors provided by the orphanage, including the researcher as advisor and counseling guidance tutor. as an advisor and counseling guidance tutor, the researcher always meets them; because of that, the researcher easily set them as research population. sample the samples in this true-experimental research were 28 orphans at eleventh grade from several schools, private and state school. the researcher divided the 28 orphans into two groups, control and experimental groups, containing 14 orphans every group. the researcher selected the two groups by using systematic sampling method. using an orphanage list of 28 orphans, each orphan had a number (1 to 28), individuals with odd number belonged to experiment group; those with even number belonged to the control group. instruments the instruments in this research were vocabulary tests compiled by the researcher, and tried out to another school. using spearman/r11 calculation, the try out result had a high reliability. in pre-test, both experimental and control group accomplished the same test contained of 100 multiple choice questions modified and adapted from english textbooks and magazine as reading sources−short story, short conversation, reading passages, text types, and etc.− and addition to english test 8 cicada english youth magazine books. in addition, in the post-test, the vocabulary tests for both groups were of the same features with the previous pre-test, using multiple choice questions. the composition in the test was be various; there was short story, short conversation, cloze−test, identifying adjective, identifying adverb, identifying verb, synonym, antonym, english daily vocabulary, and text types developed by researcher and taken from several reading sources and other examination books to detect whether english youth magazine could give beneficial and positive contribution consistently when the examinees would have examination from differential examinations or differential places related to vocabulary test achievement. procedure this research was conducted in a period of eight weeks. during the period, there was a pre-test, some interventions, and a posttest; the first week was pre-test; the eighth week was post-test in which the second to seventh week were interventions for experimental group−teaching vocabulary by using english youth magazine. on the other hand, the control group was taught ordinarily by using english textbook. week i, the pre-test the first week, the researcher took data from vocabulary test result, pre-test, in which the test contained of in the amount of 100 multiple choice vocabulary tests and it was accomplished by the two groups in 135 minutes in ‘baitul hijrah orphanage’s classroom. there were two rooms used in the examination, one for experimental group and another room for control group; the two groups did the test at the same time in different classes. week ii to vii the intervention the second to seventh week were intervention weeks for experimental group; on the other hand, there was no particular and special intervention to the control group. in term of interventions, experimental group was taught vocabulary by using english youth magazine; all materials were based on and adopted from english youth magazine, cicada. in these weeks, students found new various vocabularies and topics never find before in english textbooks. besides, using english youth magazine, students also learned in term of semantic so that they could deduce the unknown meaning of vocabularies; thus, at least, from the magazine students acquired and understood the meaning of various vocabularies in addition to the meaning of particular terminologies in language learning. it was hoped students could minimalize and reduce the unknown meaning of vocabularies while facing examination so that their english scores rose up. in these interventions, regarding experimental group’ materials, the materials were such as word formation, recognizing adjective vs. adverb, recognizing verb, developing vocabulary through synonym and antonym, developing vocabulary from short conversation, and developing vocabulary from reading passages or text-types. on the other hand, the control group’ materials were based on and adapted from english textbook’ topics and instructions; however, the essential subject matters were the same to experimental group’ materials such as word formation, recognizing adjective vs. adverb, recognizing verb, developing vocabulary through synonym and antonym, and so on. thus, the two groups got the same subject matters but different materials−magazine and textbook− so it was truly fair. the treatment lasted for 90 minutes every monday and wednesdays for experimental group; the time for the control group was on every tuesdays and thursday. during the treatments, there were mini-tests on every last meeting in every one week. thus, the 9 cicada english youth magazine researcher could control and measure the students’ vocabulary mastery. week viii, the post test the last week, eighth week, was the final test, post-test. in this section, the researcher took data from the post-test scores of the two groups, experimental and control group. the test consisted of multiple choice vocabulary tests, in the amount of 100 questions, that contained of various vocabulary test types− short story, short conversation, cloze−test, identifying adjective, identifying adverb, identifying verb, synonym, antonym, english daily vocabulary, and text types. the test was conducted in 135 minutes and took place in the same place but different room between two groups as pre-test. data analysis technique in term of data analysis in this research, all students’ scores were entered and analyzed into statistical test to compare the effects of the teaching media usage between two groups, the effect of using english youth magazine and the effect of using english textbook usage. the researcher used independent sample t-test to determine whether there would be a statistically significant difference between the means in two unrelated groups. in sum, the steps of the data analysis process were as follows: 1. find out the mean ( x ) of each group. 2. find out variance values of each group. 3. find out homogeneity of population data 4. find out t-test. in this research, the researcher had checked the distributed data that the samples came from homogeneous populations (equal variances). findings and discussion findings before showing whole findings regarding this research, the researcher displayed the orphans’ scores of the final semester test, the first semester of grade 2, derived from their original school as shown in the table below. the following table was english scores data to point out the first and original ability of each student. from the table below, after looking at the minimum criteria of mastery learning, 72, it could be concluded that only 5 orphans passed the final semester exam; the rest failed because of achieving under the minimum criteria of mastery learning. from the data above, it could also be concluded that the orphans' english mastery were very weak. table 1 the orphans’ final test semester english scores (1 st semester at 2 nd grade) derived from the school 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 score 70 70 70 69 72 71 80 71 69 70 70 80 71 70 no. 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 score 71 72 68 67 70 69 71 70 71 68 72 71 74 70 note: • the minimum criteria of mastery learning was 72 • only 6 orphans passed from the final test semester 10 cicada english youth magazine students’ pre-test scores before doing the pre-test, the researcher divided the class into 2 groups, the experimental and the control group. from the orphanage children's attendance list of eleventh grade, the orphan with an odd number became the experimental group and the orphan with an even number became the control group. from the attendance list, distribution data was obtained as shown in the table below. table 2 the orphans’ distribution data of experimental and control group group students’ attendance number experiment 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 control 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 from the distribution data above, the researcher gave a pre-test to the two groups with the results as shown in the table below: table 3 the experimental and control group’s pre-test scores experimentalgroup 68 66 74 64 66 74 70 60 62 60 66 72 72 80 control group 66 70 66 72 68 80 68 60 66 70 74 66 64 70 mean of experimental group’s pre-test scores ( x ) 68.14 mean of control group’s pre-test scores ( x ) 68.57 based on the table of pre-test scores above, it was known that the average scores ( x ) between the two groups above is not a significant difference, 68.14 for experimental group and 68.57 for control group. the differential mean score between both of them were 0.43 points. in this case, 0.43 points were small enough; it could be mentioned that there was no significant difference of english ability between the two groups. in other words, the experimental and the control group had the same capability in english mastery so this research was fair to be conducted. students’ post-test scores after intervention, the researcher gave a post-test to compare the result scores of the usage of the two vocabulary teaching aids, using english youth magazine to experimental group and using english textbook to control group; in this case, the researcher got the post-test scores as shown in the table below. table 4 the experimental and control group’s post-test scores expe-group 68 66 74 64 66 74 70 60 62 60 66 72 72 80 cont-group 66 70 66 72 68 80 68 60 66 70 74 66 64 70 mean of experimental group’s post-test scores ( x ) 75.36 mean of control group’s post-test scores ( x ) 72.57 11 cicada english youth magazine the table above showed that the average value of the experimental group is higher than the average value in the experimental group, namely 75.36: 72.57. based on the average score between the experimental and the control group, it could be concluded that almost all experimental groups scored above the minimum criteria of mastery learning with an average score of 75.36; it meant that almost all experimental group who were taught vocabulary using magazine passed all of them; only one student got failed. in contrast, not all control group who were taught vocabulary using textbook could score above the minimum criteria of mastery learning, with an average score of 72.57; six students failed and the rest achieved with unsatisfactory scores because of the same and near with the minimum criteria of mastery learning, 72. it meant that there was a difference between the effect of teaching vocabulary using a magazine and the effect of teaching vocabulary using a textbook. the difference would be discussed and shown in the section below. t-test to prove the effect of the use of magazines on the improvement of students' vocabulary, by using independent t-test, the researcher presented several real calculations and statistical tables. after finding the results of the variance value and finding that the sample came from homogeneous populations (equal variances), the researcher could find the results of the t-test calculation using the formula ''the pooled variance model t-test ''. the following table was the computation results using ''the pooled variance model ttest ''. table 5 independent t-test, two-sample, the pooled variance model teaching vocabulary using magazine teaching vocabulary using textbook mean 76.93 72.57 variance 6.289 4.734 observations 14 14 pooled variance t-test (tcount) 2.08 df 13 sig. 0.05 t critical two-tail (ttable) 1.770 based on the table above, it could be concluded that tcount was 2.08; and what had been known previously that the ttable for df13 with the significant level of 0.05 was 1.770. it meant that tcount was higher than ttable. in accordance with the results of these 12 cicada english youth magazine calculations, the researcher could draw conclusions into the hypothesis as elaborated below. answering hypotheses based on the calculations and findings above, it can be concluded based on the following criteria: 1. if the value of tcount was positive and the value of tcount > ttable, the alternative hypothesis (ha) was accepted and the null hypothesis (ho) was rejected. 2. if the value of tcount was negative and the value of tcount < ttable, the alternative hypothesis (ha) was accepted and the null hypothesis (ho) was rejected. according to the result above, it was known that tcount was positive (2.08) and ttable for df13 with the significant level of 0.05 was 1.770. it meant that 2.08 > 1.770, tcount was more than ttable. therefore, the alternative hypothesis (ha) was accepted and the null hypothesis (ho) was rejected. it could be concluded that the students who are taught vocabulary using english youth magazine will obtain higher scores than those who are taught vocabulary using english textbook. discussion since known that the output data of the homogeneous test showed that the two samples came from a homogeneous population because fcount was less than ftable, 1.765 < 2.58, the pooled variance model ttest prevailed to be used to test the two variances and hypotheses. after finding that the result of the t-test was positive and higher than the ttable, 2.08 > 1.770, it could be concluded that the alternative hypothesis (ha) was accepted and the null hypothesis (ho) was rejected. from this finding, it could answer the research questions and hypothesis that the students taught vocabulary using english youth magazine will obtain higher scores than those who are taught vocabulary using english textbook. in other words, teaching vocabulary by using magazine could give high effect and valuable contribution on students’ vocabulary mastery and english score . conclusion and suggestions conclusion after doing a comparative test toward the two groups using the pooled variance model t-test, because the two samples came from a homogeneous population, it was known that tcount was 2.08 and ttable was 1.770. it means that tcount is positive and higher than ttable, 2.08 > 1.770; as a result, the alternative hypothesis (ha) was accepted and the null hypothesis (ho) was rejected. because the alternative hypothesis (ha) was accepted, it can answer the research question and objective of the study that the students who are taught vocabulary using english youth magazine will obtain higher scores than those who are taught vocabulary using english textbook. in conclusion, the use of english youth magazine in teaching vocabulary can give a positive and significant effect in term of increasing students' english scores. suggestions suggestions for teachers 1. teachers should use english youth magazine as a complement in teaching materials to complete the material contained in the english textbook. 2. teachers should not doubt to use magazine in terms of supporting students' 13 cicada english youth magazine vocabulary needs because the use of magazine is very effective and can be modified and set according to the curriculum or according to the teacher's wishes. 3. teachers can use english youth magazine such as cicada to teach text types because it contains various kinds of text such as narrative text, explanation text, report text, recount text, and so on written in academic language that can strengthen students' insights besides enriching vocabulary. 4. teachers should start creating magazine in english which are devoted to young learner as an effort to help students’ mastery in english proficiency including english vocabulary mastery. suggestions for students 1. students should become accustom reading from various media, especially magazine, in order to improve students' vocabulary mastery. 2. students should always actively develop vocabulary that they obtained as either written or spoken by writing status on facebook or on whatsapp using english and writing in diary book in english to improve mastery consistently. references alqahtani, m. (2015). the importance of vocabulary in language learning and how to be taught. international journal of teaching and education, 3(3), 21-34. ahmmed, r. (2016). effectiveness of reading english newspapers for improving vocabulary and reading skills of students of dhaka university. berka, váňová. (2005). základy testování pro učitele. brno: masaryk university. brown, h. d. (2001). teaching by principle. san fransisco: san fransisco state university. cook, d. a., & beckman, t. j. (2010). reflections on experimental research in medical education. advances in health sciences education, 15(3), 455-464. de vera, l. v. (2015). incorporating authentic materials in activities for english minor program courses. the journal of rikkyo university language center, 34, 105-113. gilmore, a. (2007). authentic materials and authenticity in foreign language learning. language teaching, 40(2), 97118. graves, m. f., august, d., & mancillamartinez, j. (2012). teaching vocabulary to english language learners. teachers college press. hanson, s., & padua, j. f. (2011). teaching vocabulary explicitly. honolulu: pacific resources for education and learning (prel). hwang, c. c. (2005). effective efl education through popular authentic materials. asian efl journal, 7(1), 90101. kamil, m. l., & hiebert, e. h. (2005). teaching and learning vocabulary. teaching and learning vocabulary: bringing research to practice, 1, 76-77. kilickaya, f. (2004). authentic materials and cultural content in efl classrooms. online submission, 10(7). komachali, m. e., & khodareza, m. (2012). the effect of using vocabulary flash card on iranian pre-university students' vocabulary knowledge. international education studies, 5(3), 134-147. lancouchová, b. (2006). using magazines and newspapers in elt with interpersonal and intrapersonal types of 14 cicada english youth magazine students (doctoral dissertation, masarykova univerzita, pedagogická fakulta). oura, g. k. (2001). authentic task-based materials: bringing the real world into the classroom. sophia junior college faculty bulletin, 21, 65-84. palmer, d, 1991. information transfer for reading and listening. china: thomas nelson and son pavlů, i., & vojtková, m. n. (2009). testing vocabulary. unpublished diploma thesis. masaryk university, brno. sadiku, l. m. (2015). the importance of four skills reading, speaking, writing, listening in a lesson hour. european journal of language and literature, 1(1), 29-31. tafani, v. (2009). teaching english through mass media. acta didactica napocensia, 2(1), 81-95. wallace, c. (2007). vocabulary: the key to teaching english language learners to read. reading improvement, 44(4), 189194 zhang, weimin, (2008) "in search of english as a foreign language (efl) teachers' knowledge of vocabulary instruction." dissertation, georgia state university zhihong, y. (2000). learning words. englishteaching forum, 3(8), 123-148. yagcioglu, o. (2016). increasing creativity with the self-stdudies in english classes.european journal of english language teaching, 1(2), 59-77. about the author suliyono, m.pd. got his master’s degree in 2021 from widya mandala surabaya catholic university. he has been teaching at baitul hijrah orphanage since 2012 up to the present. his research interest is in the field of using english youth magazines as a medium to improve vocabulary skills. his life among the orphans has turned him to understand the meaning of life and about himself. he said, “choosing to serve in an orphanage as a counselor and teacher is my life choice. being a teacher is a dignified job because it frees the nation's children from ignorance.” 66 teacher’s continuing professional development beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) challenges and resources in cpd for in-service teachers: establishing communities of inquiry priskapramastiwi priskapram@gmail.com anita lie santiwidiati trianawaty lie widya mandala catholic university surabaya surabaya, indonesia abstract as teachers are reflective pedagogical thinkers, in-service continuing professional development (cpd) is imperative. previous studies reveal that insufficient school support and teacher’s incapacity to reflect on their practices recurrently hamper cpd. however, biographical inquiries, encompassing in-service challenges and resources employed in cpd, are scant. this study investigated (a) thechallenges teachers face in improving their professionalism, and (b) the perceived positive influence of engaging in a community of inquiry (coi) on professional development. we conducted an in-depth analysis of fifteen indonesian teachersat differing professional stages. data from reflective essays and semi-structured interviews disclosed that the perennial challenges faced are time management and the lack of access to a wider learning community. a notable finding is thatonly a small minority of teachers soughtexternal resources or indulged in a reflective inquiry due to a possible overreliance on the top-down structured cpd scheme within the school management. upon partaking in an online coi in a mooc on ict, the participants confirmed the easy integration of novelideas and repurposed the suggested digital tools to alleviate daily teaching challenges. moreover, the teachers harnessed their metacognitive skills to immerse in collegial discussion with a diverse professional network, and collaborativelyconstruct understanding. keywords: continuing professional development; challenges, community of inquiry; mooc introduction teacher quality is the key to improving students’ achievement. however, in many countries including indonesia, the teaching profession is still characterized by its low quality and levels of competence, which remains unchanged after a decade of education reforms. in many school systems, teachers are seldom given opportunities to undergocontinuing professional development (cpd). they have long hours of teaching (more than 28 periods of teaching in a week), demanding paperwork, student counseling, and various extra-curricular work. on the upside, despite the absence of nationwide standardizes strategy, a few school systems have demonstrated a commitment to improving their teacher quality and engaging their teachers in continuous professional development. schleicher (2015) reported that teachers in indonesia attending teacher development program of which district office and the school supervisors involved feel more confident and better prepared. while improving mailto:priskapram@gmail.com� teacher’s continuing professional development 67 teacher quality is underway in several projects designed to enhance teacher education and certification programs in indonesia, it would take several years before school systems could provide evidence that they are developing effective teachers (de koning, 2012, chang et al. 2014). in some countries, cpd is successful (schleicher, 2015), and in some others, cpd is ineffective because, among others, they are top-down, a “fix-it” approach, teachers are reluctant, prescriptive ideas, one-sizefits-all techniques, fixed and untimely delivery methods, little or no follow–up, decontextualized programs, lack of proper evaluation, pedagogical (child-centered) instruction(díaz-maggioli, 2014). walter and briggs (2012) reported studies of teacher professional development showing that successful cpd introduces practical knowledge and skills to help students achieve their learning outcomes. schleicher (2015) reported that teachers in indonesia attending teacher development program of which district office and the school supervisors involved feel more confident and better prepared. these findings are consistent with ebersöhn et al. (2015) who find that school intervention for in-service teachers in highrisk and high-need schools in south africa motivated teachers to gain competency and optimism, demonstrate management skills, and make valuable contributions in a group. not all teacher development programs are effective. chang et al. (2014) argued that one-off seminars and in-service short courses in cascade fashion did not make development programs in indonesia effective. czerniawski (2011) reported that teachers in england, norway and germany joining professional development programs were dissatisfied with the quality and outcomes. díazmaggioli (2014) identified eleven ineffective factors of professional development, they are top-down decision-making, a “fixit” approach, lack of program ownership among teachers, prescriptive ideas, onesize-fits-all techniques, fixed and untimely delivery methods, little or no follow–up, decontextualized programs, lack of proper evaluation, pedagogical (child-centered) instruction. the restructuring of current cpd schemes into a community of inquiry (coi), which adopts a more reflective and metacognitive approach, may be necessary. with the prevalence of information and communications technology (ict), a localized, contextual and reciprocal program harnessing collegial support from like-minded professional communities is more feasible than ever. a particular form of technologyenhanced cpd scheme, namely a massive open online course (mooc), constructed and operated by indonesian teachers to mitigate the challenges other local teachers encounter within their day-to-day teaching, is highlighted. this paper reports the study investigating (1) the challenges teachersface in enhancing their quality as teachers, and (2) the advantages of partaking in an online learning communityto meet such professional demands. these broad research objectives are articulated into the following research questions: 1. what challenges do teachers face in enhancing their quality as teachers? 2. according to the teachers’ perception, how does engaging in an online community of inquiryease their professional development? 68 teacher’s continuing professional development beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) literature review this research stems from the necessity of cpd for teachers as lifelong learners and reflective pedagogical thinkers (grossman, 1992). through cpd, teachers as professional beings with authority, autonomy and informed judgment to make decisions in the classroom, transcend beyond being “technicians” who strategize quick fixes for problems without restructuring their views and moral obligations (day, 1999). having received teacher training does not grant any teacher exemption from maintaining high quality. a tendency in teacher education is that student teachers opt for simple and applicable “tips and tricks” although teacher educators do promote more reflective, academic and theoretical approaches (treagust, won, petersen & wynne, 2015). davis, petish and smithley (2006) corroborate on the depth of teacher training in that its graduates focus on the somewhat technical-superficial aspects (e.g. classroom management and attention drawing) as opposed to more rudimentary aspects of acknowledging learners’ ideas and backgrounds. another example is how early childhood teachers enter the profession based on the misinterpretation that early childhood teaching is comparable to being able to “handle” children with fun activities, overseeing other pressing roles, e.g. dealing with parents, instilling values (mahmood, 2013). considering the limited pre-service teaching practice, teachers do not fully encounter such interpersonal demands until they enter the profession. to hone learners’ conceptual understanding, teachers need to have in-depth and adaptable knowledge of the field, which could be enhanced through professional development (borko, 2004). a common issue is that schools not only in indonesia, but also worldwide, accept under qualified teachers (treagust et al., 2015). particularly in indonesia, schools in rural areas where stringent educational policies are also enforced may have teachers with no educational qualifications, or only high school diplomas (supriyanti, 2012). furthermore, when there are opportunities for dialogs with other professionals, cpd lessens the loneliness or isolation in teaching and the stigma for in-service teachers to ask for help (beltman, mansfield & price, 2011). miller, ray, dove and kenreich (2000) report that cpd programs involving collective participation encourage teachers to design new learning experiences both for students and their own personal satisfaction. teachers’ challenges despite how imperative cpd is, teachers find difficulties to engage in such activity or to reap benefits from following one. the majority of previous research centers on what constitutes an effective program (e.g. garet, porter, desimone, birman& yoon, 2001), yet research highlighting the obstacles teachers face in current cpd schemes and how they resolve them is scant. two issues are worth discussing in examining the challenges in improving professional development: insufficient school support and incapacity to reflect. insufficient school support.an accommodating school administration or a teacher’s continuing professional development 69 supportive principal greatly aids teachers’ professional growth (towers, 2012). a recurrent reason behind why teachers are stagnant or even leave the profession entirely is the lack of support, e.g. the absence or inadequacy of induction program, ongoing cpd scheme or peer-support (jacob, 2007). furthermore, commonly practiced cpd schemes are traditional (one-time workshops and irregular trainings) and short on time, activities and relevant content (birman, desimone, porter &garet, 2000), lacking competent presenters/trainers for remote areas (broadley, 2010) or missing the integral factor of feedback/follow-up due to funding (ingvarson, meiers, & beavis, 2005). additionally, a shortage of resources, such as laboratories and technology devices hinder teachers’ initiative to test out cuttingedge methods they are introduced to in cpd trainings (tanang, djajadi, abu &mokhtar, 2014). towers (2012) also reported that low access to supporting materials exacerbate teachers’ reluctance to apply a new curriculum although training is provided. incapacity to reflect.broadley’s study (2010) of teachers in rural areas reveal that professional learning communities for critical self-reflections and sharing with other teachers are invaluable. avalos (2011) further asserts that co-learning, networking, and exchanges within one school and interschools emulate the natural desire of teachers to talk. furthermore, when teachers are asked to observe themselves on tape and self-reflect, they were unable to pinpoint their weaknesses thus achieving little skill improvement (hill, beisiegel, & jacob, 2013). however, teachers’ inability to make time to form this “professional learning culture” is a resounding issue due to teachers’ heavy workload or personal restrictions (skills, knowledge, other non-teaching responsibilities) (day, 1999, p.60). in addition, in the case that schools do promote collaborative cpd through mentoring, the trainings or guidelines for respective coaches are often obscure (rhodes &beneicke, 2002). other cases where mentoring projects are inefficient are due to a clash between trainers and trainees’ teaching beliefs or routines as a result of unclear mentoring protocols (barrett, jones, mooney, thornton, cady, guinee, olson, 2002). this review of past research shows a constant tug-of-war between school’s attempts to conduct cpd and teachers’ expectations or capabilities. therefore, the present research investigating how teachers mitigate such situations is worthwhile. technology enhanced cpd to ease professional challenges to mitigate the limited opportunities to reflect and connect to professional learning communities, we recommend engaging teachers in context-specific regional projects with direct contribution to problems in their individual setting. this form of cpd derives from “teacher inquiry”, involving a reciprocal flow between curriculum objectives, institutional needs, local factors including the needs and responses of learners, and the wider professional networks and communities. a metacognitive approach, or “learning to learn” needs to be adopted (phelps, graham, & kerr, 2004), i.e., cpd workshops need to consider teachers’ existing knowledge. program goals and achievement are self-regulated rather than imposed teachers should recognize, express and follow goals independently. a prevailing impediment in the design of cpd is that teachers within a school possess inadequate knowledge of their colleagues’ current skills and expectations (smeed&jetnikoff, 2016). by contrast, teacher inquiry catalyzes localized or context bound projects bearing direct relevance, i.e., enhanced teacher professionalism and 70 teacher’s continuing professional development beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) fruitful learning processes in the classroom (tondeur, forkosh-baruch, prestridge, albion &edirisinghe, 2016). information and communications technology (ict) may serve as a medium to support reflective and metacognitive cpd. web-based tools and e-learning platforms have proliferated, allowing selfdirected learning, yet offering collaboration opportunities, and collegial feedback from professional communities, independent of time and distance (koutsodimou&jimoyiannis, 2015). a prevalent model of technology-based cpd is the massive open online course (mooc). one particular type of mooc is cmoocs: openly accessible designated platforms for course management grounded in the tenets of constructivist learning (ji& cao, 2016). this mooc strand compiles educational resources and materials in a structured fashion to foster self-regulated learning, time management, networking, collaboration, and exchange of ideas (koutsodimou&jimoyiannis, 2015). technically moocs are designed to form communities of inquiry encompassing three elements: cognitive, social and teaching presences (garrison, anderson, & archer, 2001, 2010) (see fig 1).dewey’s practical inquiry model (1933)underlies the cognitive presencein coi progressing from phases, namely:progressing from phases, namely: (a) triggering event, (b) exploration, (c) integration, and (d) resolution (see fig 2). learners do not experience these four phases as distinctive or linear, but rather they immerse in a recursive-reiterative process of reflection and meaningful communication with others to assimilate ideas and consolidate comprehension (swan, garrison, & richardson, 2009). when the participants are presented with a triggering event (derived from a contextualized issue or problem), they are encouraged toenter the exploration stage to brainstorm feasible solutions through collegial interaction. whereas in face-tofaearrangements, the constraints of time and location may deter people from geographically by harnessing rigorous collaborativedistant places to gather and explore solutions, the online learning community enables time and space-dependent collaboration. to this end, learning communities may exploit time-unbound asynchronous, including discussion threads, emails, wikis, or real-time synchronous means, such as chatting and video-conference (sari, 2012). fig. 1:community of inquiry framework (garrison, anderson, & archer, 2000, p.2, teacher’s continuing professional development 71 2010, p. 6) upon formulating the concept in the exploration phase, participants would be able to discern the reasoning behind the issue at hand, and thus integrate new concepts reflection, which suppresses the sense of isolation teachers often face within the profession (tondeur, forkosh-baruch, prestridge, albion, & edirisinghe, 2016). furthermore, it is through this stringent cognitive presence in the community of inquiry that participants hone their metacognition (akyol & garrison, 2011). through the repetitive and dialogic acts of elaborating ideas, raising questions, clarifying meaning, deducing and proposing solutions, participants’ ability to evaluate and justify their thought process is enhanced. fig 2: practical inquiry model(garrison, anderson, & archer, 2001, p. 23) the teaching presence is evident in the presence of instructor’s scaffolding for participants to gauge major concepts, the pedagogically strategic compiling and structuring of learning resources, and purposeful task design. the social presence is promoted so that learners may relate to the course collective goal and develop a sense of self-entitlement. furthermore, the social perspective of coi is primarily characterized by the occurrence of purposeful and transparent communication in a supportive online medium governed by netiquettes. specifically, the indicators of “affective expression” for freer production of personal ideas and ideologies, “open communication” to set and nurture a shared goal, and “group cohesion” to ensure purposeful communication aimed at the completion of learning activities, should be observable in a coi(swan et al., 2009, p. 10). an example of a fine-tunedcpd scheme is the series of online interactive short-courses operated by nasa (national aeronautics and space administration) office of education and the nasa explorer schools project, u.s. satellite laboratory, inc. for science teachers. from a mixed-methods analysis, the course is perceived as an invaluable professional development resource with a particularly 72 teacher’s continuing professional development beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) attractive feature, i.e. the chance to connect with like-minded professionals without the financial and time burden of traveling (marrero, woodruff, schuster, & riccio, 2010). reflecting the social constructivist approach, the participants were able to construct their knowledge together. the imooc as a viable cpd tool.the teachers of the foundation under studywereoffered to enroll in the indonesian mooc (imooc), the first mooc tailor-made for indonesian teachers’ local needs, managed by the regional english language office (relo), u.s. embassy jakartain collaboration with fifteen national universities (see fig 3). through a learning management system (lms) called canvas, the 2018 iteration of imooc focuses on promoting “autonomous learning through the use of digital tools”, through an approximately 3-month long set of modules. the module topics range from comprehending digital literacy, creating quizzes and infographics to using videos to improve self-directed practice of english language skills and components. the three most commonly observed features of an effective cpd program are: (1) a balanced coverage of both content and pedagogical knowledge, (2) a platform for social constructivist learning, and (3) school support (de kramer, masters, o’dwyer, dash, & russell, 2012). the first criterion is achieved in that imooc aimed at exposing participants to cutting-edge teaching paradigms with consideration of direct classroom application. this is realized through the provision of feedback from facilitators (senior teachers or lecturers with relevant educational backgrounds) on the feasibility and correct staging of their activity or lesson plans. the second indicator is evident in the voluntary and somewhat competitive admission process. since more favorable outcomes can be expected when participants have entitlement to select the programs or cpd to take part in (smeed&jetnikoff, 2016), the participants’ initial motivation level or stance toward the program had been taken into account. these teacherparticipants were screened and hand-picked based on their motivational statements. consequently, this pre-requisite led to only two (2) teachers from the current study partaking in the imooc. satisfying the third requirement, through written invitation letters, imooc administrators issued formal invitation letters, and face-to-face meetings for the schools housing the respective participants. teacher’s continuing professional development 73 fig 3: imooc 2018 homepage on canvas although the current imooc theme is most advantageous for language teachers, the course’ theoretical framework applies in other content fields. in achieving the cognitive presence, following dewey’s practical inquiry (1933), material delivery panned out according to the structure of (a) triggering event, (b) exploration, (c) integration, and (d) resolution. upon receiving new concepts, participants underwent some confusion prompting them to exchange and connect ideas with peers, before implementing them in pedagogical solutions to fit local needs. throughout this cognitive engagement, the teaching presence is of utmost importance to provide facilitation and direction. prior to the course, this facilitative presence is embodied through selecting proper learning resources and designing tasks. the social presence is met through forming a sense of belonging and a shared goal among the course members. ultimately, with course members originating from more than 30 different institutions nationwide, the imooc enables its participants to receive more extensive feedback and insights from likeminded professionals. methods it has come to our attention that biographical inquiries describing in-service challenges, and resources teachers leverage in their professional development are scant. firstly, stemming from narrative inquiry, this research explores teachers’ challenges in their cpdfromwritten pedagogical and professional stories or reflective essays, followed by semi-structured interviews.subsequent to their involvement in the technology-enhanced cpd, perception surveys were administered to analyze whether participation in a mooc had positively addressed the professional challenges frequently encountered. contexts and participants. the subjects of the study are fifteen (15) teachers under a private school foundation in surabaya, indonesia, which oversee various educational levels from kindergarten up to senior high school. the school foundation has designed and implemented a comprehensive continuing professional development program that includes a system of career ladder for all their full-time teachers, a competency-based assessment, a series of training modules, and a mentoring system. 74 teacher’s continuing professional development beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) teachers work through a grading level from grade 7 through grade 16. in every grade, they participate in a series of training activities designed specifically for each grade. in addition, novice teachers are assigned to enhance their professional journey with a mentor. after a minimal period of two years, they are entitled to go through a competency-based assessment for a chance of promotion to the next grade level. to focus on significant voices that describe their insights on their professional journey, we narrowedour in-depth analysis to fifteen (15) teachers—five teachers in each of their professional development stages (novice, mid-career, and senior). the same teachers were offered to take part in an online community of inquiry (coi) through the imooc, but only two teachers was finally admitted into the program. data collection. to collect the data, the researchers first developed guiding questions and protocols of the recorded semi-structured interview. semi-structured interviews were conducted due to theflexibilityof forwarding follow-up questionsbased on the preceding responses. within 30 – 40 minutes in the interview, the researchers tried to probe some aspects of the research topic in depth. following this, the researchers developed reflective essay prompts for each level of professional development and gave teachers four weeks to write their essays. subsequently, the teachers were offered to take part in a mooc to supplement their current practices and aid the recurrent hurdles they face in carrying out their professional duties. upon completion of the imooc, a brief survey was administered to shed light on whether such technology-mediated cpd were relevant for their individual teaching contexts. dataanalysis. the data collected from the documents, semi-structured interview and a brief satisfaction survey were analyzed qualitatively. the written notes of interview were transcribed, categorized and compiled together into themes and translated into english. ultimately, the teachers’ reflective essays, interview transcript, and survey responses were coded into related themes to reveal patterns for further interpretation (miles, huberman, & saldana, 2014). findings and discussion whether a teacher remains in the teaching profession withstandingphysical or mental exhaustion causing workplace burnout may be affiliated with how they overcome daily challenges and enhance their professional capability. therefore, this study places in-service demands and professional development on a continuum regulating the tools and resources teachers rely on in upgrading competence, and retaining within the profession. thechallenges time-manage ment.comparable to fellow teachers worldwide, participants face various challenges ranging from students’ problems, classroom management issues, and time management. time management pose as a predominant hindrance since teaching responsibilities subsume administrative duties, namely,lesson planning and writing reports. teacher 13’elaborates this tall order in the following reflective essay excerpt: the part of my job that i need to improve on is my time management –howto allocate time for planning my lessons, arranging the learning activities and teaching process, designing the assessment procedures, aside from leaving time for selfevaluation and development. what usually teacher’s continuing professional development 75 happens is that i only have time at home or on the weekends for personal development. i am often occupied with handling student affairs, not only those under my responsibility, but also the incidental ones(teacher 13, reflective essay). similarly, teacher 7testifies that the magnitude of the teaching load (correcting and organizing clubs) truncates his personal time outside working hours: … consequently, as i have beenassigned to be the captain of the boys’ brigade in addition to being a homeroom teacher, i basically relinquished any chances of personal development. i no longer have time to read or update on current teaching techniques, as i have to continue working on my school-related duties at home(teacher 7, reflective essay). teacher 9 echoes the urgency of proper time management, which also extends to time allocation during classroom hours. she perceives the need to design purposeful classroom activities to strike a balance between assessment procedures and student amusement during the learning experiences. because of time limitation, it is sometimes impossible to cover all the enjoyable activities. there are so many score that i have to collect such as, the english test, writing test, speaking test, listening test and the practices in the students’ books. i have to beat the time so my students will enjoy when they learn english by doing many activities. i have to arrange the schedule well. sometimes i fail, but i still need to work on it(teacher 9, reflective essay). pertaining tonovice teachers, in addition to adjusting with unfamiliar school facilities, routines, policies and procedures, they need to fulfill similar duties as experienced workers, which is not the case in other professions(farrell, 2016).farrell also asserts that for teacher education graduates, a common misconception is that they merely need to apply what they’ve learned in college or their 3-month up to 1-year teaching assistantship. the reality is far more complex with the first five years in the teaching career as the most crucial period. previous studies reveal 24% of novice teachers terminating their profession in the first year, 33% after three years, and 40% 50% withdrawing before the fifth year. posing as a transition shock, unlike their senior counterparts, these novice teachers do not have the luxury of time and accumulated skills they can rely on to navigate through such challenges. to illustrate, teacher 12, revealed how the pressures of being a novice teacher had influenced her emotional wellbeing, which ultimately affected her teaching performance. since entering the profession in the year 2008, i have endured difficult circumstances. in the first term, facing students in class for the first time amidst the incoming consecutive deadlines drove me to panic and stress. in turn, it caused my emotional stability to deteriorate. my productivity levels at that moment were below standard (teacher 12, reflective essay). for those graduating from noneducation majors or without an initial desire to teach, adapting to the school environment and work ethics had placed a strain on the decision to remain in the profession. as voiced by teacher 2, a senior teacher, the onset of her career was a series of momentous pivotal moments to either redirect or remain steadfast in this professional course. with the help of her parents who were also educators, she was able to overcome the hardships of the adaptation process and construct her own vocational identity, despite the absence of intrinsic motivation. on this note, perhaps owing to indonesia’s collectivist culture and socioeconomic constraints, 76 teacher’s continuing professional development beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) the findings concur thelikelihood of becoming teachers if one’s parents are also teachers. in other words, the chance of choosing to teach as a career is positively associated with the approval of parents and friends (ozturkakar, 2012; byun& park, 2017; padhy, emo, djira&deokar, 2015). my late parents encouraged me to be a teacher although it wasn’t my personal choice to become one. during my first years in the profession, i did feel awkward, overloaded and incapable to meet the demands. however, my parents urged me to persevere. that is why not everyone is called to teach (teacher 2, reflective essay). after dedicating 12 years in the field of education, in the case of a senior teacher, teacher 10, she admits the need to replenish her teaching style, which in her opinion has been rather archaic. in her essays, she reflects on this necessity to be accustomed to using ict to improve the learning process. i need to start making use of digital media and technology, preferably through e-learning. i would say that with the help of technology, i will be able to use my time and energy more efficiently. the delivery of information will also be more systematic – with the archiving function – enabling students to access my materials regardless of time and place (teacher 10, reflective essay). teacher 14 finds affinity to this concern as, being a senior teacher himself, he is sentient towards the attrition of students engagement in classroom activities. with the ability to access a plethora of information in just a few taps on a smartphones, it is imperative for teachers to design relevant pedagogically sound activities. one of the things that lead students to construct their understanding is a meaningful activity. keeping students busy doing something meaningful is a challenge for all teachers (teacher 14, interview transcript). to exemplify how technology proficiency would be an invaluable skills in teachers’ repertoire, a novice teacher with less than 5 years teaching experience maintained a sense of achievement when she resorted to technology to cope with the lack of preparation time. the call class in preservice training had particularly aided the laborious task of media preparation. in college i took a course on call (computer-assisted language learning), especially for making flash-based media. it has helped me a lot in my everyday teaching. (teacher 11, novice, interview transcript). limited access to external professional communities. almost all the teacher participants in this study acknowledged the availability of a supportive working environment (van droogenbroeck, vrije&vanroelen, 2014; bick-har, 2012). the school system has provided a comprehensive professional development system that meets the professional needs of these teachers. as part of the induction program, the new recruits are put under a mentoring system whereby mid-career and senior teachers are assigned to supervise and guide them. apart from trainings and performance evaluations, teachers also participate in regular religious services such as fellowships and devotions. as voiced by teacher 4, experts from locally or internationally renowned organizations deliver such trainings: the trainings from acsi [association of christian schools international] and mathematics mgmp [musyawarah guru mata pelajaran, subject teachers club] organized by the school board after a morning service … inspiration from the cambridge assessment … reflection after each lesson … teacher’s continuing professional development 77 readiness to be engaged in trainings or seminars … lots of colleagues, be open to criticism; always be open to other teachers who want to observe my class … be a mentor for younger teachers … between mentor and mentee, can establish rapport based on learning goals for both of us … i, too can learn from my mentees (teacher 4, reflective essay). as gorozidis and papaioannou (2014) suggest, a combination of professional autonomy, competence, personal relevance and collegial support promoted in the work environment would yield a sense of loyalty to the school and teachers’ mental well being. this notion is relevant for teacher 2, who came into the profession without any teaching qualifications or educational background, and thus, faced ‘unexplored territory’: i remember the words of my coordinator, pak samual, during my first years of teaching. he said that a lot of people become teachers, but they don’t have the soul of one. so it is better for those with nonteaching degrees to teach if they have the right intentions. that’s what has kept me motivated until now. my co-workers also kept assuring me that it’s okay if my educational background is not linear, as long as i’m willing to learn(teacher 2, interview transcript). novice and mid-career teachers showed a similar pattern, namely, they sought for guidance and affirmation from senior teachers. similarly, senior teachers expressed appreciation for the professional development system including the mentoring program, which has evolved and improved over the years. they believed teachers in their school were fortunate to have the level of support to enhance their professional development within their school system, which include induction, a series of training for different levels of teachers, supervision, teacher evaluation, and mentoring. the effect of a collaborative school environment could also transcend to a personal sense of achievement in shaping the success of other fellow teachers, as expressed by teacher 3. she maintained: i have been a mentor since 2014. in relation to my position as a vice-principal, i am happy to share my triumphs or failures in teaching to my mentee based on the reason that we all need to be students. failure doesn’t deter us from being an educator when we are able to learn from the positives to improve (teacher 3, interview transcript). only a small minority of the participants sought support from resources outside of their school system. it was fleetingly mentioned that teachers referred to books, website and the intention to pursue further education. this reliance on the school foundation to facilitate professionalism may mean that the current cpd is comprehensive enough to meet professional needs. contrastively, participants may be toocomplacent in their convenient school environment to rely on their devices, thus, succumb to the temptation of groupthink tendencies. this occurrence may be viewed as “vulnerability towards the outside world”–teachers may feel that they are under the watchful eye and scrutiny of the school management, colleagues and parents (kelchtermans, 1993). teachers are wary of the fact that not only do they need to see an impact of their teaching on the students’ achievement (evidence of self efficacy), but they also need to build good relationships or rapport with the students. however, in achieving this, at times, parents and the school board may question what teachers view as professionally sound. as in the words of kelchtermans, “teachers can only rely on their reflective experience, intuition, and their professional commitment 78 teacher’s continuing professional development beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) in trying to defend their professional behavior and to convince others of its value” (1993, p. 454). as a result, teachers become passive and conservative the more vulnerable they become. this may be observed in teacher 9’s essay excerpt revealing that she is conscious of the need to consultadditional input elsewhere, yetacknowledge the tendency to be passive. a great lesson plan is the lesson plan that give the students a clear idea of what they will do so i have to read more and more about any kind of activities that i can do and suitable for my students. this is not easy because i have to beat my laziness (teacher 9, reflective essay). this vulnerability to the school authorities also relates with a previously mentioned finding that many of the participants settled on their teaching careers as safer options, possibly to make ends meet. it can be assumed that a lack of prospective opportunities in the job market may deter some teachers from pursuing other careers (bickhar, 2012). furthermore, at the time of recruitment, teachers of this foundation are offered a very satisfactory reward package, which is more attractive than that in most other schools in town. it is common for recent graduates to resort to teaching for its perceived benefits, such as career security and salary, or relatively low demands of the job (sinclair, 2008). this lack of resilience at the initial stage of their professional development might still linger, trap them in a comfort zone, and keep them from moving forward in their professional trajectory. with the highly structured mentoring scheme, imposed top-down trainings (albeit offered by teacher associations), and absence of personal drive, it can be assumed that the participants have little to no exposure to contrive wider professional relations or peer-networking with others from different schools.hargreaves (2000) divides teacher professionalism into four stages of development: the pre-professional age, the age of the autonomous professional, the age of the collegial professional and the fourth age – the age of post-professional or postmodern. the participants of the study can be considered as autonomous professionals whereby they have the freedom--and even encouraged--to design their syllabi and deliver their materials in creative ways. however, the third phase of collegial professional is yet to be introduced, as teachers need to be engaged further in professional circles and communities of collegial professionals outside their school system. online community of inquiry and their professional development? integration of new concepts for more effective teaching practice.with generally positive reviews of the imooc graduates, it may be inferred that, despite the exhaustive 3-month long duration and strenuous program deadlines, teachers are willing to devote time in establishing a community of inquiry on the condition that it presents applicable practices or instantaneous gains (holmes, 2013). the imooc participants, including those taking part in the current study, confirmed the ease of integrating the digital tools into their syllabus and everyday teaching. grounded by the “teacher inquiry” or metacognitive approach, a “cascade of knowledge” effect was evident to contend with the isolation teachers may endure in the teaching profession.teaches were urged to experiment multiple techniques to incorporate technology into their projects, as well as respond to other’s sharing of best practices (tondeur et al., 2016). as expressed by teacher 6, there has been a significant shift in awareness and perspective since before partaking in the course as evident in the following excerpt: teacher’s continuing professional development 79 previously, i knew little about application, learning sources, or pay little attention on mobile learning and the significance of its use for teaching-learning process. however, since i joined this course, i realize that learning activities are able to take a new face, a new experience by utilizing technology. considering the 21 century skills and global demands for more collaboration in the process of learning, imooc plays its role as the excellent course which gives chances and challenges for teachers or education practitioners from 17 participants who responded to the survey, two of which are taking part in the current study, a vast majority expressed a strong agreement to being able to repurpose the digital tools to afford learning process, which cannot be obtained from a more traditional approach i.e., 35.29% citing a strong agreement, and 58.82% moderately agreeing (see table 1). to be aware of the needs of involving students more in the learning process and give novel horizon about the process of engaging students to be more active, self-managed, autonomous, and responsible towards their participation in the program (imooc participant, survey response) common to cpd structures, revitalizing teaching habits requires effort and time confronting institutional or technical hindrances. however, this metacognitive concept adopted by imooc encourages the assembling of support groups or networks, increasing teachers’ participation and commitment to improve outside of the cpd initiative (phelps et al., 2004). from the survey, the teachers reported to have successfully managed to circulate impactful concepts, information or practices to their fellow colleagues (47.05% maintained a strong agreement) despite being hindered by unstable internet connection and insufficient provision of devices (64.71% cited a mild agreement). this is inline with gruba and hinkelman (2012) who laud the benefits of incremental and sustainable change in teaching procedures. therefore, teachers in the imoocare not applying the techniques introduced in this form of cpd simply because they can(which leads to a mere abrupt change), but instead making informed decisions weighing both benefits and drawbacks. the following is a survey response table 1 perception on imooc relevance to individual teaching context survey statements strongly disagree disagree neither agree nor disagree agree strongly agree i was able to integrate the materials, concepts or digital tools introduced in imooc in my own classroom. 5.88% 0.00% 0.00% 58.82% 35.29% i encountered obstacles (either technical or institutional) that hampered the application of the digital tools in my everyday teaching. 0.00% 0.00% 29.41% 64.71% 5.88% teacher’s continuing professional development 67 i 0.00% was able to overcome technical or institutional hindrances that inhibited the integration of the digital apps in my classroom. 5.88% 23.53% 70.59% 0.00% i managed to share what i found beneficial from the imooc materials or suggested digital tools to my colleagues. 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 52.94% 47.06% from one of imooc participants heralding a successful experience dabbling with one of the suggested digital tool, while taking into account possible limitations: “i found the success whenever i integrated quizlet, edpuzzle and orai in my class by using edpuzzle, i could manage my time better whenever i prepare the video material and present that material in class quizlet too, i found it as the great app to practice their vocab outside the class in fun way. i ever got a response too from my students whenever i integrated quizlet talk in class. they said it is fun way to learn and memorize since they were actively calling the targeted vocabulary and by also talking / communicating the new entry vocabs in various way at class with peers, it decreased their anxiety whenever they tried to speak in english because they did not hesitate and they were not shy to practice even though they pronounced some vocabs wrong and used inaccurate sentences … i could not guarantee that all of them are learning the vocabulary via quizlet independently at home, at least we have provided the suitable vocab activity outside the class to support their english learning activity.” (imooc participant, survey response) opportunities to form professional network.a frequent positive remark rendered upon program completion is the essence of collegial support permeating throughout the course iteration. this is consistent with smeed and jetnikoff (2016, p.119) who laud the benefits of embedding “professional reflection and collegial discussion” in cpd schemes to achieve sustainability.mostparticipants cited that “meeting new people and sharing with them”, “the togetherness in all of the project assigned”, or “great friends, new input” as the driving force behind successful knowledge construction. one particular survey respondent commended the opportunity to band together with others of similar interests to support advancement within the teaching profession: …, i experienced great things during the program. i can have new network which is later, i believe, fruitful for my profession as lecturer. besides, imooc gives new perspectives about online learning. although i do not prefer online learning to be whole method being implemented in the classroom, the idea of blended learning isquite effective it is interesting to note that being a lecturer, with ideally more educational expertise than the majority of the participants who did not pursue postgraduate study, he/she still admitted the benefits of the joint enterprise built. this implies that within the collective unit, there were no clashing power relationships or identity issues strong enough to cause low rapport or apprehension to cooperate with others (murugaiah, ming, azman, & nambiar, 2013). in other words, this cpd scheme attempts to coa in order to give students chance to increase their motivation and improve their skills(imooc participant, survey response). 80 teacher’s continuing professional development beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) lesce the cultural contextwiththe group dynamics, assigned responsibility and communal goal (liu, 2012). however, the use of contrastive conjunction (although) and hedging (quite effective) may direct to the corollary that even though this cpd program has endowed new insights for practice, resistance may delay the immediate change in perspective(macià& garcía, 2016). to decipher why participants mainly referred to the collaborative aid as an attractive cpd feature, the researchers revisited the discussion threads. the high level of diversity imbued in the online exchange suggests that the educators drew on their individual belief system as well as their teaching context. as can be seen in the discussion posts (fig 4 and fig 5), the participants felt comfortable enough to disclose their authentic personalities and perspectives irrespective of power positions of hierarchical constraints within the community of educators or academics (lee & brett, 2015). this presence of heteroglossic dialogs characterized by opposing opinions and meaning negotiations (see underlined expressions in fig 4 and fig 5) contributed to a high level of discussion, which contained collegial support (e.g. i do agree with…) coupled with criticism (e.g. i would like to give some objection and support)(prestridge, 2010). the discussion threads in fig 4 and 5 are also indicative of a metacognitive process that is facilitated by a community. metacognition underlie the act of formulating, elaborating, and justifying opinions. although the individual bears responsibility to derive meaning from the materials, the community in turn may offer varied perspectives or pinpoint a possible error in the personal conception (akyol & garrison, 2011). it is opined that the standardized onesize-fits-all cpd program, such as wholeclass one-off trainings and seminars, may not be able to accommodate such diversity(lee & brett, 2015). post comment: dear bu elisa, you are right up to a point. i do agree with your last paragraph of the first statement of your 1st answer. however, in my view thank you. , the autonomous learners will gradually be able to adapt to the materials they choose by themselves, not be given by the teacher. because of their own choices, so the righteousness and meaningful materials will be their responsibility now which could raise their awareness of the future approaches and appropriate learning opportunities. best regards, natasha reply: (…)thank you for the correction, ms. natasha. actually what i meant by the given materials there are the main topics that the students should learn during that semester, such as the one written in the rpp. just imagine that during the first week, the students should be able to master algebra. the students are then provided by lists of subtopics that they can choose by themselves and some options of the quiz type they want to take. (…) fig 4: a snippet of the discussion thread in one of the modules teacher’s continuing professional development 81 post comment: hi naomi, well, i would like to give some objection and support related to your statement reply: that autonomous students are gifted students. in my opinion, being autonomous in learning does not naturally come out from one’s own. it should done through well preparation and lots of practices. (…) hi fiona, thanks for such a thorough review. but i'd like to point out that i never suggest in any way that autonomous learners are gifted students, i simply wonder if the students in the video are gifted students because they seemed so smart being able to run the class so autonomously. (…) fig 5: a snippet of the discussion thread in one of the modules in tandem with iteration of the online course, a social media group was constructed for the participants to interact outside of the canvas page. utilizing the group chat on whatsapp, the participants frequently exchanged classroom ideas, concerns and updated news pertaining to the imooc progress. for instance, fig 4 showcases a remark of excitement and pride upon incorporating quizlet in the teacher-participant’s class. in this particular chat thread, the participant shared a photo to other imooc participants exhibiting how engaged his students were in his vocabulary lesson augmented by the referred digital tool. the social presence (garrison, anderson & archer, 2001, 2010) was achieved in this instance through the collegial support and reciprocal encouragement contributing to a collaborative atmosphere. fig 4: whatsapp chat thread between imooc participants 82 teacher’s continuing professional development beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) conclusion with the divergentinitial motivationto teach, prior experiences and level of resilience, teachers may experience isolation, and low urgency to expand their collegial networks. to supplement school-managed programs, regional moocs may serve as efficient means to form professional communities within a purposeful and cognitively stimulating scheme, bearing immediate value to individual context. although retention and relevance of such a program is yet to be examined, the reflective-collaborative online environment is integral to what constitutes a desirablecpd that ismetacognitive teacher inquiry. teacher’s continuing professional development 83 references akyol, z., & garrison, d. r. 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(2012). what professional development makes the most difference to teachers. a report sponsored by oxford university press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10972-014-9410-3� http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10972-014-9410-3� http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2014.07.005� http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2014.07.005� abstract literature review teachers’ challenges methods findings and discussion thechallenges online community of inquiry and their professional development? conclusion references 164 beyond words vol.2, no.2, november 2014 widya mandala catholic university surabaya about the authors alice kiai <alicekiai@cuea.edu> gets her phd in english language teaching and applied linguistics from warwickuniversity. her master of arts degree in linguistics from the university of nairobi, and her bachelor of education degree in linguistics and literature from the university of nairobi. she is a lecturer at the department of english, catholic university of eastern africa. she is interested in the analysis and development of language teaching and learning materials. she has authored and co-authored reading materials and textbooks for schools, and her published articles in this area include: this cook is very important: editors speak on textbook development, am i a robot?: teachers on teachers' guides and textbook selection experiences among secondary school teachers of english in kenya. feng teng <u3034981@uni.canberra.edu.au> obtained his master degree in tesol from university of canberra in 2009, and now works as a lecturer and researcher at the department of english, nanning university, china. his main research interests include efl vocabulary teaching and learning. geoffrey m. maroko < maroko.geoffrey@ku.ac.ke > holds a phd in applied linguistics from kenyatta university. he teaches english and linguistics at the same university. his teaching interests include syllabus design and materials preparation, language teaching and research, language planning and management, and language for academic purposes. he has published a book entitled: genre analysis: dissertation writing practices in the disciplines. he has also published several articles in his areas of research and teaching interest. some of them are: the authentic materials approach in the teaching of functional writing in the classroom; learning about author positioning in written academic discourse; and citation practices in 165 selected science and humanities dissertations: implications for teaching. george m. jacobs <www.georgejacobs.net> holds a phd in educational psychology from the university of hawaii and a master’s degree in linguistics from the university of illinois—chicago. he has written widely on such topics as cooperative learning, extensive reading, environmental education, and humane education. he teaches writing and various education courses at james cook university, singapore. he is a member of the board of the extensive reading foundation, the international association for the study of cooperation in education, and vegetarian society (singapore). harumi kimura <kmrharumi@gmail.com> teaches at miyagi gakuin women’s university, sendai, japan. she earned her doctorate from temple university. she studied l2 listening anxiety in her doctoral study, and her academic interests range from learner psychology to cooperative learning. she recently coauthored a book with dr. g. m. jacobs, cooperative learning and teaching, in english language teacher development series (2013, alexandria, va: tesol). she enjoys hiking and trekking in her free time. julia eka rini <jerini40@yahoo.com> finished her doctorate program of applied english linguistics at catholic university of indonesia atma jaya jakarta in july 2012. her research interests are language acquisition and translation. she has been teaching at the english department of petra christian university surabaya since 1992. natasha h. chenowith <nschonbe@kent.edu> is currently a doctoral student in curriculum and instruction at kent state university in kent, ohio, usa. her concentration area is teaching english as a second language. her research interests include culturally-responsive pedagogy, language socialization, and second language teaching and learning. 166 pannathon sangarun holds a phd from the university of toronto (oise), canada. she is an associate professor in the school of foreign languages, suranaree university of technology, nakhon ratchasima, thailand where she is the coordinator for graduate courses in technology-enhanced language learning at doctoral and master levels. she is currently supervising several doctoral students. she is a member of the editorial board of the asiacall online journal and, until recently, she was the editor-in-chief of the thaitesol journal. her research interests are in the areas of language-teaching methodology, with a specific focus on task-based language learning, and technology enhanced language learning. willy a renandya has a ph.d. in educational psychology from univesity of wisconsin-madison, usa. he is a language teacher educator with extensive teaching experience in asia. he currently teaches applied linguistics courses at the national institute of education, nanyang technological university, singapore. he has published extensively, including an edited book methodology in language teaching: an anthology of current practice (cup, 2002, 2008). his latest publications include essential factors affecting efl learning outcomes (english teaching, 2013) and motivation in the language classroom (in press, tesol international). he maintains an active language teacher professional development forum called teacher voices: https://www.facebook.com/groups/teachervoices/. e-mail address: willy.renandya@nie.edu.sg ; web address: http://www.nie.edu.sg/profile/willy-ardian-renandya 49 curriculum analysis of mpbi translation process of core values, vision, and mission into the prescribed curriculum antonius cahyono tondoprasetyo (antonius090383@gmail.com) smak hendrikus surabaya, indonesia article history abstract received: 10-04-2021 reviewed: 10-02-2022 revised: 25-06-2022 keywords: vision; mission; core values; translation; actor network theory; prescribed curriculum doi https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i1.3126 the case study is intended to describe how core values, vision, and mission of english education department in widya mandala catholic university’s graduate school (magister pendidikan bahasa inggris or “mpbi”) are translated into the syllabi (prescribed curriculum) using the value sharing model as the framework and actor network theory (ant) to explain the process within this framework. the research questions are: first, do the course syllabi reflect the vision, mission and core values of mpbi? and second, how the vision, mission and core values are translated into the prescribed curriculum (syllabi)? this study was conducted by analyzing the syllabi using document analysis parameters and triangulated by conducting interviews to some lecturers and students in mpbi-19. the results are: first, the syllabi were reflecting the core values, vision and mission statements. second, there are four ways to deliver values. third, syllabus should be seen as a part of a curriculum not as a separated unit of course. fourth, all courses are crystallized in teaching practice course (in practical term) and thesis writing (in theoretical form). the suggestions were: first, using a generalized format of syllabus to help lecturers state their values explicitly. second, there are opportunities to research further the same topic in the scope of enacted curriculum. and third, lecturers should maintain their internalization processes. introduction values influences people in many ways. people tend to group with others who has similar values since they seek friends, protections and supports; either in personal life or work. nowadays, core values also make an organization unique, not merely from skills, networks, and productivities anymore; core values act as a protector and guideline when the organization face the crisis. educational institutions, with the moral obligations to educate the society should put more emphasis on how their core values implemented. this is because orthopraxis (the correct practice) is derived from vision and mission. vision and mission are products from the organization’s habits beyond words vol. 10, no.1, may 2022 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya mailto:antonius090383@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i1.3126 50 curriculum analysis of mpbi (habitus) or ethos. habitus are born from core values which are lived by the organization’s member (haryatmoko sj, 2014). curriculum, as one form of written orthopraxis, is an actual plan for learning process in classroom. the plan also acts as guideline and its results at actualization level are very important in regards of the education quality in the institution (glatthorn, boschee, & whitehead, 2009). understanding core values will help understand how curriculum should be implemented, and in turn will help understand how the learning processes should be implemented. this case study was done by choosing mpbi (magister pendidikan bahasa inggris) the english education department, graduate school widya mandala surabaya catholic university (ukwms) is one of the best campuses in east java with the “a” score in accreditation (“profile of ukwms,” 2016). even though mpbi (as part of the graduate school) still have “b” score in its accreditation, the campus will still provide a good example to be studied. the indonesian law on teacher and lecturer (uu no. 14 tahun 2005) also stated that teachers should have four competencies: pedagogical, personal, social and professional. understanding how core values are shared will indirectly help students of mpbi to develop better competencies and teaching preparations. the research questions are as follows: first, do the course syllabi reflect the core values, vision and mission of mpbi? and second, how are the core values, vision, and mission translated into the prescribed curriculum (syllabi) of mpbi? review of related literature the review of related literature will be divided into four parts. first, theories which are used as theoretical framework in this research. second, related previous studies. third, connections between theories and previous studies, and fourth, descriptions about mpbi’s core values, vision, and mission. figure 1. the value sharing model the value sharing model value sharing model is a model described by j. patrick murphy, cm to describe and explain how values are shared in institutional context. organizational values can be formed from three main sources: ideology, organization, and leader. the combination of these three elements are shaping the values of organization (murphy, 1991). above is the diagram of the value sharing model. 1 curriculum analysis of mpbi actor network theory (ant). actor network theory is an approach firstly developed by bruno latour, john law, and michael callon in 1980s. latour stated that this approach to sociology is different from the existing ones. he used term “sociology of the social” to describe the existed stable approach in sociology, and “sociology of the association” to describe the new approach. the first approach seem to have its influences from positivism, seeing phenomenon from “a priori” approach, using the established theory to explain the phenomenon. the second approach tend to be phenomenological in its approach, using “actors” to explain the phenomenon inductively. rather than compromising, explaining, or establishing a stable explanation, the sociologist of the association likes to explore the controversies between these actors and let them explain themselves their role in the society, solving these controversies on their own (latour, 2005). john law stated that: “actor network theory is a disparate family of material-semiotic tools, sensibilities, and methods of analysis that treat everything in the social and natural worlds as a continuously generated effect of the webs of relations within which they are located. it assumes that nothing has reality or form outside the enactment of those relations. its studies explore and characterize the webs and the practices that carry them.” (law, 2009). this theory also assumed that human is treated indifferently from nonhuman, because human is not an a priori in this world, but instead as part of the world. ant seeks to develop analyses that do not rely upon a priori distinctions that shape many of our understandings and practices (edwards, 2012). the common elements used in ant are as follows: (a) thing. the element that would be actor in the network, either human or non-human, (b) translation. description about what happened when entities (human and non-human) come together and connect, changing one another to form links, (c) networks. an assemblage of materials brought together and linked through processes of translation that perform a particular function, and (d) network effects. network which has been formed by things, has its effects internally and externally (fenwick & edwards, 2010) curriculum theories. the explanations about curriculum theories below are taken from glatthorn (glatthorn et al., 2009). the concept of curriculum. basically there are two definitions of curriculum; prescriptive and descriptive. prescriptive curriculum is like a prescription, directing teachers and students to do how things ought to be. descriptive curriculum deals with how things are in the real classroom. in prescriptive curriculum, the knowledge has already constructed, while descriptive curriculum constructs knowledge from experiences in the classroom. a useful definition of curriculum should consider two criteria, generally understood and operationally useful for the educators. based on these criteria, below is the definition used by glatthorn: “the curriculum is the plans made for guiding learning in the schools, usually represented in retrievable documents of several levels of generality, and the actualization of those plans in the classroom, as experienced by the learners and as recorded by an observer; those experiences take place in a learning 52 curriculum analysis of mpbi environment that also influences what is learned.”(glatthorn et al., 2009). the types of curriculum. according to glatthorn, there are six types of curriculum. first, recommended curriculum, which stresses “oughtness”. recommended by individual scholars, professional associations, and reform commissions. this curriculum is identifying skills and concepts that ought to be emphasized, according to perception and value systems for the sources. this curriculum can get its influences from societal trends and professional association. second, written curriculum, which intended primarily to ensure that educational goals of the system are being accomplished. typically, this curriculum is more specific and comprehensive than recommended curriculum; indicate a rationale that supports the curriculum, general goals to be accomplished, specific objectives to be mastered, sequence in which those objectives should be studied, and kinds of learning activities that should be used. when delivering this curriculum to the teachers, it should be as simple as possible. next, supported curriculum. the curriculum as reflected in and shaped by resources allocated to support or deliver curriculum. there are four most critical resources: (a) time allocation to a given subject at a particular level of schooling, (b) time allocation by the classroom teacher within that overall subject allocation to particular aspects of the curriculum, (c) personnel allocation as reflected in and resulting from class-size decisions, and (d) the textbooks and other learning materials provided for use in classroom. following the supported curriculum are taught curriculum and tested curriculum. taught curriculum is the delivered curriculum, a curriculum that an observer would see in action in classroom as the teacher taught. tested curriculum is that set of learnings that are assessed in teachermade classroom tests, in district developed curriculum-referenced tests, and in standardized tests. finally, learned curriculum. the term “learned curriculum” is used to denote all changes in values, perceptions, and behavior that occur as result of school experiences. it includes what student understands, learns, and retains from both intentional curriculum and hidden curriculum. the hidden curriculum. hidden curriculum sometimes called as “unstudied curriculum” or “implicit curriculum”. it might saw as those aspects of learned curriculum that lie outside boundaries of the school’s intentional efforts. its variables are: organizational, social-system, and culture. figure 2. relationship between types of curricula 1 curriculum analysis of mpbi the relationship between various types of curricula. relationship from the six types of curricula and the hidden curriculum can be seen in picture 2. mark smith’s categorization of curriculum development. similar with glatthorn, smith also create his own categories which is quite similar with glatthorn’s categorization. there are four components: first, transformation of information, in which curriculum act as a body of knowledge to be transmitted via a syllabus. second, end product, in which curriculum act as an attempt to achieve certain ends (products). third, process, in which currilum seen as a process, and fourth, praxis, in which curriculum seen as a committed action. when joined together, it will look like the following picture. figure 3. elements of curriculum theory and practice previous related studies values in catholic higher education. we cannot separate values in catholic higher education with its theological aspects. before we discuss the theological aspects, let us take a look at research done by murphy about vision, mission, and values in catholic higher education institutions (murphy, 1991). murphy did the research on five catholic campuses in the united states. the criteria for choosing these institutions were: (a) whether these institutions had their ideologies and values as their central and readily identifiable in the dominant culture or vision of the institution, and (b) these institutions had a stable leadership and represented a variety of locales and sponsorship. based on these criteria five campuses were chosen: depaul university, santa clara university, barry university, trinity college, and st. mary of the woods college. in each of this university murphy tried to find out about core values which are 54 curriculum analysis of mpbi lived in these institutions by asking two basic questions to his respondents (students and the faculty staffs): (a) mentioning core values which are lived in their institutions and (b) describing stories about how these values are lived within their institutions. by analyzing and summarize the results he found the model to explain how the core values were shared among the members of the institutions and how these values can develop later, called as “the value sharing model”. the conclusion from his research were that the presidents indeed have a vision which came from, mostly, catholic values; which are values of quality and a strong sense of human respect (murphy, 1991). these values were also communicated well and the member of the organization were aware of these efforts too. murphy also said that: “presidents need to be aware of ideological continua, organizational cultures and histories, and differences among and between subgroups. if they are to communicate values, they need to be aware of what works and for whom. they need to listen for feedback from the environment and other organizational members. they need to seek opportunities and use multiple methodologies to communicate values to their various client groups.” (murphy, 1991). murphy also said that to be a good leader in these institutions, the leader should emphasize more on the shared vision rather than the personal quality of a leader. also to focus more on values at the grassroot and struggle together with the community to apply mission based on values. drucker said that, “what matters is not the leader’s charisma. what matters is the leader’s mission. therefore, the first job of a leader is to define and live the mission of the institution…” (murphy, 1991). the theological aspects can be seen from studies such as done by currant which reveal to us about the term “catholic”, meaning social service aspect, and “catholic” or religiosity aspect (curran, 1997). to maintain these values, the institution are not doing it alone, since they got a lot of attention from the holy see itself in which this conditions are beneficial. the animating force in the catholic universities is love of learning and love of truth (nagy, 2006). nagy also mentioned that the challenge for these catholic universities are: (a) the catholic identity for the university, (b) autonomy of the institution, and (c) relativity. vision, mission, and identity in catholic educational institution. institutional vision is “a philosophical template – a concept of what, at its best, a college or university is like and the kinds of human beings that institution is attempting to cultivate” (abelman & dalessandro, 2008). in his research with dalessandro to do content analysis of institutional vision from a nationwide sample of catholic schools, abelman suggests that these institutions should be vision-driven, with the characteristics of clear, highly optimistic, and inspirational language. abelman explains that since ex corde ecclesiae the catholic colleges and universities have made a conscientious efforts to better embed a declaration of religious identity, its defining values, and guiding principles into their institutional mission and vision statements. when challenges come in terms of compromising faith to conform to an increasingly social world, these vision and mission statements can be unifying tools, because institution 55 curriculum analysis of mpbi also emphasizes the benefits in applying vision and mission in daily life. haryatmoko also said similar things. core values hold the most important thing in value transferring. they are formed from collective moral values of individuals in organization, which in turn will form habits, ethos, vision, and orthopraxis. the way to communicate these values should consider three aspects: (a) locutionary (meaning, content, what to say), (b) illocutionary (purpose and should be done, or how to say), and (c) perlocutionary (the effects of the message). to convey the message in the written texts, the perlocutionary aspects can help much since it can move the reader either to believe or to do certain actions regarding the message.(haryatmoko sj, 2014). reflection. based on the studies about values, vision, mission, and identity in catholic higher education, catholic higher education institution is “value driven” organization. “catholic” and “catholic” values; and its unique combination are the best way to describe this situation, implying that these institution must be inclusive. these values must be kept and inherited to those who involved through the formulation and implementation of vision and mission. meaning that in the context of widya mandala catholic university core values, vision, and mission are not just a writing, they come from reflection of experiences by people who lived with the values, in which it will be shared and inherited to the members of the institution. ant in education: the prescribed and enacted curriculum. instead of analyzing prescribed curriculum using an a priori position and determined the factors, we should focus more on the actors. “factors impacting upon the curriculum may be real but they are not foundational explanations and to enact them as such is to miss the point of the translations to which they subject.” (edwards, 2012). the description of edward’s research will be explained below. edward did a case study to explore curriculum-making in three matched subjects in an upper secondary school and a further education college in a medium sized town in scotland. these are some facts found in the background of study: (a) there are changes in the academic curriculum in scotland, from schools focused on an academic curriculum and colleges provide a more occupation-related curriculum in both schools and colleges, impacting upon curriculum coherence, transition and progression for students within the curriculum and between institutional context, (b) the policy from sqa (scottish qualification authority) that provides the basis for prescribed curriculum was very standardized and rational, using an approach which assumes that learning outcomes are same despite different contexts for and means of developing and demonstrating them, (c) there is research evidence which suggests that there is less diversity in the described and enacted curriculum than envisioned or desired. but many of the unit descriptors seek greater standardization, seeming to limit the possibility of diversity, and (d) a great deal of research points to a tendency for continuity rather than change in what goes on in schools and colleges in response to centrally mandated reform initia tives, as mentioned by cuban (edwards, 2012) these factors are: schools prize obedience over independent thinking, the existing culture of teaching, and the socialization of teachers through their own schooling. 56 curriculum analysis of mpbi the attempts to provide a standardized prescribed curriculum with equivalences across sites is not being achieved in enacted curriculum. the differences and multiplicity are inherent (inseparable) in curriculum making, meaning that the curriculum making process should be open to diversity, making it rich and therefore too rigid and standardized curriculum will not be much help to reach the goal of the education if the prescribed curriculum is not giving any space of difference and multiplicity. the connection between value sharing model, actor network theory, and curriculum theories in this research. when we compared glatthorn and smith’s categorization, the prescribed curriculum are identical with “written” and “supported” curriculum. also identical with “the theoretical”. while the enacted can be seen as identical with “taught” and “tested” curriculum also identical with “the practical”. “learned curriculum” (consists of “recommended” and “hidden” curriculum) are similar with “the productive”; they act as the result of learning and can be used as a resource material for curriculum development. the comparison can also be seen from the following table: table 1. curriculum types comparison there are three ways to check whether an approach can be identified as actor network theory: (a) there are precise role granted to non-humans. they have to be actors and not simply the hapless bearers of symbolic projection; (b) in which direction the explanation is going in. is the list of what is social in the end is the same limited repertoire that has been used to explain (away) most of the elements? if the social remains stable and is used to explain a state of affairs, it’s not actor network theory; and (c) whether a study aims at reassembling the social or still insists on dispersion and deconstruction.(latour, 2005). when compared to edward’s research then the syllabi of teaching should be open to diversity and open to improvement in its contexts. to contextualize the research, the descriptions below are about core values of widya mandala catholic university/ ukwms (which is the same with the core values of mpbi), also vision and mission of mpbi. the description for core values is taken from the ukwms corporate culture booklet (senat akademik universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya, 2011a). the core values of ukwms are part of the corporate culture and have gone through some institutional processes of identification and formulation. at first there were 18 values, condensed into seven (according to its strength). after being confirmed with the members of the institution, five values were chosen (according to its convergences). after that the leaders of the institution were being asked for inputs and these five values are then crystalized into three, they are: peduli (care), komit (commitment), and antusias (enthusiasm); or peka. 57 curriculum analysis of mpbi figure 4. core values of widya mandala catholic university the motto of ukwms is “non scholae sed vitae discimus” (we learn not only for the sake of knowledge, but for life itself), restated as “a life improving university”. meaning that the institution must contribute for the better life of others, or the community they serve (senat akademik universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya, 2011b). below is the picture of the ukwms. the logo can be seen from ukwms’ website (“profile of ukwms,” 2016): the motto of ukwms is “non scholae sed vitae discimus” (we learn not only for the sake of knowledge, but for life itself), restated as “a life improving university”. meaning that the institution must contribute for the better life of others, or the community they serve (senat akademik universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya, 2011b). below is the picture of the ukwms. the logo can be seen from ukwms’ website (“profile of ukwms,” 2016): figure 5. motto of widya mandala catholic university core values are described further into the corporate guidelines in the forms of expected behaviors. these descriptions can be obtained in the booklet about “the code of ethic and behavior” (senat akademik universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya, 2011b). core values form a habit, and habits form vision and mission before. vision and mission form orthopraxis (haryatmoko sj, 2014). kirkpatrick stated that in the business world, a vision is “a leaders’ ideological statement of a desired, longterm future for an organization” (goethals, sorenson, & burns, 2004). below are vision and mission of mpbi, taken from its website: vision. an excellent master of education program in teaching english as a foreign language (tefl) with international standards. mission. (1) to graduate masters of education in teaching english as a foreign language (tefl) who demonstrate thoughts, works and behaviors grounded on social responsibility and commitment to humanity and passion for the improvement of civilization; (2) to graduate masters of education in teaching english as a foreign language (tefl) with english proficiency and competitive excellence in education and teaching; (3) to graduate masters of education in teaching english as a foreign language (tefl) with knowledge and skills to formulate problems, analyze alternative solutions and make decisions responsibly (“profile of mpbi,” 2016). research method 1 curriculum analysis of mpbi research design the research uses qualitative approach, case study in particular. case study was chosen since mpbi would provide a good example to find out how the core values, vision and mission were translated into the syllabi as prescribed curriculum. through case study we could see that “reality is multiple, contradictory, and changing, and the researcher inevitably becomes part of the study. they are also better suited for exploring issues rich in context” (hood, 2009). the research design is shown in the picture 3.1. first research question will be answered using the syllabi-content analysis and second research question will be answered using inter-syllabi analysis. after that the researcher will continue with triangulation. figure 6. research design the triangulation has two purposes: (a) to confirm the findings from syllabi analysis, and (b) to gain more inputs from triangulation process itself. after triangulation, a simple ant-analysis was done in three steps. first, identifying human actors. second, identifying non-human actors. and third, describing influence from each actor. below is the research procedure in this research: table 2. research procedures 2 curriculum analysis of mpbi subjects in this research are course syllabi in mpbi, mostly year 2014. sources of data were differentiated between human and non-human; non-human data were taken from course syllabi and human data were taken from results of triangulation (interview with lecturers and interview/fgd with students of mpbi-19). non-human data are statements of course description, course goals, course outcome/results, course management, course assessment, course resource material, and course schedule; they are general terms generated by researcher from syllabi since various terms are used by different lecturers. human data are statements expressed by lecturers in interview and students in interview/fgd. the unit of analysis were meaningful notions found in words, phrases, paragraphs, and sentences in course syllabi, specifically in course objectives and learning outcomes, strategies, and assignments. there were four instruments created by the researcher. they were the core values analysis form (instrument 1), vision and mission statements analysis form (instrument 2), tentative questions for interview with lecturers (instrument 3), and tentative questions for interview/fgd with students (instrument 4). instrument 1 was used to analyze syllabi whether they reflected the core values. to use this instrument, we seek parts (words or sentences) which reflected the core values. guideline in this instrument consists a list containing meaning and synonym from each value. source for the meaning was taken from a pc program called “the sage”, while source for the synonym was taken also from a pc program of thesaurus. these parameters should act as guidance, not a firm rule for interpreting the syllabi. instrument 2 was used for analyzing vision and mission statement. the way to use this instrument is similar with the instrument 1, the difference is that the guideline was taken from the three mission of mpbi. vision is stated also in this instrument, but the researcher focused more on the mission since vision contained a long-term purpose which cannot be seen directly from a syllabus, and we should see whether vision is accomplished or not by seeing whether three missions are fulfilled or not. 59 curriculum analysis of mpbi instrument 3 and 4 were used as tentative guideline for interview. instrument 3 for interviewing lecturers and instrument 4 for interviewing/doing fgd with students. the questions were created based on findings from analysis using instrument 1 and 2. data were collected from: (a) syllabi analysis, (b) interview transcripts from several lecturers, and (c) interview/fgd results from mpbi-19 students, using the instruments that had been prepared by the researcher, by seeking meaningful words or statements in the syllabi and transcript. interview transcripts and fgd results were used as a basis for triangulation by comparing results found from the transcript with results from syllabi analysis. data analysis was done using coding technique. the preparation and process were as follows. first, searching parts in syllabus which reflected core values and marking it. second, doing similar things but in context of vision and mission statement of mpbi. first step was done by using instrument 1 and second step was done by using instrument 2. third, listing the other interesting points found from syllabi, if any, for further analysis if necessary. fourth, comparing results from syllabi analysis to find the similarities and differences among them using axial coding (sort codes into some sort of order or groups). fifth, comparing interesting points to explore further (from step three) with results from axial coding to develop further on the interview questions. sixth, using interview and fgd transcripts as a basis for triangulation using categorical analysis. seventh, comparing results of document analysis, interview and fgd to draw a diagram of networks about the translation process of core values, vision and mission into the prescribed curriculum in mpbi. eighth, doing simple ant-analysis by sorting human and non-human actors. ninth, starting to identify which actors influenced more in translation process. and tenth, generating results and conclusion to seek whether the research results has answered the research questions. triangulation was done by interview with some lecturers and fgd with students from mpbi-19. by using categorical analysis, after the transcript had been generated, researcher will seek through the text for certain words or sentences which supports the findings, using it for confirmation. also seek for certain patterns to either support or confirms new findings. also seek whether there are certain words or sentences which revise the previous findings to get better understanding concerning the questions asked on this research. results and discussion results of the study the results and discussion were based on research questions stated earlier in introduction. the answers were based on document analysis results and crosschecked with the results from the triangulation. after the triangulation, the ant-analysis will be done to identify the human and non-human actors along with seeking which actor(s) has most influence in the translation process. syllabi analysis results. using instrument 1 to check whether the syllabi were reflecting core values, at first the researcher tried to check whether the word mentioned in the list and its related synonyms are stated in the syllabi. the researcher only found two words from 21 syllabi. after that the researcher tried to do the same thing by using meaning list, 62 curriculum analysis of mpbi resulting in a lot of findings and revealing that every syllabus contains three core values. core values were stated implicitly and can be interpreted as a sign of internalization. the lecturers didn’t think first how to insert the core values into the syllabus but instead they were thinking based on the course requirements itself that directs them to prepare the syllabus. the easiest value to be found was commitment, since there were always parts in syllabus which stated as assignments, learning method, assessment, course outline, and such. the value about care can be seen mostly in parts about course description, course outline, and such. the most difficult value to be found was enthusiasm, the researcher can only assume that more detailed syllabus shows more serious/enthusiast from the writer. but this also related with personality and writing style of writer, which cannot be proven only by reading syllabus. to check whether syllabi are reflecting vision and mission statement, the researcher were checking first whether vision statement was reflecting three mission statements, since vision can only be fulfilled by accomplishing three mission statements. after that the researcher analyzed contents from each syllabus to find things such as sentence(s), keyword(s), assignment(s), classroom rule(s), or skills(s) mentioned in the syllabus which were in accordance with mission statement. the similar parts between vision and mission statement is to graduate masters of education in tefl. the difference between vision and mission statement is in the description of what is meant by “international standards” in the vision statement. first mission statement emphasize on social responsibility and commitment to humanity to im prove civilization. second mission statement emphasizes the professional skills excellence in education and teaching. while third mission statement emphasizes the academics/scientific skills, deals with how to formulate problems, analyze alternative solutions and make decisions responsibly. it appears that vision and three missions connected in two ways, by having the same goals (to graduate from the master’s program in tefl) and by translating the statement “international standards” into the mission statements. based on this description, the researcher analyzed the syllabi to find out whether they reflected the mission statement. the results can be seen in table 3. (the terms of “required’ and “optional” course group will be explained later). number 1, 2, or 3 in the column “# of mission statements reflected” indicates the reflected number of the mission statements. from 21 syllabi that had been analyzed, actually there were still two missing syllabi to analyze; principles of elt (first semester) and advance seminar on elt (third semester), but the already compiled syllabi were considered enough by the researcher to describe general connections of courses in mpbi with its vision, mission, and core values. from this syllabi analysis results we could see that these course syllabi were reflecting the mission statement of mpbi; some of the courses may reflect fewer than three missions, and the other may reflect all the three missions since each course has its own emphasis and focus. so syllabi were fulfilling core values of ukwms, vision and mission statements in mpbi if they were seen as a system; not as a single or group course. implicate that someone as 61 curriculum analysis of mpbi alumnus of mpbi need also to share and learn from his/her fellow alumnus from other minor. to check whether core values were reflected in vision and mission statement, table 4 is used. in this table, the researcher tried to seek in the word(s) and/or statements that reflected core values from mission statement. after analyzing the syllabi, the researcher found that the value of care (peduli) can be seen from words “passion” and “social responsibility” in first mission statement, and phrase “skills to formulate problems” in third mission statement. the value of commitment (komit) can be seen from phrases “demonstrate thoughts, works, and behaviors”, “social responsibility” (investing in time and energy to engage in social responsibility), and word “commitment” in first mission statement; phrase “english proficiency and competitive excellence in education and teaching” (continuous practices to improve the competitive excellence) in second mission statement; and phrase “analyze alternative solutions and make decisions responsibly” in third mission statement. the value of enthusiasm (antusias) can be seen from phrase “passion and drive for the improvement of civilization” in first mission statement, also from phrase “analyze alternative solutions” from third mission statement. inter-syllabi analysis results. to answer the second research question regarding how core values, vision, and mission statement were translated, the inter syllabi analysis was done by doing several steps. first, checking whether vision and mission statements were reflecting core values. second, seeking similar theme of courses and grouping them into several groups and naming these groups. third, analyzed course goal from each course in each group and seeking the connection/ similarities between them. table 3. syllabi and mission statements curricula 2 curriculum analysis of mpbi the second mission statement can reflect all three core values while the first and third mission statements only reflected two core values. when we saw vision and mission as a connected system and accumulate the results, we could assume that the vision statement were (indirectly) reflecting the three core values. table 4. connections between core values and mission statement 63 curriculum analysis of mpbi the second step in doing inter-syllabi analysis was seeking similar theme of courses, grouping them into several groups and naming these groups. required courses are courses that must be taken by students, and optional courses are courses that can be chosen by students according to specialization: educational leadership, teyl, or linguistic. the classification can be seen in table 3. the third step in inter-syllabi analysis was seeking similarity in each course goal from each small group in required course group and optional course group to find connection between them. researcher rewrites course goals from each course and put them into the table. after that researcher look for the similarities in each small group and interpreting these goals into a single goal statement for each small group. the interpretation that was made by researcher to simplify the course goals which had been written in each syllabus can be seen in table 5. the purpose in this step is to simplify the goals which had been written in each courses. rewriting each of these goal into a single goal based on the course groups will help to find connection between each course easier. after simplifying course goals from each syllabus, the researcher tried to find out whether these goals were reflecting three mission statements. if these goals were reflected the three mission statements, then they also reflected the vision, and core values. again, they must be seen as a system not as a separate or individual part. these attempts were described in table 5. based on the simplified goals from each small group, the researcher tried to find their connection with the mission statement of mpbi. if description of the goal covertly stated for social responsibility and/or passion for humanity, then the goal reflected the first mission statement. if the goal description covertly stated for skills, either in teaching or education then the goal reflected the second mission statement. and if the goal description covertly stated for “scientific thinking skills” (ability to formulate problems, analyzing the problems, and the ability to make decisions responsibly) then the goal reflected the third mission statement. table 5. simplified course goals based on the course group 64 curriculum analysis of mpbi from table 6, we can see that not all description of course goal from each small group reflected all the three mission statements. but since vision and mission is a system, then we can assume that all course goals, when also be seen as a system, supported each other to fulfill all the three missions and therefore fulfilling the vision and in either way they also reflected the core values. table 6 connections of goal of courses with vision and mission figure 7. value sharing model in mpbi 65 curriculum analysis of mpbi the figure above explained how core values of mpbi are formed and shared to each of its members. sources of values are from ideology, organization, leaders, and personal experiences. one interesting fact can be seen from ideology, in which we can see that government ideology (and policy, as one of its forms) is accepted and enculturated with institution’s ideology. meaning that nationalism is accepted and acculturated altogether with “catholic” and “catholic” values in institution. the researcher adds personal experiences as one of the source of values since personal experiences of the people other than institutions’ leader are also forming the core values of institution. the researcher also adds internalization as one of the key processes in forming the core values. there are two steps of internalization. internalization 1 happened when lecturers internalize their personal values with core values of the institution, forming core values through passion and experiences, since all lecturers begin with their own passion in their own field, bringing these passions together with their own personal values and at same time they also bring their commitment and care in accomplishing their goals. while internalization 2 happened when lecturers tried to share what they have learned, either in daily activities, syllabus writing, and classroom activities. the phrase “syllabus writing” are written in italic because in this research we seek how the lecturers are translating the core values, vision, and mission into their syllabus. in syllabus writing processes, lecturers tried to share what they have achieved and internalized to their students through the concept they write in syllabus about activities in class, attendances and assignments, description in the course objectives, and also through rules and commitment required in the course. they also added their own personal style in these processes of writing. there are also influences from nature of the course itself, also vision and mission statements, which in turn will make syllabi unique. in target and feedback, researcher only contextualized the contents according to the results of document analysis and triangulation. the ant analysis. these simple analyses were done to identify and describe human and non-human actors in the map of network that has been explained before. from figure 7, the researcher categorized items described in network into 66 curriculum analysis of mpbi human and non-human actors. the categorization based on these criteria was decided by the researcher. human actors are items that are done by humans, while nonhuman actors are items that are not done by humans but moved the human actors externally. in short, based on these categorizations, there are 12 non-human actors and 43 human actors found, indicating that the human actors are more dominant in the process of formation and transfer of values. the precise role of nonhuman actors lies in the way they affect in internalization processes. as source of values they shape lecturers’ experiences and perception so that lecturers are helped to find their own passion, while in feedback they exist in form of students’ score exam, which can be used as an evaluation material. these evaluation materials will then reshape their passion so that they can give better service to students. these analyses also show that human actors hold more dominant role in the process of forming and transferring values. all lecturers that have been interviewed said either directly or indirectly that they all begin with passion, or enthusiasm. these enthusiasms when blended with experiences (to have full experiences there must be commitment and care in it) will be fruitful. as long as lecturers have their passions, internalization processes will run well, since passion also drive them to have the full experiences. the next question that is probably out of context but important is, “as most difficult values to detect in syllabi is enthusiasm, what can be done to keep lecturers maintain their passion?”. to answer this question probably we can see again in source of values. human actors stated there are “catholic” and “catholic” values (ideology, one actor); daily campus activities, classroom experiences, issues in students and teachers (organization, four actors); personal values (leader, nineteen actors); also, personal method and approach (personal experiences, seven actors). from these actors which mostly came from personal values, indicating that personal values hold most dominant actors in keeping the passion. even though the other actors hold the same or more influences but from the number of actors when accumulated still personal values hold most dominant influence. so as long as the lecturers had their personal values keep, it will be most helping in keeping the passion, since everything is begin with passion. conclusion and suggestion conclusion regarding the first research question, syllabi were reflecting core values, vision and mission statements of mpbi, with several notes. first, lecturers had undergone internalization processes in creating syllabi since values are stated implicitly, not explicitly. second, easiest value to reflect is commitment while the most difficult to reflect is enthusiasm. lecturers also have their own personal values to be shared with students in course. third, syllabi were reflected on all three missions but with different emphasis since this was influenced by nature of the course and the writing style of the lecturers. regarding second research question, researcher found four ways that lecturers usually used to deliver values: activities in classroom, attendances and assignments, description in course objective, and written rules and commitment required in course. besides these four, lecturers also add their own unique ways to deliver values in 67 curriculum analysis of mpbi classroom. furthermore, since not all courses reflected all three missions in same emphasis then the syllabus should be seen as a part of a big system of curriculum, not as a single separated unit of course. finally, all courses are crystallized in teaching practice course (in the form of practical) and thesis writing (in the form of theoretical). suggestions first, lecturers tend to state core values implicitly in syllabi analyzed by the researcher. according to lecturer a, this is because in previous format (syllabi which became material to be analyzed), there were no strict guidelines/rules which require lecturers to explicitly write certain values (especially core values) into their syllabi. as for later development, lecturers are required to explicitly express a certain value in their course syllabi. the researcher thinks that it is a positive habit for lecturers to start expressing the value they want to share explicitly in the syllabi, because it will help them to regularly reflect whether value they want to share is really understood by students. these reflections can happen when lecturers read students’ assignment, so this approach can be an alternative approach for lecturers to understand the students’ needs and internalize values they want to share – which values should be given more emphasis and which values should be less emphasized in the learning process. it can also be a helpful guide for students when they read course syllabi. they can easily identify what kind of values will be transferred to them through the process in classroom later. researcher also analyzed structure of each syllabus and group similar terms used in these syllabi, coloring similar terms with same color, resulting in general structure of mpbi syllabus, as follows: table 7. general syllabus structure of mpbi 2 curriculum analysis of mpbi there are possibilities that lecturers are referring to this general structure, intentionally or unintentionally. second, not all core values can be revealed through document analysis and interview processes. there are opportunities in researching further about same topic in scope of the enacted curriculum. third, internalization processes should always be maintained by lecturers since this was the core processes in forming and sharing values. this can be done by, first, keeping the enthusiasm by always checking whether personal values are still in line with core values, vision, and mission statements; since the good internalization processes begins with passion (enthusiasm); and second, sharing thoughts and feelings regarding their daily activities and teachinglearning processes to their colleagues. references abelman, r., & dalessandro, a. (2008). an assessment of the institutional vision of catholic colleges and universities. catholic education: a journal of inquiry and practice, 12(2), 221–254. curran, c. e. (1997). the catholic identity of catholic institutions. theological studies, 58(1), 90–108. https://doi.org/10.1177/004056399705800 106 edwards, r. (2012). translating the prescribed into the enacted curriculum in college and school. in t. fenwick & r. edwards (eds.), researching education through actor-network theory (pp. 23–39). chichester: wiley. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/978 1118275825.ch2 fenwick, t., & edwards, r. (2010). actornetwork theory in education. taylor & francis. retrieved from https://books.google.co.id/books?id=pvgtc gaaqbaj glatthorn, a. a., boschee, f., & whitehead, b. m. (2009). curriculum leadership: strategies for development and implementation. sage. retrieved from https://books.google.co.id/books?id=4jwz gawfyc0c goethals, g. r., sorenson, d. g. l., & burns, j. m. (2004). encyclopedia of leadership 4 vol. set. thousand oaks: sage publications, inc. retrieved from http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5= 2d577a642e1e22264a06f63b5109a884 haryatmoko sj, j. (2014). core values universitas katolik widya mandala dan antusiasme dalam tugas. surabaya: universitas katolik widya mandala. hood, m. (2009). case study. in j. heigham & r. a. crocker (eds.), qualitative research in applied linguistics (pp. 66–90). basingstoke: palgrave macmillanuk. https://doi.org/10.1093/ elt/ccr053 latour, b. (2005). reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network-theory (illustrate). new york: oxford university press. retrieved from http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5= 1c42f6386197bfa5fddabab7f67c61 77 law, j. (2009). actor network theory and material semiotics. in b. s. turner (ed.), the new blackwell companion to social theory (pp. 141–158). wiley. retrieved from https://books.google.co.id/books?hl=en&lr =&id=ku51gzc6fwcc&oi=fnd&pg=pa 141&dq=law,+j.+(2009).+actor+networ k+theory+and+material+semiotics&ots= rzbzrn5b9v&sig=1bgc4gbkvsrtuye4f ovpahzenw8&redir_esc=y#v=onepage& q&f=false murphy, j. p. (1991). visions and values in catholic higher education. sheed & ward. retrieved from https://books.google.co.id/books?id=r4mf aaaamaaj nagy, l. (2006). moral challenge for catholic universities. retrieved from http://rocateo.ubbcluj.ro/studia/st_nagy_2 006_2.pdf profile of mpbi. (2016). retrieved june 11, 2018, from http://ukwms.ac.id/ akademik/ pasca-sarjana/magister-pendidikan-bahasainggris/ profile of ukwms. (2016). retrieved june 11, 2018, from http://ukwms.ac.id/ tentangkami/ senat akademik universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya. (2011a). budaya korporasi.pdf. surabaya: universitas katolik widya mandala. senat akademik universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya. (2011b). kode etik & kode perilaku. 69 curriculum analysis of mpbi about the author: antonius cahyono tondoprasetyo, m.pd. got his master’s degree from the english education department, the graduate school, widya mandala surabaya catholic university in 2018. he has been teaching at sma katolik santo hendrikus surabaya from 2015-2019; the first two years as a computer teacher, the next two years teaching as a character/guidance and counseling teacher for one and a half years. from 2019 up to the present, he has been assigned as an educational staff in general affair department "public relations team" as an "assistant for facilities" 123 cooperative learning for project work cooperative learning: a foundation for project work meng huat chau chaumenghuat@um.edu.my universiti malaya malaysia & george m jacobs george.jacobs@gmail.com international association for the study of cooperation in education singapore article history submited: 22-09-2021 reviewed: 05-11-2021 revised: 21-11-2021 accepted: 21-11-2021 keywords: cooperative learning, project work, anthropocene, everyone can explain, summer, friendly spy doi https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i2.3426 abstract this article has one theme and two parts. the theme is that we humans can do more and do it more enjoyably when we cooperate. the first part of the article explains eight principles from cooperative learning, a methodology that facilitates students learning in groups of two-four members, along with the learning they do with teachers and by studying on their own. the second part describes four cooperative learning techniques, as a way to bring to life the eight principles from the first part, and also to provide readers of the article with ready-made ideas for using cooperative learning in their own teaching. this article suggests that shorter cooperative learning activities can prepare students for doing projects, and that students can do shorter cooperative learning activities as part of the work they do on projects. introduction cooperation is all around us. in today’s world, we could not survive without it. here are just a few examples. the laptops the authors of this article used to write it, the food we ate while writing it, the badminton racquets we used to take a break from writing, all the works written by others in the reference list of this article, and all the learning we did while experiencing and observing cooperative learning in action. for all of that, we need to thank others. plus, the examples above represent just a tiny drop in the sea of cooperation in which we swim on a daily basis. in the third decade of the 21st century, is cooperation becoming more or less important in our lives? we can debate that question, but certainly cooperation takes new forms in this century. for example, so much cooperation now takes place virtually, and probably we cooperate more than we did before with machines, such as robots and examples of the internet of things (gul et al., 2021). the problems we face, such as climate catastrophe, pandemics, and other matters represented in the united nations sustainable development goals (silva, 2021) appear to be becoming more complex, demanding more mailto:chaumenghuat@um.edu.my mailto:george.jacobs@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i2.3426 124 cooperative learning for project work cooperation; yet, on some levels, people appear to be becoming more combative and less cooperative. the main point here is that cooperation has always been important for us humans and remains vital today. fortunately, education bureaucracies, such as ministries of education, from preschool level to adult education, and even including geragogy (kern, 2018), recognize the value of engaging students in peer interaction along with teacher-fronted and individual learning. while the covid19 pandemic has made peer interaction more difficult, it has also forced students and teachers to learn new forms of cooperation (van heuvelen, 2020), forms which can be beneficial even when face-to-face returns to being the dominant learning mode. this article has one central theme: we humans (including students) can do more and do it more enjoyably when we cooperate. we first explain eight principles from cooperative learning, a methodology that facilitates students learning in groups of two-four members, along with the learning they do with teachers and by studying on their own. we then describe four cooperative learning techniques as a way to bring to life the eight principles from the first part, and also to provide readers of the article with ready-made ideas for using cooperative learning in their own teaching that engages students in doing project work, such as producing a class magazine or a series of posters on how to take care of the environment. cooperative learning facilitates cooperation while cooperation provides great value on cognitive, affective, and social planes (johnson & johnson, 2009), cooperation can be difficult to achieve. most often, just asking or assigning students to form groups for a project will not be enough to enable them to collaborate effectively with their groupmates. more needs to be done to provide an environment sufficient to facilitate studentstudent cooperation. fortunately, an extensive literature exists from which teachers can draw for ideas on how to facilitate successful projects and other group activities. cooperative learning techniques seek to embody four cooperative learning principles: positive interdependence, individual accountability, equal opportunity to participate, and maximum peer interactions. hundreds of cooperative learning techniques exist, and each can be varied in multiple ways. furthermore, students and teachers can create their own cooperative learning techniques and variations of their own techniques. all cooperative learning techniques are generic. that is, they can be used by students of different ages, in different countries, studying different subjects, including first and additional languages. in fact, communication plays a vital role in cooperation; thus, cooperative learning fits brilliantly with language learning. the next subsections of the current article present a number of cooperative learning techniques. some of these techniques can be done in as little as a few minutes; others might need an entire class period. students and teachers may need time to become adept at using particular techniques. therefore, it might be best to exercise patience and to use easy content the first-time students try out a new technique. 1. giving explanations everyone can explain cooperative learning for project work 125 everyone can explain is a fairly brief and easy to use cooperative learning technique that, as you might guess from the name of the technique, highlights giving explanations. the steps in everyone can explain are as follows. step 1 – students form themselves into groups of two, three, or four members. everyone in each group has a number, e.g., in a group of three, one member is #1, another is #2, and the third member is #3. step 2 – students have a task. first, they work alone. next, they share answers and attempt to agree both on the answers and on explanations for the answers. it is okay if they cannot agree on answers and/or explanations (perhaps multiple reasonable answers and explanations exist). step 3 – groups check that all group members can give and explain their group’s answers. perhaps, they can rehearse their responses, and groupmates can coach each other. step 4 – at the class level, a number is chosen at random, and the member in each group with that number may be requested to share their group’s answers and explanations with the teacher and the class. students and teachers give feedback; that feedback goes to the entire group not just to the randomly chosen person who spoke on behalf of the group. everyone can explain can be used in many contexts. for example, if a class already has a textbook, workbook, or worksheets, instead of students doing an exercise or activity from one of those materials alone, they can do it in groups via everyone can explain. pointers to keep in mind include: a. please remind students that explanations will be needed. the following story about the importance of explanations was told by professor david w johnson, a co-author of many, many publications on cooperative learning, at a workshop that one of the authors of this article attended. a psychologist at a mental hospital had been working with three patients for about a year, and they had made a lot a progress. so, she was planning to release them from the hospital and allow them to return home to their families. however, she wanted to make one more check to be sure the patients were really ready to be released. so, she called the three of them into her office, and she asked them, “please tell me what is 3 times 3?” the first patient said, “sure, i know. 3 times 3 is thursday.” the psychologist couldn’t believe it. she’d worked so hard with this patient, and now this! what had gone wrong? but, undaunted, she turned to the second patient and said, “you know what 3 times 3 is, don’t you?” “of course,” the patient replied, “3 times 3 is mangoes.” well, the psychologist threw up her hands in frustration. she was ready to tear up her diplomas, quit her comfortable, well-paid job, and set up a stall selling mangoes and mango juice. in desperation, she faced the third patient. with a pleading voice, she asked, “please, please, you know, i’m sure you do, what 3 times 3 is.” the reply came without a moment’s hesitation: “3 times 3 is 9.” the psychologist let out a huge sigh of relief. at least she wasn’t a total failure; one patient could be released. then, the psychologist had an idea. she’d get the third patient to explain to the other two how 3 times 3 equals 9, they’d understand, they could all be released, she’d be a success. however, when she asked the third patient to explain his answer, he said, “3 times 3 = 9 because thursday times mangoes = 9.” 126 cooperative learning for project work b. demonstrate how to give explanations for the types of questions the class will be doing. note: not everything in language can be explained, at least not easily. as halliday stated in an interview (thompson & collins, 2001, n.p.) in regard to the theory of systemic functional linguistics, of which he was the main developer, “i defend the complexity of the theory, because we are talking about a very complex phenomenon [language], and it doesn't help anyone if you pretend it's simple.” similarly, krashen (cited in srauss, 2012. n.p.), whose theory of second language acquisition revolutionized the field, asserted, “linguists have not even described the grammatical system of any language completely and many rules are forbiddingly complex, with numerous exceptions.” c. remind students that a group member will be selected at random to present on behalf of their group. thus, they may wish to help all group members to give and explain their group’s answer. d. some students wrongly believe that giving explanations is a one-way street, with all the benefits going from the giver of the explanations to the receivers, with the givers just wasting their precious time. students should know about the research by webb and her colleagues (2009) about the many benefits enjoyed by those who give explanation. as seneca, a philosopher from more that 2000 years ago, is believed to have said, “those who teach learn twice.” teachers see the truth of seneca’s statement for themselves every day. e. project work thrives on explanations. for instance, when groups discuss how to go about their projects, these discussions can be more fruitful when group members provide reasons to support their suggestions. 2. changing roles summer summer (hythecker et al., 1988) presents one cooperative learning technique in which students rotate roles. summer focuses on students’ reading and thinking skills. students do this technique in dyads (groups of two), and each student has the same reading text which has been divided into sections. the steps are spelled out in the letters of summer. set the mood: students form dyads that are heterogeneous as to their current reading level. instead of starting to read straight away, they first “set the mood” by establishing a relaxed, yet purposeful mood. to do this, perhaps they engage in a casual chat, for example, asking about what they ate at their most recent meal. next, they check that each understands the steps in summer, bearing in mind that it may take a couple times for students to become comfortable with the summer process. understand by reading silently: the two students each have the same text that has been divided into sections. students might have found this text or teachers might have found or written it, or it could be from a textbook. the dyad members each silently read the same section of the text. mention the main ideas: without looking back at the text, a member of the pair mentions (i.e., states) the main points in the section. they do not look at the text because looking at the text might cause them to read from the text. remember please – we want only the key points, not a repeat or a paraphrase; we want a summary. summaries are much shorter than paraphrases. monitor the summary: as one partner is summarizing the section while not looking at it, their partner is looking and monitoring the summary for length and accuracy. typically, students’ summaries are too long. elaborate–in the m and m steps above, students identified the central points in the section; now, they take turns to elaborate on cooperative learning for project work 127 these key points. among the many means of elaborating are: • connecting the ideas in the summary to what students studied previously • associating the ideas with students’ lives in and out of school • suggesting additional information that is relevant to the main ideas • stating agreement or disagreement with the main ideas • reacting with happiness, sadness, surprise, and/or hope to the main ideas • applying the main ideas • reporting questions that came to mind, either questions about what was not clear or questions that go beyond the main ideas (e.g., hypothetical questions or questions about the future).it should be noted that not every type of elaboration needs to be done for every section of the text. next, the dyad does the u, m, m, and e steps for the remaining sections of the text. here, roles rotate. the dyad member who did the first m for the first section does the second m for the second section, on and on, and they both take turns to do elaborations of various types for each section. review the entire text: after completing every section of the text using the u, m, m, and e steps, now, the dyad summarizes the central ideas in the entire text. again, they take turns to contribute to this overall summary. thus, yet again, everyone has an equal opportunity to participate. pointers when doing cooperative learning a. “equal opportunity to participate” does not always mean “equal participation.” for example, maybe the member of the dyad with higher past achievement will speak a bit more in order to explain vocabulary, background information, how to summarize, and how to elaborate. no worries. b. teachers can prepare students to succeed by scaffolding (wood, bruner, & ross, 1976) for them. scaffolding means providing help, but gradually removing that help as students become more and more capable of performing tasks on their own. ways to scaffold in summer include teaching summarizing and elaborating, demonstrating how to do the summer script, and making the text easier, perhaps by pre-teaching vocabulary and/or concepts. c. students do a little chit chat in the s (set the mood) step in summer. this chat might seem to be off-task behavior, but teachers should consider whether we too engage in some casual conversation before beginning to work with our own peers, our fellow teachers. perhaps, chatting can be a kind of team building activity. d. research on summer brought out an important point about how cooperative learning can work (hythecker et al., 1988). in this research, when students read using the summer script, their recall of the text, both immediately after reading as well as three weeks later, was better than that of students who had read the text alone. that was no surprise, but what was especially pleasantly surprising was what happened next. students who had learned with a partner to use summer continued to have high scores even when they read alone, as long as they continued to read via the script. this suggests that skills learned in a group can be applied when performing alone. thus, not only can teachers scaffold for students; peers can scaffold for each other. this refutes one criticism of cooperative learning: “why should students study together for exams, when they have to take those exams alone? studying together will make students dependent on others. instead, students should always study alone so that they can be strong enough to succeed on their own.” e. when reading in preparation for their projects, students may wish to use the 128 cooperative learning for project work summer script both when reading alone as well as when reading with groupmates. 3. benefiting from heterogeneous groups another cooperative learning principle is heterogeneous grouping, the idea that group membership should reflect the diversity that exists in the class overall. students differ in so many ways including sex, social class, personality, race, religion, nationality, and multiple intelligence profile. let us briefly discuss multiple intelligence profile (christisen & kennedy, 1999; gardner, 1993). the idea is that humans have many intelligences, not just the intelligence measured on an iq test, and that we can improve in all those intelligences. unfortunately, many education institutions focus on only two forms of intelligence; this narrowness deprives students of opportunities to excel, develop, and teach others. furthermore, when students learn in groups, status hierarchies often form (cohen & lotan, 2014). for example, in a language class, group members best at the language being studied in that class are likely to be the stars of the group, the ones helping others. in contrast, the lower achievers are likely to be the ones receiving help. such an unbalanced situation may lead to an unpleasant dynamic within the group. fortunately, using tasks requiring a range of intelligences, not just what gardner called verbal/linguistic intelligence, gives more group members opportunities to shine in the group interactions. projects often involve a range of intelligences, such as doing calculations to provide statistics support for the group’s views, creating visuals, doing skits to dramatize the group’s ideas, and encouraging introspection in order that classmates connect the issues embodied in the project to their own lives and beliefs. one example of a cooperative learning technique that goes beyond using language skills to include visual skills is mindmap– pair–switch. mindmaps (buzan, 2003) provide visual representations of ideas, with a central idea in the middle of the mindmap and connected drawings, showing related ideas. here are the steps in the cooperative learning technique. step 1 – students work alone to create a mindmap on a topic. each member of the foursome has a number: #1, #2, #3, or #4. step 2 – members of the foursome form pairs to show and discuss their mindmaps and can amend their maps based on those discussions. step 3 – students switch partners. for example, if students #1 and #2 collaborated in step 2, in step 3, #1 and #3 can now be partners, with #2 and #4 partnering. the new dyads share about their own and their previous partner’s mindmaps. pointers when doing mindmap–pairswitch one more step can be added to mindmap-pair-switch, and many other cooperative learning techniques, in which the pairs switch back and discuss with their original partner. indeed, cooperative learning techniques can be very flexible. please remember the cooperative learning principle of maximum peer interactions. the goal lies in having many peer interactions (maximum quantity of peer interactions), and a great deal of thinking (maximum quality of peer interactions). among the many other possible variations to mindmap–pair–switch could be changing the first step. for instance, instead of doing a mindmap, students could write, think, or dramatize. the last step also offers opportunities for variation. instead of switch, students could square (i.e., the two pairs could combine into a foursome), or share (i.e., a student could be selected at random to share with class about their discussion in the pair step), remembering that this cooperative learning for project work 129 sharing should include their partner’s ideas and the ideas explored, developed, and agreed and disagreed about with their partner. the sharing should not focus exclusively on the thoughts of the student who is speaking. the story behind how we learned about the switch component reminds teachers to look to their students for ideas and to look for the value in what at first might seem to be a mistake. one of the authors was teaching cooperative learning to teachers in a class that met once a week for ten weeks. after weeks 1-9, teachers were encouraged to try out ideas from class and report back the next week. at one class, we used write-pairsquare, and the next week, a teacher recounted that a group of her students had done the technique “wrongly.” the pairs did not join together to form a foursome, rather they switched partners inside the foursome (i.e., they switched partners). fortunately, this open-minded teacher did not criticize the students for not paying strict attention to her directions. she instead saw the good in the students’ actions. the rest of the class of teachers agreed, and we named this creation “write-pair-switch.” that teacher’s mistake-to-good-idea process perhaps resembles what occurred in fleming’s serendipitous discovery of penicillin (letek, 2020) and saved untold numbers of lives. to be honest, it would not be surprising at all if other students and teachers had previously invented something just like write-pair-switch, although probably not with the same name, or maybe even with no name at all. the point is: we do not have to wait to see an idea in a book or journal article before trying it. returning to the theme of this section of the article, heterogeneous grouping can benefit projects in many ways. heterogeneity brings different perspectives, different experiences to groups’ work on their projects. also, heterogeneity brings different talents, not just language skills. just as we hope students with language skills will scaffold in order to boost their peers’ language abilities, so too do we hope students with, for example, drawing skills will scaffold in order to boost their peers’ drawing skills, so that they can do mindmaps and other visuals that make their groups’ projects more appealing, persuasive, and memorable. 4. promoting group autonomy another cooperative learning principle is group autonomy. the principle calls on students to look to their peers as the first option when they need help, saving teachers as the last resort. this principle presents a challenge for many students who have become accustomed to teacher centered instruction and who have little confidence in their peers’ ability to provide useful assistance. such a perspective hampers students’ development into lifelong learners. after all, teachers cannot follow students around for the rest of students’ lives, and a key objective of projects is to prepare students to learn and do with peers during their careers and in other aspects of their lives. what can teachers do to change the mentality that leads students to be so dependent on teachers? first, teachers should reject the temptation to intervene when groups show any little sign of trouble. instead, the slogan “three before me” might be useful: that is, students should first ask assistance from their three groupmates before turning to teachers. second, teachers need to scaffold for students so that they really do become capable of providing each other with valuable help. for example, if presentations constitute part of projects, teachers can demonstrate how to do effective presentations and provide a checklist for the characteristics that make a presentation successful. students can then 130 cooperative learning for project work use this checklist to provide peer and selffeedback. friendly spy is a cooperative learning technique that provides students with opportunities to give each other feedback and to learn from the good and not-so-good in other groups’ developing projects. spies try to find out what others are doing and then use that information to defeat those others. however, friendly spies are cooperative, not competitive. the steps in friendly spy go like this. step 1 – after students have been working for a while on their projects, one member from each group is chosen randomly to become that group’s friendly spy. the spy’s task is twofold: one, to visit one or more other groups to find out what that group is doing for their project and how they are doing it. step 2 – the second part of the spy’s task involves offering advice on how the other group might do their project better. this is one place where the teacher’s scaffolding (e.g., checklist) could be useful. step 3 – the spy returns to their home group and shares any useful ideas learned from the group they visited. pointers when doing friendly spy a. students often spend a great deal of time with the same groupmates, and that time together has many potential benefits, including forming deeper ties, coming to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses as well as likes and dislikes, plus working out problems that stand in the way of more effective interactions (deitrick, 2019). at the same time, it can be refreshing to interact with other classmates from time to time. friendly spy provides opportunities to do that. b. 7s (jacobs & zainal abiden, 2017) is another cooperative learning technique that gives students chances to interact with people from other groups. the steps in 7s go as follows. s1 – stand – students stand up. green (et al., 2021) reported that too much sitting may not be conducive to learning. s2 – slide students slide their chair under their table in order to provide more space for the later steps in 7s. of course, some students do not have the furniture for sliding. no worries. s3 – stretch – students have probably been sitting for a while; thus, they might benefit from some stretching. s4 sip – students drink from their water bottles. hecht (et al., 2017) found that increased water consumption can aid learning. s5 – stir – students walk around the room alone, not with their group members. in this way, group membership is “stirred up.” s6 – stop – when someone gives the signal, everyone stops walking. s7 – speak – students form a twosome with a nearby student from a different group and has a discussion. time limits can be used to encourage equal opportunity to participate (e.g., one person has the floor for the first two minutes) and then, their new partner is the main speaker for the next two minutes. afterwards, students can return to their original groups, or they can stir again. conclusion a project as a noun in the education context is usually a piece of multifaceted work done by a group of students over a period of time. project as a verb can mean to look into the future. the point of this article has been to project (verb) how projects (noun) can become more effective and satisfying for students, teachers, and others by the use of principles from the cooperative learning literature. eight such principles were explained, and four cooperative learning techniques cooperative learning for project work 131 were described, along with suggestions for variations on these techniques. one projection that can be made with great certainty is that students and all the other approximately eight billion human inhabitants of our decreasingly habitable planet will increasingly need to bring our talents and energies together on a wide range of projects so as to better cooperate for a better future. scientists have called our current geological age the anthropocene (wolff, 2020), because humans (anthro) now are the main force shaping our planet, and as spiderman’s uncle ben told him (cronin, 2015, n.p.), “with great power comes great responsibility.” learning how to do projects cooperatively allows students to project their great and developing responsibility for the ecological community, including our fellow animals and future generations. 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(1976). the role of tutoring in problem solving. journal of child psychology and psychiatry, 17(2), 89-100. authors’ bio meng huat chau, ph.d. began his career as an english language teacher and has taught students across all levels at different schools and institutions before he joined universiti malaya in 2010. among his favorite topics in language education are student and teacher agency. he has a feeling that beyond words is going to be one of his favorite journals soon. george m. jacobs, ph.d. has many years’ experience teaching language and education to students from many countries and sharing about his teaching with fellow educators. among his favorite topics are student-centered education, language variation, and humane education. he has more than 300 publications, and his favorite journal is beyond words. https://doi.org/10.1080/03601277.2018.1475123 https://doi.org/10.1080/03601277.2018.1475123 https://doi.org/10.1080/2157930x.2020.1807100 https://doi.org/10.1080/2157930x.2020.1807100 https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-wrong-and-right-way-to-learn-a-foreign-language/2012/06/16/gjqak2xbhv_blog.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-wrong-and-right-way-to-learn-a-foreign-language/2012/06/16/gjqak2xbhv_blog.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-wrong-and-right-way-to-learn-a-foreign-language/2012/06/16/gjqak2xbhv_blog.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-wrong-and-right-way-to-learn-a-foreign-language/2012/06/16/gjqak2xbhv_blog.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-wrong-and-right-way-to-learn-a-foreign-language/2012/06/16/gjqak2xbhv_blog.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-wrong-and-right-way-to-learn-a-foreign-language/2012/06/16/gjqak2xbhv_blog.html https://www.scielo.br/j/delta/a/m5zbm4mtfxbtzd4wx8jx5fq/?lang=en https://www.scielo.br/j/delta/a/m5zbm4mtfxbtzd4wx8jx5fq/?lang=en https://www.scielo.br/j/delta/a/m5zbm4mtfxbtzd4wx8jx5fq/?lang=en https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00691 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00691 https://doi.org/10.3390/ becoming community-engaged educators 145 beyond words vol. 10 no.2 november 2022 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya “becoming community-engaged educators: engaging students within and beyond the classroom walls” siti mina tamah mina@ukwms.com department of english education graduate school widya mandala surabaya catholic university surabaya, indonesia article history abstract submitted: 30/09/2022 reviewed:30/10/2022 accepted: 3/11/2022 keywords: book review, communityengaged educators doi https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i2.4232 the book under review is a compilation of reflective writings from seven great educators. this book is worth reading since each educator has included some reflection questions to complement the life narrative they joyfully share. it not only tells stories, but it also prompts my own contemplation. my own reflection has brought about a three-sentence plea: “when teachers teach and students learn, it is just a classroom. when teachers teach and both teachers and students learn, the classroom becomes alive. yet, when teachers teach and communities are engaged, the classroom is truly revived”. anita lie focuses on poverty lessening while joel jablon tells how he becomes a ‘radically open’ person. yoshi grote highlights the quality of being an admiring teacher. the necessity for religion tolerance is highlighted in lisa liss’ story. linda ruas shares her love to a wider community of untrained volunteer teachers while kip cates provides a gentle reminder for environmental education. george jacobs introduces quite a current issue on how he implements intersectionality as a life understanding method. if you are seeking for models of life to investigate professional ways to engage communities in order to renew the life you live, this book is not to be missed. introduction published by springer in 2022, the book under-review is entitled “becoming community-engaged educators: engaging students within and beyond the classroom walls.” george m. jacobs and graham v. crookes are the editors of this 86-page book. the edited book under review has compiled reflective writings from seven big people to be more specific, seven educators. the chosen educators have portrayed their own simple but wonderful life stories. i have pleasantly got the opportunity to implement what bakhtin (1981 in yumarnamto, 2016) mailto:mina@ukwms.com https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i2.4232 146 becoming community-engaged educators offers as a framework of understanding experience in terms of unending dialogues. my humanistic experience after reading it is then mediated by reflection which subsequently results in my thinking about a revitalized life − new prerequisite for an educator to make it come true. as my own reflection resulting “an outcome specified regarding learning, action or clarification” (moon, 2007, p.192), i have since arrived with the following entreaties after relishing the book: when teachers teach and students learn, it is just a classroom. when teachers teach and both teachers and students learn, the classroom becomes alive. yet, when teachers teach and communities are engaged, the classroom is truly revived.. the book content ideas for what community-engaged educators can do to lessen poverty are highlighted in anita lie’s story. the empathy this inspiring professor forms while attending an urban primary school remains in her heart and influences her actions up to the present day. voicing out her ideas through the national media on behalf of education reform and how to alleviate poverty for those less privileged has been a key concern for her − a genuine model of engaging community from a humble indonesian educator who has travelled to many parts of the country to work on professional development projects for less privileged teachers. what wisdom she owns with the following success indicator: “my indicator of success in such projects is that when i leave them, they can continue the program on their own.” following the call out of education reform by anita lie, it is the racism wounds that teach joel jablon to be a ‘radically open’ person. he reappraises one of his favorite books to kill a mockingbird, a life-improving book teaching him to develop his career as a teacher in ceasing the severe wounds of those affected. having been honored as a white upper-middle class person in the usa, he has imagined how he could become the defending white lawyer in his much loved book. well, instead of doing exactly what the white lawyer does to protect a black client from racism which dates back to enslavement, and which bowser (2017) points out as something intergenerational and cultural, he finds a way of how he can contribute himself to positively account for the merits implied in the book. one radical openness revealed is his enthusiasm to listen to others with different views about the book. joel's teaching has expanded beyond the classroom by being a good listener and tolerating a variety of opinions on challenging issues. the quality of being an admiring teacher is what yoshi grote portrays. she recounts the three lessons from her former great teachers: “the best teachers are authentic. the classroom is the world. teaching is political.” yoshi's resolution to leave her hiding place as a lesbian is a turning point in the chapter. she eventually ceases hiding. a bit radical openness has been revealed. yoshi lets her students know who she is. she even lets her inquisitive students put herself as a resource of one life reality. furthermore, she involuntarily becomes a role model for anyone who is confined in alienation, a classic exemplar for those feeling outside the norm in any way. there are many people out there who feel cornered because they lack what society sees as something that is abnormal. as a lesbian herself, she ventured openly to being a source of information. the quotes of paulo freire “i cannot be a teacher without exposing who i am.” she asserts right in the opening section in her story seems to be drive for her leaving inauthenticity to follow the path of her former teachers to become, indirectly, a trustworthy one. what about engaging community for the issue of religion intolerance? it is lisa liss’ life story highlighting this issue. growing up in a small town in rural texas, usa, a place where everyone practices the same religion, becoming community-engaged educators 147 lisa liss has been surrounded by intolerance issues. even worse, lisa’s dad adopts a tough form of intolerance. her journey begins to alter direction when lisa’s family move to a big city for her primary school. it is here where she meets people from many backgrounds. her eyes are opened after communicating with people of various religions and cultures. she finds people with different religions and cultures in numerous books she reads in the school library. one particular coveted book, the diary of anne frank, has an extraordinary impression on her. it takes about 15 years for her wish to be one of anne’s followers to come true. “i knew somehow, some way, i had to help people respect others no matter how different their beliefs might be.” together with her students, lisa goes beyond the classroom walls. they show the world their tireless endeavors by performing many pro-tolerance activities. the most stunning success is when their dream to commemorate the killing of 1.5 million children of various religions in the holocaust comes true. an 11 year-long bandage project to collect 1.5 million bandages is realized on, supposed to be, anne’s 90th birthday. another example of a community-engaged educator taking her students beyond the classroom life to the revitalized life. an academic-oriented community service is the side activity of linda ruas. it is where linda puts her life story as she volunteers to be a member of a prominent association of language teachers, i.e. international association of teachers of english as a foreign language (iatefl). she is engaged with students from privileged community who prepare their children for academic achievement well, and − yes, her luck − her students can learn english by themselves. the turning point during her teaching career starts when she gets assigned to educate refugees in the united kingdom. unfortunately these students have much less privileged backgrounds and unlike her earlier students, these students are much weaker academically. besides, these students are dealing with visa issues affected by their uncertain visa status. linda's teaching in greece's and france’s refugee camps is even more difficult. the teaching experience with less privileged students has made her realize not only to accomplish so much in classrooms but also to go beyond … to the wider community of teachers to look towards making changes more on the instructional system. this is where linda's iatefl work comes into play heading for more stirring activities for a wider community of mostly untrained volunteer teachers. environmental issues beyond the classroom wall. is it accountable? this is the focus of kip cates’ story. teacher organization, a similar one as in the story of linda’s, is another driving force for kip who has been engaged both in international and local teacher organizations: teachers of english to speakers of other languages and the japan association for language teaching. influenced by his childhood and his family background with a forestry area in western canada, kip’s has included environmental education in his language teaching. in a more academic setting, he is influenced by his physics teacher who conscientiously shows support for the environment by his works in newspapers and elsewhere in the media. conformity has been around him since his early teaching career. this restriction does not, by chance, last long as he spends the majority of his teaching career at a very different institution that appraises teacher autonomy treating teachers as professionals and providing them freedom to design their own teaching. kip has plentifully taken use of this substantial freedom by incorporating environmental problems and other global challenges into his lectures through contentbased language teaching. making use of the benefits of e-newsletters, kip also generously offers resources with other instructors and with his graduate students attending his course. eventually, george jacobs, one of the book editors, takes the privilege to recount how he goes from being a vegetarian to being a lovely educator advocating farmed animals. he is quiet as he does not bring up his diet unless people ask him. he is an educator who uses his teaching skills in and out of the 148 becoming community-engaged educators classroom to make farmed animals, such as chickens, fishes, and cows, equally important as human beings. as a farmed animal lover, he avoids repeating the idiom kill two birds with a stone. “instead, i sometimes make up new idioms, such as feed two birds with one bowl.” what cannot be missed in george’s story is the quite new issue of intersectionality. he introduces the issue on how he implements intersectionality as a method to, among others, link issues, e.g., connecting farmed animal issues to lgbtq issues, environmental issues, women’s issues, and the treatment of poor people. this connecting various progressive issues via intersectionality might probably have something in common with how studentcentered language teachers associate various student-centered methods, for instance, bonding extensive reading and cooperative learning. conclusion as each educator has inserted some reflective questions to accompany the life story they happily share, this book is remarkably valuable. not only does it present stories, it also invites ‘future responses’ as bakhtin (1981 in yumarnamto, 2016) puts it. the edited book has the phrase ‘within and beyond the classroom’ in the title. the stories from the chosen educators can actually be sequenced to approach what the title implies. the first four stories can then be rearranged to start with those stories revealing ‘within the classroom’ to ‘beyond the classroom’. despite this tiny flaw, the book is worth reading. if you are one of those people searching or looking for models of life you desire to follow and if you want to explore professional practices to engage community to revitalize the life you live, you must not miss this book. as michael jackson sang “heal the world. make it a better place, for you and for me, and the entire human race,” george m. jacobs & graham v. crookes, the book’s editors, hoped to do similarly via the educators’ words in “becoming communityengaged educators: engaging students within and beyond the classroom walls.” references bowser, b. p. (2017). racism: origin and theory. journal of black studies, 48(6) 572–590 doi: 10.1177/0021934717702135 journals.sagepub.com/home/jbs moon, j. (2007). getting the measure of reflection: considering matters of definition and depth. jouurnal of radiotherapy in practice, 6(4), 191-200. yumarnamto, m. (2016). indonesian english language teachers’ professional growth and changing identities: an autoethnography and narrative inquiry. a ph. d. thesis. indiana university, bloomington. culture and gender as the factors of influencing the language learner’s choice of strategies: a review of research 114 english language learners learning strategies beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) dusting tommy’s and grace’s portfolios: adocument analysis of l2 english learners’ language learning strategies jiun-iung lei sure54japhan@yahoo.com.tw departmentof applied foreign languages central taiwan university of science and technology taichung, taiwan, r.o.c. abstract this study intended to depict the process of l2 english learners’ strategy use by utilizing document analysis as a major method. i introduction n-depth interviews were conducted to corroborate the document analysis as a means of triangulation.the research question of this study was: what language learning strategies are being used by the participants of the study?two participants were purposely selected from the esl learners studying at the undergraduate and at the graduate level in an eastern us university.the data from the interviews and documents yielded major themes and case examples. keywords: language learning strategies, document analysis,triangulation a great deal of the previous studies haveutilized a quantitative approach to examine l2 english learners’ strategy use, especially using the strategy inventory of language learning (sill) survey (oxford, r. l., 1990).chen (2005) criticized that “strategy research only offers a partial picture out of a quantitative perspective” (p. 19).while self-report questionnaires have become the most important part of the lls research methodology,researchers cannot be certain that learners actually employ the strategies they claim to use(poole, 2005). as indicated by chamot (2004), learners might not remember what language learning strategies they actually used, but claim to use them. in addition, they might check a survey item whose written description is not comprehensible to them. similarly, lee (2000)pointed out that the method of questionnaires creates an attitude for participants to adopt because theytend to make an impression onresearchers. that causesthem to collect biased data. mailto:sure54japhan@yahoo.com.tw� english language learners learning strategies 115 recently, more and more researchers are aware of the need to use qualitative methods for a richer description of the employment of language learning strategies(griffiths&oxford, 2014).these qualitative methods might include interviews; think-aloud protocols, diaries, observation, and so on. nevertheless, few studies usedocument analysis as a method. at best, it is marginalizedas a supplement to other qualitative methods(ahmed, 2010).therefore, documental studies on language leaning strategy (lls) arescarce and urgently needed in order to include more process-oriented or qualitative studies of this nature. this study intended to delineate the process of l2 english learners’ strategy used by utilizingdocument analysis as a method.in-depth interviewswere conducted to corroborate the document analysis as a means of triangulation.hodder (1994)indicated that “texts can be used alongside other forms of evidence so that the particular biases of each can be understood and compared.” the specific research question designed was: what language learning strategies are being used by the participants of the study? it is structured as follows. the second section presents a literature review of document analysis as a research method. the third section offers the means by which the strategies are elicited and analyzed. the fourth section presents major themes and case examples. finally, the last section concludes the study. methods participants two esl learners participated in this research under the pseudonyms, tommy and grace. they were purposely selected from the esl learners studying at the undergraduate and at the graduate level in an eastern us university. given that international students at the university were required to meet its language requirements beforeadmission, their english competence was considered to be either at the intermediate or at the advanced english proficiency level. in order to select a suitable participant for this study, the researcher interviewed each of the possible candidates in english to check their level of english competence and willingness to participate in the study. as a result, the participants selected for the study were tommy and grace, two malaysian undergraduates at the university. tommy’s major is business and grace’s psychology. 116 english language learners learning strategies beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) document analysis document analysis is a systematic process in which eitherprinted or electronicdocuments are analyzed and evaluated (bowen, 2009). as indicated by gaborone (2006), documents are naturally-occurring written texts and not created for any research purposes.atkinson and coffey (2004) considered documents as a social fact because “they are produced, shared and used in socially organized ways” (p. 58). documentary data range from public records to private documents (schwandt, 2001). as noted by schwandt, the list of public records includes political and judicial reports, government documents, medial accounts, television scripts, yearbooks, minutes of meetings, and so on. in addition, private documentary sources cover medical history, letters, diaries, school records, personal journals, and memoirs, etc. ahmed (2010)argued that document analysis is commonly marginalized or once used, it merelyfunctionsas an additive to other research methods. as commented by mcculloch (2004), “a distinct lack of interest in the use of documents in educational and social research” has been observed in the recent years (p. 10).thus, documentary studies are scare and given little attention. however, its marginalization is not always the case. in fact, documentary-based studies enjoyed popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, as shown by the fact that many important studies were based on completely or partially on document analysis. as indicated by mcculloch (2004), several causes lead tothe marginalization of document analysis. first, there were so many documentary studies around by the 1960s that they became too familiar to be popular. as a result, many researchers turned to other research methods in that they appeared more novel and challenging. second, documentary studies used to offer the perspectives of social and political elites, rather than the ordinary people. that might cause the researchers who wanted to study common people to lose interests in this method. third, some researchers found documentary analysis boring for the reason that documents usually were in existence before their studies and might not be related to the issues that concerned them.owing to these, documentary studies are considered esoteric, dry, and narrow, and its marginalization seems irreversible. english language learners learning strategies 117 even if document analysis might be a marginalized method, some researchers still adhere to this method for the following reasons. as noted by jennifer (2002), researchers choose document analysis as a method because of the ontological position that documents are considered constituents of the society, through this method, traces of the social world could be found. naturally, texts, written records, or documents can be treated as proof of these ontological characteristics. for one thing, the use of document analysis is a practical decision, driven by the availability of data. for example, if a researcher intends to study a historical eventbut no living witnesses are found, document analysis might be the only available choice. furthermore, while document analysis might not be a mainstream method, some researchers still use it to triangulate other forms of data, considering that it might be advantageous in some ways. denscombe (2014)clarified that there are three advantages for document analysis. to begin with, a large amount of information is recorded in documents, and can be accessed easily and cheaply. second, document analysis is a cost-effective method on the grounds that documentary data is offered publicly and usually free of charge. third, documents are a source of data that is in existence permanently and open to inspection publicly. however, denscombe also cautioned us about their disadvantages in equal numbers. researchers may need to ensure whether documents are credible, especially those found in the internet. in addition, documents are usually produced for other purposes, so they are secondary data that are not directly related to researchers’ studies. what is more, documents do not represent objective reality because they are imbued with their producers’ interpretations.hence, with the disadvantages in mind, researchers need to assess whether the documents are authentic, credible, representative, and meaningful (gaborone, 2006) data collection. the data-collection of the study relied on two sources aiming to corroborate each other: documents and interviews. to start with, after getting the two l2 english learners’ informed consents, the researcher collected private documents from them. the documents included the notebooks for a statistics and for a biology class and the portfolios of an english writing course. after the documents were collected, the two l2 118 english language learners learning strategies beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) english learners were asked both open-ended and closed questions. most of the documents in the study came from tommy’s and grace’s portfolios prepared for the same course requirements which included their recollective narratives.in-depth interviews were conducted to corroborate the document analysis as a means of triangulation. the coding scheme. more than a dozen of classification systems emerged in the lls arena in the 1990s (rebecca l. oxford, 1994). the emergence of the classification schemes causes a major problem for lis studies because of “a lack of coherent, well accepted system for describing these strategies” (oxford, 1994, p.4). in fact, strategy classification is still one of the most controversial issues in the field of language learning strategies (griffiths & oxford, 2014). despite of the incoherence of strategy taxonomies, madhumathi, ramani, and prema(2014) stated that oxford’s (1990) inventory for language learning (sill) is “recognized as comprehensive and is a widely used instrument to assess the strategy use of second language learners “(p. 456). currently, many researchers world-wide regard the sill as the most comprehensive and widely-used tool to elicit language learning strategies (nisbet, tindall, & arroyo, 2005; tseng, 2011). besides, a large number of studies adopted the sill as an instrument to diagnose language learners’ strengths and weaknesses (nakatani, 2006). because the sill is a widely-recognized and well-tested system for identifying learners’ learning strategies, it would be unpractical for me to develop a coding scheme without using any system that already exists. therefore, a priori approach was adopted to identify the themes of the study. as pointed out by ryan and bernard (2003), priori themes could be formulated “from already agreed on professional definitions found in literature reviews; from local, commonsense constructs” (p. 88). in order to produce the themes regarding the learners’ strategies, i utilized the strategy inventory for language learning (oxford, r. l., 1990) as the coding schemebecause “there’s no point in reinventing the wheel” (bernard, 2011,p. 420). oxford’s (1990) revised version of the sill was used as a major reference for the decoding the data collected from my observation at the main library of the english language learners learning strategies 119 iup (see table 1). this version of the sill containing fifty items included six major categories of learning strategies: memory, cognitive, comprehension, metacognitive, affective and social strategies. furthermore, the six major strategies can be grouped into two classes: direct and indirect strategies. direct strategies refer to the behaviors related to direct use of the target language, while indirect strategies support language learning without using the language (ehrman & oxford, 1990). nevertheless, if additional strategies which were identified in document analysis and interviews, but were not accounted by oxford’s coding system were categorized and added to the list of strategies. table 1 strategy inventory for language learning (oxford, r. l., 1990) strategies class examples memory direct strategies grouping, imagery, rhyming, and structured reviewing cognitive direct strategies reasoning, summarizing, analyzing, and general practicing compensation direct strategies guessing meaning from the context, and using synonyms and gestures metacognitive indirect strategies paying attention, consciously searching for practice opportunities, playing for language tasks, self-evaluation, and monitoring affective indirect strategies anxiety reduction, self-encouragement, and self-reward social indirect strategies asking questions, cooperating with native speakers, and becoming culturally aware 120 english language learners learning strategies beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) findings and discussions emergent themes based on document analysis seven themes emerge in the document analysis. all of them could be labeled with sill taxonomies. the themes include three direct and four indirect strategies. the three direct strategies areall cognitive strategies, including“i watch english language tv shows spoken in english or go to movies spoken in english “, “i make summaries of information that i hear or read in english”, and“i write notes, messages, letters, or reports in english”. the four indirect strategies include two metacognitivestrategies,” i think about my progress in learning english” and“i notice my english mistakes and use that information to help me do better.”,and two social strategies,“i try to learn about the culture of english speakers”and“i ask for help from english speakers”. the following table illustrates the themes produced by the researcher. as indicated by the table, both tommy and grace employed seven language learning strategies and five of the same are exactly the same. in addition, theyutilized the same types of language learning strategies: metacognitive, cognitive and social ones. oxford (1989) listed task requirements as a factor of influencing the choice of language learning strategies.sincemost table 2 the types of language strategies used by tommy and grace tommy’s strategies grace’s strategies i think about my progress in learning english. i think about my progress in learning english. i notice my english mistakes and use that information to help me do better. i notice my english mistakes and use that information to help me do better. i try to learn about the culture of english speakers. i try to learn about the culture of english speakers. i watch english language tv shows spoken in english or go to movies spoken in english. i watch english language tv shows spoken in english or go to movies spoken in english. i write notes, messages, letters, or reports in english. i write notes, messages, letters, or reports in english. i make summaries of information that i hear or read in english. i ask for help from english speakers. english language learners learning strategies 121 of the documents came from the two learners’portfolios preparedfor the same course requirements, they might utilize a similar set of strategies to complete their assignments. table 3 the subscales of the sill identified in tommy and grace memory strategies cognitive strategies compensation strategies metacognitive strategies affective strategies social strategies － ＋ － ＋ － ＋ furthermore, in the document analysis, all the language strategies used by the two learners were the sill ones. nevertheless, as shown by this table, the researcher could not detect any strategies from the three sill subscales: memory, compensation and affective strategies. since most of the documents come from the portfolios the learners prepared for a writing course, it was difficult to detect memory strategies which were usually employed to learn a new english word and to find compensation strategies which in the most cases were used in reading and conversation.besides, the affective strategieswere probably easier to be found in the learners’personal diaries and journals rather than in an academicportfolio graded by their teachers.in other words, the types of assessment might dictate the learners’ strategy use.as indicated by(oxford, 1996), types of assessmentwould influencethe elicitation of language learning strategies. tommy’s and grace’s portfolios included their recollective narrativessuch as reflective notesand narrative essays, which might not yield their currently used strategies.below are the case examplesof strategies used by the two l2 english learners. direct strategies case example 1. “i watch english language tv shows spoken in english or go to movies spoken in english “and “i make summaries of information that i hear or read in english” are two cognitive strategies listed in the sill. in the summary of a hollywood movie “last samurai” written by tommy, the researcher detected the use of the two language strategies by him. the following excerpt illustrates that tommy is capable of writing summaries ofinformation that he read, hear or watch in english: the movie was also about the war and battle between westerners and japanese culture and heritage which was passed down from their ancestors 200 years ago. the 122 english language learners learning strategies beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) movie’s plot was not accurately based on japanese history because the producer wanted to simplify the story of the movie. in this movie, you’re able to see how samurai fight during the battle and the spirit that carried by the samurai warriors. besides, this movie shows the materialization, civilization and the technology of the westerners during 19th century who tried to colonize japan for economic trading purposes as well as the natural resources. the whole idea of this movie is to show the viewer about the japanese culture and the spirit of samurai warriors. as shown by the feedbacks tommy’s instructor scribbled on one pageofthiswriting assignment, his english professor stated that tommy’s movie plot summary was too long and too detailed. nevertheless, in point of fact, by writing a movie summary for a class assignment, tommy had already employed this cognitive strategy to some extent even though its employment might be resulted from task requirements in class(oxford, 1989). in addition, as shown by the above excerpt, tommy had already utilized this cognitive strategy, watching english language tv shows spoken in english or going to movies spoken in english, in life. as indicated by hyland (2004), watching television is the most common way of improving english listening for l2 english learners when they are out of class. it is speculated that watching movies or television might have been a common activity for tom my. case example 2. under the sill subscale of the cognitive strategies is another strategy item “i write notes, messages, letters, or reports in english.” in tommy’s introductory essay written for his english 101 portfolio, he stated: this new portfolio is presented as a final work from a set of essays that i have written in the past three months. the collection of writing from the old portfolio is a set of essays which carries six different types of essay by using different writing skills; and the topics are related to my personal experiences and interests, and the titlesgiven by the professor. since tommy had already successfully fulfilled the course requirements, he actually used this cognitive strategy and knew how to use it. in addition to the english writing portfolio, i found a stack of notes tommy took for a basic statistics course. to my surprise, in this relatively thick stack of course notes around one english language learners learning strategies 123 hundred pages, tommy only used english to take notes. as indicated by this document, he indeed knew how to keep notes in english. taking the same required writing course as tommy did, grace also wrote six different essays and a letter to her instructor during the semester and got an a as her final grade. that indicated that she was also capable of employing this strategy. in addition, in the course notes she took for her biology course, all of the notes were written in english, illustrating her ability to take notes in english. based on the neatness of her note-taking, these notes may have taken by her in private, not in class. indirect strategies case example 3. “i think about my progress in learning english” is one item in the sill which belongs to the subscale metacognitivestrategies which are aimedto manage language learning processes(r. l. oxford, 2003). based on tommy’s portfolio he submitted for the english 101, college writing, i detected his use of this metacognitive strategy. following is one passage from his introduction to the english 101 portfolio illustrating the use of this strategy: the goals and the objectives were stated clearly in the course structure and i can see myself improving to become better gradually. except for writing and speaking abilities, the most important skills that i need to learn are reading skill and the ability to understand the english language. these skills are essential because they will help me capture the ideas and subject content in much efficient and effective ways for other subjects. in the introduction tommy wrote for his college writing course, he reflected on the gradual progress he made in the writing course after taking it for three months. in addition, he believed that these language skills were also important for being an efficient learner in other content areas. grace, who came to indiana university of pennsylvania(iup )one semester later than tommy and also took the same course, english writing 101, submitted a portfolio as her final work to the same instructor. she was also required by the instructor to write an introduction for her portfolio in which i identified the use of this sill strategy. she commented her progress in this writing class: as i read back to the first few papers i have written, i found out 124 english language learners learning strategies beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) my gradual improvement in writing skills. i have learned to develop ideas and give specific examples in order to let my audience understand my essay. the fact that the two esl learners used the same metacognitive strategy was likely caused by the similar task requirements given by the same instructor. case example 4. another sill metacognitive strategy item is “i notice my english mistakes and use that information to help me do better.” in the introduction passage written by tommy for his english 101 writing class, i identified his use of this metacognitive strategy: the tiles of the essays are “cross culture”, “magazine spread: vince carter’s signature shoes” and lastly “raw food diet”. there are three different skills required to write these essays. for “cross culture”, it is a narrative essay. this essay helps me detect my error that i often make such as verb, tense, past tense, present tense and subject verb agreement. as indicated by the documents provided by tommy, by writing the essays for the course and by getting the instructor’s feedbacks after the essays had been graded, the leaner was able to detect the errors he made such as subject-verb agreement as well as english tense usage. with better awareness of the grammatical mistakes he made, tommy felt more confident about his english competence. as he said in the last paragraph of his essay, “i feel comfortable to write and speak english language in a proper manner. i will keep improving to become a better writer and speaker.”schmidt (1990)stated that when a language form is noticed by language learners either purposely or incidentally, it becomes an intake which fosters language development. in the introduction of the portfolio which grace wrote one semester later, propelled by the similar course requirements, she utilized the same metacognitive strategy in her writing: for magazine spreadsheet, i changed some paragraph organizations that have been mentioned by professors and tutors. i also rewrote some paragraphs that seem unclear and confusing. lastly, for the researcher paper, i rewrote the sentences that are confusing, and use some other appropriate words to make my statements clearer and readable. english language learners learning strategies 125 while using the same strategy employed by tommy, grace did not notice local errors as tommy did. rather, she paid attention to the global ones, making her essays more comprehensible to her audience. case example 5. the last item of the esl/efl version of the sill is a social strategy, “i try to learn about the culture of english speakers”. in an essay tommy wrote for his english 101 portfolio, he utilized this social strategy to deal with a cultural shock he experienced when trying to adapt to the new environment in his university. this essay entitled “cross culture” described a new and shocking bathroom experience which differed from what he had back in his country malaysia. tommy illustrated what a culture shock meant in the following description: besides the hot water supply, western public toilets in airports and dorms will be a pail and a scoop which are ready for washing legs, usually located outside the house in malaysia. lastly, the western public shower room and the toilet were not fully close. the shower room that they are using had a white cloth that works as a door and the bathroom is not fully covered as well. when the bathroom is not fully covered, other students in the dorm are able to see through the legs from outside and worst came to worst, if both toilets are occupied, the person can smell the unpleasant smell and see each other legs! it is very comfortable for me if someone occupies the toilet right next to me. to anyone who was already accustomed to american culture, hot water supply which in malaysia was only available in the luxury hotels, the lack of additional foot-washing water supply and the bathrooms described by tommy were nothing unusual. however, for an esl leaner like tommy, such experiences were not only bizarre, but also daunting sometimes. culture shock is rooted in “the anxiety that results from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse” (oberg, 2006, p. 142). as shocking as these experiences were for the new comer to the u.s.a., tommy recognized the fact that “after all, it is a new experience for me and yet it is one of the challenges for me to adapt new environment in the new university “as he concluded at the last paragraph of the essay. employing this social language learning strategy, tommy tried to come to terms with the experiences he had at the bathrooms of the iup dormitories. grace who was also required to 126 english language learners learning strategies beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) write several essays in this english 101 coursealso found some cross-cultural experiencesperplexing. she reported: however, the friendliness sometimes makes me feel awkward. sometimes i found out they are easy to be friendly and kind to strangers and normal friends, but they are not easy to become friends with you. most of the time, after saying “hi” to each other, our conversation would not continue and end up in a weird way. grace found her initial concept of american friendliness changed after her attempt to make friends with her american classmate was responded with standardized greetings. however, the use of this metacognitive strategy helped her find meanings in these cross-cultural experiences. as she commented, “no doubts, both the asians and americans are friendly and kind. it is just the way they express their friendliness is different.” case example 6. “i ask for help from english speakers” is one item on the social strategy subscale of the sill. some of the words in the letter to her instructor illustrated that using this social strategy increased her confidence about her writing. grace wrote in her letter: before i printed out my second paper, i went to writing center and some of the students in charge helped me. i realized my mistakes and corrected them. i’m not sure if this is a good paper, but i have confidence that it is better than my first paper.as a l2 writer, we are usually short of the confidence to compose our l2 writing fluently because of our limited english competence in general. however, by asking help from the english speakers, we are more aware of our errors and of the ways to make them right. in so doing, the l2 learners enhanced their confidence about the appropriateness of their l2 writing as demonstrated by grace. social strategies are of importance since language learning cannot be separated with others (hardan, 2013). they are employed to maximize the chances of exposure to an english learning environment. for instance, grace was not confident about her english writing. instead of working on papers by herself, she sought help from the english speakers in the writing center who mighthelp her adjust to the academic community better. emergent themes based on interviews sixteen themes emerge in the analyses of semi-structured english language learners learning strategies 127 reviews.fourteen of them could be labeled with sill taxonomies, while two couldn’t. the fourteen themes, identified as sill strategies, are eight direct and six indirect strategies. the eight direct strategies are three compensation strategies“if i can’t think of an english word, i use a word or phrase that means the same thing”, “when i can’t think of a word during a conversation in english, i use gestures”, and “i read english without looking up every new word”,four cognitive strategies,” i look for words in my own language that are similar to new words in english”, “i read for pleasure in english”,“i watch english language tv shows spoken in english or go to movies spoken in english”, and “i write notes, messages, letters, or reports in english”, and one memory strategy, “i connect the sound of a new english word and an image or picture of the word to help me remember the word”. the six indirect strategies are four social strategies that include “i ask questions in english”, “i try to learn about the culture of english speakers”, “if i do not understand something in english, i ask the person to slow down or say it again”, and “i ask for help from english speakers”, one affective strategy, “practicing english without other students”, and one metacognitive strategy, “i look for people i can talk to in english”. the two non-sill strategies refer to “using reference books in the second language learning” and “listening to english songs for increasing english competence”. the following table illustrates the themes produced by the researcher. as indicated by the table, grace used four more language strategy types than tommy. tommy utilized compensation, metacognitive, cognitive and social strategies and grace compensation, metacognitive, cognitive, social and memory strategies. 128 english language learners learning strategies beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) table4 the types of language strategies used by tommy and grace tommy’s strategies grace’s strategies using reference books in the second language learning using reference books in the second language learning if i can’t think of an english word, i use a word or phrase that means the same thing. if i can’t think of an english word, i use a word or phrase that means the same thing. when i can’t think of a word during a conversation in english, i use gestures. when i can’t think of a word during a conversation in english, i use gestures. i ask question in english. i ask question in english. tommy’s strategies grace’s strategies i look for words in my own language that are similar to new words in english. i read for pleasure in english. i read for pleasure in english. i look for people i can talk to in english. i look for people i can talk to in english. i try to learn about the culture of english speakers. i try to learn about the culture of english speakers. listening to english songs for increasing english competence listening to english songs for increasing english competence if i don’t understand something in english, i ask the person to slow down or say it again. if i don’t understand something in english, i ask the person to slow down or say it again. practicing english without other students. practicing english without other students. watching english language tv shows spoken in english or going to movies spoken in english. i write notes, messages, letters or reports in english. i read english without looking up every new word. i ask for help from english speakers. i connect the sound of a new english word and an image or picture of the word to help me remember the word. english language learners learning strategies 129 as indicated by the table, grace used four more language strategy types than tommy. tommy utilized compensation, metacognitive, cognitive and social strategies and grace compensation, metacognitive, cognitive, social and memory strategies. table 5 the subscales of the sill identified in tommy and grace memory strategies cognitive strategies compensation strategies metacognitive strategies affective strategies social strategies ＋ ＋ ＋ ＋ － ＋ in the analyses of the interviews, i detected two non-sill strategies, confirming that the sill is not an exhaustive list of language learning strategies. unlike the results of the document analyses, the only sill strategy type the researcher could not detect in the interviews was affective strategies. in addition, more language strategies were elicited in the interviews than in document analysis. by directly asking the two learners open-ended and closed questions, it was easier to elicit the answers i wanted to know. being acquainted with the learners for some time, i was in a rapport with the participants in the interview, making them less reserved in terms of revealing their perceptions, values and beliefs. below are the case examples showing some of the strategies found in the interviews with the two esl learners. direct strategies case example 7. “if i can’t think of an english word, i use a word or phrase that means the same thing” and “when i can’t think of a word during a conversation in english, i use gestures” are two sill compensation strategies (oxford, 1990). both of the sill learning strategies were identified in the interviews with tommy and grace. the following excerpts illustrated what one of the learners tommy reported on his use of the two strategies. i: if you speak english and cannot find a right word to say, what do you usually do? t: that happens all the time. i will probably describe the thing with some other words. if the american still does not understand, i will just keep going. i: you use gestures in this situation? t: yes, i will use it. using an open-ended and a closed question in my interview with tommy, i elicited his use of the two sill learning 130 english language learners learning strategies beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) strategies. tommy indicated that when he could not think of the right words to express in his conversations with native speakers, he described the thing he wanted to say with some other words. that is, tommy used the synonyms of the words which he could not think of to make his interlocutor understand what he wanted to express. according to the interview, when this compensatory strategy did not function as he expected, he just put aside his problems of finding the right words to express and kept the conversation going. and when asked whether he used gestures in similar conversational situations, he gave a nod to it admitting his use of this compensatory strategy.hardan (2013) elaborated that “compensation strategies are employed by the students to compensate the missing knowledge in the target language due to lack of vocabulary” (p. 1722). case example 8. reading english without looking up every new word is one sill compensation strategy (oxford, 1990). because tommy liked to know the details of the new words by making references to the dictionaries, this compensation strategy was only employed by grace. grace reported her use of the strategy by saying: but, right now, i try not to use the dictionaries. i will read the articles several times in order to get the meanings of the new words. in short articles, i will use the dictionaries to check out the meanings of the words. however, in long articles, i will not use the dictionaries. just like i said, i will read the articles several times until i get the meanings of the words. even though grace did not rule out using the english-english dictionaries, when reading short articles, she tried to read the articles several times in order to understand the meanings of the new words, instead of relying on the dictionaries all the time. case example 9. “i read for pleasure in english” is one sill item which belongs to subscale of cognitive strategies (oxford, 1990). even though both of the learners reported to use this language learning strategy, grace admitted that she was not the type of the person who liked to read in the past time. for this reason, i think that she was not a frequent user of this cognitive strategy. the following dialogues in the interview illustrate tommy’s use of this sill language learning strategy. i: what materials do you read for pleasure in addition to the textbooks used in your classes? english language learners learning strategies 131 t: i like to play basketball, so i like to read basketball magazines. i used to buy them in malaysia, but not in here. second, personally i like meaningful quotes. i: why do you like to read quotes? t: i just need some guidance. i like to read them to increase my knowledge and understanding of some problems. since tommy liked to play basketball in his free time, reading basketball magazines was a pleasurable activity which was related to his hobby. asked why he liked to read english proverbs, he stated that reading these famous english sayings not only gave him personal guidance and that it provided him some useful information about how to counsel his friends in trouble. reading for pleasure in english, or free voluntary reading, is still considered “an effective way of increasing literacy and language development, with a strong impact on reading comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, and writing” (krashen, 2003, p. 15). case example 10. the case shows how grace employed the cognitive strategy, “i watch english language tv shows spoken in english or go to movies spoken in english”. in the analyses of the transcriptions of the interviews, i found only grace employed this strategy. i: why do you think watching english programs/dramas is one way of improving your english ability? g: i like to watch english tv shows or movies because i can imitate the intonation of the english native speaker. when i was in malaysia, i liked to watch movies to improve my english listening ability. as i watched a movie, i tried not to read the subtitle of the film on the screen. a singular-skill activity such as reading might not be an appealing out-of-class activity for grace. in my interview with her, grace admitted that she was not the type of the person who liked to read in private. her way of improving her english in past time was watching english tv shows or movies because she could imitate the native speaker’s pronunciation and intonation. l2 english learners may choose watching tv or movies as an out-of-class activity due to the multiple language skills it comprises (maros & 132 english language learners learning strategies beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) saad, 2016). indirect strategies case example 11. i ask questions in english” is one item on the sill subscale of social strategies (oxford, 1990). i found both tommy and grace reported to use this sill learning strategies. the following excerpts of the interview illustrated how one of the learners tommy used this strategy. i: when you have difficulties understanding the lectures in class, what will you do? and why? t: i will go to the professor asking what he meant by that. and i will ask him what the word means. basically, i will talk to the professor about it. i will talk to him on the spot in the class or after the class. if he is not there, i will make an appointment with him. let’s say. when i am revising a paper and have some problems with it, i will e-mail the professor to make an appointment with him. in this session of the interview with tommy, i asked him two open-ended questions to find out what learning strategies he employed when he had difficulties understanding the lectures in class and his reasons for using them. without providing me a direct answer to my second question, tommy reported his employment of this social learning strategy. in another session of the interview with him, i found a seemly contradiction between the low self-esteem he claimed he had and his employment of the social learning strategy in class. he indicated: i am a lazy person. i am not active. i have certain beliefs that i have low self-esteem. i don’t like to hang out with people i am not close to. because of these beliefs, i don’t like to socialize with people. what tommy experienced is language learning anxiety rooted in interacting with others. williams and andrade (2008)reported that most of the l2 english learners “attributed the cause of anxiety to the teacher or other people” (p. 188). however, even though tommy did not like to socialize with people with whom he was not close to, he did not hesitate to ask his professors questions. when he had difficulties with his writing, he volunteered to make appointments with his instructors via e-mails to discuss how to revise his course papers. a possible explanation for the seemly contradiction between the low self-esteem he claimed he had and english language learners learning strategies 133 his employment of the social learning strategy was that asking his instructors questions was not considered to be an act of making friends with people. to tommy, asking his professors questions in and off classes was an academic business with which he had to be engaged in order to be successful in his academic life. case example 12. on the subscale of the social strategy is one of the items “if i do not understand something in english, i ask the person to slow down or say it again” (oxford, 1990). as confirmed by hayati (2010), slow rate speech could serve as a shortcut for comprehending natural english speech. in the following excerpts of the interviews, i identified this language learning strategy used by both of the learners. i: if you don’t understand something in a conversation with an american, what do you do? t: it depends on the situation. if the man is close to me, face to face, i will ask him to repeat it or to rephrase it. but, let’s say. if the man is at a distance, he says something which is not clear to me. i will just walk away in a confused manner. unless his american interlocutor was at a distance from him, tommy would employ this language learning strategy to increase his understanding of the words said by the native speakers in the conversations. likewise, grace, she also reported to use this strategy, but for a different reason i: when communicating with native speakers, do you feel nervous? g: yes, i do. especially when they said something i did not understand. in this case, i will ask them to repeat what they just said to me. when grace did not understand what a native speaker said in a conversation and felt nervous about it, she employed this strategy to relieve her anxieties with her communication with the english native speakers. case example 13. “i look for people i can talk to in english” is a statement on the sill subscale of metacognitive strategies and “i try to learn about the culture of english speakers” an item located in the sill subscale of social strategies (oxford, 1990). in my interviews with tommy and grace, i found that both of the learners employed the two learning strategies to make friends with the americans. the following excerpt of the interviews illustrated what tommy 134 english language learners learning strategies beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) reported on his use of the two strategies. i: do you volunteer to make friends with the american? t: yes. for example, in the dining hall where i work. it has nothing to do with racism. but personally i like to make friends with the black. i like to learn their culture, the way they shake hands, gestures and things like that. i get the confidence from them. and when i get used to it, i can talk to the white guys. the reason why i like to make friends with the black is that i can get confidence and practice my speaking. while tommy claimed that his selection of conversational partners was not related to racism, he might have suffered white prestige ideology. this term, coined by liu and tannacito (2013), was defined as “racialized ideology that fantasizes whiteness, intertwined with other ideologies influences students’ literacy practices” (p. 357). because of the promoted superiority of the whitepeople, they appeared formidable to him. however, hemight feel more equal and comfortable with his african american friends. for instance, he liked to look for the blacks who worked in the school’s dining hall with him as conversational partners.interacting with them at work, he tried to learn their cultures such as greeting, hand-shaking, and gestures. after getting confidence from the interaction with them, he was able to take risks talking with the whites in the future. case example 14. specifically asking the learners how they deal with their language learning anxieties, none of the learners reported to use any sill affective strategies to solve anxiety problems. instead of employing affective strategies, they both utilized the social strategy, practicing english without other students, to cope with their negative feelings about learning. note that while practicing english without other students is considered a social strategy, this strategy is employed without face-to-face contact. hyland (2004)stated that although there are many activities available outside the classroom, l2 english learners prefer private over public activities because the former does not involve face-to-face contact. following is the excerpts of the interview showing tommy’s use of the social strategy. i: when you feel anxious about using the new language, or about learning, what will you do? t: it happened when i was at the elementary and the secondary english language learners learning strategies 135 school. at that time, i was required to do a presentation. i felt nervous about it. it was not until i went to a college and took a public speaking class that i realized the reasons for my problems. my problem was that i was under prepared. therefore, about the questions you just asked, my way to deal with anxiety is that you need to prepare for it very well. so, i use cue cards and talk to a wall and try to prepare for the class project very well. it is interesting to note that instead of going to his friends to talk about his language learning anxieties, tommy dealt with them in private by making more preparations for the upcoming oral presentations in class. using a wall as an audience, he practiced his presentations orally. non-sill strategies case example 15. when l2 english learners come across a new word, “one of the possible strategies is consulting a dictionary” (peters, 2007, p.37).consulting a dictionary has been proved to be beneficial to incidental vocabulary learning(laufer& hill, 2000).however, this commonly-used strategy is not listed in the sill.while both of the learners reported to use this strategy in her l2 reading, tommy revealed his heavy reliance on this non-sill language learning strategy to me. at the beginning of the interview, i asked tommy to create an open-ended list of language learning strategies. he spent a few minutes thinking about it and wrote online dictionaries, english-malaysian dictionaries and the thesauruses on his list. based on this list, i began the following interviews with him. i: why do you prefer to use online dictionaries as one of the ways of learning english? t: i like to use online dictionaries because it gets more words than the books. also, it is in the computer, so it is very easy to use. convenience is the most important point, i think, to use the website dictionaries. as long as you have a computer, you can use it. compared with the books, it gets a lot of the words. that’s why i prefer to use it. in addition to the convenience of using the online dictionaries and its enormous vocabulary size, tommy told me that his study habit led to his preference of using the reference books 136 english language learners learning strategies beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) such as the website dictionaries. tommy told me: from my study habits, i don’t study paragraphs. i go word by word. that’s why i prefer to use website dictionaries. even though i tried to change the way of learning, i still like to know the meanings of the words because of my study habits. therefore, i prefer to use website dictionaries. however, if i don’t understand the explanation in the website dictionaries, i will use the english -malaysian dictionaries. and that helps me a lot. due to tommy’s past language learning habit, in his l2 reading, he liked to go word by word, instead of guessing the meaning of the word from the context. because of his bottom-up reading strategy, he had to rely on his understanding of the words as a starting point to comprehend the reading passages. this learning habit led to his heavy reliance on the reference books such as the website dictionaries and the english -malaysian dictionaries. as he mentioned, when he had difficulties understanding the english explanation of the new words in the website dictionaries, he resorted to using the english-malaysian dictionaries in order to grasp the meanings of the new words. because tommy listed using the thesaurus as one of his top language learning strategies, i was somewhat curious about whether he had different reasons for making reference to the thesaurus compared with his use of the online dictionaries and the english-malaysian dictionaries. thus, i asked tommy: i.: you list using the thesaurus as one of your ways of learning english. why and when do you use the thesaurus? t: when i fully understand the meaning of the word, i will go to the website to use the thesaurus. the reason why i use it is to expand my vocabulary. but i am not sure if it is a good way or not. due to tommy’s lack of endurance of the ambiguity about new words, when he encountered a new word in his l2 reading, he usually used the website dictionaries and the english-malaysian dictionaries to check them up. using the thesaurus was just another employment he utilized to meet his needs to know every new word in detail. case example 16. listening to english songs for increasing english competence is not a sill learning english language learners learning strategies 137 strategy even though it is a commonly used language learning strategy. theoretically, schoepp (2001) listed three reasons of using songs for language learning. to begin with, listening to music is a relaxing activity which can lower language leaners’ affective filter and benefit language learning (dulay et al., 1982). further, it can help learners develop automaticity because it can be used in a repetitive and communicative manner. finally, some songs are full of authentic english which learners may encounter in real life. by the same token, as indicated by shayakhmetova, et. al. (2017), listening to english songs has positive effects on l2 english learners’ intercultural competence development. both tommy and grace reported to use this non-sill strategy to increase their english competence in the ensuing dialogues. i: i am more interested in the way you learn english after the class such as participating in english-speaking clubs or finding some opportunities to make friends with native speakers. t: okay. my personal way is listening to music. especially english music. the english songs are full of english words. when i listen to english songs, i will try to figure out the lyrics. therefore, listening to music, i listen and read. there is another thing. there are different kinds of music, slow or fast. for slow and medium-tempo music, i was able to catch up. when i listen to rap music, i think i improve my listening from listening to this type of music. i try to follow the tempo of the rap music and in this way my english improved a lot. secondly, by speaking to my american friends, my english also improved a lot. by listening to english music, tommy tried to listen to the words sung by the singers and read the lyrics of the songs to comprehend their meanings. in so doing, he claimed that he not only improved his listening competence, but also his reading. likewise, grace also reported to use this non-sill learning strategy to facilitate her l2 learning. i: you put listening to music as one of your most frequently used language strategies. are there any special reasons for that? g: when i studied english in my high school, my teacher recommended us to listen to music to improve our english. according to our english teacher, listening to music is more interesting 138 english language learners learning strategies beyond words vol.6 no.2 (2018) than regular english classes. listening to music also would make me feel happy. as indicated by the above dialogues, grace found this language learning strategy more interesting compared with her regular english classes in her country. however, differing from tommy, grace’s use of this strategy was led by her english teacher’s recommendations. conclusion tommy and grace utilized a similar set of strategies in the first phase of the study. seven language learning strategies are employed by them and five of the same are identical. in terms of the strategy types, they utilized the same types of language learning strategies: metacognitive, cognitive and social ones. most of the documents came from the two learners’ portfolios prepared for the same course requirements, sothe writing tasks might dictate their strategy employment. task requirements might have impact on their strategy use in the first phase (oxford, 1989).the researcher could not detect any strategies from the three sill subscales: memory, compensation and affective strategies. these types of strategies were not employed because they might not be demanded by the writing tasks. for instance, the affective strategies were probably easier to be elicited in diaries and personal journals which they were not required to write by the writing tasks. furthermore, the type of assessment would influence the elicitation of language learning strategies in the first phase of the study and the elicited strategies might not be used by tommy and grace currently (oxford, 1996). theirportfolios included their recollective narratives such as reflective notes and narrative essays, which might not yield their currently used strategies. in conclusion, more language strategies were elicited in the interviews than in document analysis. sixteen themes emerge in the analyses of in-depth reviews. fourteen of them could be labeled with sill taxonomies, while two couldn’t. grace used four more language strategy types than tommy. the rapport between the researcher and the participants in the interviews may make them more willing to talk about their strategy use. the results of the second phase might reveal their current strategies due to the english language learners learning strategies 139 specific type of assessment. thus, adhering to document analysis as the only method might not be a wise decision in the field of language learning strategies because its elicitation of strategies seems to be compromised by factors such as task requirements and types of assessment. ®jiun-iung lei jiun-iung lei is an assistant professor of central taiwan university of science and technology. he has been teaching english in college for more than twenty years. his research interests include second language reading and composition, tesol, and discourse analysis. references ahmed, j. u. 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(2001). dictionary of qualitative inquiry (vol. 31). sage publications thousand oaks, ca. tseng, c.-t. h. (2011). how do good language learners learn english in taiwan? kotesol proceedings 2010, 231. williams, k. e., & andrade, m. r. (2008). foreign language learning anxiety in japanese efl university classes: causes, coping, and locus of control. electronic journal of foreign language teaching, 5(2), 181–191. i beyond words vol. 2, no 1, may 2014 widya mandala catholic university surabaya editorial it is always satisfying when a developing author makes good use of critique for a learning experience! wendy c. kasten this journal is peer-reviewed where every manuscript written by beginner, developing, and senior authors, follow the same blind review system. this is to let articles come to readers in an easy way to read, and with quality. the quote above is wendy c. kasten’s when she heard that the author she reviewed appreciated her comments. seven articles are reaching readers in this issue. the first article concerns how learning in the 21st century is different from what happens in the second millennium. there are changes of work place demands, and students’ diverse backgrounds and needs, especially for the asean community to whom the realization of the apec agreement is coming soon. here, andrew lian and maria victoria pineda discuss the personal learning environment (ple), rhizomatic learning and technology as the solution for the asean community entering the 21st century. in the second article, wendy c. kasten, murat dagistan, and vildan sarikaya narrate the stories of conversation partnership between american students studying at the teacher education department, and international students coming to kent university taking various fields of studies. will this system really help the international students or the american students or both? what could readers learn from stories of the partners attending regular meetings? the third article is a study on english for content subjects. patrisius istiarto djiwandono, teaching english through clil to accounting students, conductes a series of classroom action research followed by interviewing students’ opinions. he expects not only new vocabulary be ii obtained, but also the content subject. however, while the vocabulary mastery improves, the content subject does not increase as expected. discourse analysis in the classroom sounds threatening for both teachers and students. however, deepti gupta and her co-authors amir reza nemat tabrizi and mohita saxena have shown it possible and helpful to esl students by giving the four steps record-view-transcribeanalyse. is blogging an effective way to teach writing? silvana devinta sari gives her students informal learning environment and feedback from readers. then she finds some facts, she does not expect before, that autonomous learning happens while students write using blogs because they do not feel rigidly structured by deadlines, rules and theories. probably her findings could be in line with ple and rhizomatic learning. extensive reading used to be practiced and it proved to yield marvelous results, in the past. the reasons why teachers at present do not like it anymore are among others the overwhelming tasks of reviewing students’ work. students also find it burdening amongst other assignments related to their major subjects. george m. jacobs who has written articles and books on selecting materials presents his ideas in this issue. a book review, that was absent in the first issue, discusses the significance of the integrated personal and professional identity. mateus yumarnamto reviews janet alsup’s book, teacher identity discourse: negotiating personal and professional spaces. even though the book was written six years ago, the issue is still persistent until the present. what is new in this issue is the about the authors. knowledge is not “dead” after it is presented in journals or books. comments and discussions could be done with the authors to benefit more readers and authors. iii we express our big thanks to the reviewers giving their valuable time and thoughts, prof. dr. andrew lian, prof. dr. anita lie, prof. dr. wendy c. kasten, prof. dr. deepti gupta, dr. rodney jones, dr. willy ardian renandya, dr. lesley harbon, dr. ignatius harjanto. without them, this issue will not come to you. the editors 116 the ideal amount of extensive reading beyond words vol. 10 no.2 november 2022 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya a study on the ideal amount of extensive reading for high schools in japan pei-chia liao feng chia university taiwan, province of china article history abstract submitted: 10/02/2022 reviewed:18/7/2022 accepted: 30/7/2022 keywords: extensive reading, motivation, second language reading, van westendorp's price sensitivity meter doi https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i2.3737 this article reports a study that measured the ideal amount of extensive reading for japanese high school students. a total of 33 students from a third-year science course english class conducted speed reading of twenty 300-word stories at the 500-word level, twice a week for a period of two semesters. a quantitative questionnaire was conducted using the price sensitivity meter method to measure the learners’ ideal weekly reading amount. results showed that the ideal amount of weekly extensive reading was 1200 words per week at the 500-word level. considering the level of the students which was from a2 to b1 on the cefr scale, this weekly reading amount is considerably less than regular extensive reading. this indicates that when starting extensive reading for high school science course students in japan, it must be set at an i-1 level reader, before progressing gradually to higher levels. further research is needed to measure the ideal reading amount of literature course students which may indicate different trends. introduction while there have been multiple studies that show the positive effects of extensive reading (er) for high school students’ english ability test scores in japan (aka 2019, author 2020, fujimori 2007, kanatani 1981), the author still had trouble convincing the majority of the students to read one book a week. in (author, 2020) 6 out of the 8 high school students stated that they liked reading in english more after doing er, but some people complained that the workload was too much or there wasn’t enough good material. this is in line with huang’s paper, “why don’t they do it? a study on the implementation of extensive reading in taiwan” (huang 2015). the students in taiwan, like the author’s pilot test students in this study, felt the benefits of er, but were always pressed for time because many felt that doing er restricted their time to prepare for the university entrance exams. students’ time outside of school was mostly devoted to doing assignments or attending cram school so they chose to do preferred activities in their spare time (huang, 2015). furthermore, similar to some comments made by some teachers in the taiwan study, in the second year of the pilot test, one of the author’s co-workers simply stated, “please do not give https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i2.3737 the ideal amount of extensive reading 117 too much extra work to third-year high school students” (teacher o). this put the author in a tough situation. the author knows that fluency development is necessary for his students to do well on the university entrance exams, but since er is not a common practice in many junior and senior high schools in japan, he needed to find a way to get his students to read that is satisfactory for both students and teachers. although it was more common for university students to be able to read one book per week, it is obviously too much for regular japanese high school students. in this paper, the goal is to find the ideal amount of weekly reading for high school students in japan. this amount of reading could be used as a starting point and the teacher could slowly increase the amount of reading after the students have become accustomed to reading extensively in english. literature review as mentioned previously, there has been much research regarding the positive effects of er on english proficiency. upon review of the literature regarding problems in implementing er, some topics include genre, reading habits, being too busy, and difficulty with the material. regarding genre, past research shows one of the factors that is important for er is that there is a variety of english materials. therefore, in the first year of the er program, the author added oxford classic tales to the library which already had books from level starter to 5 of the oxford bookworm series. this came from the author’s interest towards world literature and the fact that students in the second year of high school have a research trip to countries all over the world. another reason came from “regarding student’s interests towards er” by fujiwara which showed that the most popular books among university students was, “a series of readers used in elementary school in the uk” (fujiwara, 2016, p.58). furthermore, jacobs (2014) has provided a guide for students when choosing er materials. these were some of the sample questions used by the author: 1. what types of books do you enjoy – fiction, nonfiction, comic books, encyclopedias, joke books? look for that type of book. 2. what is a tv show, video game, or movie that you enjoy? can you find books that are connected to them? from the responses of the students, the author ordered over 30 graded readers from pearson’s disney and marvel series to make the total number of books to over 500 books. regarding reading habits in the l2, according to research by takase (2007), she has shown that “parents actively influenced their daughters’ reading habits” (takase, 2007, p.10). however, this is something that an english teacher cannot change. according to the 2019 national library association survey, it was found that high school students in japan only read 1.4 books a month and for junior high students, 4.7 books (school library association 2019). furthermore the 2016 ministry of education study on “promoting reading among children” showed that among high school students, the top reasons for not wanting to read were, “there are less opportunities to read at school and too busy with other activities.” (mext 2016). as mentioned earlier, huang (2015) showed that students wanted to spend more time for preparing for the university entrance exam. this was also present in nishino (2007) which followed two high school students doing extensive reading in high school. one of the participants, fumi said, “that her experience with extensive reading improved her reading speed, but that she was afraid that her reading comprehension was not solid” (nishino 2007, p.92). nishino further comments that entrance 118 the ideal amount of extensive reading exams may be one of the factors for mako and fumi to stop er. regarding the amount of er and level, matsumura wrote that students read, “three pages an hour or one page per day and three pages per day during summer vacation” (for japanese high school students) (matsumura 1987 in susser and robb, 1990, p.165). if we factor that most students have six hours a week of english class (communication english and english expressions), they will have read eighteen pages per week. this amount may seem reasonable since many high school teachers are busy trying to finish the textbook and preparing students for university entrance exams. one group that has been pushing er in japan is the english extensive reading research society, sss. their motto is, “start with simple stories” (furukawa, 2021). initially started by sakai kunihide, he suggested, “er using picture books” in the late 1990’s (fukukawa, 2021). in connection with picture books, takase (2009) suggested that students can also use leveled readers. leveled readers as defined in this paper are books created for native speakers of english such as oxford reading tree or i can read by harper collins. the study showed, that “contrary to these expectations, however, the majority of high school and university students enjoy reading lr, because these picture books lower learners’ affective filter and encourage all the learners, even the students with a fear of english, to give reading a try.” (takase, 2009, p.453). this led to a gap in research in er among japanese high school students. what if we research the perceived ideal amount of reading in english among senior high school students? the significance of this study is that we are looking at the amount of extensive reading from the point of view of the learner. using their responses, we can see how close or far it is from the actual reading amount that is necessary for better language acquisition? in the case of the students for the study, the target reading goal was 2000 words per week. this comes to the research questions which are: rq1. in the perception of the student, what is the ideal amount of weekly reading in english? rq2. what are the feelings towards the reading amount necessary for l2 development? after finding the balance between the ideal amount of reading and what is necessary, teachers in japanese high schools could use this as a starting point for er. once the students become avid readers, the amount of reading could be increased to the actual amount of reading necessary for developing better language competence. using the results of a survey from a survey design that will be introduced later, the same questionnaire could be conducted in each country so that in each country or culture, the er program could be tailored to prevent students from being demotivated in er. method and design participants a quantitative survey was offered to n=33 students on a voluntary basis and after an explanation of the research goals and implications, n=27 students consented to take part in the study. the students were third-year science course high school students that were being taught by the author. prior to the study, all of the students had done speed reading, twice a week using the 500word level speed reading series created by sonia millet in the university of wellington. they had finished 20 passages at the 500word level and 10 passages at the 1000-word level. when asked about their attitudes toward math, japanese, and english classes, 70% of the students said that they like math. the ideal amount of extensive reading 119 for japanese and english, only 52% and 33% of the students said that they liked these classes. therefore, one should note that the students in the survey have a negative attitude towards english. procedure to answer rq1, students were asked about their ideal amount of weekly reading based on van westendorp's price sensitivity meter (van westendorp, 1997). this method is often used in market research to determine the pricing of products. the original questions are as follows: 1. at which price on this scale are you beginning to experience …… {testproduct) as cheap? 2. at which price on this scale are you beginning to experience …… {testproduct) as expensive? 3. at which price on this scale you are beginning to experience …… {testproduct) as too expensive – so that you would never consider buying it yourself? 4. at which price on this scale you are beginning to experience …… {testproduct) as too cheap – so that you say “at this price the quality cannot be good? for the purpose of the research, the questions were modified into, 1. at what amount of weekly reading would you consider the activity to be a lot? 2. at what amount of weekly reading would you consider the activity to be too little? 3. at what amount of weekly reading would you consider the activity to be too much that you wouldn’t want to do it? 4. at what amount of weekly reading would you consider the activity to be so little that it would have little effect? figure 1 from (van westendorp, 1976) the students` answers were plotted on a graph and the ideal amount of weekly reading was calculated where there was the same number of people who thought that the amount of weekly reason was too much that they wouldn’t want to do it and so little that it would have little effect. (where the lines intersect on the graph) data, in this case, is found at the crossing point as per figure 1. furthermore, the acceptable weekly reading range was calculated by finding the marginal low reading point (where so little that it 120 the ideal amount of extensive reading would have little effect and a lot intersect) and the marginal high reading point (where a lot and too much that you wouldn’t want to do it intersect). instead of directly asking for the amount of reading that each student prefers, this method of questioning was chosen because the psm approach was originally created to measure the relationship between price and the value of a product. in the case of extensive reading, to the regular high school student, this activity is something that is not necessary. in many regular classes, students only read 2-3 pages per class with an explanation of the grammar. therefore, if we set the “value” as “reading to improve english”, we can measure how much the student is willing to read in order to improve his or her english. to answer rq2, a 5-point likert scale question was asked to see if students found that the required amount of weekly reading was too much or too little. the third-year science course high school students for the study were mostly at the cefr a2-b1 level. the average oxford classic tales word count at this level was between 1550-2650 (oupjapan, 2020). therefore, the question was set as follows: q.10 in order to improve your english, you should read 2000 words a week in english.. how do you feel about this? it is no problem. it is not too much of a problem. i can’t say either. it is a little difficult. it is too difficult. 5 4 3 2 1 top and bottom box scores were compared. results and discussions research question #1 figure 2 shows that the ideal amount of reading for japanese third-year science students is a little more than 1000 words a week and a little less than 1400 words a week. the optimum amount of reading was found to be 1200 words. therefore, when implementing an er program, it may be best to start by reading 1000 words a week. also, these findings indicate that the optimum amount of reading is roughly 800 words a week less than their average number of words needed to improve english using er for the level of the students in this study. as a result, when implementing extensive reading, the teacher should not ask his or her students to read more than this amount. this came out to be four, 300-word speed reading articles per week. looking for possible reasons for this low number, in a conversation with the author, one student indicated that he knew that he needs to read more in order to pass the university entrance exams, but his interests were in science and math, and he wanted to spend more time solving math problems. furthermore, when looking at the open-ended questions regarding how to improve the er program, a student in the survey stated that she wanted to read shorter passages several times. this may come from the fact that in junior high school, it is common for students to memorize short 5070 words passages and recite them in class. related to what students are used to in an english class, several students indicated that they wanted to read less and do more intensive reading and receive explanations the ideal amount of extensive reading 121 of grammar points. these students felt that they did not learn if enough time was not spent on translating each sentence into japanese. this is not surprising as many high school english classes in japan still focus on intensive reading. although the goals of speed reading were explained at the start of the class, a difference in students’ expectations, could have negatively affected the amount of ideal reading in this study. figure 2: ideal reading amount research question #2 figure 3 illustrates that 44% of the students felt that reading 2000 words a week was “no problem or not too much of a problem”. if we look at the bottom 2 box scores, for 33% of the students, reading 2000 words a week is “too much or slightly too much”. this shows that for 33% of the science course students, they need to work up to the amount of reading needed for their level of english. one possible approach to introducing extensive reading in this situation would be to tell the students that in order to improve their english skills, they need to read at least 2000 words a week. then the instructor would say, “let’s start at reading 1000 words a week and aim for 2000, by the end of the first semester. this gradual increase would have less opposition among students, and by the end of the semester, students will be faster readers, so reading 2000 words a week would not be a burden. it is similar to the sss principle of start with simple stories that was mentioned earlier. they won’t feel that “it is taking time away from preparing for my university entrance exams”. 0 4 13 29 54 67 75 92 100 100 100 100 63 38 25 4 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 13 17 33 42 75 92 96 100 100 38 21 13 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 300 words 600 words 900 words 1200 words 1500 words 1800 words 2100 words 2400 words 2700 words 3000 words 3300 words a lot of reading a little reading too much reading too little reading acceptable reading amount n=25 students 122 the ideal amount of extensive reading figure 3: feeling towards reading 2000 words per week conclusion the results of this study show that when implementing er in japan, we cannot set the volume of reading according to their actual english ability. the reading amount should be set below the i -1 level and students need to build up their weekly reading amount until they can comfortably read the volume of words each week that is appropriate to their level. by finding the ideal reading amount for students at the school, the instructor could use this as a starting point for future classes. since students feel less pressure to read, students are more likely to develop intrinsic motivation to read in english. students will receive the benefits of er such as the training of sight vocabulary, vocabulary growth, and reading speed and this will help students in their university entrance exam preparation. they would less likely feel that they are wasting valuable class time on er, if students develop their reading skills at an earlier stage in their english learning. the development of reading comprehension skills might also transfer towards listening comprehension skills which is also being tested in the more recent entrance exams (fujimori, 2007). also, one should note that this study was done with science course students in a high school with a deviation of 65, where 50 is the mean level of a regular high school. therefore, it is not representative of the population of regular japanese high school students. further research is needed to see the ideal weekly reading amount for mid-level high schools, literature course students, and also university prep class (tokushinsenbatsu) students. it is most likely that the higher-level students are more likely to want to do er. one example came from asahi news. kashiwagi reported that students at nishinarutogakuen high school have successfully launched an er program (kashiwagi, 2021). this school has a deviation of 72-76 which is much higher than the school where the study took place. kaisei academy, which was introduced as having a successful er program in extensive reading is another example of a school with a high deviation of 78. lastly, the results of rq2 further showed that for science course high school students in japan, there is a gap between the amount of reading needed to do er and the 3.7% 29.6% 22.2% 18.5% 25.9% 0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0% 80.0% 90.0% 100.0% 1 no problem not too much of a problem cannot say either slightly a lot too much n=27 students the ideal amount of extensive reading 123 student’s level. for further studies, it would be interesting to see the reaction of literature course students towards the same study. the author is also experimenting with a mini version of extensive reading for regular junior high school students. if the ideal reading amount can be measured among junior high school students, er could be implemented at an earlier stage in regular junior high schools throughout japan. implementation of an er program at an earlier stage can possibly lead to even better results in students’ english language development. students in japan have a similar situation as students in taiwan based on huang’s (2015) study. this situation might also be prevalent in other countries that have a strong focus on passing high-stakes university entrance exams. changing the english curriculum of a school or country in this type of situation is less likely and is a difficult daunting task. the survey design of this study can help find the middle ground by asking the opinion of learners themselves. english language learners should have the opportunity to obtain the benefits of an er program regardless of their location or academic environment. it is the authors hope that the results of this study will be a catalyst for similar research in other schools and countries so that each school or country can tailor how they implement er in their school or country. . references aka, n. (2019). reading performance of japanese high school learners following a one-year extensive reading program. reading in a foreign language, 31(1), 1–18. retrieved from https://nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl/item/414auth or. (2020). the effects of a pilot extensive reading program on increasing english ability and motivation to read in english in an upper mid-level private senior high school in japan. fortuna, 31, 41-53. day, r. r. (2015). extensive reading. oxford university press. day, r. & bamford, j. (1998). extensive reading in the second language classroom. cambridge: cambridge university press. fujimori, chihiro. (2007). the effects of an extensive reading program on reading and listening comprehension among senior high school students. kate. 21, 13-24. fujiwara, a. (2016). eigono tadoku ni taisuru gakusei no kyoumikanshinno iko (regarding students interests in extensive reading). research bulletin of meisei university. humanities and social sciences. 52, 52-61. fujita, k. and noro, t. (2009). the effects of 10-minute extensive reading on the reading speed, comprehension and motivation of japanese high school efl learners. the japan society of english language education. 20, 21-30. furukawa, a. (2021, july, 15). tadoku de eigo ni shitashimimasenka? sss retrieved from https://www.seg.co.jp/ sss/learning/ huang, y. (2015). why don’t they do it? a study on the implementation of extensive reading in taiwan. cogent education, 2. iwahori, y. (2008). developing reading fluency: a study of extensive reading in efl. reading in a foreign language. 20. retrieved from https://nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl/item/168 https://www.seg.co.jp/%20sss/ https://www.seg.co.jp/%20sss/ https://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ 124 the ideal amount of extensive reading jacobs, g. m. (2014). selecting extensive reading materials. beyond words, 2(1), 116-131. kanatani, k., nagata, m., kimura, t., & minai, y. (1991). koukou ni okeru tadoku puroguramu [extensive reading program in senior high school]. kate bulletin, 5, 19‒26. kashiwagi, y. (2021, april 25) kyotsutesuto demo rakuraku? todai 76 gokaku, shingako no tadokode migaku eigo [simple entrance exam? how a prep school brushed up english skills through extensive reading and got 76 students into tokyo university. asahi online. retrieved from https://www.asahi.com/articles/asp4r 6gtxp4putil018.html matsumura, m. (ed.). (1987). eigo no riidingu [english reading] (2nd ed.). tokyo: taishukan shoten. millet, s. (2017). speed readings for esl learners 500 bnc. english language institute occasional publication no 28. victoria university of wellington, english language institute. ministry of education, culture, sports, science, and technology (mext). (2017). eigoryoku chosa [english ability study]. mext. retrieved from https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/kokusa i/gaikokugo/__icsfiles/afieldfile/2018/0 4/06/1403470_03_1.pdf mext (2016). kodomono dokushokatsudo no suishin nadoni kansuru chosa [promoting reading among children survey]. mext. retrieved from https://www.mext.go.jp/content/ 20210610-mxt_chisui02000008064_2801.pdf nakanishi, t. (2015). a meta-analysis of extensive reading research. tesol quarterly, 49, 6‒37. nishino, t. (2007). beginning to read extensively: a case study with mako and fumi. reading in a foreign language, 19(2). oxford press. (2020). classic tales. retrieved from https://www.oupjapan.co.jp/ja/ gradedreaders/classic_tales.shtml susser, b. & robb, t. (1990). efl extensive reading instruction: research and procedure. jalt journal, 12( 2), 161184. takase, a. (2009). the effects of different types of extensive reading materials on reading amount, attitude, and motivation. in. cirocki, a. (ed.). (2009). extensive reading in english language teaching. (451-465) muenchen, germany: lincom. takase, a. (2007). japanese high school students’ motivation for extensive l2 reading. reading in a foreign language, 19, 1‒18. retrieved from: https://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ rfl/item/134 takase, a. (2004). investigating students' reading motivation through interviews. gaikokugokyouikuforum, 3, 28-38. takase, a. (2002). what motivates japanese students to read english books? the proceedings of the third temple university japan applied linguistics colloquium, 67-77. tokyo library association. (2019). retrieved from https://www.j sla.or.jp/material/ research/dokusyotyousa.html v van westendorp, p.h. (1976). nss price sensitivity meter (psm) a new approach to study consumer perception of price. proceedings of the esomar congress, venice. retrieved from https://www.researchworld.com/a-newapproach-to-study-consumerperception-of-price/ https://www.asahi/ https://www.mext.go.jp/ https://www.mext.go.jp/content/ https://www.oupjapan.co.jp/ja/ https://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ the ideal amount of extensive reading 125 appendix: questionnaire grade 1 2 3 a survey regarding speed and extensive reading 1. what is your gender? male 1 female 2 2. what is your feeling toward the below subjects? like it somewhat like it cannot say either somewhat dislike it dislike it japanese 5 4 3 2 １ math 5 4 3 2 １ english 5 4 3 2 １ 3. what is your feeling towards reading in these languages? like it. somewhat like it cannot say either somewhat dislike it dislike it japanese 5 4 3 2 １ english 5 4 3 2 １ the following questions are regarding speed and extensive reading. 4. what is your feeling towards reading in english? like it now somewhat like it now hasn’t changed somewhat dislike it now dislike it a lot 5 4 3 2 １ 5. how has your english ability changed after doing speed and extensive reading? improved a lot somewhat improved cannot say either didn’t improve much didn’t improve at all vocabulary 5 4 3 2 １ reading 5 4 3 2 １ writing 5 4 3 2 １ 126 the ideal amount of extensive reading the following question is regarding the weekly reading amount. 1. peach boy a long time ago in japan, an old man and an old woman lived in a little house by a river. they were happy except for one thing. they didn’t have any children. one day the old man said, “i’m going to cut down a tree for the fire”. the old woman said, “i’m going to the river to wash the clothes”. while the old woman was washing the clothes, she saw a big peach coming down the river. the old woman thought the peach would be very good to eat so she caught it and took it home. when the old people cut the peach open, a little boy jumped out of the middle. they were happy and they called him peach boy. peach boy was a happy child and the family lived together for many years. one day the old woman said, “our boy is now a man”. some bad people lived a long way from the little town. every year, they came and took all the money from the people. the people were very scared of them. peach boy thought to himself, “i’m going to kill the bad people”. he left home with some food his mother made for him. on the way he saw a dog. the dog said, give me some food and i’ll help you kill the bad people. so he did. next he saw a monkey and the same thing happened. then they saw a bird. peach boy gave the bird some food and they all started on their way to find the bad people. when they got there, the bad people fought hard, but the four friends were very smart and in the end, they killed them all. the friends took all the money back to the people and everyone was happy.（300 words） 各当てはまるものに〇をつけてください。 6. from how many words or stories do you think that weekly reading is too much? 7. from how many words or stories do you think that weekly reading is too little? 8. from how many words or stories do you think that weekly reading is too much that you wouldn’t want to do it? 9. from how many words or stories do you think that weekly reading is too little that it would have little effect? 300 words=1 story 300 words=1 story 300 words=1 story 300 words=1 story 600 words=2 stories 600 words=2 stories 600 words=2 stories 600 words=2 stories 900 words=3 stories 900 words=3 stories 900 words=3 stories 900 words=3 stories 1200 words=4 stories 1200 words=4 stories 1200 words=4 stories 1200 words=4 stories 1500 words=5 stories 1500 words=5 stories 1500 words=5 stories 1500 words=5 stories 1800 words=6 stories 1800 words=6 stories 1800 words=6 stories 1800 words=6 stories 2100 words=7 stories 2100 words=7 stories 2100 words=7 stories 2100 words=7 stories 2400 words=8 stories 2400 words=8 stories 2400 words=8 stories 2400 words=8 stories 2700 words=9 stories 2700 words=9 stories 2700 words=9 stories 2700 words=9 stories 3000 words=10 stories 3000 words=10 stories 3000 words=10 stories 3000 words=10 stories 3300 words=11 stories 3300 words=11 stories 3300 words=11 stories 3300 words=11 stories the ideal amount of extensive reading 127 10. in order to improve your english, you should read 2000 words a week in english. how do you feel about this? it is no problem. it is not too much of a problem. i can’t say either. it is a little difficult. it is too difficult. 5 4 3 2 1 11. for people that did not enjoy speed and extensive reading, please state your reasons. １２. please state your opinion towards improving the speed and extensive reading activity. thank you for participating in the survey! iv beyond words vol. 2, no. 2, november 2014 widya mandala catholic university surabaya editorial the current beyond words online journal comes to readers with seven articles consisting of two perspectives, four research and a book review. the book review is significant because the book reviewed, narrative inquiry in language teaching and learning research, is the first book on narrative inquiry research method for second language teaching (sla). harumi kimura and george m. jacobs. presented the contents clearly and critically. the first perspective article touches the recent confusing issue. scholars have been wondering how editors from “international, indexed” journals know their expertise and email addresses, and invite them to write for the journal; and, at the end, inform a certain amount of fee authors must contribute, if published. willy a. renandya who has been observing these “abracadabra, alakazam, hocus pocus” practices for a long time attempts to make us aware of what a bogus journal is and mentions “15 reasons why as members of the academic community we should shun journals of dubious quality.” the second much debated issue is “should vocabulary be taught in context, as a part of reading comprehension, or separately?” feng teng who obtained his master degree in tesol from university of canberra in 2009, and whose research interest is teaching and learning vocabulary, proposes eight strategies to effective vocabulary teaching, among others they include high-frequency words appropriate to students’ level; direct and explicit, not incidental; foster students’ awareness of the importance of being able to learn vocabulary for speaking and writing; adding online materials when it is not available in the textbook. the third article is a study by geoffrey m. maroko and alice kiai from kenya. it is about the analyses of the use of tenses in humanities and science. finding that tense usage is dependent on the specific field of study, the authors recommended that a genre-approach of v academic writing be applied, accommodating the practical and philosophical requirements of the respective field of study. natasha h. chenowith, a ph.d. candidate at kent university, found that students experienced a sort of indirect marginalization or cultural “othering.” her subjects were international students from various departments--other than english, but learned english for their study. she found that the obstacles in learning (fear, shy, silence) were based on the broad differences students experience at how they learned at home and in the u.s. she suggested that students be exposed to both cultures and linguistic system to make english learning more effectively. a prototype computer-based reading comprehension program was proposed and then researched by pannathon sangarun. a techno savvy herself, she combined modern technologybased program for large number of students, and personal-based understanding of meaning making during reading comprehension. it also accommodates critical thinking that is a significant requirement for the 21st century learning. julia eka rini discusses the position of english among other languages in indonesia. english is still the first foreign language. chinese, or mandarin, albeit it flourishes in schools and business could not compete english for political and psychological reasons. which english is more popular depends on the background of the users. however, educated english is the one used in the academia. our big gratitude goes to anna siyanova, ph.d., victoria university of wellington, new zealand; prof. eugene sadtono, ph.d., ma chung university, malang, indonesia; prof. deepti gupta, ph.d. , panjab university, india; prof. dr. patrisius istiarto djiwandono, ma chung university, malang, indonesia; willy a. renandya, ph.d., nie, nanyang technology v i university, singapore; mateus yumarnamto, ph.d. candidate at bloomington university, indiana, u.s.a.; for reviewing the articles in the current journal. without their expertise, this issue will not be as it is now. our appreciations to all authors. your sharing of knowledge is a big contribution to our existence as scholars. the editors running head: using students’ authentic writings 89 beyond words vol. 1, no. 1, november 2013 widya mandala catholic university surabaya using students’ authentic writings to teach an apprenticeship report yerly a. datu, yerly_datu@yahoo.com politeknik universitas surabaya 90 using students’ authentic writings abstract an apprenticeship report as one of the obligatory products that students of business english of politeknik ubaya have to produce becomes an important requirement since, during the writing process, it also involves the company where the students undergo the apprenticeship in their last semester. having examined their writings, i found quite troublesome linguistic accuracy in their writings. due to these most frequently occurring errors, i was finally triggered to make use their authentic writings as my teaching sources. then, to follow up, i intentionally collected their works to be selected to be the teaching sources as i believed that bringing authenticity in the classroom produce positive feedback and substantial language learning (reid, 1993: 177). therefore, in this paper, i discussed further about the use of authentic materials and approaches in teaching writing using authentic materials. to obtain information whether authentic materials gave positive responses from the students or not, a set of questionnaire was distributed to them in all stages; pre-, whilst-, and post-writing. overall results have shown positive responses from the students as they were exposed to their seniors’ authentic writings and experienced authentic-materials-based activities which i designed purposely for them. keywords: apprenticeship report, authentic writings, linguistic accuracy, errors using students’ authentic writings 91 introduction sometimes writing an apprenticeship report is not only frustrating for students but also the teacher. they might not wish to have so many notes to revise from the teacher. in the meantime, the teacher also keeps wondering why the same errors always occur in their writings. that was exactly what happened to my apprenticeship report class where i had to experience and witness the same errors in my students’ writings for the past three years. i frequently noticed the same patterns of errors on sentence formulation in their apprenticeship report. a piece of background below was the example of their writing. illustration 1.student’s authentic piece of writing the above writing contained several errors as indicated by the underlined and numbered words. at least, there were 17 errors in the paragraphs which became my focus at the time. those two paragraphs were parts of an introduction in chapter i. the chapter was 1.1 background nowadays, the working field is more competitive than ever before because, the number of university graduates which (1) seeking for jobs, do not balance with the available vacancy offered by the company compared with several years ago. the vacancy itself mostly required the graduates who do not (2) only have good in knowledge, but also on it’s (3) practically (4). the balance of good knowledge and it’s (5) practically (6) is more preferable in today’s working field rather than the graduates which (7) only doing (8) well. because of the above problem (9), the graduates must have both of those skill (10) in which for the knowledge, the writer’s (11) had already got it in campus and for the practically (12), the writer got it while doing the apprenticeship. in the apprenticeship itself, the writer knew what the real working field is, for instance, the working environment, socializing and working with others staff, and many other experiences which would be helpful for the writer’s development in the future. the writer also fells (13) helpful to be studying at the business english study program of politeknik ubaya because, he got many knowledge that helped the writer prepare for the competitive working world. the business english study program gave the writer many materials and subject which is (14) useful and appropriate with today’s working field for example, customer service, leadership, and business simulation. the writer also learns (15) about outdoor activities like company visit in several companies. to prepare the students for the working field as previously mentioned, the writer has (16) to carry out an apprenticeship report(17) in a company in this semester. it had become one of the requirements to graduate from the study program. 92 using students’ authentic writings one of the important parts of the apprenticeship report required by the business english study program (a diploma iii program/politeknik). before writing the report, the students had to experience an apprenticeship program at a company in semester 6. after the completion of the program, they were obliged to write two reports; apprenticeship and final report. in the apprenticeship report, the students had to describe about the profile of the company and their activities during their apprenticeship. whereas, the final report discussed about an issue/problem they found in the company and any possible solutions were proposed based on some literature reviews. i viewed both reports were extremely important since it was directly related to the company as the stakeholder. in preparing them to write those two reports, they had a report writing subject in semester 5. in this subject, they were introduced the format of both reports and exercised on how to write them within a semester. additionally, the subject was taught by two teachers: one handled the apprenticeship report and the other one handled the final report. both teachers took turn in teaching each report. language items such as grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation were taught in first and second semester. from this information, at least, they had basic knowledge and skills to write a report. looking back at the student’s work very carefully at the very first time i found errors that consisted of the incorrect use of:(1) mode of tense,(2) adjective clause, (3) apostrophe, (4) noun formation, (5) plural form, (6) subject and verb agreement. during my observation for the past three years, i considered them as the most frequently occurring errors. certainly, such problems on linguistic accuracy certainly generated strong feelings of frustration from the teacher’s side as they revealed ‘basic errors’ (coffin, c. et al, 2003: 31). given such condition, i was totally aware of my responsibility to help them minimize the errors in their apprenticeship report. as many experts reported the benefits of using authentic materials in their research, i was triggered to intentionally file my own students’ writings and make use of using students’ authentic writings 93 them to teach an apprenticeship report. i believed that bringing them as authentic materials in the classroom could produce positive feedback and substantial language learning (reid, 1993: 177). this paper discussed further about teaching an apprenticeship report to the fifth semester of business english study program students using their seniors’ authentic writings. the teaching process was broken down into three stages; pre-writing, whilst-writing and post-writing. in each stage, i provided exercises based on the students’ writings, objectives, procedures and students’ responses. their responses towards the exposure of their seniors’ writings were necessary to be exposed in order to get the picture of how they felt and to elicit their opinions. to get their responses, i gave them a set of questionnaire to fill in. in addition, the scope of this paper was bounded only for the diploma iii students majoring business english who studied report writing subject in semester v. the focus of discussion was merely on the problematic parts of the paragraph in the background of the apprenticeship report in which the learning process occurred in the second and third meeting. literature review in this part, i mainly discuss some relevant theories consisting of the use of authentic materials and approaches in designing authentic-materials-based activities. use of authentic materials: definitions and benefits as it is shown in the illustration 1, my student’s writing encountered some errors. those errors were related to their linguistic accuracy. this fact surely may frustrate the teacher (coffin, c. et al, 2003: 31). if these errors are repeatedly done by the students and show the same pattern in every student’ writing, the teacher should put some efforts to at least reduce the errors since they are higher education students and afterwards immersing themselves in the real working world/job market. for these reasons, their writings should be 94 using students’ authentic writings accurate as they will be involved in some particular types/genres of writing in the company in the near future. in respond to that, first, the teacher has to understand their errors are a part of a developmental process since students whose first language is not english often have significant difficulties with some aspects of english grammar and spelling that are distinct from the problems that native english speakers have (coffin, c. et al, 2003: 32). secondly, the teacher can help the students by focusing on the written text in this case their own writings. to get the students more interested and excited, the teacher may bring their senior writings carrying out some common errors which need attentions and improvement. this effort is called bringing authenticity in the classroom (reid, 1993: 177). definitions of authenticity. so far, authenticity has been differently defined by many language experts. first, guariento and morley (2001) defined authentic materials as materials that have been produced to fulfill some social purpose in the language community. in this case, putting some efforts in creating materials for diploma students might also be viewed as a language community. the presence of such materials might be extended not only for social purpose but also professional purpose. another definition is also brought by widdows on (1990) who viewed authentic materials as an exposure to real language and its use in its community. one thing in common between the two experts is when both mention community for which the materials are intended. the real language in my case is closely related to the students’ writings which are not changed at all. exposing their writings as the way they are to their juniors may raise an awareness of being careful in constructing their own paragraphs. the value of not making the same errors can also be the reason to use their writings. by doing so, the text may serve a meaningful communicative purpose. another characteristic of being authentic is the materials are appropriate to a particular set of contextual conditions (widdowson, 1998). contextual conditions might refer using students’ authentic writings 95 to a learning situation that involves students who study a particular subject. the contexts bound in the intended target are clear since authentic materials should be dedicated to a learning community. guariento and morley (2001) stated an interesting point regarding authentic material in which extracting real information from a real text in a new/different language can be extremely motivating. given the fact that students are still in developmental process, making errors in writing is inevitable. a critical value to build to the students is to keep on writing and learning from other works’ errors. this can give opportunities for the students to practice again and revise the errors they have made. in this situation, teachers should help and accompany them in order to have better writing. according to jacobson, et al (2003: 43), a text is considered authentic if the purpose for reading or writing that text includes the purpose for which it would be read or written in out-of-school contexts. this definition seems relevant to the purpose of learning an apprenticeship report. the students are prepared to be ready in the real working world where they likely experience writing reports. their writing skills are needed when they join a company. further, jacobson, et al (2003: 44) elaborated that once teachers and students begin to look at the outside world for possible texts to use in class, there is really no limit to what types might be incorporated. this is a great chance for the teacher to have a look at and find suitable type of text which can be beneficial for the students. when this is applied, it means that it also refers to one of the important factors considered to render a judgment about the authenticity of a literacy activity within an adult literacy class that is the purpose for reading and writing the text (p. 4). the followings are some reflective questions to be considered before selection of the materials (jacobson, et al, 2003: 56): instrumental. does this help my students to get what they want? regulatory. does this text inform any students on the rules that they might follow? 96 using students’ authentic writings interactional. does this text help my students to establish or maintain a personal relationship with someone? personal. does this text help my students to express their personal thoughts? imaginative. does this text help my students to express or create for someone an imaginative world? informative. does this text provide the information my students want or need? benefits of using authentic materials. the use of authentic materials should be beneficial for the students and opportunities to interact with the language should also exist (chavez, 1998). by giving students the authentic materials, they ought to experience process of learning and feel the progress of their writings. they will be familiar with the appropriate formats, the organization of ideas, dictions, as well as its sentence structures. errors which frequently occur in their senior writings may be exposed to be best practices that can be applied in their own writings. the expectation of being more and more accurate in writing should be stressed out since they have learnt from their seniors’ writings. another advantage is the students might feel less worried for their seniors also encounter errors in their writings. reid (1993) claimed in his book, he found that authentic materials could give positive feedback towards the students. when used effectively, authentic materials can help bring the real world into the classroom (kelly, et al, 2002) because students are exposed to original works of others and can be a means of best practices for them to learn. additionally, this effort also help the students to be aware of common errors which might appear in their writing and as a result, it may give them confidence to start writing and not to worry to make mistake. in higher level of development, their efforts might lead them to writing accuracy. another argument in regard with the benefit of using authentic materials is also viewed by maroko (2010). he argued that materials will expose learners to a wide range of using students’ authentic writings 97 natural business language that is employed in the composition of the functional texts in the workplace (p.9). an apprenticeship report can serve as functional texts that the students learn in the subject of report writing. therefore, exposing it in their learning process may give them experience in how to make a good report in which they will face in their workplace later. he also further stated that students are exposed to how the authentic texts are structured and how they work in the business environments where they are created (p.10). the authentic materials can become teaching sources which are readily available and consequently are inexpensive. in my case, the materials were drawn from the senior students’ writings that i have compiled intentionally. stored in computer, they were easily projected using lcd projector or printed in hardcopies. this surely facilitated my students’ learning. varieties of errors were also registered and students could learn from best practices of their seniors’ works. through this way, they could take the advantage of how to make a better apprenticeship report. what is positive about authentic materials is that they are more interesting than textbook materials because they can be more up-to-date and relate to everyday issues and activities (lee, 1995). such notion may be true since in the eyes of students, the materials are more close to the “real life”. students might also be exposed to new and different materials every year. as a consequence, a good response from the students might take place and surely it also influences their motivation in learning how to write well. approaches in designing authentic-materials-based activities next, in focusing on the written text, it is possible for the teacher to give contrastive rhetorical analysis (kaplan, 1966) in the classroom. this means that the teacher may bring two different writing texts to be compared by the students so that they understand how a good text/paragraph should be and how two compared writings bring their own language and background. after comparing and understanding different paragraphs, the next thing to do is 98 using students’ authentic writings exploring the paragraphs/texts or text-focused analysis. the activity focuses more on forms of the language. long (1991) and long and robinson (1998) argued that while second language instruction should be based on principles of authentic communication and learnercenteredness, direct study of problematic grammatical forms should be included when necessary. once again, this effort can bring students’ attention to the grammatical errors which hamper particular paragraphs. another way that can be done by the teacher is focusing on the composition process. this process may vary in the level of implementation ranging from looking at differences between writing in l1 and writing in l2, strategy used while composing, or focusing on a particular aspect of writing such as revising (takagaki, 2003; williams, 2004).furthermore, galbraith and rijlaarsdam (1999)state that written product that students are meant to produce, and focusing on the creative processes of writing, the role of the individual in the act of writing, and the social aspects of writing, including students’ identities, disciplinary conventions, and the larger social context become elements that need to be taken into account into the teaching writing. when it discusses social context, an active involvement of peers should be considered in the teaching process and therefore the teacher could possibly ask them to engage in a collaborative learning in doing the writing activities (coffin, c. et al, 2003: 42). besides using the analysis above, it is also important to use some suitable approaches to overcome such linguistic accuracy. the followings are approaches possible for the designed activities: authenticity in the classroom. bringing authenticity in the classroom (reid, 1993: 177). authenticity here means the writer will be using his students’ authentic writings which contain errors to be presented to facilitate students’ learning. another purpose of doing such strategy is to build their awareness of common errors that might also occur in their writings. using students’ authentic writings 99 it is expected they will be able to minimize the errors in writing and even they can increase their writing accuracy. thus, in the future, when they start writing their own apprenticeship report, they will make a better one. building the context. this approach is actually still related to bringing authenticity since the teacher in this approach put efforts to link their knowledge in writing a report to the previous product of apprenticeship made by their seniors (coffin, c. et al, 2003: 43). modelling and deconstruction. this approach refers to an opportunity for students to examine the target texts and identify specific aspects of the texts (coffin, c. et al, 2003: 43) the pattern-model-based approach. it focuses on situational and functional writing (reid, 1993: 75). in this case, exercises derived from students’ authentic writing are given. additionally, one of the goals in this approach is to emphasize the forms of writing and rhetorical modes such as expository/informative one. this approach also allows learners to identify irrelevant sentences and teach them the logic of organizational pattern (reid, 1993: 30). the language-based approach. from the text, students will learn how to use appropriate structures and vocabulary in making a good essay. (raimes, 1983:3) the process-movement approach. this approach will allow students to explore a topic through writing (reid, 1993: 31). from the authentic students’ writing, the topic can be the model for students to rewrite a better report from the authentic source given to them. as a start, this approach may give opportunities to them to begin gathering ideas from their own experience and knowledge before they rewrite a better report (raimes, 1987a: vii). the guided writing approach. this approach guides the students to structuring sentences which will be needed when reformulating the above text (reid, 1993:25). 100 using students’ authentic writings discussion after discussing some relevant theories about the use of authentic materials and approaches in designing activities using authentic materials, the followings are the descriptions of how i designed the materials and used them in my teaching. the design comprised in several stages (pre, whilst and post writing). in each stage, the students’ writings were always included as source of materials to address the issues of mode of tense, adjective clause, apostrophe, noun formation, plural form, subject and verb agreement. to make much easier to follow every stage, detailed steps, objectives as well as reasons of using the activity for each exercise were also discussed. to show how the authentic materials i designed gave positive influence in my students’ learning, students’ responses were also included in each stage stages of teaching writing and material development the stages described here were designed after the students had learnt about the format of an apprenticeship report in the first meeting. in the first meeting, i set out to build commitments with students and introduce the subject that included the significance of studying the subject and learning the format of an apprenticeship report. thus, the designed activities using authentic materials were meant for the second and third meeting. pre-writing. in this process, i highlighted what should be included in the background of an apprenticeship report. then, i showed a piece of writing taken from their senior’s writings. this piece of writing became the authentic source for me to start up the day. from the above authentic material (illustration 2), i asked the students to identify some possible errors from the paragraphs. some possible instructions for the above illustration i gave to students were as follows: using students’ authentic writings 101 illustration 2. student’s authentic piece of writing task 1. the above paragraphs derived from a senior’s writing. the paragraphs contain at least 17 errors of mode of tense, adjective clause, apostrophe, noun formation, plural form and subject and verb agreement. students can discuss it with their partner, or friends. the above instructions i made for my students were on the basis of the following reasons: (1) the above tasks moved from guided to less-guided ones (reid, 1993); (2) the designed pre-writing activities are optional depending very much on students’ level of writing proficiency. (nuttal, 2005); (3) the aim was to raise students’ awareness on identifying errors in paragraphs (robinson, 1998). hence, the activities also built confidence among students since they could possibly work together with their friends and through this way negotiations occurred among them. after doing the process above, i tried to elicit my students’ responses on their opinions about my effort in exposing their senior’s writing. 84% of the students expressed that they were pretty excited about learning from their seniors’ writings. when they were 1.1.background nowadays, the working field is more competitive than ever before because, the number of university graduates which seeking forjobs,do not balance with the available vacancy offered by the company compared with several years ago. the vacancy itself mostly required the graduates who do not only havegood in knowledge, but also on it’s practically. the balance of good knowledge and it’s practically is more preferable in today’s working field rather than the graduates which only doing well. because of the above problem, the graduates must have both of those skill in which for the knowledge, the writer’s had already got it in campus and for the practically, the writer got it while doing the apprenticeship. in the apprenticeship itself, the writer knew what the real working field is, for instance, the working environment, socializing and working with others staff, and many other experiences which would be helpful for the writer’s development in the future. the writer also fells helpful to be studying at the business english study program of politeknik ubaya because, he got many knowledge that helped the writer prepare for the competitive working world. the business english study program gave the writer many materials and subject which is useful and appropriate with today’s working field for example, customer service, leadership, and business simulation. the writer also learns about outdoor activities like company visit in several companies. to prepare the students for the working field as previously mentioned, the writer has to carry out an apprenticeship report in a companyin this semester. it had become one of the requirements to graduate from the study program. 102 using students’ authentic writings excited about the materials, i noticed that their motivation was also lifted up. they paid more attention on the materials i gave them. 89% of them also stated that they preferred to have more on such a writing example and there were 85% of the students confessing that they learnt a lot from the errors on the writing. their responses turned to be strong energy for me as their teachers as i witnessed their high spirit in learning. almost 90% of the students also commented that the materials and instructions allowed them to do peer-work. it gave them more opportunities to discuss the task they had to complete with their peers. whilst-writing. after the students were able to identify errors in the paragraph which consisted of mode of tense, adjective clause, apostrophe, noun formation, plural form and subject and verb agreement, they focused on activities that could help them minimize the respective errors by addressing each error in some exercises. illustration 3. student’s authentic piece of writing task 2.students change the mode of tense of the underlined verbs of their senior’s writing on some parts of the background of an apprenticeship report above from present tense to past tense. write your answer in the space provided below. students’ answers: 1. _____________ 4. ____________ 2. ____________ 5. ____________ 3. ____________ 6. ____________ the above task was aimed at raising students’ awareness on the importance of past mode to show any activities during apprenticeship program which has been done in the past. in doing the apprenticeship, the writer as student of the business english study program (1) choose shangri-la hotel. there (2) are several reasons why the writer finally (3) decides to conduct his apprenticeship there. the first reason (4) is the writer (5) wants to know about the system of management in this five-star hotel. in addition, learning how to market the service of the hotel (6) becomes another challenge. using students’ authentic writings 103 this way reminded them to always use past mode when they described their apprenticeship activities. the second aim was to apply the past tense rules in the paragraph of an apprenticeship report. teaching procedures. first, students were asked to examine the paragraph as seen in illustration 3 together with their friends. next, they were informed that the illustration was originally taken from their seniors’ piece of writing. then they read the instructions very carefully to make sure they understood what they should be do to complete the tasks. further, i explained the objective of the task in which it gave them awareness of the use of past form since they had to explain what they had done in their apprenticeship activities in the past, and students had the opportunity to do the task. finally, together we discussed the answers. task 3.students chose the best option from the words in bracket to write a good paragraph of an apprenticeship report. the answers refer to the rules of subject and verb agreement, adjective clause, apostrophe, noun formation and plural form. illustration 4. student’s authentic piece of writing the above task aimed at raising students’ awareness on rules of subject and verb agreements, adjective clause, apostrophe, noun formation and plural form by letting them apply rules of subject and verb agreement, adjective clause, apostrophe, noun formation and plural form. excellent experiences …………… (come/comes) from the real world of work because in the real world of work, the skills and the ability ………….. (who/which) are obtained from campus …….…….. (is/are) applied much. in relation to skills and knowledge, the great support ……………. (come/comes) from the business english study program …………….. (whose/which) gives the opportunity for all …………………… (student/students) to do an apprenticeship in the 6th semester as one of …………………(it’s/its) requirements. in doing the apprenticeship, the students ………………(is/are) under the guidance of the advisor i and ii just to make sure that the program is conducted smoothly and students can apply its …….…… (practically/practicality) and finally they can make an apprenticeship report. 104 using students’ authentic writings task 4. students complete the blanks with an appropriate noun, verb, adjective or adverb. these words are the most frequent words that appear in an apprenticeship report. they are allowed to consult the dictionary. words noun adjective verb adverb practical ………………… practical …………….. practically order order ………………. order ……………… apprentice ………………… ………………. organization ……………….. organized ……………… rapid ……………….. rapid rapidly guide ………………. …………….. guide application application ……………. apply the objectives of the task. there are two objectives. first is to familiarize the students with the form of noun, adjective, verb and adverb which appear frequently in an apprenticeship report, and second is to enable them to apply the formation of noun, adjective, verb and adverb in writing an apprenticeship report teaching procedures for the above task. first, students were introduced and reminded once again to the word formation (noun, adjective, verb and adverb). next, they were asked to fill out the empty space from the table provided in the task by referring to the rules of word formation. then, together we discussed the answers of the task related to word formation (in this case, it is necessary to briefly explain about unclear point from the respective topic). finally, i reminded the students to be careful in using the word formation as discussed and explained in their apprenticeship report. using students’ authentic writings 105 task 5. i asked students to examine the two illustrations below, and compare and decide which illustration is better. justify your choice with reasons (referring to previous discussions).they could discuss with their friends. vs the aims of task 5. first, by doing the tasks, students had opportunity to apply their knowledge on mode of tense, adjective clause, apostrophe, noun formation, plural form and subject and verb agreement. second, they were enabled to identify a good paragraph. finally, by comparing two different writings they could exercise their knowledge on mode of tense, adjective clause, apostrophe, noun formation, plural form and subject and verb agreement. the teaching procedures. since the task above using contrastive rhetorical analysis and text-focused based analysis (kaplan, 1966), i needed to explain in details about what to do with the two authentic materials. i explained the goal of comparing the two texts/illustrations clearly. to achieve the goal of getting more awareness on linguistic accuracy, i gave opportunities to work together with their friends. finally, i gave students time to do the task. after they finished doing the task, the task was discussed. illustration 5. student’s authentic piece of writing illustration 6. student’s authentic piece of writing in semester 6, students of business english study program have to experience an apprenticeship program which aims at preparing them to be ready in the real working world. they are obliged to choose a company as a place for a three-month apprenticeship. to cope with this goal, finally the writer chose shangri-la hotel, surabaya for its well-known service and well-organized hotel. the writer was glad to be the apprentice there as its marketing executive and was placed on the second floor. to fulfill it’s important requirement before graduate from politeknik ubaya, students of business english has to undergo an apprenticeship program whose are obliged for all student. eventually, the writer go to shangri-la hotel as the apprenticeship place. in the hotel, the writer are placed in an executive office along with other two students. the writer is really happy because of the chance given. being an apprenticeship there, all should follow the hotel’s rules. it’s rule is always on time at work. 106 using students’ authentic writings after completing all tasks in whilst-writing, some responses were elicited to find out (1) whether the activities could make them keep up with the topic discussed, (2) whether the students felt the movement from less to more challenging activities, (3) whether they learnt from their seniors’ writings. of the three questions, the answers had shown positive responses toward the use of authentic materials. 91% of the students stated that the materials had made them keep up with the topic. they felt they kept on focusing on the errors discussed and the exercises given. meanwhile, there were 88% of them that experienced less challenging to more challenging activities from the materials. additionally, 89% of them admitted they learnt from their seniors’ authentic writings. the preand whilst-writing activities were completed in the second meeting. post writing. this stage was conducted in the third meeting. from some series of activities using students’ senior authentic writings in the second meeting, finally, the students came to much better understanding about the focus of the designed activities, which were, mode of tense, adjective clause, apostrophe, noun formation, plural form and subject and verb agreement. therefore, for the next task, students were supposed to make some paragraphs for the “background of an apprenticeship report”. task 6. the aims of this task are the ultimate task to complete the aims of of all tasks designed from task 1 to task 5. they were to give students opportunities in making a good background of an apprenticeship report. they are also supposed to make students apply the knowledge of mode of tense, adjective clause, apostrophe, noun formation, plural form and subject and verb agreement and skills of constructing sentences for a background teaching procedures for task 6. first i gave a good model of a background of an apprenticeship report drawn from the senior students’ writing, and asked them to study the model of the writing. then, i gave them opportunities to ask questions if they found unclear points. further, students wrote their “background of an apprenticeship report” using their using students’ authentic writings 107 own sentences. having finished the task, students were asked to exchange their works with their partner to do a peer review. as the final check, students’ works with peer reviews were submitted to the teacher for a review.. task 6: example. study the following model of writing on the background of an apprenticeship report. write a background of an apprenticeship report using your own sentences. illustration 7. student’s authentic piece of writing (model of a good background) as the last step in writing the background of an apprenticeship report, i received interesting responses from my students. there were 87% of the students that admitted obtaining more understanding about the use of correct mode of tense, adjective clause, apostrophe, noun formation, plural form and subject and verb agreement. 91% of them constantly said that they found their seniors’ writings useful for their learning. the majority (94%) also admitted that they preferred their seniors’ authentic writings to the textbook materials they had. this was not surprising at all since many researchers reported the same 1.1 background studying at the business english study program of politeknik ubaya aims at producing professionals who are ready in a real working world. therefore, students have to experience an apprenticeship program in semester 6 before they graduate. for this purpose, politeknik ubaya allows the students to choose one of the companies as their apprenticeship place. in coping with the requirement, then, the writer under the guidance of advisor i finally decided to conduct his apprenticeship at pt. internusa jaya abadi located at jl. ikan dorang 102, perak, surabaya. there were several reasons why the writer chose the company. first, the company was in the field of export import and it was in line with what the writer studied in the business english study program. secondly, chances to connect with overseas were widely open for the writer and as a result, the writer could have an opportunity to apply the business cross culture knowledge during his apprenticeship there. also, the company had good facilities in which its facilities could support the jobs of the writer there. by the end of the program, the writer was very delighted since he received sufficient knowledge and skills from the company. furthermore, the practicality he obtained would be a stepping stone for the writer to compete with other graduates in the field of export import. the company also shaped the writer’s attitude about working in the respective field. 108 using students’ authentic writings results. they wished to continue to have more their seniors’ writings as the materials for learning. conclusion as i identified errors on mode of tense, adjective clause, apostrophe, noun formation, plural form and subject and verb agreements in the students’ writing specifically on the background of an apprenticeship report are beneficial for teaching, i eventually decided to keep their original writings as authentic sources for my report writing teaching. the reason i committed to do so is because the errors frequently occurred in students’ writings could be a useful source for other students. based on this background, then, i designed the tasks/activities that suited my students’ level. the illustrations exposed from task 1 to task 6 were genuinely drawn from my students’ pieces of writings. on the basis of those authentic sources, i finally designed the tasks. the flow of the designed tasks moved from less challenging to more challenging ones, from guided to less-guided ones. to elicit the students’ responses, i also gave questionnaire in each stage of writing process namely pre-, whilst-, and post-writing. overall, the responses toward the use of students’ authentic writings were positive. most of them constantly admitted that their motivation was elevated through learning from the most frequently errors in their seniors’ writings. finally, as most teachers’ ultimate expectation is to be able to facilitate students’ learning, i really expect that the designed writing tasks based on my students’ authentic writings might shed a light and contribute ideas of how to teach writing for specific purposes since the stages, objectives, procedures as well as the tasks designed in this paper can be adjusted based on the teacher’s need and situation they encounter in their own contexts. using students’ authentic writings 109 references coffin, c., curry m.j., goodman, s., hewings, a., lilis, t.m., and swan j. (2003). teaching academic writing.routledge11 new fetter lane, london ec4p 4ee chavez, m.t. (1998). learner’s perspective on authenticity. iral.36 (4). pp.277-306 guariento, w., morley, j. (2001). text and task authenticity in the efl classroom. elt journal, 55 (4), pp. 347-353. kaplan, r. (1966). cultural thought patterns in intercultural education. language learning, 16, 1–20. kelly, c. & kelly, l. &offner, m., vorland, b. (2002).effective ways to use authentic materials with esl/efl students.the internet tesl journal.8(11).retrieved: http://iteslj.org/techniques/kelly-authentic.html. jacobson, e., degener, s., puercell-gates, v. (2003).creating authentic materials and activities for the adult literacy classroom.ncsall. lee, w.y. (1995). authenticity revisited: text authenticity and learner authenticity. elt journal, 49, 323-328 long, m. (1991). focus on form: a design feature in language teaching methodology. ink.de bot, r. ginsberg, & c. kramsch (eds.), foreign language research in crossculturalperspective(pp. 39–52). amsterdam: john benjamins. long, m., & robinson, p. (1998). focus on form: theory, research, and practice. in c.doughty &j. williams (eds.), focus on form in classroom second language acquisition (pp. 15–63).cambridge: cambridge university press. maroko, g. m. (2010). the authentic materials approach in the teaching of functional writing in the classroom. in: reinelt, r. (ed.) (2010) the new decade and (2nd) fl teaching: the initial phaserudolf reinelt research laboratory eu matsuyama, japan, p. 71– 87. 110 using students’ authentic writings nuttal, c. 2005.teaching reading skills. macmillan publishers limited. raimes, a. (1983). techniques in teaching writing. new york: oxford university press. raimes, a. (1987a). exploring through writing: a process approach to esl composition. new york: st. martin’s press. reid, j. (1993). teaching esl writing. prentice hall regents takagaki, t. (2003). the revision patterns and intentions in l1 and l2 by japanese writers: a case study. tesl canada journal, 21(1), 22–38. widdowson, h. (1990). aspects of language teaching.oxford university press. widdowson, h. (1998). context, community and authentic language.tesol quarterly, 32 (4).pp 705-616. williams, j. (2004). tutoring and revision: second language writers in the writing center. journal of second language writing, 13(3), 165–172. 68 running head: language identity and language learning beyond words vol. 1, no. 1, november 2013 widya mandala catholic university surabaya motivational implications of heritage language identity for heritage language learning arianna berardi-wiltshire school of humanities, massey university palmerston north, new zealand a.berardi-wiltshire@massey.ac.nz language identity and language learning 69 abstract the article discusses the significance of elements of italian identity (italianità) for the language learning motivation of learners of italian descent studying their heritage language (hl) by means of foreign language (fl) courses in wellington, new zealand. adopting a social constructivist perspective on both second language learning and the motivational processes underlying it, the study utilizes qualitative data collected through waves of semistructured interviews from five case-study participants to map the influence that their constructions of italianità exert on their motivational trajectories over the course of several months of learning. the paper discusses a selection of data excerpts to show how motivational fluctuations are the result of the learners’ own processing of and reaction to elements of their sociocultural context. in particular, an analysis of the learners’ accounts of social exchanges and other crucial events involving the use of the hl outside the classroom will illustrate how these can support motivation by reinforcing the learners’ perceptions of their italianità, strengthening existing learning goals and/or prompting the formation of new ones.the article concludes with some remarks on the implications for teaching practices and extra-curricular activities that could benefit hl learners by increasing their exposure to the hl outside the classroom while validating and encouraging the personal identity constructions and ambitions at the basis of their learning. keywords: motivation, heritage language identity, heritage language, language learning 70 language identity and language learning background while existing definitions of heritage language (henceforth hl) learner vary significantly with respect to the necessary and sufficient conditions that bear on this label or classification (wiley, 2001), there is widespread recognition among experts that hl learners are different from foreign language (henceforth fl) learners and that wherever possible, the two groups should be placed in separate programs (draper & hicks, 2000). this separation is often advocated in view of the different language competencies that heritage and non-heritage learners might bring to the classroom (for a review of studies see kondo-brown, 2003), but more recently discrepancies in language learning motivation have also been proposed as a discerning factor between fl and hl learners and as a key to understanding the dynamics and challenges of mixed learning settings (kagan, 2005), prompting calls for increased research efforts on this subject (kagan, 2005; lee, 2006; lee & kim, 2007; weger-guntharp, 2006). nevertheless, research efforts on this subject remain scarce, with most of the existent studies utilizing theoretical paradigms that pose motivation as reasons or goals for studying the hl (kagan, 2005; lacorte & canabal, 2003; lee & kim, 2007) and not including a consideration of how issues related to personal constructions of heritage identity can support or hinder motivation throughout the learning process, meaning that to date it has been difficult to discern the finer emotional, cognitive and social processes influencing the motivational trajectories of hl learners and of the specific factors and events in and outside the classroom that can influence their motivation. the current article is based on a doctoral research project which explored the links between italian identity (or italianità) and language learning motivation in the self-reported experiences of five learners of italian as a hl enrolled in traditional fl courses in wellington, new zealand (berardi-wiltshire, 2009). the term italianità, which is used throughout the study to refer to the participants’ personal understanding of their own italian language identity and language learning 71 identity, has been chosen to denote an aspect of the learners’ self-concept which they construct as a result of their interactions with their external world, and in particular with italian people and environments throughout their whole lives. like all aspects of identity/selfconcept, italianità is fluid and changes over time in response to interactions with the external world. as phinney explains, “ethnic identity is not a fixed categorization, but rather is a fluid and dynamic understanding of self and ethnic background. ethnic identity is constructed and modified as individuals become aware of their ethnicity within the large (sociocultural) setting” (2003, p. 63). when considering hl learning from this perspective, it is easy to see that while the language classroom might be the place where most of the actual learning takes place, it is only one of many settings that are significant to the students’ learning trajectories, as social interactions outside the classroom can be crucial in influencing one’s construction of italianità, and so also one’s motivation to learn italian. in order to shed light on the role that sociocultural elements outside the classroom can play in supporting the motivational processes underlying hl learning, the current paper discusses a selection of data excerpts to show how motivational fluctuations are the result of the learners’ own processing of and reaction to elements of their sociocultural context. in particular, an analysis of the learners’ accounts of social exchanges and other crucial events involving the use of the hl outside the classroom will illustrate how these can support motivation by reinforcing the learners’ perceptions of their italianità, strengthening existing learning goals and/or prompting the formation of new ones. following the literature review and some notes on the research methodology, a discussion of selected data from four participant case studies will illustrate how sociocultural factors outside the classroom are heavily implicated in the maintenance and shifts of the motivational states of the learners throughout their learning, supporting a socially mediated 72 language identity and language learning view of language learning motivation in which motivational fluctuations are explained as the result of the learners’ own processing of and reaction to elements of their context. throughout the discussion, particular attention is paid to how motivation is reinforced as a result of the learners’ own understanding of hl-related social environments outside the classroom and of their own places within them, with a focus on illustrating some of the specific cognitive, emotional and social processes by which contextual elements come to play a crucial role in the motivational trajectories of the participants to the study. the article concludes with some remarks on the implications for teaching practices and extra-curricular activities that could benefit hl learners by increasing their exposure to the hl outside the classroom while validating and encouraging the personal identity constructions and ambitions at the basis of their learning. theoretical framework to illustrate the influence of critical events involving hl speakers on the development and sustenance of learners’ interest and enthusiasm throughout their learning, the current paper advocates a conceptualisation of motivation within a social constructivist model (williams & burden, 1997, p. 119) which allows for a cognitive investigation of “how students differ in the way they value and interpret goals and how such differences in motivational thinking might affect their involvement in learning” (ushioda, 2001, p. 97), while at the same time taking into account social and contextual influences. within the field of educational psychology, rueda and moll (1994) have proposed a conceptualisation of motivation consistent with sociocultural, interactionist perspectives on cognitive abilities as distributed and socially constructed: motivation is not located solely within the individual without reference to the social and cultural contexts within which individual action take place…. the key point, again, is the interconnectedness of social and cognitive activity, where language identity and language learning 73 psychological characteristics, such as motivation, are not viewed as characteristics of the individual, but of the individual-in-action within specific contexts (rueda and moll, 1994, pp. 120-121). more recently, ushioda (2003), has proposed a view of l2 motivation as a “socially mediated process” (p. 90) by suggesting that if learning is about “mediated participation” (lantolf & pavlenko, 2001, p. 148), the motivation to learn must also socially and culturally mediated. according to this view, motivation in learning an l2 is developed through social interactions within society. the resulting view of l2 motivation is one that sees the impetus to learn as coming from within the learner, but which is developed as a function of their engagement in interaction with motivationally supportive or unsupportive significant others in and out of the classroom. such a view of motivation is clearly in harmony with the social constructivist approach taken in the study, which sees motivation arousal and above all maintenance as dependent on the mediating role of interactions with people within the learner’s context. in line with a view of italianità as fluid and socially mediated, motivation is seen not only as a relatively stable psycho-emotional state observable at one particular point in time, but also as a dynamic entity that changes and evolves throughout the participants’ learning experiences, and this involves conceptualising motivation as having a temporal dimension. williams and burden (1997) see l2 motivation as a temporal process comprising three stages: “reasons for doing something”, “deciding to do something” and “sustaining the effort, or persisting” (p. 121). in the model by williams and burden (1997), this stage is reached once learning has begun, the learner needs to sustain the effort required to achieve their goal(s) to their satisfaction. their persistence is seen as making continuous decisions to act towards their goal(s), by investing time and effort in each stage of the journey, but also by monitoring and regulating levels of motivation in response to the occurrences of demotivation 74 language identity and language learning that are inherent to the learning process. according to the model, persistence will depend on the degree to which the initial motivation is sustained, but also on the nature and frequency of new waves of arousal. the social constructivist perspective of the model is evident in the fact that internal and external factors are not simply seen as having a direct influence on the learner’s motivation and hence behaviour, but as working in interaction with each other and with the learner’s personal characteristics. the learner is therefore not seen as a separate entity subject to single influences, but as a co-constructor of motivation through his or her interactions with the external world: a constructivist view of motivation centres around the premise that each individual is motivated differently. people will make their own sense of the various external influences that surround them in ways that are personal to them, and they will act on their internal disposition and use their personal attributes in unique ways. … however an individual’s motivation is also subject to social and contextual influences. these will include the whole culture and context and social situation, as well as significant other people and the individual’s interactions with these people. (williams and burden, 1997, p. 120) in order to illustrate the role that sociocultural factors can play in the motivational trajectories of hl learners, the present work is primarily concerned with this third part of the model, and in particular with the elements of the learners’ sociocultural context that favourably influence motivation by offering opportunities to use the hl to explore, perform and negotiate one’s hl identity through social exchanges with native speakers of the hl. methods the participants the participants to the study were five new-zealand-born adult learners of italian as a hl enrolled in fl courses offered by either the local university (wellesley university) or the language identity and language learning 75 local italian social club (club italia)1. all participants were second or third-generation descendants of italian immigrants to new zealand with varying degrees of hl competency prior to beginning learning. in particular, our discussion will centre on data from the following learners: (1) marianne began the study of her hl in her early thirties through a beginners’ course offered by the club italia. she had no previous knowledge of the language except for a few vocabulary items she learned at home from her farther and her italian grandmother. (2) francesco grew up speaking venetian2until the age of five, when under a teacher’s recommendation, his family switched to english in order to support his education. francesco was in his forties when he joined the italian night classes at the club italia. (3) livia was born to italian parents and she learned neapolitan3 at home. she left home at nineteen to attend wellesley university, where she studied italian among other subjects. (4) esther is the granddaughter of one of the very first italian settlers in new zealand; at sixty-five, she is also the president of the club italia. she first joined the club as a student of italian in 1992, and she has been learning her hl ever since. instruments and procedures qualitative data was collected longitudinally through an average of five semistructured interviews and participant observations in the classroom setting over the period of about eighteen months of learning. data was analyzed inductively by putting to practice the 1all names of institutions and people in this article are pseudonyms. these were chosen to reflect the ethnic origins of the real names, so that if the real name is an italian name, the pseudonym is too. 2the dialect of italian spoken in the area around venice. 3the dialect of italian spoken in the area around naples. 76 language identity and language learning general principles of a grounded theory approach (glaser, 1998; strauss & corbin, 1998) as “flexible heuristic strategies” (charmaz, 2003, p. 259) to form a system of longitudinal cyclic analysis. after the first round of interviews, each interview guide included a number of questions common to all participants (aimed at eliciting data about individual motivational influences), as well as questions emerging from the analysis of data previously collected, allowing for the mapping of the influence that personal and changing constructions of italianità exerted on individual motivational trajectories over time. ultimately the system meant that each round of interviews simultaneously extended and deepened the pool of data while also revealing a number of new and potentially fertile paths of enquiry. in practical terms this gave rise to highly personalized interview guides while ensuring that all respondents were offered the opportunity to offer information on the same basic areas. discussion of findings the following sub-sections discuss findings relating to cases in which the learners’ motivation is intensified as a result of critical events involving linguistic exchanges with italian speakers. in each case the discussion will highlight the significance that the event holds for the learners’ understanding of their own italian identity, as well as its consequences on aspects of their motivation to learn hl. contacts with speakers an example of one such event is found in francesco’s story, when during one of the social gatherings organised by the local italian club, he meets cecilia, a recent italian immigrant to new zealand. during the exchange that follows, francesco makes a conscious decision to continue speaking italian to cecilia even though he knows they could use english instead. a: you were on a high last time language identity and language learning 77 f: was i? i am actually on another one at the moment. at the night of the show there were many different people and there was a lady, cecilia that owns that restaurant… well she turned up and i was talking to her and it was very interesting. i mean she was obviously very accommodating in the way she spoke, but i actually really felt we had a reasonably… you know we were both talking about the same thing for a little while, you know? (laughs) and so that was quite a high, and as i said she was being very sympathetic with me, but equally, we had a chat about all sorts of things… so i felt really good after that. the significance of the event for francesco’s motivation become evident when we consider that he often likens his hl motivation to a “rollercoaster” during which moments of discouragement and low energy (“lows”) alternate with times whenhe feels good about his abilities, satisfied with his progress, and eager to engage in further learning (“highs”). the encounter with cecilia proves to be important for francesco’s perception of his own italian skills, leading him to experience one of the emotional “highs” that he considers at the basis of his motivation and even suggesting new venues for his learning: i might write to the university and to the italian embassy and say i am a student of italian and i would like to meet some italian people. you know i have heard of people overseas doing that, where you take them out, buy them lunch, go to the museum… pay their admission, you say today i’d like to talk about… something, and buy them lunch and give them ten, fifteen dollars, for an hour. and using it more. ultimately, the event positively influences francesco’s motivation by broadening his understanding of the social uses of his hl and injecting a much needed dose of enthusiasm in his language learning, leading him to take active steps in finding native speakers of italian 78 language identity and language learning with whom to practise his newly discovered language skills. as a result of these, francesco comes into contact with more native speakers. one relationship which proves particularly significant is the one francesco establishes online with a man who lives in the italian village where his family originates: f: i found a website for the little village where my grandmother came from. (…) i wrote to the webmaster and said my grandmother came from the village, i am learning italian, i have found this easy to read and interesting and so he wrote back and you see i wrote in italian and he said oh no, you are doing ok, so that’s been quite nice, but he said to me, a lot of the website is about migration and he said please tell me about your family ‘cause i am very interested, plus i actually met one of his relatives, she was my grandmother’s very good friend when they were very young girls, so i started to get together some dates and names from my family and some photos to show him who they were and so that’s going out to him soon, and he’s sending me the newsletter, apparently the title is in dialect but the text is in italian, and it’s written very simply, so i understand that well. the on-going online friendship francesco develops with this native speaker of italian proves significant in terms of learning, as francesco must engage with the language in order to communicate, but also crucial in terms of motivation, as francesco’s italian friend offers him the practical means to reconstruct part of his family’s history in italy. for francesco, whose main aim in learning his hl was to regain a sense of his personal connection to italy and family-related aspects of his italian identity, the opportunity to better his competence while learning about his italian roots is highly exciting and deeply motivating. language identity and language learning 79 contact with relatives in italy livia experiences a similar motivational boost when she receives an unexpected phone call from italy and is forced to use her italian to communicate with a relative who cannot speak english: l: last time i was at home i was at home by myself and one of dad’s cousins from genova called, and i managed to talk to them for about ten minutes on the phone just blah blah blah, like it was really good and yeah she was saying how good i was at speaking italian and i was like oh sweet… a: how did that feel? l: yeah it felt good because (…) i didn’t have a choice, i had to speak italian. anyway they kind of got what i was meaning and i spoke to my auntie, she’s quite old and she knew what i was talking about… so it felt real good. we can only fully appreciate the effect the exchange has on livia’s motivation when we consider that the phone call takes place towards the end of a three-year university degree in italian during which livia’s negative reaction to elements of classroom learning and high levels of performance anxiety have dramatically reduced her hl learning motivation. for what is probably the first time since the beginning of her hl studies, livia is able to overcome her self-consciousness and to carry out an entire exchange with a native speaker of italian, even receiving compliments for her fluency. the successful interaction restores livia’s confidence in her own language abilities and as a result of it she renews her commitment to learning italian, however this time she resolves to do it in a way which she feels better suited to her learning needs, namely by travelling to italy and learning to speak by total immersion. that’s why i need to go there, and be just put in a situation where no people can speak english, not even my parents or anyone and then i’d just speak it. 80 language identity and language learning i am going pack up and go; yeah i am dying to go over there. yeah that’s why i want to go, without mum, so i’ll be forced to do it. i can’t wait to go to there. i really want to go there and like without my mum even because i know that if she’s there i’ll just rely on her to speak. i need to be quite in a situation where i have to do it. livia’s decision is not accidental: the way livia has coped with the phone call has made her realise she finds it easier to speak italian when she is free from the constraints she has been experiencing in the classroom and, above all, in situations where she has “no choice” but to speak italian. the above excerpts illustrates how the exchange was crucial in helping livia become aware her own learning needs and motivational preferences, and in using this knowledge to make decisions about her future language learning. other critical on-time events involving the hl for esther, whose years of hl learning have gone hand in hand with her ongoing involvement with the local italian social club and community, a significant renewal of her commitment to learning italian also comes as the result of a critical social event involving the hl. esther is awarded the order of the star of italian solidarity, a prestigious decoration from the italian government for services to italian language and culture. receiving the award is motivating in that esther will have to deliver an acceptance speech in italian in front of many influential native speakers (including the ambassador of italy to new zealand), which impel her to spend hours writing and rehearsing it, but also because it strengthens her resolve to achieve fluency: language identity and language learning 81 e: the most important thing for me was getting the cavaliere4… because what it did was it actually meant to me that blimey, now i feel like i should match that with my own knowledge. a: do you think that getting the cavaliere made you stronger in your resolve to want to finish? e: oh yes, it has. it has made me realise that i have to do it now. i must do it. to esther, the award represents the ultimate public recognition of her accomplishments as an official spokesperson for the wellington italian community, and as such it fuels her motivation, as she feels that to be truly worthy of such recognition she must be able to speak italian. however, it is important to note that esther also sees speaking italian as a necessary practical tool for the maintenance of healthy relationships with the community members, which she also perceives as her duty as a centro official: i think learning italian is also necessary for me because when i need to speak in italian with people, it’s very important to be able to speak in italian to the older people, a lot of them don’t… they do speak english but they don’t like it, when they are in the club they actually want to speak italian, so that is another thing that motivates me strongly, is to be able to converse with them. this point is particularly telling in terms of how esther’s relationship with the community has changed throughout the years and with it, the drive behind learning her hl: from a tool to make contact with and learn from other italians, to a symbol of solidarity for being accepted, to a necessary skill in maintain relationships that are key to her role within the community. 4italian for ‘knighthood’. esther was awarded the medal of the order for the star of italian solidarity, which confers the title of cavalieredella repubblica or ‘knight of the republic’. 82 language identity and language learning ongoing relationships with speakers of hl the last excerpt from esther points to the fact that not all motivationally significant contacts with italian speakers found in the participants’ stories involve one-time momentous events. for some learners important motivational sources are embedded in their ongoing relationships with the communities of italian speakers around them. for marianne, for example, every opportunity to use her heritage language in her everyday life represents a form of motivational support, as each contact with italians around her acts as a reminder of her own italianità, thus strengthening her connection to her heritage and her resolve to develop such connection though her learning of the language: a: do you think that your italian ancestry played a role throughout your studies in terms of inspiring you or motivating you? m: definitely, it’s totally motivational because little bits of it will encourage me to keep going, for example going to italy this time to see family again and things like that, that’s a motivation because is tied in with learning language, or when things happen overseas to my italian family, like my dad’s cousin died so being able to write a card in italian and things like that… so it’s a constant reminder… i’d take up an italian cooking book you know, and my italian will come in handy, i got a lot of my grandmother’s cookbooks that are all in italian… so no things like that happen all the time to me… and other things too, like john is playing soccer for the italia club on labour weekend in october, so no we constantly have things that… like those external things, like being involved with the club, or soccer or the italian people here as well as family overseas. particularly interesting is that in the case of marianne, the motivational significance of the participants’ contacts with speakers of italian does not lie in the linguistic requirements language identity and language learning 83 that these present. in some cases, such exchanges simply act as opportunities to realise and develop her italianità through positive interactions with other italians, and hence to strengthen the personal sense of italian identity which lays at the basis of her motivation. marianne’s data show that if the single, unexpected opportunities to negotiate one’s italianità in exchanges with italian speakers can have positive repercussions on one’s motivation (as in the cases of francesco and livia), motivational benefits can also result from repeated ongoing relationships with native speakers, which over time come to mould and reinforce leaner’s hl identity through constant positive reinforcement. implications and conclusions the findings suggested that personal constructions of italianità are heavily implicated in the maintenance of the motivational states of the participants throughout their learning, supporting a socially mediated view of l2 motivation in which motivational fluctuations are explained as the result of the learners’ own processing of and reaction to elements of their context, including critical events involving native speakers of the hl outside the classroom. in general terms, the motivational benefits of such contacts are that they offer an opportunity to perform and assert their italian identity and to gain linguistic confidence at the same time. for some participants in the study, the necessity to speak italian outside the classroom offered a chance to be free of the constraints of their learning setting and to use the language on their own terms, while for others, it helped them explore new and exciting communicative situations and to feel in control of their language learning and skills. always it seems, the inspiration and enthusiasm that resulted from even fortuitous encounters with italian speakers represented momentous events that helped the learners validate and reinforce their sense of italianità and so positively impacted their motivation, often leading to a fresh wave of interest in the language and to the beginning of a new phase of their learning. 84 language identity and language learning the main implication drawn from such findings is that all heritage language learners could potentially benefit from consciously attempting to maximise their contacts with speakers of their heritage language and with these their opportunities to use the language outside the classroom. of course this is often more easily said than done, as access to heritage language speakers might be limited by many factors that lie outside the learners’ control: hlspeaking relations might not exist, or be too far removed to represent a real chance to speak the language. a local community of speakers may not be a reality, or if it is, the process of joining it to find potential interlocutors might be too intimidating, time consuming or otherwise problematic to even attempt. even in cases where potential contacts might be available through family and/or community networks, these might prove to be unsuitable for various reasons: they might speak varieties of the heritage language that are different from the one learned in class, or might be unwilling to speak the language. when contacts with local heritage language speakers are not available, it might be possible for learners to access virtual communities of speakers using various online tools, from pre-structured online learning facilities such as tandem-learning and other learnermatching systems, to more adventurous (but potentially very rewarding) participation in discussion forums, chat rooms and blogs in the heritage language. the main advantage of virtual contacts with heritage language speakers is that they tend to bypass the practical inconveniences and the potential face-threatening situations that direct contact might entail, hence representing, in many ways, an easier, more learner-centred and self-directed way to reap the benefits of practising the language in social exchanges with more experienced speakers. the findings also suggested that a strong, continuing sense of personal heritage identity is the most important factor in supporting hl learners’ motivation, and because of this, validating a learner’s claims to the heritage identity and offering recognition of their language identity and language learning 85 special relationship to the language that lies at the basis of their motivation should be an important prerogative of the supportive teacher, and one that could easily be achieved by making this the occasional focus of positive attention and feedback. the aim for teachers in these cases should not be to provide ongoing individualised teaching, but to encourage hl learners to develop a sense of ownership of their learning experience, supporting them in gaining the confidence to pursue their own interests, encouraging the use of the existing course as a support structure for their own individual learning and promoting contacts with hl speakers both inside and outside the classroom as a way to foster the 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(1997). psychology for language teachers: a social constructivist approach. cambridge: cambridge university press. running head: critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl 1 beyond words vol. 1, no. 1, november 2013 widya mandala catholic university surabaya critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl: how far can we go? mateus yumarnamto department of literacy, culture and language education, school of education indiana university, bloomington yumarnamto@gmail.com 2 critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl abstract in this post-method era, perspectives and stances gain momentum as postmodernist’ educators highlight teachers’ agency in transforming the students and the society. in this framework, this paper discusses two approaches in teaching english as a second or foreign language (tesl/tefl). the first perspective is critical pedagogy and the second is pragmatic pedagogy. by discussing the two important perspectives, this paper aims at understanding the path for better practices, both in research and teaching in tesl/tefl. more importantly, it also discusses its relevance to teaching english in indonesian. keywords: critical pedagogy, pragmatic pedagogy, tesl, tefl critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl 3 introduction critical pedagogy as initiated by freire (1970) emphasizes sociocultural and political dimensions of education. influenced by marxists’ idea of class-struggle, a classroom is seen as a space of power relations that reflect the sociocultural and political conditions of the larger society. in this perspective, power is exercised everywhere resulting in the division of the society with the oppressed in one side and the oppressor in the other side. therefore, the duty of a teacher is to empower the learners—to make them aware of the unequal power relations that affect their lives so that they can take action to challenge and to transform the society. criticizing pragmatic pedagogy, critical pedagogues claim that their practice is ‘transformative’ as opposed to ‘transmissive’ (richard-amato, 2010, p. 95). in short, the main goal of critical pedagogy is a social change and justice, not the accumulation of knowledge in learners. the point of departure of critical pedagogy perspectives is the ‘failure’ of liberal/pragmatic education that focuses on the freedom and unlimited creativity of individuals. following the idea of postmodernists and poststructuralists, critical pedagogues criticize the positivisms of science and technology—as the legacy of the enlightenment—in failing to solve social problems. promoting radical changes both in the curriculum and in the classroom practices, critical pedagogues celebrate differences and being critical to the dominant discourse (gee, 1989) and they reject the grand narratives as described by lyotard in giroux (1988, p. 7). aronovits and giroux (1991) describe postmodernism in the sense of criticism to modernism which is conceptualized as the heir of european enlightenment. while modernism emphasizes positivism in science and continual progress technology, postmodernisms questions all the legacies of positivism and technology that have occupied western societies. all the advancement in science and technology, however, could not solve human problems as poverty, 4 critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl injustice, and oppression in society persist. in this conception, postmodernism is perceived as “a combination of reactionary and progressive possibilities” (aronovits and giroux 1991: p. 59). highlighting the oppressive and normative forms of modernism, postmodernism is critical to the grand project of enlightenment: reason and sciences could solve all problems of modern humanity. in this postmodernism framework, critical pedagogy gains the attribute ‘critical’ because it tends to be critical to the dominant power and the dominant discourse in the local and global society. in language education, critical pedagogy with its postmodernists’ perspectives has brought about changes in viewing literacy, language, and language education. canagarajah (2006) adopts postmodernism in viewing texts. a text is not an object; it is situated. the creation of texts and their interpretation are situated in the settings of social contexts and local practices. canagarajah in this way identifies the shifting views from modernism to postmodernism. thus, the shift is the movement from autonomous to situated, individual to social, cognitive to material, formal to ideological, and spatial to historical (canagarajah, 2006, p. 212-213). a similar shift has also been emphasized in viewing the term ‘literacy’. in positivists’ views, literacy—the ability to read and to write—is considered autonomous, objective, and it is a technology that shapes human cognition (ong 2001, goody 2001). on the other hand, postmodernists’ understand literacy as situated and subjective and it is culturally bound in social practices. consequently, the application of critical pedagogy in language education, including in tesl/tefl, embraces the postmodernists’ and poststructuralists’ views. pennycook (1999) suggests two forms of critical pedagogy embodied in tesl: (1) in the area of research and (2) in the area of practice. in the area of research, critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl has covered the critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl 5 exploration of the nature of english, the nature of learners, and the nature of teachers. dealing with the subject matter of tesl/tefl, researchers have explored and discussed the nature of english and englishes (kachru, 1997a; 1997b; pennycook, 1999). english is viewed as not only belonging to the inner circle countries: the us, britain, and australia. it belongs to the wider world including the outer circles and the expanding circle that include countries such as singapore, japan, korea, and indonesia. there are englishes which are used for different purposes with different accents—apart from the culture of the inner circle countries with their native speakers and their native cultures. in dealing with learners, tesl/tefl researchers have raised their interests in learners’ identities such as in racial identities (ibrahim, 1999) and sexual identities (nelson, 1999). ibrahim (1999) explores african immigrants and refugees in canada. their racial identity as black played an important role in the way they learn english and the way other people see them as efl learners. nelson (1999) also explores learners’ identity and raises the issues of gayfriendly approaches in tesl/tefl. in dealing with teachers, researchers have also raised the issues of teachers’ identity in terms of racial, sexual, and cultural such as in simon maeda (2004) and soreide (2006). simonmaeda (2004) describes nine english female teachers in japan, a country with a strong maledominated society. although the study does not directly provide an intersection between gender and english language teaching, it gives a glimpse of revelation on efl female teachers’ lives and their struggle for life trajectory and career development. soreide (2006) describes norwegian female teachers’ identity construction in terms of positioning and negotiation. it does not directly link gender with english language teaching but the narratives of the female teachers could shed lights on how female teachers’ identities are acted out in narratives. 6 critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl while at the level of research critical pedagogues in tesl/tefl have a large share of discourse in the last two decades, at the level of classroom practices the idea of critical pedagogy have not gained a strong hold. there are some doubts about its effectiveness to achieve the goals of tesl/tefl and there is skepticism in the grand goal set up by critical pedagogues. the goal of solving social problems in any societies in the world by means of empowering the students and ‘indoctrinating’ them to embrace certain perspectives can be too much for the teachers. the stain of marxism in viewing the society as situated in social opposition of the oppressed and the oppressor could hinder teachers in many parts of the outer circle, including indonesia, to embrace the principles and to practice them in the classroom. in other contexts, critical pedagogy in the classroom is often contained in terms of “teaching with attitude” as suggested by pennycook (1999, p. 340)—which, in my opinion, is nothing new in pedagogy. even, the idea of critical pedagogy itself is diverse and in many cases it inherits the postmodernists’ contradictory ideas. while it promotes inclusion, it also tends to estrange others. while it promotes empowerment, it can also fall to the trap of disempowering others. in this paper, i would like to discuss the discourses of critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl. more importantly, i would like to view the idea critically by contrasting it with the views of neopragmatic pedagogy—which i call pragmatic education that inherits their thoughts from the positivists and naturalists’ views and deweyan pedagogy. by exploring the topic, i would like to suggest how far the approaches can coexist and be synthesized for a better approach in tesl/tefl. and finally, i also intend to highlight the relevance of the two approach discussion to indonesian context. critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl 7 critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl in reviewing the critical pedagogy to tesl, i present the account mostly based on pennycook (1999) introduction to critical approaches published in tesl quarterly vol. 33, no. 3, autumn, 1999. this volume of publication is dedicated to this perspective and approach. indeed, there are diverse approaches thriving in the field of critical pedagogy. these diverse approaches have a common thread that could qualify the approaches as ‘critical’. the common thread is the political positioning by which a teacher or a researcher must take a stance. pennycook suggests that educators should take certain stances. … critical approaches to tesl must necessarily take up certain positions and stances: the view of language or of language learning cannot be an autonomous one that backs away from connecting language to broader political concerns; the understanding of education must see pedagogy as a question of cultural politics; and the focus on politics must be accountable to broader political and ethical visions that put inequality, oppression, and compassion to the fore. (pennycook, 1999: 340) in the quotation, pennycook suggests the nature of language education that cannot be neutral as pragmatists often claim. the positions and stance of tesl/tefl teachers should be in the side of the oppressed. in regards to tesl/tefl, the positioning and stances of educators and researchers can be seen at least in four areas: (1) the nature of english (the target language), (2) the nature of methods, (3) the nature of learners, and (4) the nature of teachers. the first front which is highlighted by critical pedagogy is the nature of english and the ownership of the language. as a result of colonialism, english has been used in different countries with different cultures, both as a second or as the first language around the globe. 8 critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl kachru (1990, 1997) describes the users of english in terms of circles: the inner circles, the outer circle, and the expanding circle. as a result, we have englishes with different owners that should be respected. the main consequence of this awareness is that the old paradigm—to have nativelike competence in the target language is not relevant anymore. the general goal of tesl/tefl, then, is having the ability to use the target language for international communication—not the native-like performance. further, the need to use the language using the norms of the native culture is also irrelevant. it is more important to embrace the local culture and to communicate it to the wider world. thus, english pedagogy should consider the local culture and local contexts. then, the goal of language learning is aimed at the competence to communicate the local culture and identities—not to embrace the native speakers’ culture. the second dimension of critical pedagogy is their view on materials and methods applied in the classrooms. the materials and syllabi offered to the students should reflect the critical pedagogues’ agenda of empowering the students and promoting justice. thus, they should consider gender, racial, and cultural issues. in this way, teachers should develop critical reflection on the curriculum as suggested by reagan and osborn (2002). upon the reflection, they should engage in social activism by means of “curricular nullification” (p. 84)—adding and subtracting the current curriculum to achieve the goal of social justice. related to the methods used in the classroom, there are no prescribed methods or techniques. generally, critical pedagogues incline to the post methods idea of language teaching (kumaravadivelu 1994; 2001). in short, the methods applied should support the idea of critically opening the social awareness of the students. any methods can be justified as far as they can serve this goal. in pennycook’s words the methods are “more than arranging the chairs in a circle and discussing social issues” (pennycook, 1999, p. 338). it is more of blending the curricular objectives with the social justice critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl 9 agenda in the contexts where english is taught. in indonesia, for example, the growing intolerance in regards to religions, race and gender should be addressed by teachers even though there is no such agenda found in the curriculum. the third dimension of english language pedagogy in tesl/tefl is the nature of the learners. critical pedagogues view language learners from the point of view of postmodernists/poststructuralists’ stance in which marginalized students should be empowered and those belongs to the mainstream should open to differences by “placing greater emphasis on inclusivity” (pennycook 1999, p. 337). in the context of united states, english learners are of immigrants’ origins and they often fall behind in other areas at school. these english learners are often labeled as ‘problems’ and they need special treatments. in the contexts of indonesia, the social classes might bring about problem to learners as the social gap might be wide at certain schools. in both contexts teachers are called to act to empower the learners. thus, learners are central and they should take roles both in learning the target language and in engaging with social problems. empowering students, then, does not only develop critical thinking but also develop social awareness on the part of the students. the last dimension of critical pedagogy is their view on teachers. as suggested by pennycook (1999), critical approaches can be summarized in terms of teaching with attitude— the attitude of standing for social justice and equality. teachers, then, should bring these social dimensions in the classroom by problematizing the accepted norms related to culture, gender, and race. in this way, teachers might become ‘provocateur’ and ‘subversive’—an agency that is expected to enlighten the learners for social awareness and social transformation. consequently, language teachers should develop reflective ability by understanding their own identity and their own beliefs and values—in line with critical pedagogues’ ideas. problematizing the racial factor, 10 critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl critical approach raises the issues of native speaker (ns) teachers and non-native speaker (nns) teachers such as discussed in liu’s (1999) nonnative-english-speaking professional, in pavlenko’s (2003) reimagining teacher identities in tesl, in norton’s (1997) language identity and the ownership of english and in golombek and jordan’s (2005) intelligibility and identity. all in all, embracing critical views on different aspects of language pedagogy serves two simultaneous goals. critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl aims at english communicative abilities and the abilities to apply the competence to develop critical awareness of the world as suggested by crookes and lehner (1998). in their work they suggest that critical pedagogy could develop simultaneously the critical awareness and the communicative abilities of the students. … critical pedagogy in esl/efl, then, takes as joint goals the simultaneous development of english communicative abilities and the ability to apply them to developing a critical awareness of the world and the ability to act on it to improve matters. (crookes and lehner, 1998, p. 320) embedding and mixing curricular objectives with the agenda of social justice and social transformation might be too much for teachers but they should be ready when the contexts and the local society call them to act. to implement this agenda, crookes and lehner (1998) adopt 10 of 20 principles of critical pedagogy in efl/esl education proposed by crawford (1978). the ten principles are: 1. the purpose of education is to develop critical thinking by presenting students' situation to them as a problem so that they can perceive, reflect, and act on it. 2. the curriculum content derives from the life situation of the learners as expressed in the themes of their reality. 3. dialogue forms the content of the educational situation. critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl 11 4. the organization of curriculum recognizes the class as a social entity and resource. 5. the learners produce their own learning materials. 6. the task of planning is, first, to organize generative themes, and second, to organize subject matter as it relates to those themes. 7. the teacher participates as a learner among learners. 8. teachers contribute their ideas, experiences, opinions, and perceptions to the dialogical process. 9. the teacher's function is one of posing problems. 10. the students possess the right and power to make decisions.” (graham and lehner 1998, p. 320) those ten principles are derived from the critical pedagogy as suggested by freire (1970) in the most referred book in the field, “the pedagogy of the oppressed.” indeed, the relevance of the philosophy is very high in countries where democracy is undermined or where democracy is skewed for the legitimacy of an oppressive regime. although in the level of classroom practices the critical pedagogy is still rare, current tesl research, however, postmodernism and poststructuralism are the two major backdrops of the application of critical pedagogy. so, instead of following the rigid principles, critical pedagogy can appear in many different forms and approaches—reflecting different contexts of tesl/tefl in the outer and expanding circle. pragmatic pedagogy in tesl/tefl in the u.s., dewey can be considered the father of pragmatic pedagogy. since 90s deweyan approach on pedagogy has raised new interests as it finds new ground in the discourse against postmodernism perspectives—which is considered nihilistic by many educators. rosenthal (1993) highlights the relevance of dewey’s ideas to address contemporary educational 12 critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl problems. garrison (1994/95) introduces the new scholarship around deweyan tradition and biesta (1994/95) interprets deweyan pedagogy as communicative action. in the field of language education, especially in english for academic purposes (eap), pragmatic pedagogy along with critical pedagogy suggests what is called critical pragmatic pedagogy (harwood and hadley, 2004). dewey’s original idea (1916) on education lies on two concepts of maintaining and developing a democratic society. two criteria for democratic society in dewey’s conception is first, the number of shared interests existing in the groups of the society and second, the degree of fullness and freedom to interact. the former refers to the significance of common interest because common interest could bring a unity and at the same time could accumulate the individuals’ efforts to achieve common goals. the more the society shared the common interest the more likely the society will be united and the individual efforts of the members will do better for the society because they are based on the shared interest. lack of shared interests in society is more likely to make it fall apart. the latter refers to dewey’s conception that the advancement of a society depends on interactions. by encountering with other groups, there will be learning taking place so that the advancement and progress can be maintained. closure and resistance to outside encounters will make a society static—no progress taking place. this degree of freedom to interact both inside the group and outside the group will bring about learning and changes for the betterment and progress of the society. the idea of dewey’s democratic society is shared by critical pedagogues and at the same time, the very same idea is criticized. the main difference of conception between dewey’s democratic society and the one of critical pedagogues is that dewey suggests the maintenance of order and modern achievements and he conceptualizes progress as an evolution. on the other critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl 13 hand, critical pedagogues see critically the current democratic society that inherits the oppressive culture of modernism and capitalism (freire, 1970). while freire’s pedagogy is more problematizing the norms, deweyan pedagogy is more transactional—transforming the current society’s norms and at the same time reflecting on them for a gradual social transformation as a result of dialogues with other discourses. in tesl/tefl, the pragmatic pedagogy has shaped the field prior to the emergence of postmethod movement and the emergence of critical pedagogy. originally, the pragmatic pedagogy, including in the field of language education, is viewed as a tool—a tool to maintain and develop a democratic society. for individuals, pragmatic pedagogy is also a tool to achieve individuals’ goal, economically and politically. thus learning english for learners outside the inner circles can also mean to have the cultural capital and to join the grand discourse. in the case of singapore embracing english as one of the national languages in the city sate, for example, it can be considered as an act of survival—not an act of conforming to the linguistic imperialism. in short, learning english to access economic capitals, science, and technology is a representation of pragmatic education in tesl/tefl. in this way, pragmatic pedagogy sees english education in kachru’s outer circles and expanding circles (1997) not as a result of linguistic colonialism but as opening the door for more opportunities or “the art of possibilities” as described by allison (1996, p. 87) when he borrows bismarck’s concept of politics. in terms of postmodernism jargons, this is an act of struggle for resources by mastering the dominant discourse and acquiring social and cultural capital needed to survive and thrive. dealing with the subject matter, in this case english, pragmatic pedagogues put the emphasis on english as used to access resources or as a tool for individual and societal 14 critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl advancement. indeed, this pragmatists’ view is political—far from neutral depiction as often labeled to it by critical pedagogues. while critical pedagogues use the opposite duality in many aspects of their tenets such as the oppressor and the oppressed, the inner circles and the outer circles, pragmaticists reject the idea of opposing duality that shows unequal power struggles and the political dimension. on the contrary, pragmatic educators see different groups in society as equal and they pursue interactions with different groups in and outside the society for the purpose of advancement as suggested by dewey (1916). in short, from the point of view of pragmaticists, english should be freed from the burden of history and should be viewed as a communicative tool for access and equality and for the advancement of individuals and the society. for materials and methods used in the classroom, pragmaticists are in line with the postmethod movement. the question is not what the best method is but what works in the classroom and what is needed by the students to achieve their personal and social goals. far from eclecticism that tends to be scientifically ungrounded and justified, pragmaticists search for the best practices. in this case, current practices of pragmatic pedagogy embrace vygotskyan views of social construction as the basis for learning—which is in line with dewey’s experiential learning or learning by doing which put equal emphasis on individual as well as social. consequently, pragmatists consider language learners as individuals with their freedom and their own motives. language learners might have different goals in learning english. therefore, tesl/tefl should provide different goals for learners. sharing similar properties with social construction of learning, pragmatists suggest that language learners need interactions to develop their competence. in dewey’s creed, learners should be seen from their individuality as part of the social beings. in his own words dewey (1897) claims that “the individual who is to critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl 15 be educated is a social individual, and that society is an organic union of individuals. if we eliminate the social factor from the child we are left only with an abstraction; if we eliminate the individual factor from the society, we are left only with an inert and lifeless mass.” (dewey, 1897, p. 6). from the basis of viewing the language learners, the teacher can be understood as the one who promotes and facilitates the advancement of the learners. thus, current pedagogical tenets that put the teacher as a facilitator for learning are in line with the pragmaticists’ ideas. in its original view, dewey suggests that the role of the teacher is a member of the community. … the teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child, but is there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in properly responding to these influences. (dewey 1897, p. 9) in the above quotation it is clear that dewey’s conception on the teacher’s role is more than a facilitator. in many ways a teacher is a filter that acts as a gate keeper of influences. depending on the age of the students, the filter and the gate might vary in size and intensity. definitely, this is a political activity inherent in pragmatic pedagogy in which a teacher cannot be a true neutral gate or filter considering his/or her own background and perspectives. discussion critical pedagogues criticize pragmatic perspectives as lacking in political stances and tend to be neutral—avoiding critical ideas on society’s problems. although the critic does not depict the reality that pragmaticists’ agenda is also political, it is echoed and generally is taken for granted as part of pragmaticists’ perspective. this critic is shared by pennycook when he highlights the nature of individuals as seen by liberal humanists as he writes the following: 16 critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl the liberal humanist view of individuals as completely independent, free, creative entities is rightly rejected from a critical standpoint: thought, movement, and speech are always constrained in multiple ways. yet an allencompassing view of people as nothing but ideological dupes or discursive ventriloquists (i.e., everything they say, do, or think is predetermined by ideologies or discourses) is surely overdeterministic, leaving no possibilities for change or individual agency. (pennycook 1999, p. 335) other critics on the pragmatic pedagogy are mostly based on the view that pragmatism as the manifestation of liberal education is the heir of modernism that cannot solve modern societal problems and that it has stuck in the celebration of individualism. this common criticism does not precisely reflect the nature of pragmatic education as suggested by dewey (1916). in dewey’s conception, individual and social are part and parcel and they cannot be separated in human beings. thus, the lack of social concerns as commonly accepted characteristics of the pragmatic education might not be accurate as many pragmatists embrace the idea of social construction and sociocultural perspectives. on the other hand, the critics on critical pedagogy by pragmaticists in tesl/tefl are difficult to find. there are not many articles directly challenges critical pedagogy applied in tesl/tefl. critical pedagogy with its backdrops of postmodernism and poststructuralism occupy pedagogical discourses including tesl/tefl with the widely accepted concepts of multiculturalism, inclusiveness, and equality—which are also embraced by pragmatist pedagogy. aside of the idea of the oppressed and the oppressor, the critical pedagogy principles applied in tesl/teflt share many of the characteristics of neo-pragmatists. thus, critical pedagogy as suggested by pennycook (1999) is very different from the original application suggested by critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl 17 freire (1970). it is understandable, then, that there are not many articles directly challenged the critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl since it has adopted and incorporated the other’s perspectives in their practices. one of the rare articles that give critical view on critical pedagogy is johnston’s (1999) “putting critical pedagogy in its place: a personal account.” in the article, johnston criticizes the tendency of seeing the language classroom in terms of power relations. the nature of education is not only empowerment—in which the teacher poses social problems and challenges the oppressive norms in society. on the contrary, following the pragmatic educators, classroom is viewed as a place where social interactions take place and where the teacher and the students offer and transact values. this view is related to johnston second objection on critical pedagogy, the view of education as primarily politics. indeed, politics with the power struggles for dominants are everywhere in the society. however, putting too much politics in the classroom might not serve the students’ interests, but serve the teachers’ interests and agenda. the third johnston’s reluctance is the positioning of critical pedagogy in relation to the postmodernism. according to johnston (1999, p. 561), the adoption of postmodernists’ perspective in critical pedagogy might bring about “fragmentation and a descent into relativism of all kinds (political and social as well as cultural)” (johnston 1999, p. 561). johnston’s last reservation to fully embrace critical pedagogy is related to a more personal issue, the language used by many of critical pedagogues. from johnston’s point view, the jargon and language tend to exclude and create otherness. in short, it promotes inclusivity but at the same times it can estrange others. johnston’s views on critical pedagogy in many ways reflect the views of pragmaticists in which the balance between individual freedom and social perspectives are the emphasis and education is regarded as reflecting current organic life of the society in which values are shares 18 critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl among the members. this view is in contrast with the perspectives of critical pedagogy that see classroom as a place for empowering the learners by raising the sociopolitical awareness— which, in many cases of various democratic societies, is not of the students’ interests. weighing all the different perspectives in this issue, it turns out that pragmatic pedagogy and critical pedagogy, besides the unresolved opposing views, share similarities. the idea of social awareness, social interactions, and political dimension in education are shared by both camps. while pragmaticists view social awareness as a chance to interact and grow as an organism, critical pedagogues see it as a chance to act and to take stance for a rapid social change. while pragmaticists realize the political dimensions of teaching as sharing transactional values, critical pedagogues view it as power relation that needs an overt political stance in the part of the teacher. thus, this understanding and continuing dialogue from the two camps could bring a productive and sustainable progress in tesl/tefl. lesson learned: relevance for teaching english in indonesia what can we learn from the two approaches? at least there are two significances of the discussion in indonesian context. first, teaching english in indonesia are both a means of opening the doors of opportunities as well as empowering learners and society. this two sided goal could be served by both approaches. from the pragmatists’ perspectives, the capitalization of english is self-explanatory as english is used in many sectors and in regional communication in asia. from the perspective of critical pedagogy, this goal might be problematized as the capitalization has also contributed to the people’s alienation and to the unequal distribution of resources. raising these issues might bring awareness and ideas of solving societal problems within its contexts. in this way the goal of learning english can be achieved without sacrificing social engagement and social movement for better society. critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl 19 second, the challenges of building democratic society can also brought about as a hidden curriculum of teaching english. the idea of democracy itself is continuously under attack in indonesia. both approaches can offer different ways of seeing learners, teachers, and english as a subject matter at public school as well as a means of building democratic society. understanding both approaches could lead teachers to understand their roles and their agency to contribute to solving problems—not only the one directly related to the acquisition of english as foreign language but also to one that might be relevant to learners’ well-being as students and members of the society. conclusion contrasting and discussing two major camps in tesl could shed lights on the mixed practices in the field. the critical pedagogy that aims at problematizing the widely accepted norms and at critically raising the awareness of the oppressive dominant power in the society, might not lead to productive gain in tesl when it is strictly follow its original agenda—social revolution. on the other hand, the pragmatic perspectives which view education as instrumental for individual and social advancement might not adequate considering the socio-political problems inherent in education and educational institutions. thus, the reconciliation of both views might be plausible in shedding new direction in tesl/tefl. to conclude the discussion of this issue, i would like to highlight the nature of language learners—who are considered equally as individual and social beings by pragmaticists and are much of social beings by critical pedagogues. therefore, critical education will be more productive when it does not weigh on social dimension only, but also on individuals. in seitz’ (2002) words we can realize that “critical teaching will be meaningful to students only if it also serves their individual motivations to succeed.” (seitz 2002, p. 504) 20 critical pedagogy in tesl/tefl references allison, d. 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(2006). narrative construction of teacher identity: positioning and negotiation. teachers and teaching: theory and practice, 12, no. 5, 527–547. 36 project-based learning in junior high school students beyond words vol. 11 no.1 may 2023 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya the effect of project-based learning on reading comprehension achievement of junior high school students nita ariani dapena school surabaya, indonesia article history abstract this research investigates the effectiveness of project-based learning in enhancing students' understanding abilities in the context of english language learning. many students face challenges in achieving high levels of proficiency in comprehending written texts. to address this issue, the study explores the impact of project-based learning, which involves authentic tasks, on improving students' overall comprehension skills. utilizing a quasi-experimental design, the study was conducted with eighth-grade students at a junior high school in surabaya, east java. the experimental group received instruction in collaborative strategic reading (csr), while the control group engaged in project-based learning (pbl). the objective of this investigation was to assess the efficacy of project-based learning in fostering students' comprehension skills through rigorous statistical analysis. the findings reveal a positive influence of projectbased learning on students' understanding levels. these results suggest that project-based learning is a recommended approach for teaching language skills, enabling students to enhance their comprehension abilities through engagement in authentic project tasks. received: 03-04-2023 reviewed: 02-07-2023 accepted: 03-08-2023 keywords: project-based learning; teaching reading descriptive text doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v11i1.4190 introduction the ability to comprehend written texts is a crucial skill for students, impacting their academic success and lifelong learning. many students, however, face challenges in achieving high levels of reading comprehension due to limited vocabulary and grammar knowledge, which hampers their understanding and information extraction. therefore, it is essential to explore effective instructional strategies that can enhance students' reading comprehension abilities. collaborative strategic reading (csr) is a widely employed technique that emphasizes collaboration among students to identify main ideas and decode challenging vocabulary. while csr has shown promise, some students still struggle with reading comprehension assessments, indicating the need for alternative pedagogical approaches. project-based learning (pbl) emerges as a potential solution in this regard. pbl is renowned for its real-life applicability, https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v11i1.4190 project-based learning in junior high school students 37 incorporating authentic tasks that engage students in meaningful learning experiences. by immersing students in projects, pbl facilitates contextualized text comprehension. collaboration, inquiry, and project creation are integral components of pbl, fostering language skills as students acquire knowledge through discussions, presentations, and feedback. previous studies have examined the relationship between enhancing reading comprehension and project-based learning. chitchuen and sanpatchayapong (2016) conducted a study focusing on grade 11 students in bangkok, demonstrating the benefits of project work in developing thinking skills, utilizing the internet for additional information, managing time effectively, and establishing strong ties among students. similarly, kavlu (2015) investigated the effect of project-based learning on undergraduate efl students' reading comprehension ability, revealing a positive impact on their reading skills. additionally, shiraz and larsari (2014) found a significant positive relationship between project-based activities and intermediate efl students' reading comprehension. barr and chinwonno (2016) explored the effect of project-based reading instruction on english reading ability and intercultural communicative competence among undergraduate students, reporting significant improvements. friska (2018) conducted a study on narrative text comprehension, demonstrating a notable enhancement in students' reading scores through project-based learning. however, there is limited research comparing the effectiveness of project-based learning and collaborative strategic reading in enhancing reading comprehension among eighth-grade students. thus, this present study investigated whether eighth-grade students taught using the project-based learning method achieve higher reading comprehension compared to those taught using collaborative strategic reading. to address this research question, a quantitative research design was implemented, involving two distinct groups of eighth-grade students. the experimental group received instruction through the project-based learning method, while the control group was instructed using the collaborative strategic reading approach. rigorous statistical data analysis techniques were applied to evaluate the effectiveness of project-based learning, with a specific focus on the final assessment reading test. literature review the implementation of project-based learning adheres to the gold standard proposed by larmer, mergendoller, and boss (2015). this gold standard encompasses various essential elements that contribute to the effectiveness of project-based learning. firstly, it emphasizes the importance of framing a challenging problem or question that serves as the driving force behind the project. this ensures that students are engaged in meaningful and thoughtprovoking tasks. authenticity is another key aspect of the gold standard. it emphasizes the connection between the project and realworld contexts, tasks, and tools. by designing projects that mirror real-life situations or address genuine issues, students can see the practical relevance and applicability of their learning. this enhances their motivation and helps them develop skills that can be directly transferred to real-world scenarios. students' voices and choices are integral to projectbased learning. this element recognizes the importance of allowing students to have autonomy and agency in their learning process. students are given the opportunity to make decisions and plan their projects, enabling them to take 38 project-based learning in junior high school students ownership of their learning journey. this sense of empowerment and choice fosters intrinsic motivation and encourages students to fully engage in the project. reflection is a crucial component of project-based learning. it promotes metacognition and self-assessment by encouraging students and teachers to reflect on the learning process, the knowledge acquired, and the effectiveness of their inquiry or project activities. reflection helps students develop a deeper understanding of their strengths, areas for improvement, and the strategies they employ to overcome challenges. furthermore, the gold standard emphasizes the importance of critique and revision. students receive feedback and guidance from teachers, peers, and experts in the field, enabling them to critically evaluate their work, identify areas for improvement, and revise their projects accordingly. this iterative process of critique and revision nurtures a growth mindset, resilience, and the ability to learn from mistakes. finally, project-based learning culminates in the creation of a final product or outcome. this tangible representation of their learning serves as a culmination of students' efforts and provides an opportunity for them to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and creativity. the creation of a final product also enables students to communicate their findings or solutions effectively, further enhancing their communication skills and understanding of audience engagement. by following the gold standard of project-based learning, educators can ensure that their implementation of this approach incorporates these essential elements. this comprehensive framework provides guidance for designing and executing effective projects that promote student engagement, critical thinking, realworld connections, and meaningful learning outcomes. the project-based learning approach reflects student-centered learning as it emphasizes practical experience and problem investigation. according to acat & dönmez (2009), student-centered learning focuses on the activity and quality of learning outcomes. fried-booth (2010), as cited by chitchuen & canpatchayapong (2016), highlights the relevance of project-based learning as a bridge between theory and real-life applications. this approach enables students to understand the material through practical projects. project-based learning is characterized by collaborative learning, questioning, and problem-solving. stoller (1997), as cited by chitchuen & canpatchayapong (2016), further explains these characteristics. firstly, project-based learning is relevant to the subject matter and language learning, allowing students to connect their projects with the material being studied. secondly, teachers encourage students to be active learners by not providing direct answers to their questions. this approach promotes critical thinking and independent problem-solving skills. thirdly, project-based learning encourages students to engage in discussions to solve problems, fostering collaboration and the exchange of ideas among peers. lastly, students have the opportunity to explore various sources, such as websites, to find answers or solutions to questions or problems related to real-life situations. in addition, project-based learning offers several advantages for teaching reading comprehension. fried-booth (1997), as cited by poonpon (2017), suggests that projectbased learning effectively builds learners' motivation, empowers them, and enhances their language skills, confidence, self-esteem, autonomy, content knowledge, and cognitive abilities. hedge (2002), as cited by chitchuen & canpatchayapong (2016), explains that project-based learning activities are closely project-based learning in junior high school students 39 linked to language skills, enabling students to engage in planning, problem-solving, and information gathering through various modes of reading, listening, and group discussions. moreover, project-based learning fosters the development of interpersonal skills through teamwork, feedback, and peer assessment. lou & kim macgregor (2004) and railsback (2002), as cited by kavlu (2015), emphasize the importance of the investigation, teamwork, and peer assessment in projectbased learning to enhance learners' interpersonal skills and cooperation. projectbased learning cultivates a positive attitude among students, as the presence of projects boosts their motivation and engagement. research suggests that students who engage in project-based learning tend to achieve higher scores compared to those in traditional classrooms. thus, further research is warranted to explore the effectiveness of project-based learning in improving reading comprehension skills. additionally, papandreou (1994), as cited by thuan (2018), presents a model consisting of six steps for implementing project-based learning: preparation, planning, research, conclusion, presentation, and evaluation. these steps provide a structured approach for teachers and students to engage in projectbased learning activities. in conclusion, project-based learning holds significant potential for enhancing reading comprehension skills. by incorporating student-centered learning, collaborative problem-solving, and real-world connections, project-based learning offers advantages such as increased motivation, critical thinking, language proficiency, and interpersonal skills development. educators can benefit from the recommended characteristics and frameworks for implementing project-based learning, providing practical guidelines for designing and executing effective projects. further research is needed to explore the long-term impact of project-based learning on reading comprehension and to identify best practices for its implementation in diverse educational contexts. research method the research design utilized in this study was a quasi-experimental design, specifically a pretest-posttest control group design. prior to the intervention, a pretest was administered to both the experimental group and the control group to assess their initial levels of reading comprehension achievement. t-test was conducted to determine if there were any significant differences between the two groups at the start of the study. random sampling was employed to ensure equal chances of participation among students. the variables in this study can be categorized into independent variables and dependent variables. the independent variables consisted of project-based learning and collaborative strategic reading, while the dependent variable was students' reading comprehension achievement. to minimize potential bias, a trained and experienced teacher served as the instructor for both the experimental and control groups. the researcher closely accompanied the teacher throughout the implementation of the study, including the administration of pretests, treatments, and post-tests. the selected teacher had seven years of teaching experience in the english language and demonstrated proficiency in instructing junior high school students. by utilizing the same instructor for both groups, any variations in instructional delivery were minimized, ensuring the consistency of the treatment conditions. the setting, treatment, subjects, data collection, and data analysis in the research are described as the following. setting 40 project-based learning in junior high school students the study was conducted with eighthgrade students from a junior high school in surabaya, indonesia. the school had one english teacher who taught both the experimental and control groups. a pretest and post-test were administered before and after the treatment, consisting of a reading test designed to measure students' comprehension of text content. the pretest for the experimental group was conducted on october 28, 2019, while the control group's pretest took place on october 29, 2019. the treatment was administered from november 4, 2019, to november 13, 2019. the post-test for the control group was conducted on november 15, 2019, and for the experimental group on november 18, 2019. to ensure validity and reliability, a panel of experts consisting of two experienced english teachers specializing in reading comprehension evaluated the test items for clarity, appropriateness, and alignment with objectives. necessary revisions were made based on their feedback to enhance validity. to establish the test's reliability, a pilot test was conducted with a separate group of students from a different junior high school. the purpose was to assess the internal consistency and stability of the test items. the pilot group, selected through random sampling, had not been exposed to collaborative strategic reading or projectbased learning methods. the reliability coefficient for the pilot test, calculated using cronbach's alpha, demonstrated a high level of internal consistency (α = 0.82), confirming the reliability of the test items for measuring students' reading comprehension achievement. the scores of the experimental and control groups were similar, indicating comparable english achievement levels. the experimental group received instruction using project-based learning (pbl), while the control group was taught using collaborative strategic reading (csr). subjects the target population for this study comprised 8th-grade students from a junior high school in surabaya. additionally, a pilot group from another junior high school was utilized to establish the test's reliability. treatment the treatments were administered three times, with each session lasting 40 minutes, from november 4th, 2019, to november 13th, 2019. this duration was carefully chosen to strike a balance between providing sufficient exposure to the instructional approaches and accommodating the constraints of the school schedule. the study aimed to compare the effects of project-based learning (pbl) instruction and collaborative strategic reading (csr) on eighth-grade students' reading comprehension achievement. in the experimental group, pbl instruction was implemented using a descriptive text from the 8th-grade textbook. the implementation of pbl followed a welldefined sequence of steps designed to promote inquiry, autonomy, and critical thinking. the activities started with prereading tasks that stimulated students' curiosity and generated questions. during the while-reading phase, sustained inquiry and authenticity were emphasized, encouraging students to comprehensively read the relevant text, conduct further research using additional resources, and engage in collaborative discussions. following this, students underwent reflection, critique, and revision steps to review, consolidate, and refine their work. finally, in the post-reading phase, students applied their knowledge by creating a report on finding missing people, demonstrating their understanding within a real-world context. on the other hand, the control group received instruction in csr, which is known for promoting active engagement, comprehension monitoring, and collaborative learning. csr implementation involved three distinct steps aimed at enhancing students' reading comprehension skills. in the pre-reading phase, the teacher activated students' prior knowledge and generated interest in the reading task. during the while-reading phase, students actively engaged with the text, discussing difficult project-based learning in junior high school students 41 parts, identifying important elements, and focusing on the main idea of paragraphs. the post-reading phase involved generating questions based on classic journalistic techniques. the differentiation between the experimental and control groups is crucial as it allows for a clear comparison of the effects of pbl and csr. pbl emphasizes inquiry, autonomy, and critical thinking, while csr focuses on active engagement, comprehension monitoring, and collaborative learning. the selection of materials for each group aligns with the respective instructional approaches. the experimental group utilized a descriptive text from the 8th-grade textbook, enabling students to effectively apply pbl principles. in contrast, the control group followed a structured approach using the same 8th-grade textbook, which provided a descriptive text supporting the implementation of csr. overall, the chosen treatment duration of three sessions, each lasting 40 minutes, was selected to provide adequate exposure and engagement with the instructional approaches. while it might seem relatively short, this timeframe allows for focused and intensive instruction, emphasizing the key elements of pbl and csr. it was carefully considered to ensure instructional effectiveness while taking into account the practical constraints of the school schedule. data collection the data for this study were obtained from the pre-test and post-test scores, which were then compared using a t-test to analyze the scores in the treatment group. the first step in the analysis procedure involved deciding upon the research design. this decision was made based on the objectives and nature of the study. next, suitable reading materials and research instruments were selected to measure the student’s reading comprehension skills. in order to align with the research objectives and ensure the validity of the assessment, the selection of materials was conducted with great care, as recommended by cohen (1980). as a result, multiple-choice questions were utilized to evaluate students' comprehension of the text. this approach was employed to ensure the accuracy and appropriateness of the assessment instrument in measuring the desired learning outcomes. to ensure the reliability of the test, a pilot test was conducted at a public school. the test was administered to a group of students, and the consistency and stability of the test items were assessed based on their performance. the test included twenty multiple-choice questions with four options for each item, covering five reading passages. the reliability of a test pertains to the consistency of its results when administered in similar conditions (hatch & farhady, 1982). in this study, the researcher chose to use the kuder richardson-20 method for test administration due to its simplicity and practicality in the classroom setting, as mentioned by matondang (2009) furthermore, the researcher employed cronbach's alpha as a measure of internal consistency reliability (taylor, 2013) to assess the reliability of the test used in the research. the aim was to determine whether the test was reliable for application with eighth-grade students. the scores used for the reliability analysis were obtained from students who were not part of either the control group or the experimental group. the result of the reliability analysis indicated a reliability coefficient of 0.81, suggesting that the test demonstrated a high level of internal consistency. the category of internal consistency reliability is in the following table. correlation level of reliability .00 to .69 .70 to .79 .80 to .89 .90 to .99 poor fair good excellent/strong besides, a researcher assessed the difficulty level of specific items, the researcher employed a formula proposed by heaton (1975). according to heaton, this formula provides a measure of the difficulty 42 project-based learning in junior high school students level, indicating whether the items are challenging or easy (cited in zariah, 2011). the researcher utilized this approach to gain insights into the relative difficulty of the items being examined. following the pilot test, project-based learning was implemented in the experimental group, while the control group received instruction in collaborative strategic reading. these instructional approaches were selected as the treatments for the respective groups. before the treatments were introduced, a pretest was administered to both the experimental and control groups. this pretest served as a baseline measurement of the student’s reading comprehension abilities prior to any interventions. once the pretest was completed, the predetermined treatments were implemented. the control group received instruction in collaborative strategic reading, while the experimental group engaged in project-based learning activities. after the treatments were delivered, a post-test was conducted for both the control group and the experimental group. this posttest aimed to measure the students' reading comprehension achievement following the interventions. by following this step-by-step approach, the researcher collected and analyzed the data to assess the effectiveness of project-based learning and collaborative strategic reading in improving students' reading comprehension skills. the t-test was used to examine any significant differences in scores between the treatment group and control group, providing valuable insights into the impact of the instructional approaches on students' learning outcomes. data analysis technique in the data analysis process, the researcher collected pre-test and post-test scores from both the experimental and control groups. the aim was to calculate the gain score for each group by comparing the pre-test and post-test scores. subsequently, the gain scores of the experimental and control groups were compared to examine any significant differences in means between the pre-test and post-test scores for both groups. an independent sample t-test was employed as the chosen data analysis technique to validate the hypothesis. this statistical test was utilized to determine the significance of the observed differences in means and provide evidence for the hypothesis. the outcome of the t-test will be compared to the critical value obtained from the t-table. if the calculated t-test value exceeds the critical value, the null hypothesis will be rejected. conversely, if the calculated t-test value is lower than the critical value, the null hypothesis will be accepted. attempts to control possible threats to the research design several measures were implemented to address potential threats within the research design. firstly, lesson plans were meticulously developed for project-based learning in the experimental group and collaborative strategic reading in the control group. furthermore, the same materials are employed for both groups, ensuring consistency across the instructional contexts. secondly, the teacher underwent training on implementing reading instruction using the project-based learning method and variable 1 variable 2 mean 32.33 9.67 observations 15 15 df 28 t stat 5.21 t critical onetail 1.70 project-based learning in junior high school students 43 collaborative strategic reading, ensuring adherence to the researcher's prescribed lesson plans. lastly, treatments were administered during regular class sessions, ensuring that students remained unaware of their participation in the experimental study. results and discussions the statistical data analysis using the ttest yielded a t-stat value of 5.21, surpassing the t-critical one-tail value of 1.70 at a significance level of 0.05. this indicates a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group. furthermore, the analysis revealed the mean values for the two groups. the experimental group had a mean gain score of 32.33, whereas the control group had a mean gain score of 9.67. this suggests that the experimental group outperformed the control group. consequently, the experimental group demonstrated a significant positive impact through project-based learning. additionally, the observation results indicated a sample size of 15 students per group, with a degree of freedom of 28. the table of statistical calculations for the mean of the gain scores, t-stat, degree of freedom, and observation, were summarized and presented in the following table the result of the statistical data analysis the results of the statistical data analysis and hypothesis testing indicate a significant difference in reading comprehension achievement between eighth-grade students instructed through project-based learning and those taught using collaborative strategic reading. project-based learning, a constructivist approach, promotes knowledge acquisition through diverse sources, challenging problems, sustained inquiry, reflection, critiques, revisions, and the creation of authentic products. students actively engage in purposeful learning, asking questions, seeking information, and applying their knowledge to real-world tasks. the teacher acts as a facilitator, guiding students' active learning process and providing feedback for improvement. in contrast, collaborative strategic reading involves sentence rereading to comprehend unfamiliar words. the findings highlight the efficacy of project-based learning in enhancing reading comprehension, fostering critical thinking, and promoting peer collaboration. the study supports the zone of proximal development theory by encouraging peer discussion and support. these findings contribute to the growing body of research supporting student-centered, constructivist instructional approaches that promote active learning and application of knowledge. further research is warranted to explore the long-term effects and generalizability of project-based learning in different educational contexts conclusions and suggestions this study aimed to investigate the effect of project-based learning on students' reading comprehension achievement compared to collaborative strategic reading. the findings revealed that the experimental group, which received project-based learning, demonstrated higher reading achievement than the control group. the analysis of gain scores and the statistical results supported this difference. project-based learning, characterized by challenging problems, sustained inquiry, student autonomy, reflection, critiques, and revision, proved to be effective in promoting students' comprehension of texts and their ability to apply knowledge to real-life tasks. on the other hand, collaborative strategic reading primarily focused on vocabulary development through sentence rereading. for teachers, it is recommended to incorporate project-based learning into their reading instruction. this approach provides various strategies to enhance reading comprehensions, such as identifying difficult words, phrases, and main ideas. however, 44 project-based learning in junior high school students teachers should also consider introducing elements of competition or incentives to sustain student interest and prevent monotony in project-based activities. for future researchers, it is advised to explore different materials and teaching techniques in reading instruction. comparative studies between project-based learning and other online platforms or instructional methods would provide valuable insights into their respective strengths and weaknesses. additionally, comparing project-based learning with alternative teaching approaches can contribute to the development of effective strategies for improving students' reading comprehension. overall, this study highlights the benefits of project-based learning in enhancing reading comprehension and suggests avenues for further research in the field of reading instruction. references acat, 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(2016). teaching reading comprehension in descriptive text by using lapbook (a pre-experimental research on the eighth grade students of smp negeri 1 nanga pinoh in the academic year of 2015/2016). unpublished undergraduate thesis, ikip pgri pontianak. zagoto, i. (2016). collaborative strategic reading (csr) for better reading comprehension. jurnal pendidikan bahasa, sastra, dan seni, 17(1), 65-74. zariah, n. (2011). the correlation between simple present tense mastery and ability in writing descriptive text of the first graders of smpn 1 kauman. unpublished undergraduate thesis, stain tulungagung. 16 preference for english in digital media the preference for english in digital media among indonesian millennials ignatius harjanto harjanto@ukwms.ac.id english education department, faculty of teacher education, widya mandala catholic university surabaya, surabaya, indonesia article history received: 17-04-21 reviewed: 15-05-21 accepted: 25-05-21 keywords: language use; identity; language preference; social media doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i1.3143 abstract the use of english among indonesian millennials has been more widespread especially because of exposure to english has been so massive to secondary school in urban areas. there has been a concern that the increasing use of english might diminish their indonesian language use and cultural identity. this study aims to investigate the roles of english on satellite tv programs and social media posts for indonesian millennials, their language preference, and the consequences of language preference on their national identity. a concurrent embedded mixed methods design collecting quantitative and qualitative data was carried out through short essays and closedquestionnaires. both questions of essay writing and closedquestionnaires were sent to students of private high schools in two big cities (jakarta and surabaya), aged 18 to 20 years old online. the questionnaire items were in multiple-choice and the short paragraph essay explained the importance of tv programs and social media posts for learning english. after being scrutinized, 989 respondents’ essay responses were analysed. the findings showed that tv programs and social media posts were claimed to have important roles of english learning resources. although they practiced english through social media, they felt that they still kept themselves as indonesians when using english on social media introduction the world is now characterized with rapid flow of information, capital, and services that are unprecedentedly changing how and where people connect, collect and share information, and use the media. the present world changes very rapidly because of technology. technology advancement in satellite television (tv) and social media has not only disrupted industries and business models but it may also change language and identity of indonesian millennials. various news, lifestyles, and entertainments all over the world are introduced to indonesian millennials on tv. with the internet connection, indonesian millennials can accept, post and share diverse video contents on the web with youtube through social media applications. all these enable indonesian millennials already have the world and its information in their palms. surely, their life and experiences significantly different from the previous young indonesians. couch potatoes have been widely known to have negative effects on overall physical activity levels. however, wise use of mailto:harjanto@ukwms.ac.id https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i1.3143 preference for english in digital media 17 programs on tv could be the factor of language change. stuart-smith, timmins, pryce, & gunter (2013) suspected that the language of television viewers were influenced by their favourite tv drama. several factors that contribute to language change could be related to dialect contact between the language of tv viewers and the language used by the actors or actresses on tv drama. it was believed that a drama on tv disseminate the language spoken by the actors to tv viewers. similar with tv usage, prolonged and uncontrolled use of social media could result in learning and mental health problems, and academic achievement. abbas, aman, nurunnabi, & bano (2019) found that social media affected negative student’s learning. hou, xiong, jiang, song, & wang (2019) found that self-esteem intervention could reduce social media addiction and improve mental health and academic performance. to improve academic performance, students should understand the negative sides of social media use and increase self-esteem. different from the previous studies, elbadawy & hashem (2015) argued that social media did not affect academic performance. the studies on the usage of social media reviewed dealt with mental health and academic performance, not with language preference. youtube shared through social media disseminates language effectively. in the world of education, students and teachers benefit from youtube as a multimedia education prepared to teach, compiled resources for student homework. different from traditional education which heavily depends on the teacher-sole-expert model, the now education facilitates students to access youtube providing useful sources of authentic language input areas where nativespeaker teachers are not available. further, the application of youtube in the efl teaching supports the students english speaking development (alkathiri, 2019). english which has been widely used in education, business, career, and modern life is boosted by social media users. according to murray & christison (2019) english is the main language of social media among nonenglish speakers; english is the lingua franca of online social media. khan, ayaz, & faheem (2016) reviewed that students’ vocabulary english was well improved through social media. arndt & woore (2018) found that non-english students acquired vocabulary by reading blog posts and watching vlogs. in line with this issue, lantzandersson (2018) opined that english is used “a means for various socializing purposes (p. 705).” english and social media tend to have close relationship. ali & hasanabbasi (2015) reviewed that social media play a very important role in providing authentic materials that students of english as a second language can benefit from. in the same way, indonesian millennial students can learn english from native speakers of english via different platforms used in social media. through social media, youtube is good for language and intercultural learning resource (benson, 2015). in addition to english learning resource, social media enable users to keep relationships. kommers (2011) stated that one of the two most visible applications of social media is to build and consolidate friendship among users. they can develop a community where the users share their understandings and experiences on a particular issue. such a community practice (wenger, 2010), according to kommers (2011), is social constructivism where web users come up with their own questions, create their own theories, and examine them 18 preference for english in digital media for feasibility. according to anderson (2006), the key element of community formation is the development of a common language. online communication affects on the language of the users. social networking enable the users to construct their profile within their online community which may reflect their identities. gervasio & karuri (2019) found that social media users mark their identity through language. it is argued in this study that indonesian millennials using social media can form a community with english as the common language among them (murray & christison, 2019; lantzandersson 2018; khan, ayaz, & faheem, 2016) and may construct new identity. theoretical framework language learning requires students to experience cognitively, physically, and emotionally (sa’d, 2017). foreign students learning english experience in using their own first language and english as a foreign language (efl). when learning an efl, they are conscious of themselves as students of an efl and their own identity. students learning a foreign language are characterized both by who they belong to and who they don’t (norton & toohey, 2011). if efl students do not recognize themselves in the target community, they will not maximally participate in learning english. efl students do not only learn linguistic items but also social and cultural aspects. indeed, language competence is not limited to linguistic knowledge but also social and cultural understanding. speaking the target language, efl students assign and reassign their identities. accordingly, identity construction is an ongoing, continuous, and dynamic process of language use (larsen-freeman & cameron, 2007) with distinct stages (rassokha, 2010). language learning and identity construction are closely related (norton & toohey, 2011; abrar-ul-hassan, (2010). reviewing previous studies, yazan, rudolph, & selvi (2019) identified that language learners undergo a process of identity formation of which interaction among language, culture, space, and identity are not clearly cut. learning a new language (english) enables students to form a new identity (lightbown & spada, 2006; pavlenko & lantolf, 2000). it is believed that language learning and identity formation are complementary. it is understood that identity formation can be realized through the use of native language or foreign language. lie, wijaya, & kuntjara (2018) found that language played a central role in the development and expression of identity. they argued that language is the identity markers that can construct speakers’ social identity. language is the most immediate and universal symbol of identity (crystal, 2011). english learners undergo different changes in their cultural identity, shifting from little or almost no change to accept new identity formation. they are confronted with their understanding about their native language and culture and their awareness of learning english. reviewing previous argument about identity, zhou & zhou (2018) mentioned that language learners “had to solve certain identity struggle and conflicts” (p. 1). bilingual speakers experience native and foreign identity. lambert (1974) identified two types of bilingualism, they are additive and subtractive. additive bilingualism refers to language learners who maintain their native language and cultural identities when they acquire the target language and cultures. subtractive bilingualism happens when learners’ native language and cultural identity are substituted preference for english in digital media 19 by the target language and culture. further, gao (2002) recommended productive bilingualism referring to language learners whose native language and culture support each other with the target language and culture positively. productive bilingualism is the most ideal one. turnbull's findings (2017) suggest that efl learning in japan should be positioned in the development of both the students’ english and japanese. other changes in self-identity by gao, zhao, cheng, & zhou (2007) were categorized into six: self-confidence, productive, additive, subtractive, split, and zero. they argued that self-confidence is a “prerequisite” for successful bilingualism. split bilingual, which was a transitional stage, takes place when learners felt contradiction and conflicts between their native language/culture and the target ones. gao, jia, & zhou (2015), studying 4-year longitudinal study, found that chinese students learning efl in in their home setting underwent prominent identity changes. of the six identity changes, positive self-confidence change was the most prevalent. the longer the students learned english the higher changes were experienced. they reported that chinese learners increased additive, productive, and split changes in the fourth year of efl learning. changes in subtractive started low but went through a steady increase. social and demographic factors affect the formation of language identity. abrar-ulhassan (2010) found that students’ social identity is the manifestation of their language identity. other studies reviewed by murray & christison (2019) showed that english students from different places underwent self-language identity formation. further, students’ self-language identity changes affect the role of non-english teachers. motivation is important in language learning; unfortunately, the psychological construct of motivation itself does not clearly explain how a language learner is highly motivated in learning the target language ( norton, 1995). norton (2013) argued that language investment is crucial in the achievement of language acquisition. according to her, a language learner may be highly motivated but has small investment in the target language. investing a language helps learners acquire the target language resources increasing the value of their cultural capital and social power. accordingly, a language learner may have high motivation but low investment in language; on the other side, a learner who invests in a certain set of language practices will likely be motivated in learning the language. digital technology is an investment that is inevitable in the 21st century. digital technology has a significant role in transforming language learning and identity. darvin & norton (2015) opined that technology has “radically transformed language by triggering an explosion of new vocabularies, genres, and styles, and by reshaping both the meaning and practice of literacy” (p, 23). digital technology does not only enable the production of new words and styles but also “multilingual encounters and translingual practices, revitalizing languages and asserting new identities” (darvin, 2016 p. 536). schreiber (2015) found that efl learners experienced translingual written practices on the digital media. as an implication of her findings, she suggested english teachers to reconsider the meaning of efl-mediated identity and to develop the focus of efl writing instruction. lantzandersson (2018) found that the social media facilitated students to practice casual 20 preference for english in digital media communication in english as l2. she argued that social media enabled the students to develop their daily sociopragmatic competence not found in the english class. research on the role of social media on language education has been a growing interest lately. reviewing social media used to develop language learning out of the class, ali & hasanabbasi (2015) concluded that social media are beneficial media to english learning. this could be realized because social media communicate meanings in a variety of forms such as text, music, sound, and images (norton & toohey, 2011). akbari, naderi, simons, & pilot (2016) reported that english learners benefited from facebook; their engagement and motivation in learning english were higher than those who learned english face to face. anankulladetch (2017) found that english students who received social media intervention demonstrated greater perception of engagement and improved upon their learning performance more than those who did not receive the social media intervention. besides developing language learning, social media facilitates the development of intercultural competence (izmaylova, 2017). she found that facebook is uniquely suitable for a tele-collaboration; students had an opportunity to develop their own accessible language learning environment. it is argued that facebook is a platform which could be effective for foreign language instruction. based on the results of her study, jin (2015) also suggested to use facebook to teach intercultural interactions in the efl classroom because it was practical to accommodate intercultural interactions between efl students and native speakers of english. it was widely known that literacy skills are developed from popular communication media such as newspaper, magazine, radio, and television. traditional literacy which was regarded as a set of skills such as reading, writing, and arithmetic could be enhanced from the mainstream communication channels. with the development of information and communications technology, however, the scope of literacy changes accordingly. the changes of new technologies and the social practices have led to “new literacy” which develops from internet-based media such as web, twitter, blogs, youtube, facebook, mobile technologies (simsek & simsek, 2013 p. 126). “new literacy” is different from traditional literacy which regarded literacy as a mental phenomenon considering reading and writing as activities inside people’s head. “new literacy” is real and is practiced in social and cultural group within digital media environments comprising the 21st century skills (spires, morris, & zhang, 2012). “new literacy” is beyond print literacy; it is digital literacy which requires skills specific to a certain technology. digital literacy and identity are interdependent so that students’ access to a variety of literacy can affect their identity. digital spaces allow opportunities for selfexpressions which may reveal their identity. identity in the digital territory is perceived as a literacy concept that enables users to express themselves freely carrying out their self-concepts and values (simsek & simsek, 2013). self-expressions on digital media may assert digital media users to negotiate their identity. zhao, grasmuck, & martin (2008) reported that face bookers’ identities were formed implicitly rather than explicitly; they showed rather than told their identities. in line with language identity, rezaei & latifi (2019) found that the iranian efl learners’ awareness of the intercultural and interlingual issues were moderate; they were preference for english in digital media 21 aware of persian as their national language while english is their foreign language. eager to know digital media as language learning resources, this study investigated (1) the roles of satellite tv and social media (i.e., youtube, instagram, facebook) for indonesian post-millennials, (2) their language preference, and (3) the consequences of language preference on their identity. research method this study is a concurrent embedded mixed methods design (creswell, 2014) collecting quantitative and qualitative data on the topic of language use on digital media in in the same time. the data were collected from high school students. the data of this study were taken through short essays and closed-questionnaires. in this study, the primary method used was short essays written by the respondents. authentic opinions about digital media, language preference and effects of language preference on the respondents’ identity were taken with free writing in english. these opinions were elaborated with quantitative data taken with closed-questionnaires. information about digital media, language preference were addressed through closedquestions questionnaire items. although the primary data was qualitative, the presentation of the findings was started with quantitative data and completed with qualitative data. the primary data of written opinions were used to dig deep the responses of the closedquestionnaires. besides being used as opinions for their english preference, the short essays in english were taken as evidence for their english proficiency. integrating quantitative and qualitative data were done to answer the research questions. the participants of this study were millennials recruited using purposive random sampling (ary, jacobs, & sorensen, 2010) from private schools in two big cities: jakarta and surabaya. they were selected because they, i.e., their family, subscribed tv cable channels and used social media in their daily lives. the participants emphasizing lifestyle and experience (kementerian keuangan republik indonesia, 2019) belonged to middle class families who could access satellite tv cable channels and afford smartphones as their lifestyles. they changed their needs to their wants; attractiveness, beautifulness and the like were attached to their daily appearances. although they were students, they loved fashion, enjoyed performing arts and tourism. this could be traced from their social status on their social media accounts. overall, the participants were homogeneous having similar socio-economic background, level of education, hobby, and age. both questions of essay writing and closed-questionnaires were sent to the respondents online. one short instruction asking the participants to write a short essay of 100 to 150 words explaining the importance of tv and social media for learning english was addressed. the closedquestionnaire items required the participants to choose one correct answer of multiplechoice questions about the use of digital media including tv, youtube, and social media. including in the social media were youtube, instagram, facebook. the other items asked the participants to choose their language preference used on social media postings and the practices with social media postings and effects of language preference on their identity. there were 989 returned questionnaires taken as the data source of this study. these returned questionnaires were scrutinized based on the contents of the short essays. written short essays having same (copy 22 preference for english in digital media paste) and similar in content were considered as being redundant and put aside. indeed, participants who did not write a short essay or whose essays were unintelligible essays were dropped. results the roles of tv and social media for indonesian millennials indonesian and overseas tv cable channels, as the mainstream media, were still the main forms for entertainment and news. table 1 reports that entertainment was dominant over news. the interesting entertainment programs for indonesian student millennials (i.e., participants) were movies, tv shows, sports, and music. almost all participants from surabaya preferred to watch entertainment programs on tv. the percentage of the participants from jakarta having similar preference was a bit lower than those from surabaya. whenever the participants were in front of tv, they switched on entertainment programs; news programs such as lifestyle and current news were sometimes chosen. table 1. tv as the main stream media for indonesian millennials television entertainment news cities n % n % surabaya 727 94 44 6 jakarta 184 84 34 16 two main languages, indonesian and english, were on indonesian tv programs. in indonesian tv programs, news, entertainments, and advertisements were in indonesian; however, movies and music were either in indonesian or english. tv cables provided both indonesian and english programs; overseas tv cable programs mostly watched by the participants were the ones in english. as shown in table 2, the participants of this study preferred to watch tv programs in english than those in bahasa indonesia. more than three quarters of the total numbers of the participants (80% participants from jakarta and 79% from surabaya) chose tv programs in english because of the contents and language. they watched movies in english not in indonesian because the stories were sophisticated, interesting, and inspiring. they thought that the stories of tv movies in indonesian could be guessed and monotonous. indeed, tv movies in english were sources of english learning. watching movies in english familiarized them with english pronunciations and expressions. table 2. language preference on tv language english indonesian cities n % n % surabaya 609 79 162 21 jakarta 174 80 44 20 opining in written about the importance of electronic and social media, the participants considered english as the language of the media industry that can be a learning sources. they learned english from tv shows, movies or music. they stated that they experienced in improving their english skills and language elements. … children nowadays speak english fluently… because they get used to watching tv, … (j_asaa-33). we can watch youtube and tv shows to improve our speaking and listening skills, and we can also read articles in english to practice our writing and reading skills (s_jaw-17). the learning strategies applied to improve their english when learning from tv programs were listening to tv programs preference for english in digital media 23 and using subtitles. i usually watch movies or videos … using english subtitles … it helps me a lot to improve my vocabulary, hearing, and grammar (sby_vas-33). listening attentively to tv cable shows and movies improved their speaking skills. reading subtitles on the screen helped them to improve their speaking, listening, vocabulary, and grammar. when reading subtitles, they probably matched with expressions, phrases, words spoken on the tv shows or movies. the other participants, however, preferred to learn english from tv movies without subtitles. … i prefer learning english … watching movie without subtitle…. (f_jkt-48). in summary, tv had been an important role for the participants of this study as both media of entertainment and learning. the interesting tv shows and movies in english triggered the participants to learn english. some participants benefited from subtitles to improve their english, the rest ignored subtitles but listened to and watched tv shows and movies as an effective way to improve their english. the participants of this study were very familiar with social media. most of them claimed that social media was a lifestyle, a part of their daily lives. social media has become a lifestyle for the community and is often used daily (s_son-4). there was an indication that they were addicted to social media and its applications because of their benefits and functions. they recognized that they lived in the era of technology and used social media to communicate globally with others far away from them, access new information, keep the latest news, and learn english. social media is very important because if we follow the foreign accounts, the posts will mostly be in english. it automatically helps us to learn english. because we will learn new words. and we can see the correct grammar (j_itd-199). the participants of this study used social media everywhere: home, school and community. they kept communicating with other people and learning english with social media. at home, they used social media keep communicating with their family members, parents and siblings, when they were physically away. when communicating with their family members using social media, they also practiced english. at school, social media was used as a tool for learning english in group or pairs and communicating with teachers and friends. the participants could find english words, grammars, and articles from social media posts. in the society, social media was a popular means of communication and socialisation among users in english that enabled them to learn english. inevitably, they used social media for several reasons but learning english was the main one. at home, social media could help parents and children to learn and communicate better english… at school, students can learn english by listening others speak english, reading articles and books in english, watching educational videos about english, and etc. … in social communities, social media could help others to learn, study, and even speak english with others…. better (s_er-4) through social media, the participants could access authentic english by native speakers. english is such a difficult language to learn for a non-native speakers, but with social media, the participants could learn an authentic english spoken by english native speakers. the native speakers did not only expose authentic english but also helped to find proper learning resources. such meaningful and interesting materials 24 preference for english in digital media made the participants more engaged and motivated to learn english. different from english books, social media exposed the participants to english as it is spoken in the real world. social media makes me closer to people from around the world, including native english speakers. with the social media i can chat with them easily, learn english, and learn their accents (m_nsp371). social media were taken as a practical and flexible distant communication device which allows them to keep informed and friendship. the participant in jakarta wrote as follows: i learn how to speak and use english mostly from informal education, youtube, games, and interacting with friends, … i think social media is a very good media for learning english whether at school, home, or the social community itself. medias like this are much more flexible at indirectly teaching english to students …. (j_bj-17). social media enabled the family and friends of the participants to keep contacting although they were separated with distances; even they could manage their future family gatherings. although social media were mostly popular because of its benefits for the participants to communicate, keep friendship, learn and enhance english, some negative sides were also recognized. the advantage is we can have many friends from … abroad, as a medium of learning a foreign language ... the disadvantage is when we abuse it like a bad friend and open an adult site (m_cvk-9). they thought that users of social media should not abuse social media but be wise, able to manage their time well, and considered the bad effects. this was due to the rising number of wrongdoings and offenses against the use of social media such as sending hoax news, hate speech and identity forgery, and commenting stupid viral things. the negative effects of social media use was not related to the function of social media as an english learning resource. social media doesn't give a very good effect on the community. many people abuse it. many indonesian people didn't realize how those "things" in it is actually useless (m_cg-6). language preference many social media platforms are available and used. however, youtube seemed to be the most popular social media websites for the participants. more than just a video-sharing platform for entertainments, youtube was also a popular video-sharing platform for learning english. the participants thought that youtube provided them entertainments, information, and even education. through youtube, they could learn virtually any knowledge, skills, and english. the survey showed that they preferred to watch tv programs and videos in english. table 3a and 3b display the language preference of the participants. both tables show that a very high percentage of the participants preferred tv programs and video clips in english. tv programs and video clips in english were very popular for both participants in jakarta (79.72% and 90%) and surabaya (79.09 & 84%). on the other hand, tv programs and video clips in indonesian were of little interest to be enjoyed and watched by the participants in jakarta (20.28 & 10%) and surabaya (20.29% & 16%). accordingly, tv programs and videos youtube in english were much more trendy among participants than those in indonesian. table 3a. language preference on tv programs languages english indonesian cities n % n % surabaya 610 79.02 162 20.98 jakarta 173 79.72 44 20.28 preference for english in digital media 25 table 3b. language preference on social media language english indonesian cities n % n % surabaya 646 84 125 16 jakarta 196 90 22 10 video clips commonly accessed through youtube and tv shows watched were in english. video clips on youtube helped the participants to improve their english: language skills and components. besides video clips or movies, other social media platforms provided the participants sources to learn english anywhere and anytime. the following are some of their comments. we can watch youtube and tv shows to improve our speaking and listening skills, and we can also read articles in english to practice our writing and reading skills (s_jaw-17). we can watch youtube and tv shows to improve our speaking and listening skills, and we can also read articles in english to practice our writing and reading skills (s_cj-18). … english on social media … helps us to learn english deeper by watching videos in english on youtube, listening to english music… (s_aid-44). social media has become one of the media that exposes people with english usage. with the usage of social media, we are subconsciously slowly learning english phrases and terms (m_mke-382). social media is one of the easiest way to learn english. it is because by using media like youtube, instagram, etc. everyone can hear english or read english. this is a good way to be used at the language english. well this is actually one of the way i understand english by being exposed to it at a daily basis (j_ca-179). they learned english from social media platforms by watching, listening, chatting; even, they could prepare themselves for english test. one of the participants wrote “… we (i) can search on youtube to learn grammar or how to write correctly, etc. we (i) can also search about ielts test on youtube” (s_cls_30). the participants of this study tended to received social media posts more in english than those in indonesian. here in indonesia you can choose between english and bahasa indonesia. well, i and some of my friends prefer to choose english to indonesia (j_jak-47). the other participants said, i love using english, its more universal than bahasa i think, i can easily communicate with people around the world by using social media (j_lsaw-76). supporting the preference for english on social media, the participant wrote social media is a global media that english is mostly used. table 4 shows that more than a half number (630) of the whole participants (989) accepted social media posts in english from the original posters (op). the participants from surabaya who received posts in english were higher in percentage (66%) than those from jakarta (57%). although surabaya is smaller than jakarta, the participants from surabaya got higher english exposers than those from jakarta. the original posts in english could be about messages, news, games, songs, stories, videos, or captions. these posts were mostly from overseas posters/leaders. social media is important to learn english because it contains a lot of english content, such as overseas celebrity, famous influencer, and many more (s_ve_79). the other participant wrote, at line or instagram, i often see or follow western people that of course use english every time they post something (j_aj-7) 26 preference for english in digital media table 4. social media posts accepted by the participants languages english indonesian cities n % n % surabaya 506 66 265 34 jakarta 124 57 94 43 receptive english learning from social media posts was first done. reading social media posts in english led the participants to learn, exercise about english, and see the world. they got used to watching videos in english. social media is already a part of our life in this modern era. we can use this to learn english by reading text messages, watching videos, etc. (j_nmt-133). social media enabled them to do independent english learning; they made english learning groups with heterogenous members that made them to learn each other about english easily. “in my opinion learning english … in social media is very important … we usually create a group at social media to learn english with the other people or our friends …. so, learning english in social media is very important!” (j_fes-119). one of the respondents affirmed the benefits of social media as a learning resource. personally i think that social media is not only a platform where you can socialize online with people from all over the world, but it’s also a great platform to learn english since probably most social media users use english and posts in english, and therefore we must adapt to understand the english language in order to understand these users, and we can use social media to learn english anywhere, as long as it is appropriate, such as home, school, or community (j_mba_38). they were assured that the english rules they learned were correct because of english native speakers’ posts. with social media i can learn vocabularies, grammars, words, and correct sentences to improve my english (s_wn-31). further, with correct english rules acquired, they could improve others’ english in the group. in short, english social media posts assisted the participants to learn and enhance reading skill, vocabulary, and grammar. the participants of the study posted contents in english more than the ones in indonesian. table 5 indicates that very high posts numbers (840) were in english. the number of their posts in english were much higher (surabaya 86% and jakarta 80%) than their posts in indonesian (surabaya 14% and jakarta 20%). the participants from surabaya posted contents in english slightly higher than the participants from jakarta. comparing data in table 4 and table 5, the findings showed that the participants who dealt with productive english, in jakarta (80%) and surabaya (86%), were much higher than receptive english, in jakarta (57%) and surabaya (66%). there was a tendency that the participant wrote in english posts higher than those read english posts. of the reasons they posted in english was as follows. if you post something in english, it can be understood by most of the country…. (j_adp-51). posting in en-glish may improve their english, social media usually helps us to improve our english proficiency. because we can com-municate with other people in english and see other people posts in english (s_nt-8). table 5. language preference for social media posts by participants languages english indonesian cities n % n % surabaya 666 86 105 14 jakarta 174 80 44 20 preference for english in digital media 27 realising english as a global language, the participants of this study were encouraged not only to learn english but also practice english on social media. social media did not only provide english exposers but also a forum for practising english. social media can be used to learn. example, i watch the vlogs from youtube, mostly vlogs are using english for the language speaking. from that vlog, i heard english, …. (j_ll193). using english for communication was done in a sequential process, they stepped from receptive language skills and then stepped in learning productive skills. listening was one step many participants point to as an integral step in learning to write social media posts. with social media, my listening could be improved very much by hearing other's talk in social media apps and also hear some music from other countries. and also it could improve my writing by commenting at other's post (j_mt-6). they did not only read social media posts but also posted contents in english. higher percentages both in writing and reading strongly indicated the use of social media as a medium of english learning. even, they suggested schools to use social media as the media of english learning to make english subject interesting. one of the respondents shared his feeling, “sometimes i prefer to learn english from the internet and social media than to learn at school because i feel that if i just rely on the skills that i got at school is not enough. because in my opinion, at school we only focus on assessments and assignments, and sometimes seem to impose without an effective and enjoyable approach to increase the enthusiasm of students to be interested in english. so, i think the social media and the internet are important for learning english.(j_cks-7). the dominant use of english on social media was so meaningful and helpful for the participants to learn english, even, for those who already speak english fluently. social media posts in bahasa indonesia was usually done to respect their national language and appreciate their indonesian followers. social encounters, not ‘academic’ meetings, were done in indonesian through social media. the original posts in indonesian were usually chatting, personal (family) sharing, and daily communication. besides ops and/or followers, the main reasons of using indonesian in their social encounters were related to language appreciation and maintenance. the usage of english on social media was done consciously. one of the participants explicitly wrote: most of us will at least spend a total of 4 hours at home scrolling down our social media, trying to write a good english status/caption, listening to music/ videos in english, and reading some articles written in english. (m_ma-21). the main purpose of choosing english on social media posts was to learn english and broaden their insights. this does not mean that the usage of indonesian was totally neglected. they still read or wrote social media posts in indonesian, especially when they communicated with their family members and/or their indonesian friends. the consequence of language preference to identity the participants of the study realised that english preference on social media enabled them to express to and receive from wider audience information, thoughts, feelings, and culture. they did not only talk to their parents, members of the family, classmates, and teachers; they communicated with netizens from different countries. 28 preference for english in digital media i think social media is the most influential media that can improve my as it was claimed that social media was a lifestyle did not refer to western lifestyle but universal. english proficiency. … social media doesn’t change a lot for me at home. i usually use indonesia language for communicating with my family. the most important is that i can use social media for educational media at school, or even for social community (j_arr-130). i always use english language on google because it always gives me a more detailed article for the information …. i rarely use english in social community because canisius always use bahasa indonesia as school main language and i guess that's a good decision since canisius is a school located in indonesia and using bahasa is a must for their students to keep their indonesian identity (j_ads-159). the participants still appreciated their being indonesians. posting in english on social media posts and reading social media posts in english frequently did not mean to change their identity. they did it to help them to improve their english and update or widen their views. they took english as a means of communication and acquisition of any knowledge and experiences. although english was enhanced through social media usage, they tended not think that their national identity changed. the following opinions were written to support the use of indonesian. as an indonesian, we have to be proud of our language (j_at-48). \ using english in daily life is very important for me. … but i can't let my english skill makes me forget about indonesian language. even though i can speak, and talk english very well, my nationality is still indonesian, and my main language is still indonesian. but i agree and admit that english is very important these days (j_r-2). social media was taken as an agency inspiring the netizens to gain experiences in intercultural interaction. the relationship of language and culture on social media posts might result in one’s identity. they understood that language was intrinsic to the expression of culture. for them, language and culture were intertwined; when learning english, they also learned its culture. social media posts might affect their personal identity but not their nationality. some of them expressed that their identity might be affected while the others thought that they expressed solidarity but kept their identity the same. preference for english in digital media 29 many of them claimed to foster their indonesian identity. a strong argument for fostering indonesian identity is the following, learning english may in fact change our identity, but it still depends on the person. some person may get affected really fast, but some doesn't. by learning english, doesn't mean we should leave our identity. it's just a useful skill to use when speaking with foreigners. as an indonesian, we still should respect our own language by setting our priorities straight. using indonesian language will be better for communicating with our indonesian family, school, and social community (j_k-16) discussion the participants of this study benefited from tv programs to enhance their english ability at home. satellite tv programs in english which were accessible to most of the participants of the study improved their english skills. they imitated and practiced what they watched on tv programs. subtitles on tv movies might help or not help them to understand movies in english. this finding is in line with the study of metruk (2018) which found that watching tv with or without subtitles were not really different in listening comprehension. different from tv programs which strengthened printed and audio-visual literacy, social media have been introducing new literacy (simsek & simsek, 2013). through youtube and facebook the participants learned and practiced new literacy by blending text, sound, and imagery in their english postings. in addition to learning english as found by amin & sundari (2020), they learned and practiced technology skills (spires, morris, & zhang, 2012). the participants of the study experienced in understanding and producing social media posts in english. social media postings which were mostly done in english enabled the participants to do productive new literacy such as text-messaging and social networking. while school environment limited itself with contact hours and academic rules, social media provided more opportunities to practice english “due to the motivating and helpful environment it provides” (namaziandost, branch, & nasri, 2019, p. 210). youtube introduced receptive new literacy—listening comprehension—to the participants. the participants watched and listened to youtube to find required information for their problems and then synthesized them. besides providing a lot of entertainment choices, youtube was the source of english learning for the participants. arndt & woore (2018) found that non-english students acquired vocabulary by reading blog posts and watching vlogs. this finding supports the findings of moghavvemi, sulaiman, & jaafar (2018) regarding youtube as an effective tool of english learning. as sources of english learning, youtube and the other social media platforms provided new vocabularies for the participants. this finding relates to the findings of arndt & woore (2018) who found that vocabulary was acquired through reading blog posts and watching vlogs. there was a tendency that social media was a part of the respondents’ life style in a positive view. they used social media every day for socializing, learning english, and searching for new information or skills with diverse topics. some of them even reminded users of social media not to abuse it. this finding may relate to the study of janicke30 preference for english in digital media bowles, narayan, & seng (2018) which found that social media was a source of inspiring information. benefits of tv movies and social media postings were enjoyed by the participants of the study. they learned and shared authentic and communicative english. applying the acquired authentic english of the native speakers for daily oral communication would be recommended because their english would sound natural. however, stating ideas as they are directly from the sources without credit to the author should be precautious. as argued by li (2017), the use of social media as english learning resources should be completed with provision of referencing training by teachers. the english learned from social media posts is different from english of the classroom. social media postings provided up-to-date information relevant to their need in keeping friendships alive over great distances. accordingly, english used on social media came in an environment where the participants were enjoying, learning, and picking up english in a more natural way. as argued by darvin & norton (2015) and darvin (2016), the participants of this study learned vocabularies, structures, genres and styles; indeed, they experienced new english literacy because they communicated with foreign people of different cultures. the finding of this study is in line with lantzandersson (2018) who found that social media postings exposed casual english with diverse linguistic expressions. english slang words were very popular in social media posts. some participants considered them as an informal language deviating from standard english. such english slangs did not improve their standard english. this study relates to the study of thurairaj, hoon, roy, & fong (2015) who found that the frequent use of slangs did not affect students’ english language proficiency; their essays were free from slang language. the other participants of this study considered english slang words were cool and creative which enriched english as a living language. although english slang words were typically restricted to a particular context or group of people, they were very common in conversation. a number of english slang words were new and not found in conventional english dictionaries. these slang words are only found in the internet and social media. this finding is in relation of namvar & ibrahim (2014) who found that esl students were very familiar with slangs on the net and social media. the other findings of this study showed that tv movies and social media postings helped the participants to learn english and its culture. critical thinking expressed in their short writing informed that learning english inevitably learned its culture. they learned about lifestyle and culture, and appreciated cultural differences (jin, 2015). they appreciated the positive side of using english on social media but did not ignore the usage of indonesian. further, they could be categorized as being positive towards both of english and indonesian languages and cultures. this findings is in line with the study of rezaei & latifi (2019). the participants’ awareness of their national identity was revealed in this study. learning and using english on social media posts could affect their lifestyle and their way of using english but not their indonesian identity. this study supports the previous study of harjanto, lie, & wijaya (2019) which found that indonesian identity was not evidently changed. their preference of english on social media posts were navigated by their diverse needs in the digital age (darvin & norton, 2015). in the same time, preference for english in digital media 31 they learned to communicate in english through the internet and learned to access any information on the internet. their english preference was more instrumental than integrative (hong & ganapathy, 2017) which can be interpreted as one factor behind keeping their indonesian identity. it is too early to claim that the participants of the study were bilinguals (lambert, 1974; gao, 2002; gao, zhao, cheng, & zhou 2007) in terms of indonesian and english. preference of english than indonesian on tv programs and social media posts indicated they were in the process of additive change and not subtractive change (lambert, 1974). they maintained indonesian and their cultural identities when they acquired english and its cultures. although little of them wrote their social media status in english they could not be called as substituting their being indonesians by english and its culture. inductively, the findings showed that they might undergo split changes when using social media in english but they consciously kept their being indonesians. further, they experienced additive change than productive change; they comprehended social media posts in english more than posted themselves in english. overall, they seemed to be confidence in choosing english as means of communication on social media. this is in line with the study of gao, jia, & zhou (2015). conclusion people on the world is now easily connected with digital media. moreover, social media has made entertainment, information, knowledge, skills, interests, and lifestyle available. this study found that social media did not only provide social entertainment but also social networking and language learning resource. while many adults are worried with social media abuse that make millennials individualistic, the findings of this study showed that they could build and maintain relationships with their friends online. social media has enabled them to communicate with a much larger number of people on a global scale in a way they used to do on a local level. this came to be true when they were able to use english. realising the key role of english for global communication, the participants of this study used social media as a source of english learning. they thought that social media was an interesting english learning resource in terms of up-to-date information, considerable amount of authentic english input, interaction with native language speakers, and cutting-edge english learning. nevertheless, social media abuse that could sidetracked them to unscholarly and ungrammatical english and misinformation was paid attention. impacts on learning and using english through social media were counted as instrumental and optional. they learned english in order to use it as a means of communication. although learning english and its culture were intertwined, knowledge of english culture complemented the participants to communicate in english properly. they still appreciated indonesian language and behaved as indonesians. the findings on self-identity changes must be further verified with qualitative research approaches to uncover self-identity changes experienced by indonesian millennials learning english. topics about types of tv channels and social media for english learning and the use of sub-titles on tv programs and english expressions on social media are recommended for further researches. 32 preference for english in digital media acknowledgments this article is based on a project funded by the directorate general of research and development, ministry of research, technology and higher education of the republic of indonesia under grant no. 3/e/kpt/2018; 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(2018). role of selfidentity and self-determination in english learning among high school students. journal of language, identity and education, 17(3), 168–181. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2018. 1433537 metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment 83 beyond words vol. 10 no.2 november 2022 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya metacognitive strategies of english department students in virtual speaking assessment christina waso odung little sun primary school surabaya surabaya article history abstract submitted: 30-4-2021 reviewed: 22-6-2022 accepted: 21-11-2022 keywords: metacognitive strategies, stimulated recall, virtual speaking assesment doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i2.3171 metacognitive strategies are learners’ strategies to think or organize their learning. there have been a lot of studies conducted on this subject area in which most of them quantitatively found that there were differences in the frequency of using metacognitive strategies among different achievers. this study is specially presented to depict how students deploy their metacognitive strategies especially in facing and executing a language assessment, performing a persuasive speech virtually. the assessment should be conducted virtually in an english education study program in indonesia due to the covid-19 outbreak. there were 11 participants from a speaking class of a department from different levels of achievements taking part in the study. the high, middle, and low achievers joined a stimulated recall interview to pour everything in their mind when they were preparing for the persuasive speech assessment, executing it, and evaluating it. based on the investigation done through stimulated recall interview, the study reveals that there are differences among high, middle, and low achievers in preparing for the final test and in executing it, in which the high performing achievers prepared more comprehensively in the preparation which affected to their performance. the study also confirms that higher achievers have more responsibilities and confidence compared to the low achievers in preparing for their task performances. introduction learners who have metacognitive strategies are those who regulate over their learning in thinking about what/ how they should learn, how the performance should go on, and how it should be done better. there have been a number of experimental studies conducted in applying the metacognitive strategy for different purposes of language learning in esl and efl the results of which show positive impact from the approach to the success of the language learning (alfangca & tamah, 2017; birjandi & rahimi, 2012; cer, 2019; rahimirad, 2014; wichadee, 2011). those studies confirm that https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i2.3171 84 metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment when students are taught howthey should learn to accomplish language skills, their awareness increased as well as the result of their learning. considering that having metacognition is important especially for language learners, this study is directed to explore whether efl students who prepare themselves as english teachers have such awareness in their learning particularly in speaking class. besides experimental studies which show the positive impact of deploying metacognitive in learning (wichadee, 2011; birjandi & rahimi, 2012; rahimirad, 2014; cer, 2019), there are also a number of quantitative studies which prove that there are differences in the frequency of applying metacognitive strategies by different achievers (yang, 2009, and alamri 2018). however, those studies did not fully depict how the learners deployed their metacognitive strategies in learning. in other words, how students regulated their learning was not explained in detail. this led the writer to conduct a qualitative study to depict how learners use their metacognitive strategy. moreover, a qualitative study particularly on metacognitive strategy in speaking so far is still limited. it is stated that lack of research on the use of language learning strategy in speaking skill is noticed (yunus, 2014). so far, there has been limited number of studies regarding the deployment of metacognitive studies in speaking class in indonesia, for example a study by dewi, kahfi and kurniawati (2017). in addition, there is no metacognitive studies in the english department under study. this present study investigated how a group of second year students in an english department in indonesia deployed their metacognitive strategies in facing, executing, and evaluating their persuasive speech performance which should be done virtually as the final semester assessment. regarding the background of the study, this study is done to answer the question of how students of different speaking achievement based on their performance of the final assessment deployed their metacognitive strategies in performing the speaking assessment. literature review metacognition is the ability to understand and realizing the world, selfregulating and monitoring thoughts, evaluating the thoughts, revising the goals, motivating, developing strategies and heuristics for a better version of oneself who can adapt with the situation, and understanding others to gain selfunderstanding (hacker, dunloski, & graesser, 2009). livingston (1997) shows metacognitive strategies as sequential processes in regulating over a cognitive activities, and to ensure that the goal of a particular task has been met. these processes exist in planning for, monitoring, and evaluating for a language learning or task (livingston, 1997, and o’molley & chamot, 1990). students having metacognitive strategies are guided thoroughly not only to accomplish a learning but also to be consciously aware of their own strategies, styles, strength, weaknesses, and feeling of any aspect existing before, during, and after a language task takes place in learning process. moreover, the deployment of students’ metacognitive strategies is not limited to any learning model or circumstance. when the students have metacognition, they regulate their thinking and choose which most appropriate strategy metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment 85 can go along well with their capability or condition. the choice of the strategies is influenced by some things such as students’ awareness itself, gender, ethnicity, learning style, readiness, task involved and self-motivation (oxford 1990 as cited in razak. et.al, 2012). metacognitive strategies enable learners to be active in the learning process, especially to find the best strategy to practice and reinforce what have been learned (chari et al., 2010 as cited in rahimi & katal 2012). based on the theories, metacognitive strategy can be understood as the hub of other learning strategies that students decide to use for the best learning outcome. successful students in virtual learning are those who are able regulate their thinking and action in such circumstances. this statement is supported by the characteristics of successful students in virtual learning as described by the illinois online network (2006) in palloff and pratt (2007). those characteristics include open-mindedness about sharing experiences as part of the learning process; ability to communicate through writing (online chatting); having self-motivation and discipline; willing to “speak up” if problems arise; ability to meet the minimum requirements for the program; acceptance of critical thinking and decision making as part of the learning process, have access to a computer and internet connection; ability to think of ideas thoroughly before responding; and, feeling that high-quality learning can take place without going to a traditional classroom (online network, 2006, in palloff & pratt, 2007) students who are well-prepared for a language assessment can make themselves readier and more confident to face it. there are actually some specific advantages gained from a well-planned task particularly for oral proficiency task such as increasing the accuracy of some grammatical features like grammars and articles (wigglesworth 1997, in wigglesworth & elder 2010). besides increasing the accuracy, there are also other benefits from a well-planned oral proficiency test performance such as enhancing the fluency and complexity of the speech performance (foster, 1996; foster & skehan, 1996; mehnert, 1998; ortega, 1999; skehan & foster, 1997; wendel, 1997; yuan & ellis 2003, in wigglesworth & elder, 2010), and also mitigating error in the speech (ellis, 1997 & mehnert, 1998 as cited in wigglesworth & elder, 2010). o’molley and chamot (1990) classify metacognitive strategies into three sub categories: planning, monitoring, and evaluation. planning is the preparation for a language task where learners preview the main ideas and concepts of the task by scanning what the task is about (advance organizer), focusing on the task only (directed attention), plannig for and rehearsing particular linguistic components (functional planning), deciding what to attend in doing the task (selective attention), and understanding the external or internal condition whether they can help to prepare for the task (self-management). in monitoring, a learner is consciously aware of what should be done when a task is ongoing by checking his/her own comprehension or accuracy on the language task to get a maximal outcome (self-monitoring). in evaluation, after the language task, a learner checks the outcome of his/her own language task performance based on the standard (self evaluation). a study about foreign language learners’ metacognitive beliefs and strategies which was done by wang, spencer, and xing (2009) investigated the effects of secondyear university students’ metacognitive beliefs and strategies on learning chinese as 86 metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment a foreign language (cfl). the participants were english-speaking students in chinese classes at beginners’ level. at the end of a semester when the research was done, or after the learners learned each of the skills during the semester, they gave responses about their beliefs and metacognitive strategies in learning chinese. the study shows that those who were confident with their ability or had metacognitive beliefs about themselves in learning the language and taking responsibility in planning their learning did well in achievement tests. based on the study, there are positive association between students’ confidence and the achievement test results, in which successful students are found to have confidence in their abilities. the study also shows that learners who had higher metacognitive strategies got better result from the achievement test but the study did not show students’ result in a particular skill of the language. even though the present study had a narrow scope, i.e only speaking competence, this is expected to give deeper understanding about the metacognitive process since it will use stimulated recall protocol to reveal the process. the second related study was conducted by lam in 2008 to investigate metacognitive strategy by esl learners when planning and preparing for an upcoming english oral group task and to propose using stimulated recall (sr) as an innovative method to access learners’ strategic thoughts or inner voices. there was intervention by the researcher to the participants before the discussion was conducted. the participants had been taught metacognitive strategies for 20 weeks and got guiding handout to have a cognition of what to plan and prepare for the task. the participants were 8 secondary hongkong students who were engaged in an english group discussion task. before the task began, they were given time to prepare for the task. and after the task, each student participated in an sr (stimulated recall) interview to recall the thought processes they had during the group preparation. the study, a qualitative analysis on the thought processes, revealed that students used different type of metacognitive strategies to do local and global planning prior to the task proper. it was also found that students monitored to turn taking pattern during the discussion process. their inner voices in this research were investigated through an sr interview. the above study has similarity with the present study. the method to inspect students’ metacognitive strategies in facing a speaking task employed stimulated recall (sr). however, the previous research was conducted based on the task of group discussion and there was an intervention given, while in this research the sr was based on persuasive speaking and there was no intervention given to the students. research method the method used in this study was stimulated recall (sr). it is a method used to prompt interviewee to recall thoughts he/she had while performing a task or participating in an event (gass and mackey, 2000). the design of this study was qualitative research to depict students’ metacognitive strategies in conducting the speaking assessment virtually. the setting, participants, data collection, and the data analysis in this research are described as the following. setting the research was conducted at an english department of a catholic university in surabaya, indonesia. for special metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment 87 circumstances due to the covid -19 outbreak, all the classes should be conducted virtually as well as the administration of the final assessment of a speaking class where the data were taken. the final assessment was done through zoom platform in which each student was given a chance to deliver a persuasive speech in front of three lecturers. there were eleven participants. four of them were high achievers, four others were middle achievers and the rest three were low achievers. the differences were based on their performance on the speaking assessment itself, scored by the lecturers. participants there were eleven participants of the class took part in the stimulated recall (sr) interview. four of them were high achievers, the other four were middle achievers and the rest three were low achievers. the differences were based on their performance on the speaking assessment itself, scored by the class lecturer. data collection after the students performed their speaking task as the final project via zoom, the researcher interviewed the participants by using the method of stimulated recall (gass & mackey, 2000), individually via zoom. the stimuli given can be in the form of audiotapes, videotapes, or written products that are used to reactivate or refresh recollection of cognitive processes so that they can be accurately recalled and verbalized (gass & mackey, 2000). in this research, the stimuli given were a printed instruction sheet and assessment rubric of the final project, and the video recordings of the students’ performance in the final exam. the questions of the interviewer were based on the protocol (gass & mackey, 2000) as presented below: “before watching the video, i am going to ask you some questions regarding how you prepared your speech. i want you to answer everything honestly. i am really interested in what you were thinking of when you decided to do this and that. everything you said should be the one you did or thought during preparing for the final speaking test. what i’d like you to do first is telling me what was in your mind at the time when you get the instruction (showing the printed instruction sheet) from the lecturer about the final project? what did you do after that?” after that, the interviewer displayed the printed grading rubric and asked what they did about the rubric. the questions were created based on the participants’ responses from their understanding toward the prior questions delivered by the interviewer. the questions were delivered for pointing out a case/ situation regarding to metacognitive strategy that was mentioned by the participants as their answers. for the investigation, the questions were delivered in the forms: “what did you think …?”, “what did you do…?”, “what happened when…?”, “how did you feel when/about…?”, “why did you make/decide…?”. the questions were delivered to dig out/ clarify the participants’ cognition of the reason why they something. not all of the statements were followed by further questions during the interview. if their responses were that they could not remember, they were not pursued to dig out for deeper answer. this was not let to happen since their answer might be based on what they thought at the time the question was addressed, or what their perception was. when they said they did not remember, the reaction to their responses was by uttering backchannelling cues or nonresponses such as “oh, hm, great, good, i see, uh-huh, ok”. 88 metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment when the discussion of planning stage was done, the video started to be played. the discussion toward the students’ performance (monitoring stage) was done during the play of the video. the interviewer informed the participants first about what they would do: “what we’re going to do now is watching your persuasive speech video. i will play the video and we will watch it together”. the participants were freed to express everything toward their own speech performance, when their video was being played. when they kept quiet, the interviewer was the one who pointed at some parts and asked the students about what they were thinking at the time or why they emphasized their intonation, and why they moved their hands, etc. when the interview by using the stimulation of video display was done, there was still one more stage to be investigated (evaluating stage). the questions delivered were: “what did you feel after finishing your video?”, “was there anything you thought you could do better in the performance?” data analysis the interviews with all of the participants were recorded and then transcribed for the data analysis. there were some steps done in analyzing the data: first, the interview transcripts of a particular group of the students (based on their level of performance) were read from beginning for each of the stages (preparation, monitoring, and evaluation). it was done to find the metacognitive strategies deployed by them. second, if it was found a new strategy used by the first student in his/ her answer was based on the question delivered (in the transcript), the student’s description about using the strategy was highlighted with a specific colour as the mark. for example, the response which shows a particular strategy written in a sentence or more by one student/ the first student in the original transcript. third, the student’s response was translated into english if the original answers were in indonesian since some of the students had interview in english and some in indonesian. after being translated, the response was copied to a new page for the data analysis. that particular response was entitled as a particular strategy. it was possible that the typical strategy was done by two or more students, so the same code was applicable for all the typical responses by different students. for example, strategy a: response of student 1 that has been translated into english. response of student 2 that has been translated into english. the first until third strategies were repeated continuously for finding a new strategy applied by the students. the new strategy was coded differently from the previous one. for example: strategy b: response of student 1 that has been translated into english. response of student 2 that has been translated into english. it was possible that an only strategy was done by 3 or less students, and all of the strategies found were displayed. after all the responses that had been translated were gathered, they were validated by a validator. the data that had been validated were analysed, commented, and also classified into metacognitive strategy classification of o’molley and chamot (1990). metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment 89 findings the display of the findings is grouped into level of the achievements. those are high achievers, middle achievers, and low achievers. metacognitive strategies deployed by the high achievers there were 4 high achievers taking part in the interview: s.a (student a), s.b (student b), s.c (student c), and s.d (student d). their deployement of metacognitive strategies are presented below: in preparing for the task the data analysis showed various metacognitive strategies deployed by the high achievers in the preparation. those are: reading the problem sheet (advanced organizer). when they got the problem sheet from the lecturers, all of them read the instructions of speaking c final project independently, and thoroughly tried to understand it. they did not ask help from anybody else or google translate to help them understand the instruction. one of the students even did a double check just to make sure whether she had comprehended the instruction. s. a said, “i was a type of person who tried to figure out things on my own first. i read it first, did double check. for the direction itself, i didn’t find anything confusing”. reading the “excellent” criteria of the rubric (advanced organizer). after reading the problem sheet, they read the scoring rubric. unpredictably, all of the four high achievers read the grading rubric thoroughly especially on the “excellent criteria”. they noticed the points there helped them effectively to develop their speeches and also to practice how they would perform the speeches later. s.a told, “i tried to read it. there were scoring aspects stated there. by reading it, my practice could refer to those aspects in accordance with the ‘excellent’ ”. they referred to the points in the excellent part in developing the content of their speeches. student b got to know that there were minimum number of sources that must be needed, and s.c inserted new facts in her content after reading thoroughly that particular indicators in the rubric. on the other hand, after reading the rubric, s.d felt surer to choose a particular subtopic to deliver in her persuasive speech. s.d conveyed, “in the rubric, there was written aspects about problem and solution. then, when i looked at the topic, i thought about what the problem was, what the solution was, and how to persuade my audience so i could make a good one”. s.d did not directly choose the subtopic after reading the problem sheet, instead after reading the rubric. when she read the subtopic again, she considered the criteria in the rubrics she had read which benefitted her in developing that particular chosen topic. from their statements, it was clearly shown that those high achievers were aware about the use of the rubric clearly, they were helped very much by the rubric in developing the speech and they admitted it. toward the question whether the speaking rubric helped in creating the speech, one student confidently answered “yes, it helped me very much”. deciding the best topic to deliver (directed attention). in deciding the topic to deliver, some of the students were at first confused to choose the best one between two different topics that each of them was interested in. there were four big topics: health, education, technology, and environment. and under each of the big 90 metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment topics, there were three or four subtopics delivered in statements. the students were required to choose only one statement of a particular big topic to deliver. although they got confused at first, they decided a topic that they were interested based on their own consideration. s. a told, “i was confused to choose between education and technology. i was interested in education. the subtopics in education was harder. so, i chose technology instead. i chose gadgets for kids, and i was not confused in choosing the subtopic among the 3 subtopics”. s.a thought the unchosen topic, education, was hard for her although at first, she was really interested in it, then she decided to choose the one that fit with her capability, technology. the same with s.c, she thought the unchosen subtopic that at first was interesting to her was too political so then she subconsciously decided to avoid it. s.c stated, “ i happened thinking about abortion but i thought it was too political. i was afraid of not mastering it, so if later i was asked question, i wondered whether i would be confused. so, i would choose the one that i understood, in which later if there be a question, i could answer”. those students decided the best topic for them to deliver since they knew their capability especially how their delivery would be like later when they performed the speech and when they had to answer the question from the lecturers. one student, s.b, did not get confused in choosing the best topic, moreover, she realized why she should choose the topic. another student also felt the same in deciding the topic to deliver. s. b said, “i just chose directly the first topic because i really liked that. i thought the first topic was such an important issue, and i needed people to be aware of that issue”. i was similar with s.a who said, “i felt that i had this urge to inform other people that letting kids be exposed to gadgets in such early age was not good for them”. those students felt that they were called to persuade others through the speeches besides presenting them as the final project. finding information from many sources (functional planning). in developing the speeches, all of the students found new more information for the content of their speeches. s. a presented, “i tried to find more information from the internet and looked for additional researches to make it more convincing to the audience. … . i googled, watched youtube videos, and tiktok videos related to the topic”. while student s.c said, “i searched from lots of sources. i searched for the materials that i had to deliver and i compiled from those sources. i did not look at only one source but i looked for many sources instead, and i chose the best one that i had to deliver. i also searched for lots of facts”. from those statements, the students had procedural knowledge of what they should do to make their content meaningful with new fresh information which contained supporting facts. they tried to find the information from different website or even from social media. making an outline after reviewing about it first (functional planning). since an outline should be compulsorily made by all of the students in the class to be submitted to the class website few days before the examination day, all of the students made theirs. s.c did not seem to have problem in making the outline, she clearly stated about what she put in the outline, introduction, body, and closing. while another student needed to ask help from her friends about metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment 91 what the outline was like in order to make sure about it first before making hers. s. d expressed, “when i asked my friends about the outline, they sent me the outline and i looked through it. i tried to make mine like that and i also looked at the rubric. it was stated there that there should be at least 5 sources, so i looked for more sources to put in my outline. then, i just tried to make mine”. in making the outline, most of the high achievers did not face difficulties. although s.d was at first a bit confused about how to make a proper outline, she was aware that she needed to ask help from others instead of just making it without knowing whether her work was correct or not. trying to practice the speech effectively (self-management). each of the students differently applied their own practical strategies in the practice. s. a said that she practiced as many times as she could and she recorded her practice by using her phone and set the timer, and she felt pretty confident with her practice. s. b practiced hers around 3 times, and she felt a bit unsettled. however, she was conscious about that. as what she said, she tried her best in the preparation so that she would give her best in the examination. s. c practiced around 10 times and she said she recorded the practices and did the practice in front of her sister because she wanted to see how her performance worked. she also set the time by using timer in every practice, and for that she got a little insecure since she spent like one minute over while she knew the lecturer told them to only have 3-5 minutes for the delivery. she was conscious about the time and also practiced with using gestures. she read in the scoring rubric, there was an aspect about doing gestures in the delivery of the speech to get a good result, so she practiced it. s. d only practiced in a day, before the examination day and she did it so many times in front of her phone and mirror. she memorized her text and recorded her speech to check whether it lasted in 5 minutes or not. she noticed that her speech lasted more than 5 minutes. she was conscious about that so she decided to delete some parts that she thought could be eliminated. she recorded herself by using her phone and also practiced it in front of a mirror. the responses about the practical strategies the high achievers did in their practices show that they had procedural knowledge to conduct the practices as their preparation. they managed their own practices by using the resources they had and they practiced until they felt sure enough so they did the practices many times. moreover, they were also conscious in imagining how their delivery in the examination later would be like. it was shown by the timer they set, and the practice they did in front of mirrors and phone cameras. realizing the weaknesses and put them in the practice (selective attention). when s. a was practicing, she realized about her weaknesses especially on the speed of her delivery and the volume of her voice. that was why she said she kept on practicing, and made sure to speak slower. she tried to prolong her speech which was at first only lasted three minutes into five minutes, not by adding some new information, but by talking slower. the student clearly showed that she was really conscious about her performance in the practice. s.d realized her mistake that she did in in midterm test. she said the scope of her speech was too wide at the time, so she did not want to do the same when she developed her speech for the final test. 92 metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment inserting new terms and learning the pronunciation (selective attention). toward the question whether they used new vocabularies in their speeches, all of the students answered “yes”. they inserted some or even more new vocabularies or terms that they found in the internet to the content of their speeches. s. c conveyed, “i knew the word "aside" but i never tried to use it in a sentence… . i often searched lots of words, might be the new words that i didn’t know yet. i searched on google translate, and i could turn on the audio to listen to the pronunciation”. while s. d stated, “i used many new vocabularies about environment.… i listened to the pronunciation.” those students inserted new vocabularies in their contents which were found in the sources they used, or simply the vocabularies that they purposely found. these high achievers also made sure about how those words should be pronounced since they would say the words in their speeches for the examination they would join. feeling confident about the preparation (self-management). in the preparation, s. a felt pretty confident with what she had prepared so she was ready to join the exam. she realized that ‘practice’ helped her to perform her best. so, at the time she tried to prepare as well as she could. it’s different with s. b. at first, she was quite unsettled about whether she could deliver her speech for the exam confidently when she was still preparing for the exam. however, she was conscious about that, so she tried her best in the preparation until she felt confident. those two students were aware that the best thing to be able to perform well in the execution, delivering persuasive speech in the final examination, was preparing as best as they could. when they had given their best for the preparation, they felt confident and ready for the execution. trying to be calm right before the exam began (self-management). all of the students responded that they were nervous before the exam, in waiting for their turn, and especially when they successfully logged in to zoom meeting and met the other parties there. however, they realized that they had to deliver their speech since it was their responsibility. so, they were able to calm themselves down and delivered the speech well. one of the students, s.d, told herself, “i just said to myself that i had to do it, so i could be relaxed later.” besides that, in such a tense moment, one of the students tried to do something to make her more relaxed. s. c expressed, “i got nervous easily. at the time, i thought i had to be more relaxed and while i was waiting for my turn, i listened to music to make me not really nervous.” in monitoring the task from the investigation, it was found some metacognitive strategies deployed by the high achievers when they were delivering their speeches. those are: doing gestures to be calmer and more convinced (self-monitoring). in doing the gestures in the delivery of their speeches, each student had special reason why they did that. s. a told, “i did the gestures as a way to make myself calmer and to make my delivery not too monotonous.”. s. b showed, “i subconsciously did gestures to release my stress, and actually to emphasize my speech.” while s. d said “i felt more relaxed when `did the gestures and they were to convince my points as well.” all of the students knew why they needed to do the gesture in the middle of their delivery. they said that doing some gestures helped them to be more relaxed in which they had said previously that they metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment 93 were nervous especially right before having their turn. s. b was even aware before the examination to put her phone in a particular position so that she could freely move her hands and can still be recorded. trying to figure out what has been prepared (self-monitoring). in the middle of their delivery, all of the students tried to remember what had been prepared. some students paused at some parts and some other looked at another side because at the time they were figuring out the materials for their delivery. s. a expressed, “i tried to memorize, and recalled it. when i looked at the camera, i didn’t feel really confident because there was a flash on it so i tried to look the other way.” and s. b also expressed, “i tried to recall some materials that i had prepared so that was why i just looked side by side.” using intonation to emphasize some parts (self-monitoring). in their delivery, these students did it with good intonation. interestingly, they had reason why they did that. s. b revealed, “i talked about the statistics and the interesting facts about single use items. i tried to emphasize them with my intonation.” while s. d said, “i tried to persuade my audience, so i used the intonation like that. the students knew in which parts they should emphasize their points and which parts they should talk slower. they had reason why they changed their intonation in their delivery. in evaluating the task the data analysis showed typical metacognitive strategies deployed by the high achievers in evaluating their performances. in which they recalled back the performances they had just done. noticing the weaknesses from performance and delivery (selfevaluation). after doing the exam, s. a felt a bit upset with her answer toward a question delivered by one of the lecturers. s. a revealed, “the last one was my answer. after the q n a session, i felt like i could answer more instead of just answering with only one sentence.” s. a felt that she could give more answer instead of delivering it only in one sentence. this particular student also wished that she could look at the camera more instead of looking at other side. s. b noticed that she spoke too fast. s.c noticed that she gave some pauses, and she was upset about it since she had practiced well. while s.d questioned herself why she should cut up some points. their responses show that they realized about their own performances after delivering their speeches instead of just felt relieved that they had passed it. however, in spite of the lack they found, they were pretty confident with their own performance that they scored themselves with a/a-. metacognitive strategies deployed by the middle achievers there were 4 middle achievers toaking part in the interview: s.e (student e), s.f (student f), s.g (student g), and s.h (student h). how they deployed their metacognitive strategy in the preparation, execution, and evaluation of the persuasive speech as the final test are presented below in preparing for the task it was found various metacognitive strategies deployed by the middle achievers in preparing for the task. those are: reading the problem (advance organizer). to understand the instruction of the final test, three of the students, s. e, s. g, and s. h read the problem independently. they also did not find any difficulties in understanding the instruction by only reading it. while s. f needed the help from other parties to help her understood what they were supposed to do based on the instruction. she was confused about whether 94 metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment she had to deliver all of the subtopics under a big topic or only one of them. so, she asked the help of google translate and then one of her friends’. this particular student was aware about what she needed to do at the time. reading the rubric at glance (advanced organiser). from their responses, three of the four students did not really pay attention on the rubric. s.e did not read the rubric at all. he thought it was only used to grade the students and he did not think at the time when he was preparing for his speech that the rubric would help him in providing strategies in his practice. s. f read the rubric but did not read it thoroughly. she realized that the topic could help but she did not really pay attention on the points of the rubric since she wanted to focus more in developing her topic instead, as she said. s. g read the rubric at glance. when she was developing her speech, she did not reflect on what was written in the rubric. one of the students, s. h, was different with the first three students. he used the rubric as the reference for him to develop his outline. he said that he only read the aspects needed and read the indicators at glance. yet, it helped him in developing the outline. most of the middle performers realized that the rubric provided had function, but they did not really pay attention on it when they were developing their speeches. however, it was different with s. h. he subconsciously used the rubric as the reference to help him developing his outline since he found it was difficult to make an outline properly. considering the best topic to deliver (directed attention). from the responses, it was found that all the middle achievers were confident in deciding the best topic to deliver. s. e chose technology because he was really interested in it, he even graded that topic as his top-tier among the other topics. that was why when the other students only presented one particular topic, s. e delivered all the sub topics in his delivery. yet, for this, he did not really understand that they were only required to choose only one subtopic under a big topic to be presented in their speech. s. f considered two different topics to delivered, internet, and education. yet, she then considered that she had already presented about internet in her previous speech, that was why she chose education instead. she was also sure to choose the subtopic about education, since she had experience on it. at the time she also felt the need to deliver the speech since she wanted to make people realized that both vocational school and senior high school were both important. s. g was not confused in choosing the subtopic for her to deliver since she was directly interested in the subtopic when she read it at first. s. d also chose the best topic for him to deliver, video games based on his experience and knowledge about it. learning performing persuasive speech by watching videos (functional planning). two of the students, s. e and s. f said that they watched youtube videos to learn how people performed a good persuasive speech. s. e said, “i had never done a persuasive talk before so i just watched the example from youtube and tried my best to learn from it.” while s. f stated, “at first, i did not know what persuasive speech was so i watched about it and then i watched about vocational school.” those two students were aware that they were not really sure about how to deliver persuasive speech since they never did it in advance. that was why they decided to watch youtube videos before developing their speech. metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment 95 finding information from the internet (functional planning). in developing the content of the speech, all of the students found the information or facts from the internet. s. f even watched youtube video for finding information about the content of her speech. s. g said that at first, she thought about the content based on her experience but then she tried to get more information from the internet. interestingly, s.h found the information from the internet from a website whose language delivery in english was not difficult for him to understand. when he found a source and got himself confused to understand about the information, he tried to find information from other easier sources. their responses show that they were aware to find the sources that provided them with information they needed. making an outline (functional planning). all of the students were required to make their outline so all the middle achievers also developed theirs. yet, the way each student understood what to write in the outline and how it should be made was different was different with each other. s.f made her outline in order, but she also made another outline for all of the topics, which meant she did not really understand about only making an outline for a subtopic. s. h got difficulties at first in making his outline, that was why he decided to ask his friend for enlightenment and also to learn about it independently. s.h described, “i thought of making an outline. at first, i didn't think of making it because i was confused. i asked my friends how to make an outline, and looked for it by myself. then i realized that it could make the speech good and long. so, i made an outline first. the first thought was the problem, a child playing a game was underestimated even though it was for them to develop their skills. so, i looked for exciting games which could make children learn.” from s. h’s explanation, he finally realized that the outline could help him effectively to develop his speech. on the other hand, s. g did not find any difficulties in making the outline, she knew what to put in the outline in order. regarding this she said, “i made the outline, like putting the point of what i would talk about. first, i would talk about a particular topic then i continued to another point until the final point in order, so they would be connected”. recognizing self-weaknesses (selective-attention). from s. g’s responses, she realized her weakness which she got from others’ feedback and during her practice, talking fast although she felt she was not. she was conscious about the weakness and when she found that the length of her delivery did not match with the allotted time, so she changed it by trying to speak slower. while in another case, s. h responded that he was aware about the conjunction of his content when he was developing it. s. h told, “i wondered when i had used the word “that”, it would be better if the next statements were written in other words than “that”. so, i tried to find the synonym of it.”moreover, s.h was also aware about his grammar competence that was why he downloaded a grammar checker to check the grammar of his content. trying to practice the speech effectively (self-management). s. e practiced delivering his speech about 5 times. in the practice, he talked in front of his phone camera and she set the timer. s. f practiced in three days in advance, beside using her phones to do independent practice around five times, she also did a video call with her classmates. she did it by using zoom on her laptop since she realized the 96 metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment examination would also be done through zoom. besides that, s. f also wanted to get feedback from her friends especially about whether she looked nervous or not in her delivery. in her practice, she was also aware about her pronunciation that was why she did it more than 3 times. s. g practiced her speech about three times in front of her mirror and set the timer with her phone. she felt confident enough after practicing since she knew what would be delivered. s.h started to practice three days before the examination day. he tried to speak in order to sound more fluent, and the practice in front of his camera was done a day before the examination day. he also felt ready and confident after the practice. feeling confident (self-management). s.e was confident to deliver his speech since he thought he had prepared well and he was interested with the topic he would deliver at the time. s.g also felt ready to deliver her speech since after the preparation and practice, she already knew what she would talk about. another middle performer, s.h also felt the same. he even he said that he was satisfied with his preparation, and he really tried to give his best effort since he realized he was not really good at speaking in english. so, after the practice, he was ready to perform his speech in the examination. those students felt confident because they believed in what they had prepared and they had tried their best for their own speeches. trying to be calm and overcoming the technical situation (selfmanagement). all of the students were nervous right before the exam began, especially when they got the zoom link invitation, when they were logging in, and when they met the other parties in the online platform. they knew their responsibilities, so although they were nervous, they tried to deliver their speeches well. one of the students, s. f, was in trouble before having her turn to delivering the speech. her phone could not work in the morning, yet she could find a way to get her zoom link. she tried to contact her friends through other social media and asked their help to ask the link from the host, so some of her friends told to the lecturer and also the host about her problem. her effort made the host could send link for her through one of her friends. the effort that s.f did shows how well she could think to overcome her condition in such a tense situation. in monitoring the task from the investigation, it was found some metacognitive strategies deployed by the middle achievers when they were delivering their speeches and answering the questions. those are: doing gestures to make the speech more convincing (self-monitoring). all the students did some gestures when they were delivering their speeches. they subconsciously did the movements because of their own reasons. s. e said that he did some gestures because he remembered what had been delivered by the lecturer in the class that it was done to ensure the audience. while s. f knew that she did that to explain her speech and make it more convincing. the same as s. g, s.f did it to make the audience get what she meant. toward the question about it, s. f answered, “i did the gestures because i tried to explain, just to convince it more.” while s. g replied, “i did the gestures to make people understand more, to help them get it.” trying to remember what should be talked about (self-monitoring). based on the response of what s. f thought about when she was rolling up her eyes in the metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment 97 middle of delivering her speech, she said she tried to remember what should be talked about. she even got a bit confused about the parts of her own content of the speech. that was why she tried to remember when she was speaking. trying to think fast and find the answer in english (self-monitoring). all the students felt the tense they had in q and a session was higher than the one in the speech delivery session. s. e said that at the time, he tried to dig up his mind to find out what the lecturer asked. s. f found the tense higher because at the time she had to think fast to find the answer and also to think about what the words were like in english to answer the lecturer’s question. while s.h did not find any difficulties in understanding the lecturer’s question and finding the answer. he said he knew what the answer was, but he also got a problem in trying to deliver the answer in english. besides that, s.g said that the question-and-answer session was tenser because she was worried about whether her answer made sense to the lecturers or not. in evaluating the task the investigation shows some typical metacognitive strategies deployed by the middle achievers in evaluating their performances. those are: recognizing the weaknesses in the delivery (self-evaluation). after having their turns to deliver their speeches, they thought about their performances. s. e said that he thought about the “fillers” he made in the middle of his speech and he did not really mind of anything else. s.f wondered why the lecturer mistakenly understood about her speech, in which she thought that the vocational school and the regular school were both important, but she got that the lecturer thought vocational school was better than regular school based on her delivery. s. g noticed two weaknesses she had in her performance: whether her answers made sense; and whether she speak in normal speed. she thought she spoke too fast. the last, s.h wondered about his answers. those middle performers were aware about their performances, that was why they happened to think about the way they delivered their speeches and answered the questions. however, all of them were pretty confident with the result of their speech in which they scored their performances with a/ a-. metacognitive strategies deployed by the low achievers there were 3 low achievers took part in the interview: s.i (student i), s.j (student j), and s.k (student k). how they deployed their metacognitive strategies in the preparation, execution, and evaluation of the persuasive speech as the final test are described below. in preparing for the task from the analysis, it was found various metacognitive strategies deployed by the low achievers in preparing for the task. those are: reading the problem sheet (advance organizer). to understand the instruction of the project, all the students read the instruction independently. s. i and s. k understood it only by reading without any help from others, while s. j needed to translate the written instruction to google translate. s.j was aware that she needed to make sure about what she would be doing from the instruction by translating it into indonesian. reading the rubric at glance (advance organizer). after reading the problem sheet, they also looked at the rubric provided. s. i and s. j only read the rubric at glance, not thoroughly although they both 98 metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment understood that the rubric would help them. s. j realized that she knew about whether she needed to have some gesture in her speech after she read the rubric at glance. while s.i and s.j did not really pay attention on the rubric, s.k said he needed google translate in understanding the rubric, which means he paid attention more on it compared with the other two students. deciding the best topic to deliver (directed attention). in deciding the best topic to deliver, at first, s. i and s.j were confused in choosing the topic between education and technology, but then they both chose technology since they had considered it more relevant to their daily life. while s.k was confused in choosing which subtopic under the topic of technology to be presented. he then decided to deliver about using cell phone since he found it closed to his daily experience. in choosing the subtopics, all the students were aware that the one they chose should be the one they mastered better in order to have a smooth preparation and delivery. making the outline/ writing the full content (functional planning). before making an outline, s.i at first made a note, she put everything she knew on the note and added with some information from the internet. then, she revised the note. after that she made her outline to be submitted to the lecturer. s. j made 2 drafts. the first one was the real outline, and the second one was the full text of what she wanted to speak. the one that s.j sent to the lecturer was the full text without knowing whether it was the correct outline form or not. s.j did not really understand about outline, and she also did not ask about it to her friends. s.j felt that the full content she made helped her for her practice. s. k made his outline well. he checked the grammar of his outline in a website to check whether they were already correct or not. he put main ideas in the outline in order and he realized the outline helped him for developing his speech. s.k showed, “it was like a benchmark, about what should be delivered in the persuasive speech. it was for helping me.” from his responses, it shows that s. k was aware that he needed to give his best effort for his outline. he consciously knew what to be put there and the function of it. finding information from other sources (functional planning). from their responses, it was found that s.i found more information from the internet particularly about the impacts of gadgets on kids. s. k also found more information for the content of his speech, while s.j purely did not find information from the internet, she used her own knowledge instead. she said, “i made the content by using my own understanding. i just wanted to measure how well i could make the script.” the first two students realized that to enrich the topic they needed to find the information from other sources. they also knew about it from the rubric they had read at glance. unlike with s. j, she believed with her own capacity that was why she did not develop her speech by finding more sources from the internet instead by using her own understanding. she did not read the rubric thoroughly well which made it clearer that she did not understand about what she was required to do. watching videos of persuasive speech performance (functional planning). from their responses about what they were doing in preparing for the examination, it was found that s. i watched video on youtube while s.j watched a video on ted talks about how people delivered their persuasive metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment 99 speech. these students thought to learn more about how to deliver persuasive speech by copying others’ performances. inserting new vocabularies in the speech (selective attention). in making the content of the speech, two of the students decided to use new vocabularies in the content of their speeches. s.i found some new vocabularies to be inserted when she was finding the information, and then she looked for how those should be pronounced from an online dictionary. s. j used a word that she was not really sure about at first. that was why she made sure about it first with her friend. she wanted to know whether she could insert that particular word in the content of her speech. s.j uttered, “i did not use new vocabularies only the word “annoyingly”. i was confused about the using of the word, so i asked my friend whether i could say like ‘….’.” practicing the speech (functional planning). after making her outline, s.i practiced to do her speech 3 times in front of a mirror and by setting the timer. she was not really confident with the result of her practice since she only had limited time for it due to the other exams that she had to join in the previous day. s.j practiced the speech 3 times in front of her mirror, she recorded her performances. she also looked at her performance to realize whether her delivery was good or not during the practice. for the practice itself, she felt pretty confident. s.k said that he practiced about two times and the practice was just like memorizing the content. feeling confident in the preparation (self-management). among the three low achievers, only one student, s.j, felt confident with her preparation when she was preparing for it. s. i did not feel so, she wished she could practice more. s.i was aware that at the time she needed more practice but since the time did not permit her, she went to perform her speech with less preparation. s. k realized his preparation was not really good but he felt his performance could still be accepted by the lecturer. and s.j felt confident in preparation since she tried to do her best, but when she came to execute the speech, she felt everything she had prepared disappeared from her mind. s. j revealed, “for the preparation, i felt confident like i was ready. but when i performed it, everything disappeared, just like the one i experienced in the examination. i felt like i had prepared, but when i went on the stage, the prepared materials lost.” the low achievers realized that they needed to prepare well. the confidence felt by each student was different based on what they actually did in their own preparation. one student felt not really confident, not because she was not aware to prepare hers but more because she wished she could practice more. trying be calm right before the speech began (self-management). all the three students were nervous right before the exam began especially when they got the zoom link invitation by the host, when they were logging in to the meeting and finally met the lecturer/ lecturers and the host. s. i did not seem having any technical problem. while the other two students needed to go through a difficult situation. s. j was in trouble for connecting her laptop to the zoom meeting. she said her nervousness got doubled due to the poor bandwidth. since she was nervous, she uttered a ‘special prayer’ silently and wished there would not be any problem with the internet connection. then, when she successfully logged, before delivering the speech, she smiled to calm herself down. 100 metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment what happened to s.k was at the time he just arrived at home from somewhere. he was tired but he realized that he had to join the exam and tried to be ready for it. the responses show that those students realized the circumstances they faced at the time, yet they knew that they had to their speeches. in monitoring the task the study showed some metacognitive strategies deployed by the low achievers when they were delivering their speeches. those are: trying to recall the materials that had been prepared (self-monitoring). in delivering the speech, s.i often paused in the middle of her delivery. toward this she agreed that she tried to recall the materials she had prepared. she was also confused about what to talk about since she could not deliver the speech in indonesian. she knew about some particular statements in indonesian but she realized that she was not allowed to talk in indonesian by the lecturer at the time. s. k also often gave pauses in his delivery. once he was quiet for quite long in the middle of his speech and he asked the lecturer whether he could start again from the beginning. for that he said that he got really blank. for the part when he repeated some same words “when you try”, he said at the time he was remembering the continuation of those words based on what he had prepared. s.j also often got stuck in the delivery. she tried to recall the materials in her mind when she gave the pauses. she said that when she got stuck, she tended to make her own sentences instead of the ones she had already prepared. moreover, she also felt tenser since she was afraid that whether the bandwidth would be off. those are inner voices from the students when they were in the middle of delivering the speeches. they were nervous and they got blank about what to talk, but they tried to remember what had been prepared. one of the students, s.k even asked the lecturer whether he could start again from the beginning since he thought it would be better for him. doing gestures to be calmer and to emphasize at the points (self-monitoring). from the three students, only s.j did the gesturers. she agreed that she did the gesturers to be calmer and to convince her points in the speech. in evaluating the task the investigation showed some typical metacognitive strategies deployed by the low achievers in evaluating their performances. how the students deployed the strategies are presented below. realizing the weaknesses in the delivery (self-evaluation). after delivering their speeches, all the students were aware about the performance they had just done. they recalled back about the points that they thought were lack in their delivery. s. i uttered, “i should have practiced and prepared more.” while s. j emphasized, “the sadness was because i forgot some sentences, and i did not give right answer for the first question. i was not maximal in my speech. and there were some sentences delivered not in orde.”. another regret came from s.k who said, “i repeated some words and the delivery was not smooth.” those students were aware that they could not perform well in their delivery. s.i realized that she should have practiced more since she only practiced twice. there were some weaknesses each of them noticed about their own performances after they did it which means they were aware of the way they delivered the speech. s.i and s.k realized about their performances so they scored themselves with c+ / b-, however s.j was confident although she felt she could not deliver well in which she scored herself with an a since she felt she did her best in the preparation. metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment 101 discussion the study confirms that there are differences in the deployment of metacognitive strategies among each group of achievers. this study supports the findings of wang, spencer, and xing (2009) that learners who had higher metacognitive strategies got better result from the achievement test particularly in regulating the strategies in the preparation stage. in this study, high achievers regulated their preparation for the final test more comprehensively than the middle achievers. besides, the middle achievers also prepared for the final test more comprehensively than the low achievers. most of the previous studies show quantitative result that there is difference in the frequency of using metacognitive strategies by different level of achievers (yang, 2009; and alamri, 2018). the present study showed that the deployment of students’ metacognitive strategies was based on the situation they faced in the learning process: their understanding; goal; and need. each group of achievers in the present study did the metacognitive strategies as proposed by o’molley and chamot (1990). however, it happened in each group of the present study that not all of the students had same awareness. it was because their awareness came from their own understanding about the task, their goal of preparing for the task, and their need why they had to do special strategies. each student in any level of achievement had different situation, that was why how they deployed their metacognitive strategies were different from one another. the gap between the high, middle, and low achievers in the present study was not really on the frequency of metacognitive strategies used, but on the comprehensiveness of metacognitive strategies deployed by the students in each category of metacognitive strategies classification by o’molley and chamot (1990). this study showed there were advance organizers, directed attention, selective attention, functional planning, selfmanagement, self-monitoring, and selfevaluation deployed by the students from each level of achievement. however, the difference was actually on how each of the strategies was deployed by the students, the comprehensiveness of application in each category. this study reveals that students who show more responsibility and confidence do better in the final test (wang, spencer, & xing, 2009). high achievers were more responsible and confident in terms of developing their speeches and practicing them effectively. they developed the content of the speech substantially based on the points in the grading rubric, and they chose the topics based on their capabilities. the middle achievers were also confident but they were less responsible than the high achievers. they did not really pay attention on the grading rubric although they knew it could help them. the low achievers developed and practiced the speech only by using their background knowledge. they tried to prepare for the task well, yet two of the three low achievers did not pay attention at all to the grading rubric which affected to the way they developed and practiced for the speech. however, another low achiever had better responsible even if it is compared to most of the middle achievers, he paid attention on the grading rubric and developed his speech based on the points there. he was even conscious about his linguistic competence, and it was shown that he got the best score among the three low 102 metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment achievers, close to the standard score for the middle achievers. the study also confirms the statement of chantharanuwong (2018) that a learner who has metacognition means he/she has indepth thinking in a learning process where task, goals, strategies are interdependently interactive to each other as significant as assessing his/her knowledge that can be controlled upon the learning process. obviously, the high achievers had higher metacognition compared to the middle and low achievers. their consciousness made them prepared better for the final test. the basic difference in this study which led to the real gap is actually in the very beginning stage, advance organizer, which led the students to how they should prepare for the task. all the students read the instruction in the problem sheet well, but not the grading rubric which actually provided them with hints of what to prepare and how they should practice. only high achievers put attention very well on the speaking rubric particularly and purposefully on “excellent” indicators. they used the “excellent” indicators as the benchmark for their preparation and practice. that was why their preparation was more substantial than the middle and the low achievers. most of the middle achievers used their background knowledge in developing for the speech and in practicing how they should deliver their speeches. besides, the only low achiever who put more attention on the grading rubric got the best mark among the students from the group. it shows that the first steps or strategies which give students enlightenments of how they should learn or prepare for a language task affect their practice and especially their performance very much. in monitoring stage, the higher achievers were more conscious about why they had to do gestures for their delivery, or speak with good intonation. and one of the highest achievers admitted that she did the gestures since that was included in the grading rubric. while the others, and even the lower achievers did gestures to be more relaxed beside to emphasize their points. only one of the low achievers did gestures. she admitted that she did that to convince her points as well as to be relaxed, while the other two students only spoke without any gestures. in this monitoring stage, all groups of students admitted that when they gave pauses in the middle of their delivery or when they rolled their eyes, they tried to recall the materials they had prepared in advance. in monitoring stage, all the students also noticed the weaknesses they had during their delivery. in the evaluation stage, all the students from each group of achievers recalled back about what they had just done in the exam. they realized their weaknesses. to sum up, in monitoring stage, the higher achievers were more conscious about their performances compared to the low achievers. last but not least, there was no significant difference among the three group of achievers in evaluating their performances. the reason which show the gap between the high, and the middle and low achievers support the finding of qualitative study done by lam in 2008 that students use different type of metacognitive strategies to do local and global planning prior to the task. high achievers prepared more comprehensively since they knew what should be put in the content, and how they should do the physical performance properly, compared to the middle and low achievers. metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment 103 conclusion based on the findings about the metacognitive strategies applied by the high, middle, and low achievers, the study shows that the deployment of students’ metacognitive strategies is based on their own situation such as their understanding about the task, their goal and their need. all of the groups of achievers applied all the metacognitive strategies as proposed by o’molley and chamot (1990) in which there are advance organizers, directed attention, selective attention, functional planning, selfmanagement, self-monitoring, and selfevaluation. the difference is in the comprehensiveness of regulating the thinking process and applying the metacognitive strategies in the preparation stage. in monitoring stage, the higher achievers were more conscious about performing as what expected compared to the low achievers. high achievers confirmed that they had deeper metacognition compared to the middle achievers, and the middle achievers confirm that they had better metacognition compared to the low achievers. all the students from every group of achievements tried to be responsible, yet the level of the responsibility was different. the highest one had by the high achievers and the lowest one had by the low achievers. while in terms of confidence, the high and middle achievers confirm that they were more confident than the low achievers. references alfangca, k.z.& tamah, s.m. (2017). the correlation between metacognitive reading strategies and reading comprehension of english department students. magister scientiae 42, 135142. http://journal.wima.ac.id/index.php/ma gister_scientiae/article/view/1722/158 6 alamri, b. (2019). exploring metacognitive strategies employed by esl writers: uses and awareness. international journal of english linguistics, 9(1), 159-168. birjandi, p., & rahimi, a. h. (2012). the effect of metacognitive strategy instruction on the listening performance of efl students. international journal of linguistics, 4(2), 495-517. cer, e. (2019). the instruction of writing strategies: the effect of the metacognitive strategy on the writing skills of pupils in secondary education. sage open, 9(2), 2158244019842681. dewi, f. a., kahfi, e. h., & kurniawati, n. (2018). exploring efl students’ metacognitive strategies in speaking class: an indonesian context. literacy, culture, and technology in language pedagogy and use, (105), 149–152. gass, s.m., & mackey, a. 2000). stimulated recall methodology in second language research. routledge. hacker, d. j., dunlosky, j., & graesser, a. c. (2009). a growing sense of “agency”. in handbook of metacognition in education (pp. 13-16). routledge. lam, w. y. (2008). metacognitive strategy use: accessing esl learners’ inner voices via stimulated recall. international journal of innovation in language learning and teaching, 2(3), 207-223. livingston, j. a. (1997). metacognition: an overview. psychology, 13, 259–266. retrieved from http://gse.buffalo.edu/ fas/shuell/cep564/metacog.htm o'malley, m. j., chamot, a. u., (1990). learning strategies in second language acquisition. cambridge http://journal.wima.ac.id/index.php/magister_scientiae/article/view/1722/1586 http://journal.wima.ac.id/index.php/magister_scientiae/article/view/1722/1586 http://journal.wima.ac.id/index.php/magister_scientiae/article/view/1722/1586 http://gse.buffalo.edu/%20fas/shuell/cep564/metacog.htm http://gse.buffalo.edu/%20fas/shuell/cep564/metacog.htm 104 metacognitive strategies in virtual speaking assessment university press. palloff, r. m., & pratt, k. (2007). building online learning communities: effective strategies for the virtual classroom. john wiley & sons. pope, c., & mays, n. (2006). qualitative methods in health research. qualitative research in health care, 3, 1-11. rahimi, m., & katal, m. (2012). metacognitive strategies awareness and success in learning english as a foreign language: an overview. is this the jounal name: procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 31, 73-81. rahimirad, m. (2014). the impact of metacognitive strategy instruction on the listening per-formance of university students. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 98, 1485-1491. razak, n. z. a., ismail, f., aziz, a. a., & babikkoi, m. a. (2012). assessing the use of english language learning strategies among secondary school students in malaysia. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 66, 240-246. which one is the journal name? wang, j., spencer, k., & xing, m. (2009). metacognitive beliefs and strategies in learning chinese as a foreign language. system, 37(1), 46-56. wichadee, s. (2011). the effects of metacognitive strategy instruction on efl thai students reading comprehension ability. journal of college teaching & learning (tlc), 8(5), 3140. wigglesworth, g., & elder, c. (2010). an investigation of the effectiveness and validity of planning time in speaking test tasks. language assessment quarterly. 7(1), 1-24. yang, c. (2009). a study of metacognitive strategies employed by english listeners in an efl setting. international education studies, 2(4), 134-1139. yunus, n. m. (2014). the use of indirect strategies in speaking: scanning the mdab students. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 123, 204-214. 128 running head: teacher personal and professional identity beyond words vol.2, no.1, may 2014 widya mandala catholic university surabaya teacher personal and professional identity integration: alsup’s exploration of teacher identity discourses mateus yumarnamto department of literacy faculty of culture and language education indiana university bloomington, usa yumarnamto@gmail.com book review title teacher identity discourses: negotiating personal and professional spaces author janet alsup publisher ncte-lea research series in literacy and composition/taylor & francis e-library year 2008 pages xiii + 234 teacher personal and professional identity 129 borderland discourse, as a transformative type of teacher identity discourse, reflects a view of teacher identity that is holistic—inclusive of the intellectual, the corporeal, and the affective aspects of human selfhood. within borderland discourse there is evidence of contact between disparate personal and professional subjectivities, which can lead to the eventual integration of these multiple subject positions. (p. 6) the quote above can capture the main idea of janet alsup’s book, teacher identity discourses: negotiating personal and professional spaces. the idea of borderland discourse— where the personal identity and professional identity collide and overlap—echoes within each chapter in this book. in this borderland discourse, the contact between personal and professional identities brings about tension, changes, and integration—processes which can lead teachers to become more mature and ultimately happier. alsup’s original book was published in 2006 and the electronic version of the book appeared in 2008. an earlier review of this book by smolcic (2006) offered a useful summary and identified several key points and ideas in each chapter. however, i believe alsup’s book merits additional consideration because her ideas are still relevant to current teachers and to teacher education institutions. more importantly, it is relevant beyond the geographical boundaries of the u.s.—as some education issues faced by teachers are similar in many parts of the world. so is in indonesia, as teachers also face similar challenges of becoming professionals. in this book alsup argues that teacher training and teacher knowledge are not adequate in preparing for successful and happy teachers. based on her own experiences and others’ stories about being teachers, she builds her case of integrating personal and professional identity in discourse. she states explicitly that her intended readers for her book are preservice teachers and 130 teacher personal and professional identity teachers in elementary and high schools. beyond her explicit audience, this book is also intended for educators and those who are concerned with teacher education. the book is divided into ten chapters that show how the author’s ideas on teacher identity are developed and structured. the first chapter provides the backgrounds of how the project of exploring teacher identity comes into reality. chapter two to five present and discuss the nature of being a teacher and the development of teacher identity. in these chapters, the tension of conflicting identities and the enactments of identity in teaching are discussed. chapter six raises the outside school issues that influence the development of teacher identity and chapter seven argues that the integration of personal and professional identity can be realized in discourse. chapter eighth to ten focus on pedagogical implications of her findings. those chapters talk about what teaching is, about teacher’s beliefs, and the final remarks about teacher identity and the importance of “knowing thyself”. indeed, reading the book, i could feel that many ideas resonate in me as my interest is similar to alsup. i am interested in teacher identity and how it develops through time. i am also interested in the borderland identity—which, prior to reading the book, i interpreted in a different notion from alsup. she suggests the idea of borderland identity as the integration of spaces between personal and professional identity. what i brought in my mind when i was reading about the borderland identity was the cosmopolitan identity that takes into accounts the idea of “movement”—the integration of different cultures. based on her own history, experiences, and preservice teachers’ stories about being teachers, she builds her case that it is more important for teachers to reconcile the tension between personal and professional identity as teachers rather than merely building pedagogical skills and knowledge. traditionally, identity can be perceived as multiple personae as suggested teacher personal and professional identity 131 by ochs (1993) as presented in golombek and jordan (2005). it is “a cover term for a range of social personae, including social statuses, roles, positions, relationships, and institutional and other relevant community identities one may attempt to claim or assign in the course of social life” (p.517). for alsup, identity is more fluid than personae: it is dynamic and it is shaped and reshaped in discourse as teachers are positioning themselves towards different issues and different authorities. it is also positioning of teachers as a personal as well as a member of professional community. the tension between the personal and professional, then, should be resolved in identity integration. failing to do so, teachers will be easily worn out and their learning curve will reach a plateau. on the other hand, reaching the identity integration will help teachers to view constructively their personal and professional lives and finally can lead them to become a better and happier teacher. i found the idea of identity integration similar to that of being an authentic teacher—a teacher who do not wear others’ shoes and a teacher who shows who he/she is. i agree with alsup that showing the personal self in the classroom can be very difficult, especially for those who are new to the profession: preservice teachers and new teachers. she suggests that new teachers and preservice teachers focus first on understanding themselves and their early conception about the profession so that they can develop their own teaching philosophy and finally can integrate their personal and professional identity. alsup also argues in this book that the integration of teacher identity is facilitated in discourse: teachers’ talks, teachers’ connections, and teachers’ engagement with their professional community and with their students in the classroom. the space of integration between personal and professional identity takes place in these discourses. the idea of creating 132 teacher personal and professional identity space for integrating personal and professional identity discourses is parallel to the idea of third space suggested by bhabha (1994) in the location of culture. since then, the idea has been widely applied in education such as reflected in works done by gutiérrez (1998, 1999) who explored third space and hybrid identity as the results of technology and globalization. this idea is also very close to palmer’s (1997) works on teaching, identity and integrity—that highlight the importance of self-integrity and spirituality. even though alsup does not explicitly talk about third space in this book, her idea can be seen as a part of this tradition. what i found interesting in alsup’s book is that she is critical of many public schools that do not really support the teacher personal and professional growth—which i also find true in many public schools as well as poorly-managed private schools in indonesia where teachers are left to develop their career without enough support from the institutions. the author is also critical of teacher education and teacher training institutions, which, in general, care less about the aspects of teacher professional identity development. traditionally, educators and teacher education institutions have been more concerned with teacher knowledge than teachers’ personal and professional growth. in her own words, the author raises this issue by reflecting: as my metacognitive awareness of my teacher self increased, i began to wonder why university teacher education programs didn’t directly address issues of professional identity development. most teacher education programs talk about issues of professional demeanor, dress, and communication. however, these are not the professional “identity” issues that concern me the most. the issues i’m worried about are the aspects of identity development that involve the integration of the personal self with the professional self, and the “taking on” of a culturally scripted, often narrowly defined, professional role while maintaining individuality. (p. 4) teacher personal and professional identity 133 interestingly, alsup also raised the issue of teacher image—which in various cultures is considered as a feminine domain. the feminized teacher image, which is the norm in most schools and teacher training institutions, is still the main discourse of being a teacher. in this cultural image, teachers are expected to be caring and in many ways to be nurturing as mothers do to their children. these expectations can be very limiting and might not fit to all teachers. in conclusion, for preservice teachers and novice teachers, this book can be a great resource for exploring teacher personal and professional identity. this book is also relevant as a reference to develop a personal teaching philosophy. in chapter eight, for example, the author explores teaching metaphors that could help situate and build teaching philosophy. similarly, in chapter nine, alsup exposes teachers’ beliefs and their relevance to classroom practices. more importantly, this book is relevant to teacher developments programs and teacher training institutions in providing a framework for a reform that integrate the aspects teacher professional identity formation in addition to the traditional cores: subject matter and pedagogical knowledge. last but not least, personally, i found this book compelling. i can widen my perspective on teacher identity and the integration of personal and professional identity and it sheds light on my understanding of being an authentic teacher and authentic self. the echoing idea of socrates’ “know thyself” appears within each chapter in this book as a uniting thread in understanding teacher professional identity integration—which is one of the goals to become better and happier teachers. 134 teacher personal and professional identity references bhabha, h. (1994). the location of culture. new york: routledge golombek, paula & jordan, stefanie rehn. (2005). becoming "black lambs" not "parrots": a poststructuralist orientation to intelligibility and identity. tesol quarterly, vol. 39, no. 3, 513—533. gutiérrez, k. (2008). developing a sociocritical literacy in the third space. reading research quarterly, 43(2), 148–164. gutiérrez, k., baquedano-lópez, p., & tejeda, c. (1999). rethinking diversity: hybridity and hybrid language practices in the third space. mind, culture, and activity, 6, 286–303. palmer, p. j. (1997). the heart of a teacher identity and integrity in teaching. change: the magazine of higher learning 29, no. 6, 14-21. smolcic, elizabeth (2006). book review (teacher identity discourses: negotiating personal and professional spaces). educational review, http://www.edrev.info/reviews/rev498.htm. book reviewed: alsup, j. (2008). teacher identity discourses: negotiating personal and professional spaces. new york: taylor & francis 40 running head: strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary beyond words vol.2, no.2, november 2014 widya mandala catholic university surabaya research into practice: strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary feng teng nanning university, china u3034981@uni.canberra.edu.au strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary 41 abstract this article presents an overview of current research on second language vocabulary learning and proposes eight strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary. first, to facilitate effective vocabulary teaching, choosing high-frequency words is essential. teachers of vocabulary also need to add explicit, intentional teaching to incidental learning. in addition, vocabulary learning strategies including morphological awareness and lexical inference provides a platform by which learners can improve both receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge. this article also suggests that productive vocabulary knowledge needs more attention than receptive vocabulary knowledge, and that available textbooks seldom address vocabulary sufficiently. in summary, it is very important for all learners and teachers to acknowledge that learning vocabulary is incremental in nature, and we should develop a principled, long-term program for teaching and learning vocabulary. keywords: vocabulary learning, incidental and intentional learning, vocabulary teaching, efl 42 strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary introduction it was in reading course that i coincidentally noticed an english reading book that was inscribed between the lines by hu (a pseudonym for a student), was full of inundated meaning explanations in chinese. checking her book, it is natural to contemplate how she struggled withreading it. i realized that hu, is probably not alone in being bogged down by the process of struggling to read in english. many efl learners, especially those with a low proficiency level, sense their linguistic competence is not matched with the large amount of vocabulary in reading materials, which in turn makes reading a difficult skill for them. reading, described by paribakht and wesche (1997, p.175) as “unpredictable,” is a cultural model in which, while recalling individual life experiences that match with the passage and further probing into its deep meaning, the reader, text, and context meet and become a transactional zone (pearson, 2009). to do this, a high vocabulary level and linguistic competence are needed (grabe and stoller, 2002, p.259). unfortunately, this is what most english as a foreign language (efl) learners lack (nation, 2001). in other words, when efl students are required to conduct reading, they do not have enough linguistic competence to interact with what the book conveys, and thus, fewer opportunities to incidentally pick up on unknown words. in addition, their sense of reading difficulty comes not only from their limited vocabulary load, with which they are unable to decode the deeper meaning of the book, but also the rate of forgetting words that occurs in learning vocabulary (waring & takaki, 2003). this restricts learners from accumulating words incrementally (schmitt, 2010). it’s not surprising then, that they will encounter difficulties in proceeding with their post-reading activities. strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary 43 people learn to read by reading, and the ability to read proficiently is best achieved through extensive reading (renandya, 2007). however, unlike listening and speaking, reading provides limited opportunities for the learners to ask for interactive clarification (nation, 2001). in addition, reading requires a heavier vocabulary load than listening and speaking (stanovich, 2000, p. 252). research shows that learners need to know 98% coverage of the words in written materials in order to understand them well (nation, 2006, p.71). for this percentage of coverage, there are about 5,000 to 8,000 word families. therefore, it is difficult for learners with a restricted vocabulary level to achieve adequate comprehension of reading texts and acquire words incidentally as a native speaker would. however, learning vocabulary is an incremental process involved with strategies, and propitious application of these strategies will facilitate the learning of vocabulary (nation, 2008). therefore, it is suggested that instead of imposing large quantities of difficult reading materials for efl learners and hoping they will eventually gain adequate reading comprehension automatically, teacher should reflect on learners’ difficulties in reading, and why or how the difficulties existed. they should then adopt appropriate approaches for teaching vocabulary. i will present some pedagogical strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary in the following section. 44 strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary strategy 1: choose high-frequency words to teach currently, the perspective of frequency is a dominant view in the area of researching vocabulary because it is the best criterion for determining which words to be concentrated on for teaching (lessard-clouston, 2013). in essence, words with a higher frequency level are easier to be acquired than the words with a lower frequency level (e.g., pellicer-sanchez & schmitt, 2010; pigada & schmitt, 2006; teng (2014a); waring & takaki, 2003). in other words, “more frequent words are more useful than less frequent words” (zimmerman & schmitt, 2005, p.165, cited in lessard-clouston, 2013), which is why researcher (browne, 2013) has created a new general service list vocabulary (ngsl) following michael west’s publishing of a remarkable list of 1,964 words known as general service list (gsl) in 1953. this new list includes approximately 2,368 high-frequency words based on scientific, objective analysis of a 273 million word subsection of the 1.6 billion-word cambridge english corpus (cec). comparison of the two lists is shown in table 1. table 1. coverage within the cec vocabulary list number of word families number of lemmas coverage in cec corpus gsl 1964 3623 84.24% ngsl 2368 2818 90.34% source: browne (2013, p.16) strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary 45 likewise, following coxhead’s (2000) academic word list (awl), gardner & davies (2013) also created a new academic vocabulary list (navl) from a 120-million-word academic subcorpus of the 425-million-word corpus of contemporary american english. the continual updates of word lists show the importance of choosing frequent, relevant words to teach. for example, in teaching the low-intermediate students, we should choose the ngsl word list, while navl list is appropriate for teaching students of an upper-intermediate level. strategy 2: supplement explicit vocabulary learning to incidental learning although researcher (laufer, 2009) has shown that learners could incidentally learn words, some researchers (e.g., nation, 2001, 2008; saragi, nation, & meister, 1978; teng, 2014a; van zeeland and schmitt, 2012; waring & nation, 2004) have pointed out that incidental vocabulary learning is very limited, and teachers should supplement deliberate vocabulary teaching into classes to facilitate learners to develop the depth and the breadth of vocabulary knowledge, so that they can improve their receptive and productive vocabulary. direct vocabulary teaching was found to be empirically useful for learners of a low proficiency (teng, 2014b). therefore, in practical teaching, teachers should give attention to particular words and “formulaic language” (schmitt, 2010, p.117), use various types of direct vocabulary-enhancing activities or tasks in class, and give repeated attention to frequent, related words during class. strategy 3: know how useful each strategy is nation (2008) presented, in detail, active vocabulary learning strategies that students can use for memorizing new words or phrases and reviewing already known words. these 46 strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary strategies are practical and useful. teachers need to model and practice vocabulary teaching in our classes. for example, i introduced and modeled a new strategy for enlarging students’ vocabulary size. i prepared target words on the board and asked students to create more words semantically related to them. some students in my class have used dictionaries to find more words, while others asked the teacher for interactive clarification. consequently, not only can they remember some target words forms and meanings, but also form a deeper form-meaning link for other non-target words. students will be more likely to use more strategies if they see how they will improve their vocabulary learning. schmitt (1997) outlined a detailed taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies. table 2. a taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies strategy use% helpful% det analyze part of speech 32 75 det analyze affixes and roots 15 69 det check for l1 cognate 11 40 det analyze any available pictures or gestures 47 84 det guess from textual context 74 73 det bilingual dictionary 85 95 det monolingual dictionary 35 77 soc ask teacher for paraphrase or synonym of new word 42 86 soc ask teacher for a sentence including the new word 24 78 soc ask classmates for meaning 73 65 soc discover new meaning through group work activity 35 65 source: schmitt (1997, p.209) strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary 47 table 2 summarized the results of the survey of vocabulary learning strategies. the use figure refers to the percentage of total respondents who indicated they use that particular strategy, while the helpful figure indicates the percentage who felt the strategy was helpful for learning vocabulary. understanding how useful that these strategies are will help learners as well as teachers adopt appropriate strategies in learning and teaching vocabulary. strategy 4: focus more on productive vocabulary receptive and productive vocabulary learning are interrelated, albeit separable, issues. in the process of learning vocabulary, learners are able to recognize more receptive knowledge than productive knowledge (schmitt, 2010). laufer (2005) proposed that there is a major gap between receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge. in her study, only 16% of receptive vocabulary was known productively at the 5,000 frequency level, and 35% at the 2,000 frequency level. however, melka’s (1997) study proposed that 92% of receptive vocabulary is known productively. although there is inconsistency of these figures, they all agreed that receptive vocabulary knowledge is easier to acquire than productive vocabulary knowledge. thus, in order to facilitate learners’ vocabulary knowledge, gradually shift their receptive mastery towards productive vocabulary. doing little more than reading or hearing a new word is not sufficient (laufer, 2003). what they need is more explicit vocabulary exercises to enable productive use. for example, the more they engage with the productive use of a word (say or write it, and create grammatical and collocational comparisons), the more likely that he/she is to master it (schmitt, 2010; lessard-clouston, 2013). as also stated in schmitt (2008, pp.339), promoting 48 strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary “engagement” with the usage of a new word is the most fundamental task for teachers, students, and material writers. for example, in my teaching of morphology, i found out that about 20% of inflectional words, 35% of derivational words, and 64% of compound words were not known productively. this is not a positive result, especially the knowledge of compound words. although learners can recognize most of them, it might be difficult for them to produce them correctly. therefore, it is highly suggested that teachers address the productive usage of some difficult words in teaching. strategy 5: foster learners’ morphological awareness a limited vocabulary level also affects learners’ awareness of morphological structures. a word family consists of three morphological structures: the root (promote), the inflections (promotes, promoted, promoting), and the derivatives (promotion, promotive, promoter). to the learners, the awareness of the morphological structures is the ability to manipulate the morphemes of words (kuo & anderson, 2006), and they are required to use morphological information in words to infer the lexical meaning as well as the meaning of the reading texts. however, the nature of lexical inferencing is a complex one because it is concerned with ‘linguistic cues,’ ‘contextual clues,’ and ‘linguistic knowledge’ (haastrup, 1991, p. 40), which are what efl learners with a low vocabulary level often lack. fostering learners’ morphological awareness can facilitate the improvement of their vocabulary knowledge directly and indirectly through the mediation of lexical inferencing ability (zhang & koda, 2011). in addition, morphological awareness can improve learners’ reading comprehension (zhang & koda, 2013). in practical teaching, students can be trained with using contextual clues as they come across strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary 49 unknown words, by asking them to break down the words into prefixes, roots, and suffixes, then brainstorming the potential meanings. this strategy of fostering word consciousness has also been proposed by other researchers (lessard-clouston, 2013; nation & meara, 2010; zimmerman, 2009). in my teaching, i used a new context of learning english songs to develop students’morphological awareness over one academic term; my study showed that all three groups with different vocabulary sizes demonstrated significant improvement in morphology. strategy 6: train students’ lexical inferencing ability lexical inference is described as a cognitive top-down process of resorting to different resources to identify the meaning of a word (harley & hart, 2000; qian, 2004). students are encouraged to use familiar attributes and contextual guessing (paribakht and wesche, 1999; gu & johnson, 1996; nation, 2008) and “clues” (haastrup, 1991, p. 40), including orthographical, morphological, phrasal, and sentential to a more global level from a whole passage (qian, 2004). research has shown that guessing from context is one of the most frequent and favored strategies for learners when meeting new words in reading (paribakht & wesche, 1999). in walters’s study (2006), she invited learners with different proficiency levels and found out that both learners with a low or an advanced proficiency level benefited from instruction in general inferencing procedure. in my practical teaching, i teach my students how to guess the meaning of unknown words from the context, i.e., use simple words to explain the context, they are often very active to figure it out and express the meaning loudly. i can sense my students’ enjoyment in doing this. 50 strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary strategy 7: choose appropriate textbooks one of the responsibilities that teachers should take is to ensure that the learners can acquire different aspects of vocabulary knowledge through textbooks. in order to achieve this, teachers need to ensure that frequent encounters with new words and phrases occur in the textbooks. however, textbooks seldom address the learning of vocabulary sufficiently (lessard-clouston, p.21). teachers should not rely too much on textbooks, because students cannot learn a large amount of vocabulary simply from textbooks. in o’loughlin’s (2012) study, he analyzed the frequency of word occurrence in three levels of the textbook series, new english file, and proposed that learning these textbooks only covered a small percentage of gsl and awl words. therefore, it is necessary for the teachers to choose appropriate textbooks, contrive new reading materials, or look for supplementary sources of suitable reading input. of all the available reading materials, graded reader is prominently suggested, and extensive reading of graded readers with a controlled number of repeated vocabulary can facilitate learners read and learn vocabulary with pleasure (teng, 2014b). for this, i recommend one website with various online resources for extensive reading and vocabulary learning [http://extensivereading.net/resources]. strategy 8: vocabulary learning is incremental the process of learning vocabulary is incremental, which means that the acquisition of vocabulary is incremental both in acquiring sheer volume of vocabulary or various aspects of individual lexical items (schmitt, 2010, p.19). in other words, learning the form, meaning, and use of vocabulary occur over time. zimmerman (2009) outlined a detailed incremental scale of learning words and phrases. strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary 51 table 3. an incremental scale of learning words and phrases i have never seen this word before i have seen the word but am not sure what it means i understand the word when i see or hear it in a sentence i have tried to use this word, but i am not sure i am using it correctly i use the word with confidence in either speaking or writing i use the word with confidence in both speaking and writing source: zimmerman (2009, p. 116) table 3 shows the learning of word knowledge goes from zero to partial acquisition to full acquisition. therefore, teachers should help students understand that it is a long-term process of learning vocabulary. rather than trying to memorize all the words at a time, it is better for students to spend some time reviewing their lists of unknown words each day, and teachers should develop a principled, long-term program for teaching and learning vocabulary. conclusion the pedagogical suggestions articulated in this study cannot sufficiently address the core issue of vocabulary. in addition, the variable factors in learning vocabulary affect vocabulary teaching, and there will never be a “best” strategy to settle this (nation, 2008). for instance, choosing high-frequency words to teach and adding intentional learning to incidental learning via reading is effective. learners are motivated and become more familiar with some already known words. lexical inferencing is helpful for teaching vocabulary; students are quite intrigued to conduct lexical inferencing. however, the density of unfamiliar words in a text often plays a role in their success or failure in this type of guessing. some strategies, e.g., choosing appropriate textbooks requires teacher’s additional efforts, because most textbooks are not 52 strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary appropriate for teaching vocabulary (lessard-clouston, 2013). teachers need to analyze the vocabulary load of the textbooks and the vocabulary size of the learners, and thus find appropriate textbooks for teaching, or, contrive new textbooks by themselves. in addition, it is difficult to demand students move efforts from short-term memory to long-term memory; some students expect an expeditious way to acquire vocabulary, neglecting that the process of learning vocabulary is incremental. more research on how to facilitate learners accumulating words incrementally is needed. one thing to bear in mind, however, to some extent, these eight strategies can make learning vocabulary more focused, intriguing, and efficacious, and teaching more goal-oriented, and effective. our main job as teachers of foreign language vocabulary is to assist our students develop the depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge, i.e., the vocabulary size and quality of knowing a word. in achieving this, we may need to devote some time teaching students some vocabulary learning strategies. for instance, the bulk of our classroom time should be used to raise students’ awareness of strategies in learning vocabulary, the kind of strategies in which they can 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(2005). lexical questions to guide the teaching and learning of words. the catesol journal, 17, 164-170. 143 about the authors phillip a. towndrow holds a doctorate of education from university of durham, uk. he is now a senior research scientist at the national institute of education, nanyang technological university, singapore. his expertise is on english language learning, pedagogy, task design, and digital literacy. andrias tri susanto is a novel english for academic purpose instructor at the graduate school of widya mandala catholic university surabaya. he got his bachelor’s degree from state university of malang (universitas negeri malang), indonesia, in 2010 and his master’s degree from university of leeds, uk, in 2013. his fields of interest cover english grammar learning, teacher education, and language assessment. george m. jacobs holds a ph.d in educational psychology from university of hawaii and a master’s degree in linguistics from university of illinois—chicago. he has widely written on such topics as cooperative learning, extensive reading, environmental education, and humane education. he teaches writing and various education courses at james cook university, singapore. he is a member of the board of the extensive reading foundation, the international association for the study of cooperation in education, and vegetarian society (singapore). soudabeh tabatabaei is a ph.d candidate of linguistics at university of mysore. her main areas of interest are interlanguage pragmatics, cross-cultural pragmatics and second language acquisition. maryam farnia is an assistant professor of applied linguistics at the department of foreign languages and linguistics, payame noor univerasity, najafanad, iran. her areas of research are intercultural pragmatics, interlanguage pragmatics and im/politeness. 144 feng teng obtained his master’s degree in tesol from university of canberra in 2009, and now works as a lecturer and researcher at the department of english, nanning university, china. his main research interests include efl vocabulary teaching and learning. ashadi has been in efl teaching for more than 15 years. he earned his doctorate from university of melbourne, australia in 2014. he is currently back to teaching in the graduate school, state university of yogyakarta (universitas negeri yogyakarta), indonesia. his research interests include efl teacher development, teacher learning, teacher recruitment, and teacher appraisal. frans manurung has been interested in english language teaching since he was in senior high school. having more than 10 years of english teaching experience in several institutions, he then started establishing his own language teaching center for kids and adults in surabaya which has been operating for more than five years. in 2012, he got his the master of arts in tefl from the graduate school of widya mandala catholic university in august 2014. ignatius harjanto earned his doctorate degree in tefl from state university of malang (universitas negeri malang), indonesia in 1999. his interest is in english education and applied linguistics. currently, he is the head of master's program in tefl, the graduate school of widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia. running head: conversation partners 29 beyond words vol.2, no.1, may 2014 widya mandala catholic university surabaya conversation partnerships: an educational tool for cross-cultural understanding wendy c. kasten kent state university, usa wkasten@kent.edu murat dagistan kent state university, usa mdagista@kent.edu with vildan sarikaya, bahçeşehir university, turkey vsarikay@kent.edu 30 conversation partners abstract this article describes one study of conversation partnerships between american students enrolled in teacher education programs, and international students enrolled at the same large midwestern university. twenty-nine pairs of partners during one 15-week semester were directed to meet at least 10 times minimally 30 minutes each. topics for initial meetings were recommended, to help partners get started. as the semester progressed, topics were based on interests and needs of the partners. three data sources were collected and analyzed. international students were surveyed at the end of the program with demographic and open-ended question about their perceived outcomes of the experience. american students were required to keep and submit weekly logs of the meetings and their thoughts about the meeting. these students were further required to write an end-semester reflection paper, exploring their learning in areas of: better understanding the english language; learning about other cultures; and any other meaningful insights about the experience. these latter two data sources were analyzed qualitatively, using constant comparative analysis. results of the study, overall, were positive with interesting insights from participants. international students reported improving their english. american students had their “eyes opened” repeatedly about other cultures. many of the partners reported the forming on genuine and hopefully sustainable friendships. often, the partnerships went beyond the course requirements spending evenings, or weekend days together. keywords: conversation partners; multicultural education; diversity; teacher education; english language learning; english language learners; higher education; english as a foreign language; english as a second language; tesol; strategies for diversity learning; diversity of learning; foreign language education. conversation partners 31 introduction many international students from non-english speaking cultures, especially from expanding countries like china, saudi arabia and turkey, arrive in the u.s. every year to study in higher education. as a result, schools across the united states are enrolling more linguistically diverse student populations than ever before (garcia & cuellar, 2006). unfortunately, most of these students lack the practical english to get along in everyday life, and to tackle the language demands of their university classes. for this reason, higher education institutions have recently tended to integrate more communicative language teaching methods and strategies like conversation partnership into their curriculum. conversation partnerships are the pairing of native speakers of a language with language learners of that language, whether these partnerships are highly structured or only partially structured. partners meet regularly to talk in the target language. the aim is to encourage international students to voluntarily participate in communicative and social activities to help them achieve a smooth integration while experiencing education in the u.s. in consideration of the advent of this study, a literature review was attempted. after thorough searching, no studies of conversation partners could be located. mentions of conversation partners were found, generally on websites of various schools and universities. sometimes these websites talked extensively about conversation partner programs, including detailed guidelines offered to the native speakers in the partnership. however, there is much about the conversation partnership in principle that makes sense. implementing conversation partner programs makes sense with what is known about learning as well as language learning specifically. such programs are consistent with constructivist learning, with critical practices that can reveal insights in regards to how individuals develop language skills and improve their conversational experiences (cutting & dunn, 2006). clearly, 32 conversation partners language knowledge is complexly dynamic and contextually shaped (hall, cheng & carlson, 2006; meskill & sadykova, 2011). and, language competency is no longer viewed as a set of static competencies based on the ideal native speaker model (larsen-freeman & freeman, 2008). the complexities of learning a new language extend far beyond words, beyond textbook-based learning, beyond rules for grammar and syntax, and beyond conjugating verbs. developing communicative competence requires active involvement. in this case, conversations partnerships offer the international english language learners authentic interaction with american peers. conversation partnerships can be an easy and effective remedy that might scaffold continuous acquisition of communication skills because of the authentic interaction (tudini, 2007), practicing skills in real time communication. a language learner’s participation in dialogues with native speakers can be linked not only to acquiring basic social and communicative skills, but also to understanding differences of others, interacting with a predefined purpose, responding appropriately to utterances, and building confidence in speaking. many international students can be overwhelmingly challenged by the enormity of the process of learning english in another culture. zangari (1999) suggests that while trying to communicate, international students might be “bogged down with details, particularly with correctness, and therefore lack the confidence to take advantage of the abundance of opportunities that immersion provides” (p. 1). of course, this may not be the case for all international students, and it can be a mistake to make overgeneralizations. some students may have innate potential or natural talent for learning languages, while for others, the task can be daunting. with the right systematic strategies, both international and american students can overcome hesitation about exploring new linguistic and cultural frontiers. they may also achieve a comfortable rapport leading to more effective learning experiences in a conversation partnership. conversation partners 33 taking advantage of conversing with native speakers on a regular schedule, learners can move away from formal language instruction and delve into a more authentic use of english. as partners become more comfortable with each other, newer english speakers can take more risks trying out new ways of saying things, and getting suggestions for how to say things from their partners. this authenticity in conversing is a critical component of good exposure and practice for non-native speakers, and this can be achieved via such engaging programs (williams, 2009). american student participants can benefit from the central purpose of conversation partnership programs. americans are offered opportunities to get to know the life styles of people from other cultures, to appreciate diversity, and to understand the concept of being a global citizen. this experience is almost as good as traveling to different countries and getting to know more about new cultures. the demographics of northeast ohio, where this study took place, means that many u.s. undergraduate and graduate students studying at kent state university will have had limited experiences, if any, with people who look, think, and talk differently than they do. since american participants in this study are all in teacher education, seeking to become k-12 teachers, acquiring skills for meeting the needs of diverse learners in their future classrooms becomes an important goal. in a multicultural context such as in the united states, and in higher education, these basic intercultural skills can be crucially important. in order to support such cultural integration and exchange, many english as second language (esl) departments in american universities today try to implement conversation partnership programs via voluntary work. while in theory, these types of programs can have great contributions to improving the quality of language learning experience, there is no solid evidence that voluntary conversation programs are actively integrated into the overall curricular structures. in other words, conversation 34 conversation partners partnership programs which are implemented based on a voluntary participation cannot count on the language learners becoming an active member of the target language community. such programs do not always attain the intended goals or learning outcomes on behalf of both international and american students for four reasons: (1) no payment is offered; (2) no curricular or communicative guidance is provided; (3) meeting schedule may be dictated by the institutions; and (4) above all, limited cultural orientation is provided about how to approach individuals from other communities and how to address their differences appropriately. in the study reported here, the american side of the conversation partnerships is not voluntary, but rather built in to a language arts and literacy course. in order to query the effectiveness of such programs, therefore, the elements of this inquiry are built upon the following questions: what can we learn about conversation partnerships in regards to a) international students’ perceptions? b) american students’ perceptions? and c) what are recommendations for future conversation partnership programs? research design and method participants conversation partners involved in this study are american citizens and international students from different countries, including china, germany, hong kong, india, israel, italy, japan, kuwait, liberia, malaysia, saudi arabia, south korea, thailand, turkey, ukraine, and vietnam. the undergraduate and graduate american students enrolled in one online literacy course were matched with conversation partners who were international students enrolled in programs across campus. a questionnaire was used to pair students of the same gender, age range, and interests, where possible. due to the higher number of female american students and male international students, matching the partners according to their gender preferences was not always possible. conversation partners 35 american students (4 male and 25 female), were successfully matched with international students. each american student was given the email of his/her international conversation partner and asked to initiate the first contact. in the end, 29 conversation pairs were created. instrumentation and data collection there were three data sources in this study. first of all, one instrument, a survey, was developed and used to collect feedback from the international students; second, weekly logs of meetings were kept by the american students which included the time, place, duration, and a summary of the meeting; and third, there was an end reflection paper written as an assignment for the online course where american students were directed to reflect on their experience and their learning. the survey. the following procedures were used to develop a survey. questions which seemed viable were tested on volunteers to ensure they were understandable to second language speakers, and revised as needed. each survey question was also evaluated to make sure that items addressed research questions. based upon feedback, the final survey instrument was developed. the survey included two parts: part a contained six close-ended questions, which were demographic in nature. these questions mainly dealt with length of participants’ english experience, and also the number of years of english instruction, their self-perception of their competence in english, how often and in what way they conversed with their partners from the program (in person, by phone, by computer, etc.), and whether or not this was the first time they had been part of such a program. part b contained 10 questions. overall, most of the 10 questions were open-ended, which required subjects to compose narrative responses. these questions were assumed to reflect richer and more insightful opinions of international students, as they allowed them to answer questions in their own words, enabling researchers to learn about these students’ unique perspectives. all these 36 conversation partners were used to investigate international students’ experiences in the conversation partnership program (appendix-a: conversation partnership survey). qualtrics was the software used for the survey, which was available through a site license with the university. the american student logs and final reflections. two narrative qualitative data sources were collected from the american students. first, the weekly logs that were kept were submitted following the 10 required partner meetings. american students were required to maintain weekly logs in which they gave detailed information on their meetings such as where they took place, how long they lasted, and what they talked about. these logs varied in length, depth, and quality. logs were submitted to the course instructor, and then the researcher downloaded them from blackboard learn, which is a software licensed by the university for delivery of online courses and management of other face-to-face courses. the second qualitative, narrative data source was the end of the semester final reflections, where more insights were expected from the american students. several guidelines were provided by the instructor for these reflections. first, the reflection should include what the american students believed they learned about their own language. second, they were asked to reflect on their cultural learning. third, they were invited to say anything they wanted to about their experiences with their international conversation partners. implementation. all data in this study were collected electronically. the document for matching partners was distributed to the american conversation partners via email. additional instructions on how to keep the weekly log and how to write the reflection paper were given to the american conversation partners in the online course. the survey for the international conversation partners was distributed at the end of ten weeks via email. american partners were asked to urge their partners to complete the survey. conversation partners 37 there were some problems that occurred during implementation. for example several international conversation partners who participated voluntarily didn’t answer emails or dropped out early. their designated american conversation partners then had to be matched with other students. a problem of a different nature occurred when an international male student insisted that his female american conversation partner attend their meetings in his apartment. in this case, the female american conversation partner immediately contacted her course instructor and the researcher, and the female student was assigned a new international conversation partner. analysis. for the two narrative data sources from the american students, and the open ended questions from the international students on the survey, the same basic procedures were applied. the responses were combed for categories and patterns using the constant comparative method. as glaser emphasized (1965), the coding process in grounded theory relies heavily on the constant comparative method where the researcher begins analysis with the first data collected and constantly compares indicators, concepts and categories as the theory emerges. in connection with this qualitative approach, the researcher followed a research path for looking systematically at the data sources, including weekly logs and final reflections, aiming at the generation of theory (strauss & corbin, 1998). for the close-ended items in the survey of international student partners, the qualtrics software did some of the hard work, presenting items with the summaries of each type of responses. open-ended items were analyzed similarly to the narrative data from the american partners. however, these open ended responses were very brief, making analysis easier. 38 conversation partners results conversation partnership a benefit for international students with the helps of qualtrics, we explored each of the survey questions. the responses to the following question showed that having a conversation is a beneficial experience for international students. the following questions about how this experience helped international students in their studies confirmed the benefit of having a conversation partner, as illustrated in the following analysis. as for gaining insights regarding the cultural aspect, the following question focuses on the experiential side in having a conversation partner. the following open-ended question gives the participants freedom to share their personal experiences and to reflect them in a relatively more conversation partners 39 detailed way, as shown in the following representative responses: finally, since this survey concentrated on how linguistic and communicative competence could be enhanced through such cooperative linguistic involvement in conversing with a native speaker, the result shows that there is a common agreement among international students on the value of interacting with native speakers in the process of integrating the target culture. the following qualtrics survey item, which followed the yes/no options, supports this perspective and proves that this program enhances the usage of language and overall linguistic 40 conversation partners skills of international students. not all respondents chose to add a narrative response. the analyses of american conversation partner weekly logs the weekly logs of the american students were all gathered together and merged in a single file. to ensure anonymity, all 29 american participants were given a numerical code such as p1, p2, p3 … p29. the decision of disaggregating some of the week responses was made to get detailed insights on how each meeting went, based on the notion that the beginning sessions would likely be different from ones once partners gained rapport and comfort with each other. week one. all accumulated week 1 logs were analyzed, and the features of data were marked with descriptive words and category names. common patterns that were identified in the preliminary analysis were collected under three main headings: detailed information about the meeting; conversation topics, and thoughts and emotions. detailed information about the first meeting was divided into three subheadings including place, way of meeting and duration. during the first meeting students met at comfortable public areas such as the kent state university student center, dormitory common spaces, the library, restaurant, bars, cafes and virtual meeting contexts such as skype. students were instructed to have conversation partners 41 meetings for a minimum of 30 minutes, but unexpectedly, some conversation meetings lasted much longer. the types of general findings of the first meeting are shown in figure 1 below. figure 1 – the analysis of the first meetings weekly logs weeks two to nine. weekly logs from week two to nine were merged to enable researchers to see possible shifts in the partnership experience, to explore the changes and or similarities of the topics in meetings and finally to give an overall view of the program. during those weeks, some remarkable changes in meetings were found. for instance, partners extended the length of the meeting times. in some cases, conversation partners spent more than three, four, or even five hours together. the main reason for this change was the activities or venues where meetings took place, such as going out for dinner, going to the theater, buying a car, watching a movie together and doing grocery shopping. one participant (p16) invited her international conversation partner to her hometown to stay with her family over the weekend. she said, “my husband found some coffee mugs he wanted to buy for xxx because they both enjoyed coffee. i 42 conversation partners bought a small plate with an amish scene on it as a gift that he could give to someone when he got home.” the sort of rapport expressed in this partnership became typical of many of the partnerships as the semester progressed. weekly log, week ten. week ten represented the last log entry, and so the researchers wanted to see how this partnership ended. in most responses, the partners intended to stay in contact in the future. for example p7 said, “i told xxx that she could still call me if she had any questions. she told me that she was going to call me the next time she was at the drug store. i laughed, but she wasn’t joking.” and p19 wrote, “it was sad that it was our last time official meeting but i have a feeling we will see each other before she leaves. her dislikes of the united states were the same dislikes of mine, which i thought was really interesting. i am really glad she has been having such a great experience here and i hope i contributed to that.” many pairs expressed regret about the occurrence of the last meeting. findings from weekly log data source the results of the constant comparative analysis of the weekly logs fell into several areas. these include cultural understanding and socialization. areas of cultural understanding. to begin with, weekly logs posted by the american conversation partners revealed some trends. in a sense, they put effort to better understand the culture they were not familiar with, and cultural understanding was seen as a priority in the majority of responses throughout the ten-week-period. in addition popular topics such as education, politics, and sports were common. conversations broached more sensitive subjects including religion, marriage, pregnancy, gender issues, and traditions. this led to some comparisons, some surprises, but productive discussions. for example, p19 said, “i find that whenever we meet, the time flies byi really can't believe that an hour goes so fast. we have so much to talk about, and i conversation partners 43 think we're both really interested in each other's lives, which makes this experience so fun.” and p10 wrote, “i felt like an expert on ohio during this meeting, and a lot of the questions that he had i was able to answer very easily. he hasn’t been around the state very much, so i was able to give him some good recommendations of places to go before he moves or leaves for home. i am still so glad i got the partner that i did, he’s very interested in learning about america and telling me about his own culture.” responses also proved that after meeting several times; the conversation partnership turned out to be a socialization experience through which individuals made good friends, rather than this being just a class assignment. areas of socialization. when the entirety of responses were evaluated, it is clearly seen that socialization seems to be one of the critical central themes. beginning with week two, venues like theatre, cinemas, and personal home visits were also popular meeting spots besides bars and cafes. this may be seen as a sign of growing confidence and trust in the partnerships. cooking together, inviting a partner home for dinner, and above all, increasing durations of meetings supports the idea that conversation partners were developing beyond merely a course assignment. in this respect, the program provided participants with more opportunities to make new friends, and even included individuals from american partners’ families or friends. while conversing, participants tended to compare each other’s countries, dating styles, relationships, educational backgrounds, food and even the medical health care. for example, one of the u.s. males spent a great deal of time helping his international student to select, purchase, and register a car. this included multiple visits to auto dealerships, a trip to the county registration office for motor vehicles, and needed banking transactions. these kinds of tasks are difficult for newcomers, and having a local friend as a resource was valuable. 44 conversation partners similarly, p1 stated, “we drove over to the license bureau in ravenna in order for xxx to take the driving portion of the license test. xxx read the computer based test booklet the night i gave it to him during our second meeting and took the test the very next day and passed, so i offered to take him to take the driving part this week and he also passed.” other students reported helping their partners find needed items in a pharmacy, grocery store, or other specialty shop. findings from final reflections on the conversation partnership experience this program has raised the awareness of american conversation partners in terms of the challenges that international students might face in social life. indeed, gradual participation of american students in this program caused a shift from doing an activity for the course work to having become true partners. the course requirement mostly transformed into a meaningful learning experience. american students emphasized that, thanks to this experience, they would bring a more positive attitude while addressing people from other cultures, as implied in the responses that follow. american students were asked to reflect on their experiences learning about english, learning about culture, and anything else they wanted to say about the experience. experiences learning about english. american student partners were mostly naive about international issues and had very limited experiences with second language speakers. very few american students spoke any other languages. consequently, the american partners were repeatedly surprised by questions their partners asked about english, and realized that sometimes, english usage and expressions are difficult to explain. one way this came up, was when international students brought them schoolwork for help. they were asked to help interpret directions on assignments from various professors, and to read over papers and assignments for correct english. statements such as “i never thought about it that way before,” showed their continuous surprise at their own native language. one insightful student conversation partners 45 reflected, “i learned that our english language is very complex. i would find it difficult to learn our language. it is very confusing. the turkish language and vocabulary is much different. their letters do not have as many sounds as our do. i have a better understanding of just how difficult learning english can be. this was an eye opener to me. as a developing teacher this was insightful. it will help me to have a better understanding of what a student would be experiencing while trying to function and learn in a classroom when english is not their first language.” similarly, another american student had some strong responses to their learning about english, “xxx taught me a lot about our english language. i learned how important other countries outside of the united states view our language and that it is a main priority to teach it in their schools. xxx spoke english very well and told me she has known how to speak english since she entered school. i cannot help but to think how the united states does not require our schools to teach us another language let alone make sure we are learning one all through school. this really opened my eyes to how close minded the united states can be at times. i also learned that even the things that i find confusing about our language she did as well. it really showed the connection and similarities we had about english even though we have completely different backgrounds.” learning about culture. by far, the most responses students make in final reflections were about culture. they made statements such as how they have had their “eyes opened” to the different ways of the world. little else in the teacher education program had the same impact on them, because their exposure to other cultures was limited. in some cases, students had experienced field placements that may include minority groups within the u.s., and perhaps children of very low income families. but, these generally do not include cultures outside the united states. students do seem to accept that what they have learned at the end of this experience about culture matters as a future teacher. for example, p6 wrote, “this experience as a future teacher has 46 conversation partners taught me to recognize and be sensitive to culture. not all my students will have the same heritage as me and i should be sensitive to their culture because it is as important to them as mine is to me. in addition, i need to realize that it contributes to who you are and many times is the reason for your actions. i have also learned that we can all learn from one another and listening is an important communication skill to have! similarly, p7 concluded, “as a teacher, i think this assignment has caused me to be aware of the diversity in the school system.” similarly, p11 also stated, “i know that if i have a student that doesn’t know language i will have to be very patient. what i’ve learned will help me as a developing teacher because i will be more cautious of how i approach students in my class from different cultures. i will also do research on my students’ culture before i have them in class, if i know i will be getting that student.” and p14 said, “it will help me to have a better understanding of what a student would be experiencing while trying to function and learn in a classroom when english is not their first language.” another student wrote, “this can help me in the classroom, by being more open to the fact that many of my students come from different backgrounds. i want to learn about them, in a similar way i learned about alex's culture. i think that this is important to show your student's that you care about them, and this is a great way to do so. i am very grateful for this experience and have made a wonderful friend from it. thank you for the opportunity.” other meaningful learning. as is always the case with qualitative responses, some do not fall neatly into categories. still, researchers want to capture rich data which helps address the research questions. one american student expressed metacognitive notions about teaching because of her partnership. she wrote, “sometimes the student is a visual learner, sometimes a hearing learner and sometimes a physical learner. i learned that sometimes you need to implement a game to conversation partners 47 understand certain topics a student understands. lastly, i learned that with a communication barrier sometimes, one must draw pictures so the student can understand what you are talking about.” partner 5 had reflections of a different vein. “the sensitivity such partnership programs can support is highly critical for creating a better educational environment in countries like the u.s., which is experiencing drastic changes in students’ demographic in recent years. this clearly constitutes some cultural motivation for american community while dealing with diversity-related issues in schooling system and achieving a sounder self-criticism.” another partner stated, “i learned so much to help me as a developing teacher from this experience. i received hands on and one-on-one experience with a student where english is their second language. i have never been exposed to that before and i am so grateful that i had the opportunity to do so. i learned how to help make someone feel comfortable with opening up to me about themselves which is a skill i must have as a teacher. i learned to be patient and let someone figure out things on their own that i could easily tell them the answer to.” another student responded, “on our last meeting, we exchanged gifts and i truly felt blessed to have been able to spend time with her. this turned out to be such a blessing to her and me. i thank you for making this opportunity available and for pairing the two of us together. i learned so much and i feel that i will be a much better teacher and person because of this experience. our favorite responses were those which showed learning way beyond the intents of the course, and the forming of lasting friendships. one partner wrote the following, which made all the effort in this study worthwhile. “in conclusion, i have made a true friend this semester and i couldn’t be happier. xxx and i value each other for who we are as individuals and we honor our friendship in the same fashion. i’ll miss him during the month that he will be spending in california, and even more when he graduates and moves back to liberia. but for now i am satisfied 48 conversation partners with what we have and i hope that the other students in this course love this project the way i have. thanks again for this incredible opportunity, dr. kasten. it has and will continue to be one of the most genuine, meaningful endeavors of my life and i could not be more grateful.” discussion this research is limited in terms of time length and number of participants. because of this, making generalizations should be limited. while many of the partnerships ended up extremely positively, others were somewhat less enthusiastic, even if they realized the educational intent of the program. it should also be noted, that in the end, the quality of the data gathered from the american students was richer and with more depth than the data gathered from the international students which was limited to one survey. these limitations must be taken into consideration with this discussion. international students’ perceptions what we learned from international students was encouraging, but lacked depth. no one said they did not benefit, and so overall, we believe the program worked to their advantage. in retrospect, because their english proficiency varied greatly, conducting live interviews would likely have yielded more interesting responses. nonetheless, the international students all reported positive outcomes for themselves with learning english, getting help on their school work, and in learning more about the u.s. and its people. american students’ perceptions at the beginning of the program, some of the u.s. students were skeptical about this assignment, and wondered about being required to do something that was unusual. others welcomed the opportunity openly, stating that they had wanted to know more about international students, and really didn’t know how to go about doing so. overall, the american student conversation partners 49 perceptions were highly positive. they reported having their “eyes opened” to areas of diversity, about which they knew nothing prior to the course. they learned more about their own language, having that opportunity to look at it from someone else’s perspective, and they learned that having sensitivity towards other cultures would be a beneficial trait in a teacher. however, the instances where partners developed a lasting and meaningful friendship are probably the most important outcomes of this inquiry, although we will never know how these friendships develop and sustain themselves over time. recommendations for future conversation partnership programs we have continued with this program in subsequent courses. involving the international office more directly has had some benefits, as they provide the matching of partners, and they also offer a one-time orientation for everyone involved. one recommendation would be to link to the english courses in the esl center on campus, making a course requirement for both sets of the partnership. this might enable more collecting of data from the international students, as well as providing opportunities to link the topics discussed in partnership meetings with international students’ learning in their courses. of course, not all international students are still enrolled in english classes, so linking the classes has limitations as well. currently, because there are far more international students than classes committed to helping them, the international office has created little communities with one american student and two or three international students. however, not all groups are getting regular attendance from the international partners. this may not serve to build the kinds of good relationships we have observed in some of the partnerships. another recommendation we would offer, is to refrain from making the topics and requirements so scheduled or specific, that the schedules strangle the spontaneity and creativity that was observed in some partnerships. these trips to grocery stores, movies, and home are likely the 50 conversation partners most memorable for international students and american students alike, and these experiences go a long way towards our goals. international students get more language and socialization opportunity; american students get more cultural experience. overall, we are committed to programs that foster global understanding between american and international students. we believe that programs like this make a considerable contribution to that goal. conversation partners 51 references cutting, a. l., & dunn, j. (2006). conversations with siblings and with friends: links between relationship quality and social understanding. british journal of developmental psychology, 24(1), 73-87. doi: 10.1348/026151005x70337 garcia, e.e., and d. cuellar. 2006. who are these linguistically and culturally diverse students? teachers college record 108, (11), 2220–46. glaser, b. (1965). the constant comparative method of qualitative analysis. social problems, 12 (4), 445, 436. strauss, a. & corbin, j. (1998). basics of qualitative research: techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory, 2nd ed. thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. hall, j., cheng, a. and carlson, m. (2006) reconceptualizing multicompetence as a theory of language knowledge. applied linguistics, 27 (2), 220–240. larsen-freeman, d. and freeman, d. (2008) language moves: the place of ‘‘foreign’’ languages in classroom teaching and learning. review of educational research, 36, 146– 186. meskill, c., & sadykova, g. (2011). introducing efl faculty to online instructional conversations. recall, 23(3), 200-217. doi: 10.1017/s0958344011000140 tudini, v. (2007). negotiation and intercultural learning in italian native speaker chat rooms. modern language journal, 91(4), 577-601. williams, j. (2009). beyond the practicum experience. elt journal: english language teachers journal, 63(1), 68-77. doi: 10.1093/elt/ccno12 52 conversation partners zangari, l. (1999). conversation partners in esl: a work in progress. pennsylvania action research network [paarn] 1998-1999, 1-10. conversation partners 53 appendix international conversation partnership survey questions (before being put into qualtrics) q1what country are you from? q2how many years have you been speaking english? q3do you consider yourself good at oral english? why or why not? q4was this the first time you had a conversation partner? q5how many times did you and your conversation partners communicate? q6how did you and your conversation partner communicates? q7can you tell us what you think about having an american conversation partner? q8do you believe having a conversation partner was a benefit? q9do you think this experience helped you in your studies? q10do you think this experience helped you speaking in your daily life? q11could you tell us about your best experience with your conversation partner? q12could you tell us about your worst experience with your conversation partner? q13what topics did you talk about? q14what suggestions do you have for us to improve the program for future conversation partners? q15what are your recommendations to future international students about conversation partners? q16is there anything else you would like to say about conversation partners? running head: what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them 1 beyond words vol.2, no.2, november 2014 widya mandala catholic university surabaya what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them willy a. renandya nanyang technological university, singapore willy.renandya@nie.edu.sg 2 what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them abstract the purpose of this paper is to warn novice researchers/writers of the danger of publishing in journals of questionable quality (often referred to as bogus, scam or predatory journals) and highlight key characteristics of these journals and their method of operation. understanding the characteristics and how they operate could help us avoid publishing our work in scam journals. these journals claim (falsely) that they employ a blind review process by experts in the field, promise quick turnaround, claim legitimacy by quoting the issn and listing a number of databases in which they are indexed (e.g., ebsco, doaj and proquest). the paper outlines 15 reasons why as members of the academic community we should shun journals of dubious quality. the key message of this paper is that before we send our scholarly work to academic journals, we need to invest time doing our due diligence, making sure that our target journal is a legitimate and respectable outlet for our work. keywords: bogus journals, scam journals, scholarly work what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them 3 introduction due to the growing pressure to publish in international journals, it is often tempting for some people to take the shortest possible route to get their work published. one of the easiest and fastest ways is to send manuscripts to questionable journals that are managed by unscrupulous publishers who run their journals like commercial business entities. the main motivation of these publishers is not to select articles based on academic standards, but to get as many articles published so as to maximize their profit. i have seen articles written by elt scholars and published in journals of questionable quality. i am not suggesting that they did this intentionally, but they could have exercised more precaution when choosing an avenue for their scholarly work. there are other serious elt scholars who want to get published in decent academic journals, but, because of lack of experience, may fall victim to deceptively attractive traps set up by bogus publishers or what jeffrey beall of the university of colorado calls ‘predatory publishers’. he succinctly describes predatory publishers thus (beall, 2012a): “predatory, open-access publishers are those that unprofessionally exploit the authorpays model of open-access publishing (gold oa) for their own profit. typically, these publishers spam professional email lists, broadly soliciting article submissions for the clear purpose of gaining additional income. operating essentially as vanity presses, these publishers typically have a low article acceptance threshold, with a false-front or non-existent peer review process. unlike professional publishing operations, whether subscription-based or ethically-sound open access, these predatory publishers add little value to scholarship, pay little attention to digital preservation, and operate using fly-bynight, unsustainable business models.” 4 what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them he has done a great service to the academic community by compiling a list of predatory publishers from around the world (available in: http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/). beall’s list is very extensive and includes numerous publishers that deal with a wide variety of journals in diverse academic fields (e.g., agriculture, medicine, engineering, economics, language studies, literature and language education). these publishers have been quite aggressive in promoting their journals and on several occasions i have received their unsolicited invitations to send or review a manuscript and to serve as member of the editorial or review board. in each case, i didn’t bother responding to their invitations. one of the publishers included in beall’s list of predatory publishers is the canadian center of science and education (ccse). ccse publishes a language related journal called english language teaching (http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/elt/index). i became personally interested because the name of the journal reminded me of a well-established mainstream journal, the english language teaching journal, now known as the elt journal, published by oxford university press. i got curious since i had not heard about this ccse journal before and decided to do due diligence on it. i browsed through its website but found that everything seemed fine. the website provided information typically found in mainstream journals such as the aim and scope of the journal, the editor and editorial board members, the review policy, the instructions for authors, and other pertinent information. closer inspection however revealed that unlike the more established mainstream journals, this journal publishes a lot more articles (12 issues per year and each issue contains some 15-17 articles, for a total of approximately 170 articles). i also learned that it is an online, open access journal that charges author fees. recently, the fees have gone up from us$300 to usd$400!! what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them 5 the most bewildering discovery was that besides elt-related articles, the journal also published papers that are unrelated, or only remotely related, to english language teaching. for example, there is one highly theoretical paper published in 2010 that discusses the relationship between mental space theory and misunderstanding; and another one published in 2012 which discusses the relationship between teacher qualifications on students’ performance in physics! one wonders how a paper that is not related to english language teaching got included in this journal. it is probably because of evidence like this, beall has put ccse in his list of questionable publishers. however, i urge you, the readers, to do your own research or due diligence on this publisher, and to not solely rely on beall’s assessment. spotting bogus journals but how do we distinguish a decent journal publisher from a bogus one? there are a number of tell-tale signs that should alert us of the dubious quality of a journal. i list some of them below. publication fees this is perhaps the most obvious tell-tale sign. none of the mainstream international journals in tesol and applied linguistics that i know of charges publication fees. bogus journals thrive on fees. they have to charge publication fees in order to survive and to profit from their business. mainstream journals on the other hand are either funded by academic institutions or charge subscription fees to their subscribers. they don’t normally charge fees. the fees that bogus publishers charge range from us$300-550, which by any standard is quite exorbitant. some charge up to us$900 or more per published manuscript. despite what the publisher says about the possibility of a fee waiver, i doubt that you will be able to get published without paying the quoted fees. 6 what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them note however that not all journals that charge fees are bogus. there are a number of legitimate journals (mostly high-profile medical or science journals) that charge publication fees. there are also some legitimate journals published by professional organizations (e.g., teflin – the association of teaching english as a foreign language and kate – korea association of teachers of english) that charge fees in order to defray the cost of publication. these trustworthy journals managed by professional editors and supported by respectable reviewers. my view however is that since there are hundreds of legitimate journals in our field that do not charge fees, it makes little sense to pay author fees in order to get published. high publication frequency most mainstream journals in tesol and applied linguistics publish two to four issues per year. some print six issues per year (e.g., the language teacher published by jalt in japan) and some only one issue per year (e.g., annual review of applied linguistics, cambridge university press). bogus journals tend to have a lot more issues. the reason is simple: the more frequent, the more money the publisher gets. some of them publish as frequently as one issue per month or 12 issues per year. the ccse journal referred to above publishes 15 – 20 articles per issue! just do your maths to figure out the publisher’s the annual revenue from this journal alone (it has a fleet of journals under its business wing). extremely high acceptance rate on average, mainstream journals have an acceptance rate of about 25-30%. some may have a higher acceptance rate (50%), especially newer journals. the more established journals in our field on the other hand have much lower acceptance rate, some of which as low as 5% (e.g., tesol quarterly). if you are a junior faculty and new in the publication business, you might want to look for academic journals that have lower rejection rates. i encourage you to look at my what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them 7 paper “choosing the right international journals in tesol and applied linguistics” (2014) for a list of journals with higher acceptance rates. bogus journals typically have a very high acceptance rate, perhaps as high as 100%. so when you send a manuscript and it comes back to you with no required corrections, i.e., your manuscript is accepted as is, the bell in your head should go off and tell you that this journal is probably of questionable quality. before you make any further action, you should then check it against beall’s list of questionable standalone journals (http://scholarlyoa.com/individualjournals/). it is extremely rare (practically impossible) for a manuscript to be accepted without revision! quick turnaround time the normal wait time when you submit a manuscript to mainstream journals ranges from two to six months. the elt journal (oxford university press) for example has a quick turnaround time, which normally takes about two months or so. but this is rather rare as many of the other mainstream journals have a longer wait time, usually about four to six months. i recently co-wrote a manuscript with my former student and sent it to the journal of asia tefl (published by asia tefl) and was informed that it would take the reviewers up to six months to get their review reports done. bogus journals on the other hand have a quick turnaround time. the review and publication process can be as short as four to six weeks. with mainstream journals, the time it takes to have your paper published can take up to 12 months or longer. thus, a quick wait time is a clear tell tale sign that you may be dealing with a bogus journal. bogus publishers highlight the quick turnaround time and promise authors speedy review and publication of their manuscripts (beall, 2012b). here’s an example from ijel (international journal of english literature). the 8 what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them publisher of this journal is academic journals, listed as one of the possibly questionable publishers by beall. review process all manuscripts are reviewed by an editor and members of the editorial board or qualified outside reviewers. decisions will be made as rapidly as possible, and the journal strives to return reviewers’ comments to authors within 3 weeks. the editorial board will rereview manuscripts that are accepted pending revision. it is the goal of the ijel to publish manuscripts within 8 weeks after submission. source: http://www.academicjournals.org/ijel/instruction.htm low or extremely uneven quality of published articles a good practice before you send your paper to a journal is to familiarize yourself with the type of articles published in that journal. this way you know about the people who write for this journal, the kind of topics they write about, the style of writing expected by the editor, the target audience, the people who sit on the editorial and review board, etc. if you browse a bogus journal, you will notice that the quality of the published articles is very uneven and tends to be on the low end of the continuum. the topics are not current, the literature review is dated and contains inaccurate citations, the argument is neither cogent nor coherent, and the language is often problematic. the language aspect is perhaps the most telling feature of articles published in bogus journals. i have seen published articles that are simply full of grammatical and typographical errors. here’s an example of an abstract from english language teaching by miao (2010) that contains obvious language errors. in addition, the abstract is not coherently written and does not really provide a clear synopsis of what the article is about. this tells us that the paper was what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them 9 probably not properly reviewed and the editor did not proof-read the language and the contents of the paper. the practice of english teaching in the meteorological correspondence education abstract the correspondence education is the important part of the national education, and its education objects give priority to working staffs. the objects of the meteorological correspondence education are working staffs in the meteorological departments, and most of these students have engaged in the operation work for a long time, keeping at a distance with theoretical learning, and because the attended study time of correspondence education is deficient, and most of them are difficult to study. english is a basic course in the meteorological correspondence education, and the students have different english levels, so the english teaching becomes difficult. to enhance the teaching level of the meteorological correspondence education, the existing problems in the current meteorological correspondence english teaching are analyzed, and the methods of adults’ english learning are discussed in this article. source: http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/elt/article/view/37035 it is worth mentioning that the language aspect should not be taken as the sole criterion for determining the quality of a journal. in places where english is not the main or official language of the country, one can expect more variations in the language used in the journals as both the editors and authors are often l2 speakers of english. while they are competent users of the language, their writing may contain language features that may not always conform to the native speaker norms. 10 what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them obscure editorial/review board members the members of the editorial/review board of bogus journals are normally obscure scholars whom you have never heard before. they may hold doctorate degrees and are affiliated with universities or research institutions, but they may not have the relevant expertise to serve as managing editors or reviewers. when the list does include some well-known people, it is possible, as intimated by beall (2012b), that they are just used as a ‘false front’ or they may not have been aware that their names are listed in the journal. a colleague (an established elt researcher) from taiwan was shocked when i told her that her name was listed as a member of the editorial board of a scam journal. she said that she was not aware that her name was listed and that the journal had never asked her for permission! fortunately, she managed to get the editor to remove her name from the journal. thus with bogus journals, what happens is that your paper may be accepted and published without any due review process. the person who decides on the fate of your paper is none other than the editor, or worse, an editorial staff member. i won’t be surprised that the decision is perhaps based solely on whether or not you have paid the publication fees! how do they lure unsuspecting novice writers? the number of bogus publishers has been increasing a great deal in the past 10 years and they have become more aggressive too in promoting their business. many of these publishers send out unsolicited emails inviting people to submit manuscripts. for unsuspecting junior faculty, the email message from the editor may sound very appealing. the following are typically included in the email message (brown, 2013): 1. the email quotes one or two titles of your conference or journal papers, giving you the impression that they have read your work and are impressed by it; what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them 11 2. it flatters you by addressing you with academic titles such as ‘dr’ or ‘prof’ in the salutation and refer to you as an expert in the field; 3. it encourages you to submit a manuscript; 4. it takes great pains to claim legitimacy of their journal by o listing the journal’s issn (international standard serial number); o referring to it as an internationally recognized journal; o claiming that the journal employs a double-blind review process; o claiming that the journal is indexed by a number of data bases (e.g., doaj, ebsco, google scholar, proquest, scopus and ulrich’s); 5. it promises a speedy review process by experts in the field; 6. it subtly promises acceptance of your submission; 7. it ends by inviting you to join their editorial or review board. novice writers may feel flattered upon receiving an email invitation like this. a couple of junior colleagues have recounted how they fell victim to the scam. they took the email invitation seriously thinking the journal was legitimate. they sent their manuscripts and within two weeks, the editor got back to them informing them that their papers had been reviewed and were accepted with no revision required. the next step, the editor said, was for them to pay a publication fee (the amount ranged from $300-$500) before their papers got printed in the journal. thinking that it was quite normal for journals to charge fees, they gladly sent their cheque to the journal, only to realize afterwards that their papers had been accepted for publication by a scam journal. 12 what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them 15 reasons why we should shun bogus publishers open-access publishing can be a blessing and a curse. it can be a blessing because the number of scholarly publishing outlets have increased dramatically in the past decade, enabling a lot more academics to have their views, ideas, research findings disseminated in scholarly forums and shared with academics from around the world. but it can also be a curse because the number of low quality publication has also shot up as a result of the open-access publication boom. the problem is worsened by the growing number of bogus publishers who deliberately entice people (using all sorts of deceitful tactics), to have their manuscripts published, often without a proper review process as long as they pay publication fees. as a responsible member of the academic community, we are duty bound to uphold academic integrity and inform people of the irreparable damage that bogus publishers bring to our profession. i list below 15 reasons why as a profession we should shun and condemn bogus publishers. 1. it’s unethical to publish in journals run by unethical, unscrupulous people who use illegitimate means to deceive unsuspecting junior faculty and graduate students. academics are bound by a set of ethical standards. although these ethical standards are not always written, it is understood that we have to uphold them all the time. publishing in illegitimate journals is an ethical decision. 2. if you publish with bogus journals, you are in essence abetting their crime, thus allowing more scholars to become victims of their scam. you should instead warn your colleagues of the existence of these journals and tell them to stay away from them. you can and should actively warn people of the danger that these journals pose to the academic community. if you don’t do it, who will? what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them 13 3. publishing in bogus journals gives you a false sense of achievement. while it may give you immediate rewards (extra allowance, career promotion, etc), in actual fact, you are doing a big disservice to yourself, your institution and the whole academic community. yes, you get to see your paper in print but chances are very low that people read your published paper, much less cite it. 4. it is a lose-win game. you lose, they win. you lose your integrity, self esteem and identity as a scholar; they win big by using your money to expand their publishing business. 5. you set a bad example for your more junior colleagues and for your students who look up to you as a respectable member of the academic community. 6. sending your manuscript to these journals is a serious underestimate of your scholarly ability. if you do your homework, you will be able to find just the right journal for your scholarly work (see renandya, 2014 for a list of journals with fairly decent acceptance rates). 7. there are many people who are more junior than you who have published in respectable international journals. if they can do it, there is no reason why you can’t! all you need to have is a willingness and commitment to invest a bit of time and do a bit of research. 8. it takes a life time to build a respectable career, but it takes one single mistake to destroy it. publishing in a journal of questionable quality is a big mistake. don’t make that mistake! 9. people do make mistakes. if you have published in bogus journals before, it is not the end of the world. but instead of hiding your mistake, you should come clean and admit it (at least to yourselves!). what is done cannot be undone. what you can do is spread the word and let your colleagues know of the danger of publishing in bogus journals. 10. if writing for international publication is not your cup of tea, so be it. you can still be a great teacher without ever having published a single academic article in an international journal. 14 what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them you can instead write course books or other teacher resource materials for use in your own institution or for the general public. it can be equally rewarding, professionally speaking. 11. writing for local or national journals can be a professionally rewarding experience too. you can also get your conference papers published in a proceeding or monograph. you don’t always have to publish international journals. 12. it’s not worth paying $500 to get your paper published in a bogus international journal. use the money instead for other more useful purposes. you can donate it to a charitable organization or set up a scholarship fund for your needy students. or use it for your own professional development needs by buying reference materials produced by respectable publishers. 13. mainstream journals in tesol and applied linguistics do not normally charge authors publications fees so there’s no compelling reason to publish in bogus journals that charge fees. all of these journals would welcome your submissions. here are some legitimate mainstream journals that have been around for years:  elt journal (http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/)  english australia journal (http://www.englishaustralia.com.au/english_australia_journal.html)  english teaching forum (http://exchanges.state.gov/englishteaching/forumjournal.html)  modern english teacher (http://www.modernenglishteacher.com/homepage/)  relc journal (http://rel.sagepub.com/)  system (http://www.journals.elsevier.com/system/)  tesol in context (http://www.tesol.org.au/publications/tesol-in-context) what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them 15  tesol journal (http://www.tesol.org/read-and-publish/journals/tesol-journal) for a longer list of legitimate mainstream journals in tesol and applied linguistics, please visit: http://www.tesol.org/docs/default-source/books/how-to-get-published-in-appliedlinguistics-serials.pdf?sfvrsn=4 14. publishing in bogus journals is a form of cheating. you don’t want to be accused of applying double standards, setting one standard for your students (i.e., cheating is bad) and another standard for you (i.e., cheating is okay as long as you don’t get caught). 15. as we live in a connected world, it is inconceivable to claim ignorance and give a feeble excuse such as ‘oh i thought the journal looks professional so i sent my manuscript to them.” all you need to do is ask your more experienced colleagues in your institution or your virtual friends. for the latter, you can join a fb online discussion group called ‘teacher voices’ (https://www.facebook.com/groups/teachervoices/). it’s a professional development forum for language teachers (set up and managed by responsible language scholars from indonesia), of which i am a dedicated member. members of this forum are pretty well-informed and will be more than happy to help you distinguish a respectable publisher from a bogus one. the bottom line here is this: do a due diligence before sending your manuscript to a journal. elt journal (http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/) english australia journal (http://www.englishaustralia.com.au/english_australia_journal.html) english teaching forum (http://exchanges.state.gov/englishteaching/forum-journal.html) modern english teacher (http://www.modernenglishteacher.com/homepage/) relc journal (http://rel.sagepub.com/) system (http://www.journals.elsevier.com/system/) 16 what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them tesol in context (http://www.tesol.org.au/publications/tesol-in-context) tesol journal (http://www.tesol.org/read-and-publish/journals/tesol-journal) for a longer list of legitimate mainstream journals in tesol and applied linguistics, please visit: http://www.tesol.org/docs/default-source/books/how-to-get-published-in-applied-linguisticsserials.pdf?sfvrsn=4 publishing in bogus journals is a form of cheating. you don’t want to be accused of applying double standards, setting one standard for your students (i.e., cheating is bad) and another standard for you (i.e., cheating is okay as long as you don’t get caught). as we live in a connected world, it is inconceivable to claim ignorance and give a feeble excuse such as ‘oh i thought the journal looks professional so i sent my manuscript to them.” all you need to do is ask your more experienced colleagues in your institution or your virtual friends. for the latter, you can join a fb online discussion group called ‘teacher voices’ (https://www.facebook.com/groups/teachervoices/). it’s a professional development forum for language teachers (set up and managed by responsible language scholars from indonesia), of which i am a dedicated member. members of this forum are pretty well-informed and will be more than happy to help you distinguish a respectable publisher from a bogus one. the bottom line here is this: do a due diligence before sending your manuscript to a journal. conclusion this article has been written to provide novice researchers and writers with practical knowledge on how they can identify journals of dubious quality, published by irresponsible publishers and how they need to exercise extra precaution when choosing journals for their scholarly works. if we are not careful and choose the wrong journal, our reputation and career what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them 17 may be adversely affected. indeed, i have heard of stories of how faculty members working in research-intensive universities were denied tenure and/promotion because they had published in bogus journals. i’d like to end my article by urging the readers to do due diligence before they submit their paper to a journal. doing due diligence include checking up on the background of the editor and editorial/review board members (e.g., are they well-known scholars in our field? what are their areas of specialization? have you seen/read their scholarly works in mainstream journals? ), browsing some of the published articles in the journal (e.g., are they well-written? are the topics recent? are the references up-to-date? have the authors of these articles published in other reputable journals?) and consulting your more senior and knowledgeable colleagues on the legitimacy of these journals. by researching the journal in this way, you would have more confidence that your paper would not end up appearing in a scam journal. 18 what are bogus journals and why should we avoid them references beall, j. (2012a). beall’s list of predatory open-access publishers. retrieved 31 august 2012 from http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/ beall, j. (2012b). criteria for determining predatory open-access publishers. retrieved 1 september 2012 from http://scholarlyoa.files.wordpress.com /2012/08/criteria-2012.pdf brown, h. (2013). unscrupulous journal solicitations: what they are, what they do, and how you can protect yourself. the language teacher, 37(3), may 2013. retrieved 15 august 2014 from http://jalt-publications.org/tlt/departments/outreach/articles/3062-unscrupulousjournal-solicitations-what-they-are-what-they-do renandya, w.a. (2014). choosing the right international journal in tesol and applied linguistics. english language teaching world online: voices from the classroom (eltwo), 6, 1-17 (http://blog.nus.edu.sg/eltwo/files/2014/06/choosing-the-rightinternational-journal-in-tesol-and-applied-linguistics_editforpdf-10fhdmo.pdf). acknowledgement i’m grateful to flora debora floris of petra christian university for her insightful comments on the earlier draft of this article and for supplying me with additional materials on predatory publishers and journals. august 2014 70 cooperation in virtual learning student-to-student cooperation in virtual learning without breakout rooms made hery santosa mhsantosa@undiksha.ac.id english language education department universitas pendidikan ganesha, singaraja, bali, indonesia francisca maria ivone francisca.maria.fs@um.ac.id department of english universitas negeri malang malang, indonesia george m jacobs george.jacobs@gmail.com universiti malaya kuala lumpur, malaysia jenett c. flores jenflores@e.ubaguio.edu senior high school university of baguio baguio city, philippines article history abstract education has increasingly turned to virtual learning in response to greater awareness of the benefits of virtual learning, increased technology to support learning outside of educational institutions, and, sadly, the advent of the covid-19 pandemic. at the same time, awareness has also increased of the benefits of student-student cooperation, and technology to facilitate that cooperation has multiplied. unfortunately, not all students have access to that technology. this article shares ideas, both lowtech and high-tech, to enhance the functioning of groups in virtual learning environments. received: 03/3/2022 reviewed: 03/29/2020 revised: 05/05/2022 accepted: 05/06/2022 keywords: student-to-student, cooperation, virtual learning doi https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i1.3774 introduction the use of small groups has the potential to bring cognitive and affective benefits to education (johnson & johnson, 2009). cooperative learning and other forms of group activities are well-known internationally among teachers at all levels of education. however, these activities were conceived for in-person classrooms, where beyond words vol. 10, no.1, may 2022 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya mailto:mhsantosa@undiksha.ac.id mailto:francisca.maria.fs@um.ac.id mailto:george.jacobs@gmail.com mailto:jenflores@e.ubaguio.edu https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i1.3774 cooperation in virtual learning 71 students could usually form groups easily by arranging their seating. indeed, in some classrooms, students sitting in groups, e.g. groups of two with their desks side-by-side, represents the default seating arrangement. the covid-19 pandemic greatly disrupted education. schools closed, and classes shifted to remote formats often via it-based formats. however, a significant number of children were excluded from accessing these formats due to lack of hardware and internet access (unicef, 2020). furthermore, with an increased international emphasis on lifelong learning (oecd, 2020), adults must also be counted among those excluded from formal education due to the pandemic and the lack of electronic resources to compensate for the temporary closure of face-to-face education options. it bears mentioning that despite great improvements over the past 100+ years, even before the covid-19 pandemic, millions of children and youth have been unable to attend school (wood, 2020). even for those learners with the necessary hardware and internet access to participate in remote learning, another issue arose: could they do group activities as part of their virtual learning? as we write this article in early 2022, many virtual learning platforms support communication only between a teacher and their students, not among students in small groups. for example, a secondary school associated with a university in the philippines asked one of the authors of this article to do an online workshop for teachers on how students could do cooperative learning in virtual learning environments that do not include breakout rooms and similar affordances that allow for synchronous interaction among groups of students. virtual learning after covid-19 some readers of this article might wonder whether there really exists a need to discuss how to teach in virtual learning contexts, as hope grows that the destructive power of the covid-19 pandemic might greatly diminish in 2022, although some experts caution against such optimism (e.g., barry, 2022). also, it bears considering that covid-19 could soon be followed by another, perhaps even more serious, global zoonotic (based on transmission between species) pandemic due to human impact on the planet, in particular the increasing and increasingly intensive use of nonhuman animals as a food source (united nations sustainable development group (2022). whether or not pandemics continue to disrupt education, virtual learning has much to offer (panigrahi, 2018). group activities have an important role to play as part of this. for example, the singapore ministry of education’s 21st century competencies (2021) highlight such core values as students feeling and demonstrating respect for other people’s inherent worth, students showing responsibility for themselves and others, and harmony among students via the appreciation of unity and diversity. the competencies also emphasize socialemotional abilities including social awareness and relationship management. as the world continues to become more globalized in the 21st century, the overlapping competencies of communication, collaboration, civic literacy, and cross-cultural interaction become increasingly important. group activities, whether done online or in-person, provide multiple opportunities for development of all these competencies. 72 cooperation in virtual learning helping group activities succeed in virtual environments in order for group activities to succeed, teachers must be wary of the possible difficulties that arise when students learn in groups of two and more. while group activities are potent strategies to maximize learning, undeniably, they can pose a great challenge to teachers. for instance, not all students participate actively in their groupings; in fact, some students will even request to work individually. the reluctance of students to join in group activities could be attributed to a variety of reasons, e.g., some students report difficulty with communication and a lack of sense of community as the most challenging factors (faja, 2013). these difficulties with group activities can be exacerbated in online learning. for example, online learning makes social interaction among the students more difficult. being unable to personally meet their classmates can bring about a feeling of strangeness, if not intimidation among students. furthermore, in some settings, students are not required to open their cameras when joining synchronous classes (or perhaps, students lack the bandwidth to do so). this lack of visual connection can worsen the feeling of uneasiness and the lack of belongingness. for these reasons, instead of students being eager to learn together, they may become uncooperative. successful virtual group activities, therefore, depend on many factors including schools and students possessing the ict (internet communication technology) hardware, software, and wifi, as well as student and teacher knowledge of how to use them. the current paper focuses on other areas necessary to successful online groups. these areas are the how to and the want to of student-student cooperation, and teacher knowledge and attitudes toward facilitating the how to and want to. the how to involves knowledge of how to work together in ways that include everyone in learning and raise the quality of that learning. the want to, i.e., the heartware (yaacob, 2021), involves everyone being active in creating the atmosphere in which students feel as though their success is contingent on their groupmates’ success. group leadership groups have leaders, whether these leaders are designated or not, explicit or implicit. sometimes, teachers are the leaders of student groups, with the students dependent on constant teacher guidance. other times, student groups have a student leader designated by the teacher or elected by the group members. however, kluge (1999) suggested the use of distributed leadership in which all group members, regardless of their skill in the particular tasks the group is undertaking, play leadership roles. these roles could be as simple as timekeeping, i.e., being responsible for encouraging the group to keep within the time parameters decided upon by the group members and the teacher, as well as more complicated roles, such as helping the members competently and punctually complete the tasks they have agreed to do. communication within groups communication among groupmates is crucial, regardless of whether learning takes place offor online. good communication makes learning more efficient, as students can guide each other on what needs to be done, on criteria for what constitutes good work, such as that answers need explanations and ideas need sources, and when work is due. when students have peers to provide feedback on whether they are cooperation in virtual learning 73 doing work properly, stress can be reduced. plus, teachers prefer questions and solicitation for help from students who have asked their peers first. effective communication also reduces unproductive conflicts among students. yes, disagreements can prompt thinking (jacobs, 2010). however, conflicts caused by lack of communication or miscommunication seldom bring useful results. additionally, learning to communicate clearly and patiently, even in difficult situations, e.g., when wifi connections are weak, constitutes an important life skill. eikenberry and turmel (2021) suggested several ways to improve communication in virtual groups. these include attending to tone, as even written communication can be interpreted, correctly or incorrectly, as having a tone (happy, angry, etc.). similarly, when online communication includes video, the way people look communicates a message. this involves not just the look on their face, but also their gestures, clothing, background, lighting, sound quality, and positioning on the screen. of course, the words people use are central to effective communication. thus, students might want to think through what they are going to share online before saying it or read through what they have written before transmitting it. for example, ferreira (2019) reported that sometimes student writing contained instances where what pronouns referred back to was unclear. for instance, in the sentence, “sumali borrowed a pencil from azlina but forgot to return it,” to what does it refer. students can lessen the chances of miscommunication by paraphrasing what others have said or written and then asking if the paraphrase was accurate. such paraphrasing has been incorporated into a cooperative learning technique sometimes called paraphrase passport (hastuti, 2019). getting to know groupmates even in online groups, students need time to get to know each other, and bonding can facilitate better performance. team building activities form a regular part of guidance on group functioning for face-toface groups (e.g., jacobs & renandya, 2019), and it is even more important in online groups, because such groups may not have time to jell informally before or after class, in the school canteen, during extracurricular activities, or on the walk or bus to school. thus, in a virtual context becoming more familiar with each other and bonding can be more difficult. thus, it may be worthwhile to devote time to team building. similarly, even groups of teachers may spend time bonding, e.g., just chitchatting before getting down to business or may go off topic for a little while in the middle of an online work session. such excursions from the task at hand may actually be beneficial to accomplishing the task at hand. in any class, even a face-to-face class, some students may get the feeling that they are “out of sight, out of mind,” i.e., no one seems to know they are there; no one knows or cares about them. this problem can be even worse in virtual learning. students who feel invisible may become disruptive or stop engaging with class activities. group activities, as opposed to only teacherfronted instruction, may help to address this invisibility, because students can more easily be seen at least by their groupmates. in a group, each student is one of only 2, 3, or 4 people, rather than one of a class full of students. plus, teachers can more easily monitor groups, rather than individuals, e.g., in a class of 40 divided into 10 groups of four. 74 cooperation in virtual learning eikenberry and turmel (2021) offered ways to increase students’ feeling of visibility via what they term ethical visibility. the word “ethical” connotes that students achieve visibility by contributing to overall group and class goals, instead of seeking only individual benefit. here are some of eikenberry and turmel’s suggestions for promoting ethical visibility. a. use words such as “we” and “us,” e.g., when reporting to the class on what your group has done. this fits with the cooperative learning principle of group autonomy. b. remember the cooperative learning principle of “cooperation as a value,” i.e., building cooperation inside as well as outside of small groups, by highlighting the importance to others of what other groups, individual students from other groups, and even students and non-students elsewhere are doing and wishing them well. c. praise what other students have done well and instead of just saying “good job,” make the praise specific, e.g., “you include lots of examples to make your ideas clearer.” d. when appropriate, give negative feedback. as the saying goes, “an enemy will agree, but a friend will disagree.” however, criticize ideas, not people. in this way, students focus on what is best for the group/class, not on individually being right. e. appreciate feedback even when it might be negative. f. volunteer for tasks; offer to go first in discussions. g. share your knowledge at appropriate times, as well as ask many questions as a way to show you are listening and interested in others; they are ethically visible to you. h. prepare well for meetings and be active in those meetings, e.g., offer to take notes. i. use a variety of ways, e.g., communication channels, and times to contribute. j. congratulate and praise others. follow up on what they are doing as a way to show interest. k. look as good as practical on your webcam (if your wifi signal is strong enough), and when you are going to share screen, prepare your visuals well and practice using the various features of the technology you are using. l. find opportunities to chat casually with others; appreciate the social element in learning. m. look for the good in people, rather than assuming that they want to use you, i.e., view others through the lens of positive interdependence, not negative interdependence. n. similarly, promote happiness by expressing gratitude, seeing the glass as half full not half empty, and looking for opportunities to help others, e.g., new students or students who missed class for whatever reason (achor, 2010). group members or groupmates? eikenberry and turmel (2021) urged that groups attend to whether participants are being group members vs being groupmates. group members do their own individual tasks with little or no collaboration, whereas groupmates care about the big picture and look to see how they can help others and see the benefits of seeking others’ help. group members have transactional relationships in which people are just a means to an end, as if other group members were robots. in contrast, groupmates try to get to know each other and show concern for each other. this does cooperation in virtual learning 75 not mean that groupmates need to become close friends; it just means that they become part of each other’s support network. therefore, groupmates likely are more engaged than group members. student engagement can be seen as the alternative energy fuel that powers learning (eishami et al., 2022). unfortunately, the authors of this article have heard from many fellow teachers that so many students do not even turn their cameras on during online learning, including when students interact with peers during or outside of class time. while several possible explanations exist for cameras not being turned on, lack of engagement may be the key factor. engagement is not something teachers can do to or for students. students must engage themselves; teachers can only facilitate the process. sharing goals promotes engagement. in the cooperative learning literature (e.g., johnson et al., 2007), common goals provide one of many ways to promote positive interdependence, i.e., the feeling among students that their outcomes positively correlate: what helps one helps the others and what hurts one hurts the others. too often, students do not feel positively interdependent with groupmates. instead, they may feel negatively interdependent, i.e., they feel as though they are competing against each other for grades, teacher praise, etc. engagement also suffers when students feel no interdependence, positive or negative, with those in their group, i.e., as though no correlation exists between their outcomes. feelings of negative interdependence and no interdependence may lead students to feel as though they are merely group members, not groupmates. other ways to promote an atmosphere of positive interdependence include students having different resources, and these resources need to be shared. for instance, the well-known cooperative learning technique jigsaw (aronson, 2022) highlights resource positive interdependence. briefly, the four steps in jigsaw are as follows: step 1 students form groups of approximately four members, and everyone in each group has a number 1, 2, 3, or 4. these are their home groups. each group member receives a different piece of the same text, or they each search on their own for information. an example of teachersupplied information would be that a text about greta thunberg, the climate activist, could be broken into four pieces: (a) her childhood before she became an activist, (b) her family and their reaction to her activism, (c) her early activism, and (d) her 2019 trip to north america. students work alone to read and understand their individual pieces. step 2 students leave their home groups to form temporary expert groups of approximately four members with students who have the same piece. the expert groups have two purposes. first, they need to check that everyone in the expert group understands their piece. second, they need to make a plan for teaching their piece when they go back to their home group. step 3 students return to their home groups and take turns to teach their members. step 4 students individually take a quiz which requires knowledge of all four pieces. another form of positive interdependence is role positive interdependence, i.e., each groupmate has a designated role, as mentioned above with distributed leadership. roles can include participation encouragers, who encourage everyone to share their ideas; elaboration requesters, who ask groupmates to elaborate 76 cooperation in virtual learning on what they said or wrote, such as by giving examples or explanations; and roster maker and checker, who makes a roster of what each group member is supposed to do and checks that they have done those tasks. roles should rotate. when students feel positively interdependent with each other, they feel as though they are groupmates, not just members of the same group. thus, they offer help, as well as seeking help. however, it often is difficult for students to ask peers if they need help or to ask them for help. indeed, any interaction can be challenging, especially when studying online, but interaction is often when the magic of cooperation takes place, where we see 1 + 1 = 3 happening, i.e., when the whole becomes greater that the sum of its parts. instead, too often, students, even when doing a project, work alone, with each person doing their separate part. this resembles one aspect of what eikenberry and turmel (2021) referred to when they contrasted being group members vs being groupmates. sometimes teachers encourage the feeling of being individual group members by grading each part of a project separately, meaning that nothing is done to promote celebration/reward positive interdependence, i.e., the feeling of “all for one, one for all” among students. seeing the big picture and looking to the future when groupmates feel positively interdependent, they are proactive; they encourage each other to have a growth mindset (dweck, 2017) and an internal locus of control (shifrer, 2019). in other words, students should nurture in each other a future orientation, a long-term view in which they, in collaboration with others, can move forward toward what they see as success in life. in the workplace, eikenberry and turmel (2021, p. 22) advocated that employees take a similar long-term view via the slogan “it’s not just your job; it’s your career.” employees (and students too) need to ask themselves, “how will what our group do today help us develop the skills, knowledge, habits, and relationships that support our future growth, success, and contribution to others?” specifically, students need to realize that what they do in their virtual class today is not just getting through a day or earning a grade; they are experiencing the precious gift of life and laying the groundwork for their future experiences. furthermore, employees and students should look beyond their group to the entire organization. in the case of students, this expanded view of positive interdependence could incorporate the entire class, academic institution, or even society in general. as stated above, jacobs and renandya (2019) called this “cooperation as a value.” in a similar vein, eikenberry and turmel proposed the slogan “it’s not just your job; it’s about organizational success” (p. 23) and to emphasize the importance of a group perspective, they suggested the formula “your job = your work + team work” (p. 24). “old” technology this article talks about some fairly new technology, but old technology can still be of use, including that tool from more than 100 years ago: the telephone. of course, nowadays many people’s phones come with a multitude of features. these features allow callers to check first with the people whom they want to call to arrange a mutually beneficial time to talk synchronously. much less than 100+ years old but still a longstanding form of communication is email. suggestions for effective email use include: a. writing something on the subject line. cooperation in virtual learning 77 b. changing what is on the subject line when appropriate. c. using or not using reply to all as appropriate. d. considering when it is appropriate to include all the messages in an email chain when including new people in the chain. e. possibly using emoticons to express emotions in a concise manner. f. rereading emails before pressing send to avoid making errors or expressing ideas you may later regret. facilitating effective group activities in virtual environments many concepts can impact the effectiveness of student groups. when groups work well, students feel a sense of positive interdependence. as explained above, positive interdependence represents a feeling among groupmates that what helps one member helps all members, and conversely, what hurts one member hurts all. when feelings of positive interdependence predominate, students enjoy a sense of belonging. this belonging encourages a feeling by each student of individual accountability to the group, i.e., wanting to do their fair share so that the group achieves its goal of everyone in the group learning and enjoying the learning experience. toward that same goal, groups promote equal opportunity to participate among their members, i.e., no one is excluded from the group’s thinking, doing, and learning. the positive interdependence, individual accountability, and equal opportunity to participate only bear fruit when students experience maximum peer interactions (jacobs & renandya, 2019). this term has two elements. first, students need to spend a good amount of time interacting with each other, face-to-face or electronically, in class and out of class, synchronously and asynchronously. second, a large percentage of these peer interactions should involve higher order thinking, i.e., tasks that challenge students to go beyond the information given to them by textbooks, teachers, etc. also, students need to use cooperative skills when interacting with peers, such as giving each other specific praise, asking for explanations, disagreeing politely, and checking that groupmates understand. with all this as background, the remainder of the article offers ideas for facilitating group activities in virtual environments where breakout rooms are not available. these ideas focus on using small groups and on sometimes seeing the entire class as one group in which positive interdependence, individual accountability, equal opportunity to participate, and maximum peer interactions all pertain. a wide variety of software and platforms are mentioned below. readers can use the internet to learn about them. small groups of 2-4 members typically, groups are small, i.e., two to four members. while large groups have advantages, including more students to contribute ideas and fewer groups for teachers to monitor, on the other hand, smaller groups, including groups of two, also have advantages, including more opportunities for each member to speak and greater ease of group management. the current section of this article lists ideas for how small groups can collaborate when students are doing remote learning and the platform they are using does not have builtin features, such as breakout rooms, for student-student cooperation. 1. students can use other means of communicating with each other, for 78 cooperation in virtual learning example, phone apps, such as telegram, wechat, or whatsapp, email, group chats in messenger, and phone calls. 2. two students can sit side-by-side to share a laptop or other device, making it very easy to communicate with each other. 3. just as teacher-student interaction need not always be synchronous, studentstudent interaction can also be asynchronous. this enables groups to meet outside of class time. 4. many learning management systems (lmss), such as blackboard, have forums or other mechanisms for students to post ideas and give each other feedback. similar sharing tools are available via google groups and groups.io, as well as groups on facebook, etc. 5. students can do projects and other tasks together, as well as studying for assessments. for this, they can meet face-toface or use tools, such as zoom. for example, a group of students can set up a time for their own group meeting on zoom, google meet, etc. 6. google docs and other tools allow students to share files and work on the same files synchronously or asynchronously. the same principles could also be applied with other tools for creating content, like canva and genially, or for brainstorming ideas, like mindmeister or coggle. 7. with the increased use of gamification, students can learn content while playing a game in their groups, not to mention collaborating to develop their own games for themselves and others to play. 8. for small group activities, such as discussions, a gaming messaging app platform called discord can accommodate creation of subgroups in the same group. 9. the students in the group can also do crowd curation activities, i.e., when a small number of people are selected from among a larger group, and that small group are asked to accomplish a task according to guidelines set by the large group and subject to the large group’s approval. crowd curation can be facilitated via such platforms as wakelet, evernote, or mix. 10. in hybrid learning, i.e., some students are in a face-to-face environment, whereas others are in a virtual environment, and in blended learning, i.e., sometimes the entire class is learning face-to-face, whereas other times, the entire class is studying online, feedback is very important and with small groups of 2 – 4 members, feedback platforms can be audio-based, such as using talk and comment and mote chrome adds on, or vocaroo, audio and annotation, such as voice thread, or video-based, such as flipgrid, zoom, or youtube. screencasting-based feedback using screencast-omatic, screencastify, or zoom can also be useful. the class as a single group in education, the concept of positive interdependence usually applies to the small groups discussed above. however, positive interdependence and the other concepts discussed earlier–ndividual accountability, equal opportunity to participate, and maximum peer interactions – can be expanded to apply across an entire class of students or even an entire school or other institution of learning. below are suggestions for promoting classwide student-student cooperation in online environments. some of the suggestions in section a above may also be of value. 1. use slido or other software that facilitates students to ask questions. peers can increase the likelihood of someone’s question receiving a response by voting in favor of that question. for example, if the teacher has used the word resilience and only one student posted asking for an cooperation in virtual learning 79 explanation, the teacher would be less likely to stop and explain the word than if eight other students voted in support of that question. 2. mentimeter and other software have functions such as word cloud that allow all class members to contribute words to one figure. an example would be if students were to use mentimeter to contribute to a word cloud on the topic of “possible benefits of learning in groups.” words students might add to the cloud include “fun,” “motivation,” “help,” and “partner.” the more students who suggest the same word, the larger the letters of the word become and the closer to the center of the word cloud the word moves. 3. slido, mentimeter, and other software can be tools for students to vote. voting can be used to give students more choice in how a course is conducted. for instance, if a class is doing extensive reading, the class could vote on what kind of post-reading activities they will do after finishing a book. options include taking a short quiz on the book (robb, 2018) or doing posters to let peers know books they enjoyed or did not enjoy. students can also highlight favorite characters, suggest alternative endings or sequels/prequels, or make a short video featuring a scene or concept from the book. alternatively, students might vote in favor of their postreading activity being just to read another book. 4. teachers, with student help, can create items for quizzes. the class can earn points if teachers use student-generated items. various methods can be used to calculate student quiz scores. the easiest method would probably be to average everyone’s score. an alternative would be to use improvement scoring, e.g., in the case of two students, a and b, who both score 85 (out of 100) on a quiz, if a’s past average is 95 and b’s past average is 75, b contributes more points than a to the class’ overall score, because b improved, while a scored below their past average. however, their scores in the gradebook remain the same, i.e., both score 85. students can take part in scoring peers’ quizzes. this and many of the other suggestions in this paper fit with the student-centered learning paradigm (jacobs, renandya, & power, 2016). in this paradigm, students take more control of their own learning and the learning of their peers. thus, students have a role in deciding what to study and when to study it. additionally, students join teachers in assessing learning. for instance, students can discuss answers to quiz questions, in addition to their above-mentioned role in writing quiz items. 5. one way to encourage students to feel positively interdependent with groupmates and classmates involves celebrations (johnson & johnson, 2017), e.g., when a class feels they have done well on a quiz, etc., they can devise a celebration. celebrations can be as simple as taking a class photo with silly poses or deciding on class songs, gestures, etc., and celebrating by singing the songs or flashing the gestures. 6. in a large class group, it is important to encourage classmates to actively participate in synchronous or asynchronous mode. padlet can be one of the tools to be applied where the whole class can respond to questions or prompts provided or according to the assigned roles (e.g., team a, team b, etc.). 7. for brainstorming, class responses could be done by having class members respond together to a question, using jamboard, mindmapping apps, such as mindmeister, or teaming.vercel.app. 80 cooperation in virtual learning 8. to initiate class participation, virtual space-based platforms, like miro, gather town, and wonder, could be employed where students may visit their groups or classmates in smaller groups or circles synchronously while directly looking at the screen together. 9. a low-cost platform like telegram can be used to have a virtual meeting just like zoom with screen-sharing features with a maximum of 1000 participants. for a class around 25–30 students, this would be easier than using a similar platform, such as whatsapp. 10. when games are used, rather than individual winners being crowned, students can earn points for their class and toward a class goal. as a result, the class, not a small number of individual class members, can be winners, or perhaps the entire class can lose. for example, if the entire class earns above a certain number of points, a small amount of money can be donated to a charity chosen by the class. thus, the charity’s recipients are the winners. conclusion education and other areas of society were already moving toward increased use of virtual interaction, but the covid-19 pandemic has accelerated that process. while the pandemic continues to have many ill effects, the acceleration of virtual interaction certainly has many beneficial effects. however, all changes, including increased use of online communication, require learning and adjusting. this article has attempted to provide ideas for facilitating the use of group activities in virtual learning environments where classes do not have access to breakout rooms. furthermore, this advice can be of use even when breakout rooms and similar affordances are available. references achor, s. (2010). the happiness advantage. currency. aronson, e. (2022). the jigsaw classroom. https://www.jigsaw.org. barry, j. m. (2022, january 31). what we can learn from how the 1918 pandemic ended. the new york times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/31/ opinion/covid-pandemic-end.html dweck, c. s. (2017). mindset: changing the way you think to fulfill your potential. hachette. eikenberry, k., & turmel, w. (2021). the long-distance teammate: stay engaged and connected while working anywhere. berrett-koehler. elshami, w., taha, m. h., abdalla, m. e., abuzaid, m., saravanan, c., & al kawas, s. (2022). factors that affect student engagement in online learning in health professions education. nurse education today, 110, 105261. ferreira, e. (2019). anaphoric demonstratives in student academic writing: a cross-disciplinary study of (un) attended this and these. https://www.divaportal.org/smash/get/ diva2:1324306/fulltext01.pdf jacobs, g. m., renandya, w. a., & power, m. a. (2016). simple, powerful strategies for student centered learning. springer. hastuti, j. (2019). the effect of using paraphrase passport strategy on student’s reading comprehension in narrative text at the second year https://www.jigsaw.org/ https://www.jigsaw.org/ https://www.jigsaw.org/ cooperation in virtual learning 81 students of senior high school plus binabangsa pekanbaru (doctoral dissertation, universitas islam negeri sultan syarif kasim riau). http://repository.uinsuska.ac.id/23323/1/gabungan%20 tanpa%20bab%20iv.pdf jacobs, g. m. (2010). academic controversy: a cooperative way to debate. intercultural education, 21(3), 291-296. jacobs, g. m., & renandya, w. a. (2019). student centered cooperative learning. springer. johnson, d. w., & johnson, f. p. (2017). joining together: group theory and group skills (12th ed.). pearson. johnson, d. w., & johnson, r. t. (2009). an educational psychology success story: social interdependence theory and cooperative learning. educational researcher, 38(5), 365-379. johnson, d. w., johnson, r. t., & holubec, e. j. (2007). nuts & bolts of cooperative learning (2nd ed.). interaction book company. kluge, d. (1999). a brief introduction to cooperative learning. japan association for language teaching. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed437 840.pdf ministry of education (singapore). ((2021). 21st century competencies. https://www.moe.gov.sg/education-insg/21st-century-competencies oecd. (2020). increasing adult learning participation. https://www.oecdilibrary.org/employment/increasingadult-learning-participation_cf5d9c21en panigrahi, r., srivastava, p. r., & sharma, d. (2018). online learning: adoption, continuance, and learning outcome—a review of literature. international journal of information management, 43, 1-14. robb, t. 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(2021). heartware and the 4th industrial revolution. paper presented at the international virtual conference on liberal studies. bangi, malaysia http://repository.uin-suska.ac.id/23323/1/gabungan%20tanpa%20bab%20iv.pdf http://repository.uin-suska.ac.id/23323/1/gabungan%20tanpa%20bab%20iv.pdf http://repository.uin-suska.ac.id/23323/1/gabungan%20tanpa%20bab%20iv.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed437840.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed437840.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed437840.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed437840.pdf https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/employment/increasing-adult-learning-participation_cf5d9c21-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/employment/increasing-adult-learning-participation_cf5d9c21-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/employment/increasing-adult-learning-participation_cf5d9c21-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/employment/increasing-adult-learning-participation_cf5d9c21-en https://unsdg.un.org/resources/preventing-next-pandemic-zoonotic-diseases-and-how-break-chain-transmission https://unsdg.un.org/resources/preventing-next-pandemic-zoonotic-diseases-and-how-break-chain-transmission https://unsdg.un.org/resources/preventing-next-pandemic-zoonotic-diseases-and-how-break-chain-transmission 82 cooperation in virtual learning acknowledgements: the authors wish to thank tom robb for, as always, his speedy and very useful input. about the authors made hery santosa is a researcher and lecturer in the english language education program at universitas pendidikan ganesha, bali, indonesia. he has published articles while reviewing in some journals, like tesol, tesl ej, sage open, springer, frontiers, and kasetsart. his research interests include efl, call, digital literacy, and innovative pedagogies. francisca maria ivone teaches at the department of english, universitas negeri malang. her areas of expertise and interests are elt, tell, call, extensive listening and viewing, er, learning autonomy, and collaborative learning. she gives training to preservice and in-service teachers on the use of technology in language teaching and learning. george m jacobs is a big believer in cooperation in all areas of life, including learning, teaching, slowing climate change, and writing journal articles. his upcoming book, with anita lie and siti mina tamah, is titled “cooperative learning through a reflective lens.” jenett c. flores is an english instructor and the assistant principal of the university of baguio senior high school, philippines. her vast experiences as an educator and a school leader provide insightful tips in enhancing pedagogy. she also writes school policies, manuals, and modules, while actively engaging in educational research. 231 acknowledgements we express our enormous gratitude to the reviewers: andrew lian, a senior professor at the school of english, suranaree university of technology, nakhon ratchasima, thailand, emeritus professor of languages and second language education at university of canberra; deepti gupta, a professor at the department of english, panjab university, chandigarh, india; eugenius sadtono, a senior professor at universitas ma chung, malang, indonesia, and a retiree from the state university of malang; patrisius istiarto djiwandono, a professor at universitas ma chung, malang, indonesia; willy a. renandya, a senior lecturer at the ell department, national institute of education, singapore, siti mina tamah, a senior lecturer at widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, indonesia; dédé oetomo, a lecturer of sociolinguistics at universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya, and of gender and sexuality at the faculty of social and political sciences and the faculty of humanities at universitas airlangga, surabaya, indonesia; feng teng, a lecturer at nanning university, nanning city, china, and some other anonymous reviewers. the peer reviews they contributed are very significant to maintain the quality of this online journal. the same thankful expressions also came from authors for the reviewers’ scholarly comments and feedback. and last but not least, our great appreciation goes to all authors for their articles. editors 156 running head: a book review: narrative inquiry beyond words vol.2, no.2, november 2014 widya mandala catholic university surabaya a book review: narrative inquiry in language teaching and learning research harumi kimura miyagi gakuin women's university, japan kmrharumi@gmail.com & george m. jacobs james cook university, singapore www.georgejacobs.net title narrative inquiry in language teaching and learning research authors gary barkhuizen, phil benson, & alice chik. publisher routledge year 2013 pages viii + 132 a book review: narrative inquiry 157 introduction what are narratives? narratives are typically personal accounts of connected events. people make meaning when they narrate stories to themselves and others. what is narrative inquiry? it is a qualitative research methodology involving: (1) stories as data, (2) storytelling as a data analysis tool, or (3) storytelling as a data presentation tool. it is the reviewers’ observation that in asia, quantitative research tends to predominate. the reviewers wish to encourage consideration of qualitative methods, such as narrative inquiry, perhaps as part of a mixed methods approach to research (creswell & clarke, 2007). narrative inquiry in language teaching and learning research is best described as a manual for conducting and reporting narrative studies of language teaching and learning. this book, by three leading experts, is the first book on narrative inquiry methodology written specifically for those concerned with sla. authors barkhuizen, benson, and chik draw concrete examples from more than 175 published studies and describe some of them in detail to demonstrate an array of techniques for narrative inquiry, including developing research questions and themes, data collection and analysis, and reporting research findings. in this review, we will summarize what the authors say about the origins of narrative research and how to conduct and write up such research. then, we will discuss what we see as some of the book’s strengths and weakness, before urging readers to conduct their own narrative inquiries. origins of narrative inquiry and conducting narrative research origins using narratives in research is not new, but interest in the collection and analysis of personal narratives has grown as part of the overall shift from the dominance of quantitative and experimental approaches to situated, qualitative, ecological, and interpretive perspectives. in the introduction and chapter 1, the authors summarize the notable paradigm shift in 158 a book review: narrative inquiry research, which has led to increased interest in narrative inquiry. they label this heightened interest a “narrative turn” and explain advantages of narrative inquiry when investigating language learning and teaching. the paradigm shift in research methods highlights concerns with self, identity, and individuality in the post-modern era. in the field of language teaching and learning, learners have begun to be recognized not simply as information processors but as people, with lived experiences and fluctuating emotions, who try to make sense of their l2 learning in their specific contexts over time. the authors persuasively argue that teachers’ and learners’ stories contribute to exploring these contemporary issues of self, identity, and individuality. conducting narrative research chapters 2, 3, and 4 cover three distinct forms of narrative data: oral, written, and multi-modal forms, respectively. oral data are mostly collected through semi-structured or open interviews. written data are mainly derived from either diaries, which represent introspective teaching and learning in progress, or language learning histories, which are retrospective. teacher narratives, consisting of reflections on their teaching experiences, have so far formed the richest narrative research tradition. some influential studies are catalogued in a table with columns of research aims, participants, teachers, content, and other data. this table displays some of the diverse agendas in narrative inquiry. the use of a “narrative frame,” a written story template with blank spaces for participants to fill in, is critically reviewed, and there is a thorough discussion of its strengths and shortcomings. multimodal data collection of texts with additional media types, such as images, sound, and video are extensively examined, with visual examples. specifically, technology-enhanced formats (e.g., hyperlinks) are demonstrated to carry the potential to provide better understanding of how learners move on with the task of language learning. here, a book review: narrative inquiry 159 a concise checklist is presented that can guide novice researchers in conducting similar but unique studies. issues related to data analysis are explored in chapter 5, which starts with a brief reference to a set of key qualities of qualitative research: it is iterative, emergent, and interpretive. this list of qualities is meaningful for the purpose of situating narrative inquiry in a broader perspective of qualitative methodology. the authors promote the examination of data through repeated readings to carefully craft an analysis, whether it is a thematic or discursive analysis. in thematic analysis, researchers look “at” the data and attempt to answer their research questions via identification and categorization of themes and subthemes. on the other hand, in discursive analysis, researchers look “through” the data to the structure and uses of language. this is possible, for example, by obtaining short, spoken narratives that occur in natural interaction. researchers identify, analyze, and interpret the interactional features displayed in the spoken discourse. they focus more on how the learners negotiate meaning than on what they negotiate in the interaction. in another useful discussion of data, the authors refer to two different approaches of narrative inquiry. traditionally, narrative inquiry researchers have used stories, such as autobiographies and language learning histories, i.e., “big stories.” on the other hand, the authors also support the use of “small stories” (bamberg, 2006), i.e., stories of everyday events, where the narrators position themselves in interactions with others in the learning context. the authors argue that this style of analysis is promising because identities emerge, or are constructed, in negotiation with others in the specific discourse. especially in the field of language learning, learners are negotiating with their pre-existing identities and constructing new emerging l2 identities. thus, this small story approach might be more appropriate in many cases. 160 a book review: narrative inquiry reporting narrative research indicative of the nature of narrative inquiry is the following claim: writing up the study is yet another analytical strategy because the act of writing, i.e., narrating, a story in a written form gives meaning to the data. this leads to what the book’s last chapter discusses: reporting and discussing findings. the authors emphasize that narrative inquiry reports can be creative and innovative, yet still contain the components of conventional research reports in the social science studies. for instance, reports can be crafted to include poetry, story, and drama, i.e., in storied forms of researchers’ creation. the authors invite readers to explore these and other unconventional ways of reporting. research reports in narrative inquiry start with the important variables of narrative reporting: the participant(s), researcher(s), and audience, on the one hand, and the topic and purpose of the research and the form of reporting on the other hand, and they demonstrate how interconnected these variables are in shaping the final report. the findings should be presented as coherently as possible and with sensitivity and care. in narrative inquiry, the researchers/writers are actively involved in representing the participants’ experiences, yet at the same time, the researchers’ own voice is more or less explicit when interpreting the data. every research report, even for a conventional social science study with quantitative data, is narrative in the sense that it is constructed and presented by the researchers to facilitate readers’ understanding of what the research is about, its setting, methodology, and findings, as well as the researchers’ interpretation of those findings. the report should construct a good story to serve this purpose, and a good story needs a well-organized structure of setting, plot, and resolution; otherwise, readers will not understand. a good literature review, for example, reads like the setting of a story to guide readers to the gap or research questions, i.e., the problem that the protagonists (the researchers and participants, indeed the entire sla community of practice) confront and hope to overcome or at least understand. due to the a book review: narrative inquiry 161 narrative nature of all types of research reports, regardless of the research tradition from which they spring, this chapter’s discussion of how to report research will benefit researchers generally, even those who employ experimental and statistical methodologies, as all researchers need to write a good story to engage their readers. another point to note in the chapter on reporting research is the authors’ choice of the word, reporters for researchers/writers. although the authors emphasize that research report can never be objective because they are “ultimately the product of the researchers’ subjectivity” (p. 88), the word, reporter, suggests that researchers present the data and the findings as they are and underscores the researchers’ neutrality. as to subjectivity, the authors address the criticism of narrative studies by some mainstream researchers who accuse narrative researchers of “cherry-picking” (p. 89) of data that support the researchers’ arguments. some people claim that anything goes in narrative tradition because everything is subjective, but the authors do not seem to agree. they write that narrative researchers can address the claims of cherry-picking by making their studies rigorous with careful, repeated readings of the data and well-crafted, systematic analysis. strengths and weaknesses in this section, we discuss what we view as strengths and weaknesses of the book, and we conclude by suggesting that readers may wish to conduct narrative research. among the book’s many strengths, readers may particularly appreciate the inclusion of numerous examples and ways of eliciting, analyzing, and reporting narrative data. some key studies are presented in separate boxes along with good summaries and details. the authors emphasize that there is no single correct way to do narrative inquiry, and they recommend that readers start a project and “feel” their way as they go along in search of better understanding of the inner worlds of language teachers and learners, who are creating meaning about their lives when they tell stories. the overarching theme is how to do good 162 a book review: narrative inquiry narrative inquiry research in language teaching and learning, and the book also includes discussions of problems and ethical issues, which narrative researchers have to appropriately navigate. on a less positive note, first of all, the same studies are referred to in more than one section, and those studies would be easier to access if a key study index was provided, especially because some authors appear more than once with different co-authors. second, the introduction section serves both as an introduction and a conclusion. an independent conclusion section would have been appreciated, because concluding remarks before the main chapters may not make much sense to novice readers. third, the authors discussed generalizability of the findings of narrative inquiry research, but the general understanding is that the hallmark of good qualitative studies is more about trustworthiness than generalizability, and readers might want a more thorough discussion of this controversial issue. the field of sla is evolving rapidly, and it is no surprise that this book came out at this time. the authors believe that now there is a “critical mass” (p. vi) of narrative research. we hope readers will develop the confidence and motivation to start their own narrative study with the help of the book’s guidance and this growing knowledge base. a book review: narrative inquiry 163 references bamberg, m. (2006). stories: big or small: why do we care? narrative inquiry, 16(1), 139–147. creswell, j. w., & clark, v. l. p. (2007). designing and conducting mixed methods research. thousand oaks, ca: sage. 138 running head: students’ perceptions on nests and nnests beyond words vol. 1, no. 1, november 2013 widya mandala catholic university surabaya efl secondary students’ perceptions on native and nonnative english-speaking teachers angelia tjokrokanoko english first plaza surabaya angelangel006@yahoo.com & hendra tedjasuksmana widya mandala catholic university surabaya hendratedja1510@yahoo.com students’ perceptions on nests and nnests 139 abstract this study examined the secondary students’ perceptions towards nests and nnests in an english course in surabaya regarding the teachers’ teaching competence, cultural knowledge of english language teaching, teaching style, and classroom management. most secondary students perceived both teacher groups were good at most categories. using questionnaires distributed to 96 secondary school students of an english course who participated in this study, the researchers found that 38 students took part in doing a focus group interview. the interview was done to capture deeper perceptions that could be gained. the study reported that cultural knowledge of the english language teachers, especially the nests, exceeded that of the nnests. this research finding also proved that students perceived nests to be as good as nnests in such areas as teaching grammar, listening, reading, and writing. furthermore, both nests and nnests were perceived to be not able to understand the students’ special needs since teachers at the english course under study handled one level for about twelve meetings only. keywords: efl secondary students, native english-speaking teachers, nonnative english-speaking teachers, teaching competence, cultural knowledge, teaching style, classroom management 140 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests introduction since english became one of the international languages, local contents for high school in indonesia have made it as one of the compulsory school subjects. however, most of the time, english lesson at school does not seem to completely cater for each student’s capabilities in language. therefore, a lot of english courses or language schools mushroom. among them, there is one famous english course, which is one of the most leading english courses in surabaya. it is the head office of five other branches in the city. this english course under study (hereinafter shall be referred to as the english course) attracts more and more students to learn english since it provides english curriculum and interactive lessons which are more suitable for the student’s language capabilities. furthermore, it also provides more english input, such as interactive teaching methods, textbooks, multimedia materials, and teachers, so students can experience english more naturally in the hope that their language abilities can be catered and even improved. as for the english teachers, the english course under study follows the common two categories of hiring its english teachers: native english-speaking teachers (hereinafter shall be referred to as nests) and nonnative english-speaking teachers (hereinafter shall be referred to as nnests). there are currently ten nests and four nnests in the english course since its goal is to provide natural english learning environment. coming from england, america, and australia, most nests in the english course have less experience in teaching efl students than their nnests counter parts.only50% nests have been teaching english in efl countries (including indonesia) for more than five years. others have more or less one year experience of teaching efl. on the other hand, nnests in the english course have been teaching english in indonesia for more than five years. students’ perceptions on nests and nnests 141 furthermore, most nnests are english department graduates, while most nests are non-english department graduates. interestingly, half nnests have experienced in living in english-speaking countries. each teacher in the english course usually teaches a range of courses with students of different age groups (children english classes, teenager english classes, and adult english classes). as a matter of fact, the english course provides co-teaching between nests and nnests for all levels (children, teenager, and adult english level), which means nests and nnests will share 24 meetings in teaching one level, apart from the fact that nnests have the privilege to teach adult english classes beginner level zero, while nests have the privilege to teach toddler classes, conversation classes and international english test preparation classes, such as fce (first certificate in english), cae (certificate in advanced english), and ibt-toefl (internet based toefl). it seems that general interest of choosing nests as english teachers is increasing. based on several informal interviews and informal observations, more and more parents prefer nests to test their children during placement test and to be their children’s english teachers, because they believe that nests are more fun, provide a good linguistic model for their children, and are more able to teach the target language better than nnests. besides, they also feel the prestige of having someone from english-speaking countries to teach their children. however, it is not parents who sit in the class and learn english, but students. the english course’s student population consists of various age: kindergarten students (3-5 years old), elementary students (611 years old), junior high school students (12-14 years old), high school students (15-17 years old), university students (18-22 years old), and even employees as well as businessmen/women. 142 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests nevertheless, secondary (high school) students dominate the whole population and this would be interesting to ascertain what they experience in the class. hence, this phenomenon should not be overlooked; rather, it should be conducted into a research expecting to ascertain the real situation, particularly in indonesia where english is still considered as a foreign language, and more and more schools and english language schools hire nests and nnests to teach english. studies on teachers’ and students’ perceptions of nests and nnests have been conducted for years to examine teachers’ and students’ real viewpoints and to glean the underlying matters as they are the one who knows what works and what does not for their improvement in english skills. the existence of these studies is very crucial as to help schools, teachers, employers, parents and students to see the underlying matter and true perceptions more objectively. interestingly, kasai, lee, & kim(2011, p. 275) claimed that compared to the amount of nest/nnest studies conducted from teachers’ perspectives (arva & medgyes, 2000; reves & medgyes, 1994; llurda & huguet, 2003, and kamhi-stein, aagard, ching, paik & sasser, 2004; moussu, 2006), fewer studies have focused on students’ views of the two groups of teachers (lasagabaster & sierra, 2002; mahboob, 2004; moussu, 2006). therefore, this research aims to contribute more inquiry concerning students’ perceptions of nests and nnests by exploring and extending previous studies, especially in the efl context. furthermore, this study will be only limited to secondary students as most previous studies have investigated tertiary-level students and is based on the assumption that both teachers’ (nests and nnests) language competence and language skills are equal since most nests from the english course have efl or esl teaching certificates, half nnests from the english course graduated from an english department, and all nnests received internal teaching trainings. students’ perceptions on nests and nnests 143 based on the aforementioned problems,the study aims to answer the following questions: how do indonesian efl secondary students perceive their nests and nnests with regard to their teaching competence? a. how do indonesian efl secondary students perceive their nests and nnests with regard to cultural knowledge in elt? b. how do indonesian efl secondary students perceive their nests and nnests with regard to teaching styles? c. how do indonesian efl secondary students perceive their nests and nnests with regard to classroom management? english language teaching (elt) according to brown (2000, p. 7), teaching cannot be defined apart from learning. he stated that teaching is guiding and facilitating learning, enabling the learner to learn, setting the conditions for learning. furthermore, brown (2000, p. 7) also mentioned that the teacher’s understanding of how the learner learns will determine your philosophy of education, the teacher’s teaching style, approach, methods, and classroom techniques. therefore, possessing teaching competence is very essential for every teacher. there are a lot of aspects in teaching competence, but several important issues in teaching in efl contexts which are examined in this study are cultural knowledge in english language teaching, teaching style, and classroom management. these aspects would influence how the students will perceive both their nests and nnests. language competence and skills are also parts of teaching competence, but this study does not examine these aspects since it is assumed that both nests and nnests’ language competence and skills are equal. 144 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests teaching competence. teaching competence includes the awareness of the teacher’s role, the understanding of their students, the understanding of what their students should learn, how to give the right feedback to his/her students and the importance of having a lesson plan. regarding the teacher’s role, harmer (2001, pp. 56-63) stated that teachers have multiple roles in learning, such as giver of knowledge, facilitator, controller, organizer, assessor, prompter, participant, resource, tutor, observer, in order to achieve a successful lesson since one lesson can contain various activities. then, since this study was about secondary students, an understanding about the students was needed, especially secondary students or adolescents. ur (1991, p. 290) supports harmer (1991) stated, “adolescents’ learning potential is greater than that of young children, but they may be considerably more difficult to motivate and manage, and it takes longer to build up trusting relationships”. cultural knowledge in elt. another thing to affect students’ perceptions is that cultural knowledge in teaching should always be shared to students, especially efl students, it might be impossible for them to be fully aware of the second language culture without the help of the teacher. brown (2000, p. 182) stated that many students in foreign language classroom have learned the language with little or no sense of the depth of cultural norms and patterns of the people who speak the language. teaching style. teaching styles can also determine students’ perception. although there are many kinds of teachers, scrivener (2005, p. 25) stated that there are three broad categories of teachers: the explainer, the involver, and the enabler. there is no right or wrong since it depends on the need of the class or the activity and every teacher certainly has unique styles and character. regarding character or personality, there is no real definition of a perfect teacher’s personality. this is due to different personality which is possessed by each teacher and students students’ perceptions on nests and nnests 145 manage to adapt themselves with it.teaching styles can be seen from teacher’s talk. it determines the improvement of the students’ language skills since teacher is the important exposure for them. however, gower, philips, and walters (1995, p. 33) states that teachers should remember that they must not dominate the talk in the class since the aim of most language classes is to get the students using the language. then, teaching styles should be seen from whether the teacher can establish rapport with his/her students. although it looks simple, but having rapport with students can make teaching and learning process go easily and smoothly. classroom management. finally, classroom management also plays an important role in teaching since it determines the learning and teaching atmosphere. traditionally, teachers might think that classroom management is all about disciplining, but that concept has changed. bosch (1999, p. 2) describes classroom management as how the teacher works, how the class works, how the teacher and students work together, and how teaching and learning happens. gower, philips, & walters (1995, p. 8) claim that classroom management covers a lot of things, such as gestures, voices, and seating arrangement scott & ytreberg(1990, pp. 8-27) also add student groupings as one of the elements in classroom management. classroom atmosphere (how the teachers build a good learning atmosphere in the classroom) also plays a key role in classroom management. research method this study employed a descriptive analysis using explanatory sequential mixed method design, which means quantitative data were collected in the first phase and then qualitative data were gathered afterwards. the quantitative data was to provide a general picture of the research problem as well as to gain the statistical data of the majority subjects by using questionnaire method. it was chosen 146 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests since it was useful for gather factual information, data on attitude and preferences as well as beliefs and predictions (weisberg et al., 1996, in cohen, lawrence, & morrison, 2000, p.207). the instrument for quantitative data is 4-point likert-scale questionnaire. thus, subjects were given statements concerning their teacher’s teaching competence, cultural knowledge of english language teaching, teaching style, and classroom management, then they had to choose the representative number for their opinion (1 for strongly disagree, 2 for disagree, 3 for agree , and 4 for strongly agree). in the quantitative data, the researchers employed a descriptive analysis by calculating the mean, mode, and standard deviation as well as inferential analysis by calculating the independent samples t-test. descriptive analysis was used to find out the perceptions among students towards their current english teacher (either nests or nnests) while inferential analysis was used to find out whether or not the mean results between perceptions toward nests and nnests were reliable and could be compared since the numbers of subjects who were being taught by nests and nnests were different. the formulas are as follows: a. mean (m) = ∑ (∑ = sum of all data values, n = number of data items in sample) by having mean, the researchers could easily see the average number that the subjects chose for each item in the questionnaire. b. mode (mo) is observation of the most occurring opinion chosen by the students in the questionnaire. in this study, score is represented by opinion number (1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=agree, 4=strongly agree), for example, a particular statement in the teaching competence (see table 1), in the questionnaire which got 3 means that the subjects agreed with what was stated. students’ perceptions on c. standard deviation ( ) = ( = standard deviation, σ = sum of, x = each value in the data set, = number of value in the data set ) standard deviation ( ) is “an indicator of the dispersion or spread of the scores” (creswell, 2012, p. 186). d. independent samples t-test was used to see whether there was a difference in each group’s mean and to analyze whether these two groups could be treated as the same groups. below is the formula of independent samples t besides that, degree freedom (d.f.) had to be included as well: significance ( was 0.05. in the qualitative data, the researcher specifically, they employed focus group interview method. according to creswell 218), focus group interview is the process of collecting data through interviews with a group of people. hence, the researchers asked a small number of general questions the interviewees then discussed elicited their responses. this method was very advantageous since it yielded the best information among interviewees and avoided hesitant individuals who may be reluctant to provide information in other types of interview. on nests and nnests ) = ∑( ̅) = standard deviation, σ = sum of, x = each value in the data set, ̅ = number of value in the data set ) ) is “an indicator of the dispersion or spread of the scores” test was used to see whether there was a difference in each group’s and to analyze whether these two groups could be treated as the same groups. below is the formula of independent samples t-test: besides that, degree freedom (d.f.) had to be included as well: the level of significance ( ) used in in the qualitative data, the researchers provided explanations of the statistical data. focus group interview method. according to creswell , focus group interview is the process of collecting data through interviews with a group of asked a small number of general questions to the interviewees. discussed the questions together and responded when the this method was very advantageous since it yielded the best information among interviewees and avoided hesitant individuals who may be reluctant to provide information in other types of interview. 147 ̅ = mean (m), n ) is “an indicator of the dispersion or spread of the scores” test was used to see whether there was a difference in each group’s and to analyze whether these two groups could be treated as the same groups. this test explanations of the statistical data. focus group interview method. according to creswell (2012, p. , focus group interview is the process of collecting data through interviews with a group of to the interviewees. the researchers also this method was very advantageous since it yielded the best information among interviewees and avoided hesitant individuals who may be reluctant to provide 148 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests subjects. at the beginning of the study, the researchers purposively found out the subjects of secondary students to recruit a homogenous group of secondary students (aged between 15-17 years old or high school students) who learned english in the english course in various levels. according to the data, there were currently approximately 138 secondary students of the category mentioned who were actively learning there: 10 beginner-level students, 29 elementary-level students, 58 intermediate-level students, 32 upper-intermediate-level students, 4 fce-level student, and 8 cae-level students. then, in the first phase, 129 questionnaires were spread out for 129 secondary students. those students were taught either by nests or nnests in beginner, elementary, intermediate, and upper-intermediate levels in hopes that bigger numbers of students would respond. fce and cae-level students were excluded from participating in the questionnaires since they were taught only by nests. eventually, only 96 secondary students responded to the questionnaires; 22 were taught by nnests and 74 by nests. next, in the second phase, out of 96 secondary students, 38 subjects were chosen based on convenient sampling technique, meaning that only those 38 students were able to do the focus group interview. extreme case sampling method was also used to clarify the subjects’ extreme answers in the questionnaires, for instance, they responded differently from the majority of the subjects’ responses about their current nests or nnests’ teaching competence, cultural knowledge, teaching style, and classroom management. because focus group interview method was used in this study, those 38 subjects were grouped on the basis of their level and current teachers, and some other interviewees on neither their levels nor their current teachers, meaning that they did not have a particular group. thus, they were put in the so-called mixed-groups. students’ perceptions on nests and nnests 149 research instrument development and data analysis this study applied 4-point likert scale questionnaire. the subjects had to choose statements concerning their teacher’s teaching competence, cultural knowledge provided in class, teaching styles, and classroom management according to their opinions with a scale of 1 to 4 (1 for ‘strongly disagree’, 2 for ‘disagree’, 3 for ‘agree’ , and 4 for ‘strongly agree’). the statements for this 4-point likert scale questionnaire were adapted from kasai, lee, & kim (2011) since not all statements were relevant to the situation at the english course under study. the result of the questionnaire was analyzed using descriptive analysis (mean, mode, and standard deviation) in order to find out the majority as well as outlier perceptions from students toward their current nests and nnests. furthermore, inferential analysis (independent sample t-test) was also applied to find out whether or not the mean results between both groups for each item (there were 21 items in the questionnaire) were significantly different. the focus group interview in this study was carried out to clarify the subjects’ responses to the questionnaires. this was conducted to get the subjects’ opinions or elaborated perceptions concerning the statements in the questionnaires. doing this, the researchers followed the interview guide (see appendix b). the result of the focus group interview was summarized and used to support the questionnaire result. besides questionnaires and focus group interview, the researchers also made use of other documents, such as interviewing all teachers of the english course to gain information about their origin of countries, teaching certificate(s), educational background, and efl teaching experience. all of these were to support the students’ responses in the questionnaires and interviews regarding their current nests and nnests’ cultural knowledge in elt, pronunciation, and language skills teaching. 150 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests findings and discussions this section displays the descriptive analysis and inferential analysis of teaching competence, cultural knowledge, teaching style, and classroom management. furthermore, the discussion concerning these four categories is as follows. teaching competence in the findings of this research, both nests and nnests were equally perceived to be good at teaching grammar (as shown in item no. 2 in table 1, the t-test result is 0.172, which was higher than 0.05). being good at teaching grammar involves the way of the teachers to teach it clearly, including how the teachers can deliver the grammar effectively by using simple vocabulary in order that the students can understand the grammar concept. the interviewees agreed that their nests and nnests used the same methods, deductive as well as inductive, in teaching grammar. either method could make the interviewees understand the grammar concept. on the other hand, there were also several interviewees who did not think that their current nest explained grammar effectively, because their nests used complicated words to explain grammar. thus, in delivering the grammar to the students, the nests seemed unable to adapt themselves with the students’ vocabulary level. although the students were in high levels, they should remember that english was still a foreign language for them and they did not get much exposure to the language in their daily lives. furthermore, the equal perception was given by the students concerning nests and nnests in teaching reading, writing, and listening (as seen in items no. 4, 5, 6 in the table 1, where the t-test result are 0.581, 0.309, 0.206 respectively).the interviewees found that their nests and nnests used various ways in teaching reading, writing, and listening. the teachers students’ perceptions on nests and nnests 151 used cloze exercises group and individual writings, songs, and short films to teach reading, writing, and listening respectively. lastly, teaching speaking was also perceived rather well (as seen in item no.3 in table 1 below, where the t-test result is 0.057). there were some interviewees who thought that their current nnests did not teach speaking clearly. this might be related to the nests’ and nnests’ pronunciation, meaning there was a difference between the pronunciation of nests and that of nnests. this can be understood that english is the nests’ mother tongue. many low-level interviewees had difficulty in understanding the nests due to their speed and accent in speaking. they preferred nnests’ pronunciation as it could be used as a model, meaning that nnests pronounced words correctly and clearly so that students with low-level of english could easily understand them. besides, nnests gave encouragements to the interviewees to speak more so that they felt confident to speak. in teaching vocabulary, most interviewees perceived that their nests and nnests could teach vocabulary effectively (as seen in item no.7 in table 1 below, the t-test result is 0.768, which is higher than 0.05). when asked, the interviewees said that their nests and nnests taught vocabulary with examples so that the students could fathom how and when to concerning the anticipation towards students’ needs; the findings showed that both use the word correctly. however, nnests, to some interviewees, could be easily understood when explaining particular english word which required the indonesian way of thinking such as countable and uncountable nouns in money and fish, for example. meanwhile, some other interviewees felt that they did not get what they expected from their nnests. nnests, according to them, gave only the meaning of a word used in the context of the text they were reading. nests and nnests were considered to be able to anticipate the students’ difficulties by giving motivation and 152 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests table 1 descriptive analysis and inferential analysis of students’ perceptions on nests’ and nnests’ teaching competence no. teaching competence nests nnests t-test mean mode standard deviation mean mode standard deviation 1 current english teacher plays great role as pronunciation model 3.338 3 0.60 3.136 3 0.47 0.105 2 current english teacher explains grammar well and can answer grammar questions well 3.432 3 0.53 3.273 3 0.46 0.172 3 current english teacher gives speaking lesson well 3.270 3 0.67 3.000 3 0.53 0.057 4 current english teacher gives listening lesson well 3.243 3 0.54 3.045 3 0.65 0.206 5 current english teacher gives reading lesson well 3.162 3 0.52 3.091 3 0.53 0.581 6 current english teacher gives writing lesson well 3.189 3 0.57 3.045 3 0.58 0.309 7 current english teacher teaches vocabulary effectively 3.297 3 0.57 3.227 3 0.69 0.665 8 current english teacher teaches vocabulary in isolation 2.365 3 0.87 2.318 2 0.57 0.768 9 current english teacher can anticipate students well 3.014 3 0.82 3.227 3 0.53 0.153 10 current english teacher’s teaching and learning experience has helped students to understand english 3.446 4 0.64 3.364 3 0.58 0.573 11 current english teacher gives contribution to ss’ english improvement 3.378 3 0.52 3.227 3 0.53 0.245 12 current english teacher understands his/her students’ special needs 2.892 3 0.79 2.727 3 0.70 0.354 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests 153 encouragement in improving their english skills, for example, they were encouraged to listen more to english songs and to do more exercises (as shown in item no. 9 in table 1 above, the ttest result is 0.153, which is higher than 0.05). nevertheless, this present study found that both nests and nnests could not meet each student’s special needs (special needs involve students’ strengths and weakness in language skills) as shown in item no. 12 in table 1 above, the mean results for nests and nnests are 2.892 and 2.727 respectively, which means most subjects did not agree that their current english teachers could meet each student’s special needs. this is because a new teacher handled a new class when the students went to a higher level. thus, handling new classes would make it hard for teachers to adapt with the students’ strengths and weaknesses. to get to know the students, the teachers hand to ask others who had taught them in the previous level. cultural knowledge in elt most interviewees perceived that both nests and nnests were able to inform the students concerning cultural information about english-speaking countries (as shown in item no. 14 in table 2 below, the t-test result is 0.284, which is higher than 0.05). nnests could share some cultural information about english-speaking countries, because they had lived and travelled in europe. thus, the factor that a nnest had ever lived or travelled in some english-speaking countries could help students understand more about english since culture and language are interrelated things. interestingly, several nests sometimes shared their own cultural information and compared it with the indonesian culture. this was done in order to gain awareness and respect of the differences. 154 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests to find out the descriptive and inferential analysis of cultural knowledge in elt according to secondary students in the english course, see table 2 below. table 2 descriptive analysis and inferential analysis of students’ perceptions on nests and nnests in cultural knowledge no. cultural knowledge nests nnests t-test mean mode standard deviation mean mode standard deviation 13 current english teacher is knowledgeable about englishspeaking countries culture 3.230 3 0.59 2.591 3 0.85 0.003 14 current english teacher shares cultural information about english-speaking countries 3.068 3 0.76 2.864 3 0.77 0.284 teaching style the aspect of teaching styles involves four items: 1) flexibility in teaching (which means the teachers vary their strategies and materials in teaching, are able to make jokes to avoid boredom among students during the lessons, and give enough chance for the students to apply or produce the target language given), 2) use of the indonesian language in teaching, 3) use of various media in teaching, and 4) good rapport between teachers and students. most of students perceived their nests and nnests equally well concerning those four items. nnests were as flexible as nests in teaching (as shown in item no. 15in table 3 below, the t-test result is 0.385, which is higher than 0.05), because the current nnests could throw some jokes and were not reluctant to laugh with the whole class. flexibility in teaching involves the teachers’ ability to break the ice. besides, flexibility in teaching also deals with the teachers’ ability to deliver the lessons in order to avoid confusion. students’ perceptions on nests and nnests 155 however, some interviewees said that their nests and nnests dominated talking. therefore, most of the time the students just sat there quietly and listened to the teachers. it is true that a vital ingredient in the learning of any language is, of course, exposure to it (harmer, 2001, p. 66), but efl teachers should also give the students a chance to use their english. as for the use of the indonesian language, the interviewees perceived that both nests and nnests did not use the indonesian language much in teaching (as seen in table 3 below, both mean and mode results are around 1, which means most subjects strongly disagreed that their current english teachers used the indonesian language in teaching). nnests were likely to be assumed to use the indonesian language since they had the same first language as the students. and there could be some things which are easily explained in the first language. instead, nnests used english to explain vocabulary by applying the indonesian thinking pattern. nonetheless, some interviewees said that their nests used the indonesian language in teaching since they had ever studied the indonesian language in australia. therefore, they made use of the indonesian language to explain grammar whenever the students, especially those in the elementary level, did not understand it. concerning good rapport between teachers and students, most interviewees enjoyed having good rapport with both current nests and nnests (as seen in item no. 18in table 3 below, the t-test result is 0.262, which is higher than 0.05). the reason was both nests and nnests did not teach english as formal as their english teachers at school. they felt that their nests and nnests used more games, videos, songs, etc. to avoid boredom or tiredness. these various ways of teaching were employed as the students came and studied at the course after their long tiring school hours. 156 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests table 3 descriptive analysis and inferential analysis of students’ perceptions on nests and nests in teaching style no. teaching style nests nnests t-test mean mode standard deviation mean mode standard deviation 15 current english teachers is flexible in teaching 3.189 3 0.715 3.318 3 0.568 0.385 16 current english teacher uses indonesian language in teaching 1.568 1 0.877 1.682 1 0.839 0.582 17 current english teacher uses a lot of media in teaching and practice 3.162 3 0.794 2.955 3 0.950 0.358 18 current english teacher has good rapport with the students 3.230 4 0.820 3.409 3 0.590 0.262 despite the fact that most interviewees enjoyed having good rapport with both current nests and nnests, there were some interviewees who thought that their current nests was unfriendly and stiff. hence, the teachers’ personality should be taken into consideration in building a good rapport with the students, because when the teacher and the students can get on well, the students are highly likely to contribute and learn to use the language more (gower, philips, & walters, 1995, p. 56). classroom management as far as classroom atmosphere is concerned, both nests and nnests’ classes are perceived to be equally fun and flexible. most nests and nnests were able to throw some jokes and invite everyone to join the whole class discussion. this relaxed classroom atmosphere livened up the class. students’ perceptions on nests and nnests 157 another important thing found in the study was both nests and nnests spoke clearly with clear pronunciation and loud voice. it can be seen in item no. 21 in table 4 below that the ttest result is 0.677, which is higher than 0.05. thus, both groups can be considered as the same group in this item. table 4 descriptive analysis and inferential analysis of students’ perceptions on nests and nnests in classroom management no. classroom management nests nnests t-testmean mode standard deviation mean mode standard deviation 19 current class atmosphere is fun and flexible 3.108 3 0.751 3.227 3 0.528 0.407 20 current english teacher uses the proper voice technique in teaching 3.108 3 0.732 3.045 3 0.575 0.677 21 current english teacher uses pairwork or groupwork in teaching 3.419 3 0.574 3.318 3 0.568 0.471 it also seems that nests used groupwork and pairwork as much as what nnests did in teaching (as shown in item no. 20 in table 4 below, the t-test result is 0.471, which is higher than 0.05). based on the results of the focus group interview, there were a lot of benefits which the students felt by having groupwork and pairwork, for instance, having the chance to get to know each other, having the advantages of asking their partners when they did not understand, and having an independent discussion between classmates to solve particular problems. hence, it seems that both nests and nnests were aware that having a groupwork and pairwork in 158 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests teaching appears to be advantageous for the students to practice what has been already explained by the teachers as well as to help each other. conclusion most students who participated in this study perceived their current nests and nnests to be equally competent in almost all categories (teaching competence, cultural knowledge, teaching style, and classroom management), except the english culture knowledge. in terms of grammar, speaking, listening, reading, writing, vocabulary and pronunciation, nests and nnests were equally competent. in the teaching of grammar, nests were perceived to be as good as nnests as both can clearly explain the grammatical concepts to the students which easily grasped and comprehended english dictions. in speaking, some nnests played an important role in the low levels as students understood better and could follow the speed and accent of the nnests. in reading, writing, and listening, nests and nnests were equally good as they used various exercises and media in order to improve the students’ english proficiency. in regard to the english cultural knowledge, nests were in fact better than nnests. this english culture knowledge was well-demonstrated only by native english speakers, or nonnative english speakers who were born or who had lived in an english-speaking country for a while. concerning flexibility in teaching, nnests were as flexible as nests in teaching, because both nests and nnests had the ability in breaking the ice. students’ perceptions on nests and nnests 159 besides, both nests and nnests did not use the indonesian language much in teaching. instead, nnests used english to explain vocabulary by applying the indonesian thinking pattern, for instance, in explaining the concept of countable and uncountable nouns. concerning good rapport between teachers and students, both nests and nnests were equally perceived to be able to build a good rapport. it was more likely because both nests and nnests did not teach english as formal as their english teachers at school. they used more games, videos, songs, etc. to avoid boredom or tiredness of the students. nests used groupwork and pairwork as much as nnests in teaching since the students who participated in this study felt a lot of benefits, for instance, having the chance to get to know each other, having the advantages of asking their partners when they did not understand, and having an independent discussion between classmates to solve particular problems. in contrast to the overall findings, nests and nnests failed to anticipate the individual students’ needs based on most students’ perceptions, but they could anticipate the whole class’ needs. it resulted from the course’s system that the same teacher did not handle and teach the same class throughout all levels. hence, based on the results of this study, the researchers did not find that native speakers are better efl or esl teachers than nnests as argued in phillipson (1992a, in alseweed, 2012, p.24). however, the researchers realized that she investigated the study at only one english course. since the present study was conducted with only a limited number of students from only one english course in surabaya and moreover a small number of its teachers (10 nests and 4 nnests) participated in this study, it cannot generalize the findings. however, this study may provide a possible insight that nnests perform as well as nests in the efl classrooms. thus, the researchers recommend that another research be conducted in a larger scale involving more 160 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests secondary students from other english courses or international schools in surabaya and more nests and nnests in order to get the bigger picture of students’ perceptions towards nests and nnests. students’ perceptions on nests and nnests 161 references alseweed, m. a. (2012). university students' perceptions of the influence of native and nonnative teachers. english language teaching, 5 (12), 42-46. bosch, k. a. (1999). planning classroom management for change. skylight. brown, h. d. (2000). principles of language learning and teaching. new york: pearson education. creswell, j. w. (2012). educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research 4th edition. boston: pearson education, inc. gower, r., philips, d., & walters, s. (1995). teaching practice: a handbook for teachers in training. oxford: macmillan education. harmer, j. (2001). the practice of english language teaching. essex: pearson education limited. harmer, j. (2001). the practice of english language teaching 3rd edition. essex: pearson education limited. kasai, m., lee, j.-a., & kim, s. (2011). secondary efl students' perception of native and nonnative english-speaking teachers in japan and korea. asian efl journal , 272-300. scott, w. a., & ytreberg, l. h. (1990). teaching english to children. new york: longman. scrivener, j. (2005). learning teaching 2nd edition. oxford: macmillan books for teachers. ur, p. (1991). a course in language teaching: practice and theory. cambridge: cambridge university press. 162 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests appendices a. questionnaire archival number: a. please answer appropriately 1. name: ____________ 2. grade level: high school grade 1 / 2 / 3 3. what is your current level (circle and write the level number): a. beginner __________ b. elementary _____________ c. pre-intermediate ______________ d. intermediate _______________ e. upper-intermediate _____________ 4. what is your current teacher’s name: ____________________ 5. how long have you been studying in this english course? what level did you start? b. read each statement concerning how you feel about the class(es) with your current english-speaking teachers. please circle the number that best describes the degree of your agreement with each statement and please refer to the below box in order to know the level of agreement that each number represents. 1 = strongly disagree 3 = agree 2 = disagree 4 = strongly agree students’ perceptions on nests and nnests 163 i. teaching competence 1. my current english teacher is my ideal models for pronunciation. 1 2 3 4 2. my current english teacher, most of the time, can confidently answer grammar questions. 1 2 3 4 3. my current english teacher teaches speaking well. 1 2 3 4 4. my current english teacher teaches listening well. 1 2 3 4 5. my current english teacher teaches reading well. 1 2 3 4 6. my current english teacher teaches writing well. 1 2 3 4 7. my current english teacher explains vocabulary effectively and without difficulty. 1 2 3 4 8. my current english teacher often is able to anticipate their students’ difficulties. 1 2 3 4 9. i often learn vocabulary and grammar in isolation with my current english teacher. 1 2 3 4 10. my current english teachers’ learning experience/ know-how is helpful for my 1 2 3 4 164 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests english learning. 11. my current english teacher contributes to my progress of english. 1 2 3 4 12. my current english teacher understands students and their special needs. 1 2 3 4 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests 165 ii. cultural aspects 13. my current english teacher is knowledgeable about the cultures of english speaking countries. 1 2 3 4 14. my current english teacher often provides cultural information of english speaking countries. 1 2 3 4 iii. teaching styles 15. my current english teacher is flexible in teaching. 1 2 3 4 16. my current english teacher often uses indonesian in class. 1 2 3 4 17. my current english teacher provides more variety of materials, such as videos, audio, songs, game, etc. 1 2 3 4 18. my current english teacher establishes rapport with me and other students. 1 2 3 4 166 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests iv. classroom management 19. the class atmosphere tends to be quite flexible and fun in my current english teacher. 1 2 3 4 20. my current english teacher uses the right voice technique in teaching (it’s audible and he/she varies the quality of their voice for different class activities) 1 2 3 4 21. i have many group / pair activities in class with my current english teacher. 1 2 3 4 b. interview guide archival number: location: interviewer: date: start: _________ a.m./p.m. end : _________ a.m./p.m note:  this is a focus group interview, where 1 group consists of approximately 5 secondary students.  the purpose of this kind of interview is to get information as many as possible while making sure that the students are not nervous in doing it since they are interviewed as a group. please make sure that everybody in the group has equal chance to express their opinions. students’ perceptions on nests and nnests 167  do not restrict yourself to this interview guide. do ask more questions to elicit d dig deeper into students’ statements to find clear answers. introduction session introduction key components:  thank you  your name  purpose  confidentiality  duration  how interview will be conducted  opportunity for questions  signature of consent thank you for making time to meet me today. my name is __________ and i would like to interview you to find out about your perceptions of native-english speaking teachers and nonnative-english speaking teachers’ teaching competence. this interview will take around 30 minutes. all your comments, statements, questions, responses will be kept confidential. during the interview, i would tape the interview session although i would also take notes, because i cannot possibly write fast enough to write everything that you say. besides, i do not want to miss your comments. every comments and opinions are certainly welcome. more importantly, you do not have to talk anything you do not want. 168 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests are there any questions concerning my explanation? so, are you willing to participate in this interview? ____________ ___________________ ___________ interviewee parents / legal guardian date questions session question part 1 (interviewees’ learning english background and experience in general) 1. what grade are you now in high school? 2. how long have you been learning english in this english course? 3. what level are you now in? 4. who is your current teacher’s name? question part 2 (concerning their perceptions of native and nonnative english-speaking teachers) 1. what are the positive and negative aspects of your nonnative english-speaking teachers and native english-speaking teachers? 2. which groups do you think provide a good role model in learning english: your native or nonnative english-speaking teachers? why (not)? students’ perceptions on nests and nnests 169 3. do your nonnative english-speaking teachers teach all 4 english skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) as well as vocabulary and grammar well? do you feel that they have helped your progress in english? please provide some examples. 4. do your native english-speaking teachers teach all 4 english skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) as well as vocabulary and grammar well? do you feel that they have helped your progress in english? please provide some examples. 5. how do your nonnative english-speaking teachers teach all 4 english skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) as well as vocabulary and grammar? do your nonnative english-speaking teachers use various methods in teaching english, e.g. flashcards, computer lesson, video, group/pair work, etc.? is the class atmosphere always fun, flexible, and yet under control (not chaotic)? 6. how do your native english-speaking teachers teach all 4 english skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) as well as vocabulary and grammar? do your native englishspeaking teachers use various methods in teaching english, e.g. computer lesson, video, group/pair work, etc.? is the class atmosphere always fun, flexible, and yet under control (not chaotic)? 7. what are the advantages and disadvantages you feel when you do group / pair activities in class with your nonnative english-speaking teachers? why? 8. what are the advantages and disadvantages you feel when you do group / pair activities in class with your native english-speaking teachers? why? 9. which groups do you think provide more cultural information of english? how often do your native and nonnative english-speaking teachers provide cultural information of english? 170 students’ perceptions on nests and nnests 10. how do your nonnative english-speaking teachers anticipate your difficulties in learning english? do you agree with his/her method? 11. how do your nonnative english-speaking teachers anticipate your difficulties in learning english? do you agree with his/her method? closing session closing key components:  additional comments from the interviewees  next steps  thank you is there anything you would like to add? i will be analyzing the information you and others gave me. i will be very glad to send you an email concerning the copy of the analysis result, if you are interested. thank you for your time. iv beyond words vol.3, no.1, may 2015 widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia editorial the great news we want to share with authors, reviewers, and readers is that beyond words online journal is now indexed by google scholar. thanks to george m. jacobs for his suggestions, and to all authors and reviewers who courageously support our young journal. the first three perspective or current issue articles are about the shift to learner-centered learning and learners as the important agents. phillip a. towndrow, national institute of education, nanyang technological university, singapore, explores critical thinking using a real world example. the second article by andrias tri susanto, graduate school, widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, indonesia, discusses the benefits and challenges of reflection in teacher education. the third article by george m. jacobs, james cook university, singapore, proposes that educators not view the differences of cooperative and collaborative learning by their names, but pay more attention to teachers’ and students’ experiences in doing the interaction, and the goals they reach. these approaches are by all means not the end in itself, but they could be beneficial for both learning in general and english language learning, as well. the latter is implemented in the fifth article, a study on students’ autonomous learning and english vocabulary improvement reported by feng teng, nanning university, china. the findings suggested that teachers must collaborate to develop materials and effective interventions, and create the conditions that support learners’ autonomy. soudabeh tabatabaei, university of mysore, mysore, india, & maryam farnia, payame noor university, iran, investigated the relationship between students’ english language proficiency and their pragmatic comprehension of refusal speech acts. however, findings did not show any correlation so that a separate pragmatic functions and language norm should be taught. v a pendulum going from written and spoken english, and vice versa, happens in indonesia—as in other countries, as well. the sixth article by ashadi, universitas negeri yogyakarta, yogyakarta, indonesia, is an attempt to understand teachers’ beliefs in the swing of the curricula following the pendulum and standard-based education. the seventh article, a study reported by frans manurung and ignatius harjanto both from universitas katolik widya mandala, surabaya, indonesia, is an action research on the use of local cultural content. it was found that knowledge about cultural content was crucial in students’ vocabulary mastery. familiarity and schematic knowledge aroused students’ interest and motivation in learning english vocabulary. our huge appreciation to the reviewers, which is also mentioned by some authors, goes to the reviewers, andrew lian, suranaree university of technology, thailand, deepti gupta, punjab university, india, eugene sadtono, universitas ma chung, malang, indonesia, patrisius istiarto djiwandono, universitas ma chung, malang, indonesia, wendy kasten, emerita professor of kent state university, usa, veronica l. diptoadi, universitas katolik widya mandala, surabaya, indonesia, siti mina tamah, universitas katolik widya mandala, surabaya, indonesia, rouhollah askari bigdeli, yasouj university, iran, mateus yumarnamto, universitas katolik widya mandala, surabaya, indonesia. without them, the above articles could not appear as they are now. our appreciation goes to all authors. your contribution means a lot for the growth of the knowledge and practice, both in general education and english language learning. the editors running head: rhizomatic learning for asean community 1 beyond words vol.2, no.1, may 2014 widya mandala catholic university surabaya rhizomatic learning: “as… when… and if…” a strategy for the asean community in the 21st century andrew lian suranaree university of technology, thailand, ho chi minh city open university, vietnam, university of canberra, australia andrew.lian@andrewlian.com & maria victoria pineda de la salle university, philippines mavic.pineda@delasalle.ph 2 rhizomatic learning: for asean community abstract the article begins with developments in the asean region. in particular, it focuses on demands generated by the goal to build an asean community characterized by great diversity amongst member countries. the demands created by this diversity are exacerbated by the immense changes taking place in the 21st century, such as unprecedented richness of information and communication systems, unprecedented mobility and the technological empowerment of ordinary people to create or find their own personal solutions in a just in time, just enough and just for me fashion. this leads to the conclusion that learning needs will be vastly different, individual and largely unpredicted and unpredictable. this realization implies the necessity to develop adaptable, flexible, yet intellectually coherent learning frameworks which will provide the necessary guidance for creating appropriate learning environments. the article proceeds to construct such a framework on the basis of a five-point analysis of how human perception, understanding and knowledge-construction operate. it then develops a learning structure based on the generation of personal learning environments (ples) connected to a networked information technology infrastructure which is essentially rhizomatic in nature (i.e. where learners determine the ways that they navigate through information and feedback mechanisms to construct personally-relevant and appropriate knowledge). the article ends with a short scenario to illustrate the workings of this structure and concludes with some remarks about current research in the area in both asia and europe. keywords: asean, adaptable learning, rhizomatic, personal learning environment, autonomy, individualization rhizomatic learning: for asean community 3 introduction it was in the early 1950s, after world war ii that a group of european countries including belgium, france, germany, italy, luxembourg and the netherlands attempted to resolve peace conflicts and create an agreement of economic and political cooperation. this was the beginnings of the european community. (europa, 2014) european cooperation moved through the years in a confidence-building exercice that led to the 1989 “common market” arrangement of free flow of goods. by 1993, european cooperation reached its maturity and came to a stronger and clearer agreement from its now fifteen members. it was agreed that there would be four freedoms, the movement of goods, services, people and money together with a shared interest in protecting and preserving the environment. it is in a similar spirit that asean was established in 1967. five countries in southeast asia led by their foreign ministers: indonesia, malaysia, the philippines, singapore and thailand, forged the association of southeast asian nations, better known as asean. the aim was to build continuing cooperation in “economic, social, cultural, technical, educational and other fields” and to maintain stability in the region. (asean secretariat, 2012). in 2003, the then asean together with additional member nations, cambodia, laos, myanmar and vietnam, forged an agreement to transform itself into the asean economic community (aec) by 2020. to realize the aec vision in 2020, measures are being set in place to deepen integration, to make asean stronger and more dynamic and to increase the potential for opportunities. the aec transformation is rolling out a “single window” platform to enable the liberalization of trade and goods while customs procedures will be simplified and harmonized. the aec will also liberalize movement of services, from education to professionals, making asean more effective and more competitive. (pitsuwan, 2013) services are to include banking, hotels, 4 rhizomatic learning: for asean community education, and telecommunications among others. the aec will adopt “the principles of an open, outward-looking, inclusive, and market-driven economy” (adb, 2013, p. 6) to support all member nations and highlight peace, prosperity and the people. (asean secretariat, 2011) as the region strives to achieve its considerable potential to become a strong, cohesive block of synergizing countries, it recognizes the need to prepare asean citizens for inclusive development that will encompass many aspects of education and training: trade skills, digital literacy and productivity, knowledge sharing, knowledge management, cultural adaptation and respect for work values, language learning, sharing best practices and developing cooperative yet competitive mindsets. current and emerging technologies have implications for all these inclusive developments. the asean master plan for connectivity that complements the aec 2020 vision has clearly outlined the immediate development of asean virtual learning resource centres (avlrc), the development of ict skill standards and the asean community building programme among its fifteen priority projects. (asean secretariat, 2011b) this will lead to the fast-track creation of ict skills and competency centers, programs and standards. how ready are the asean citizens? if we take account of the dynamic conditions and great diversity of the asean group of nations, there is clearly a significant need to build skills and competencies for the near future even though the current (quasi-) exponential rate of technological change that we are experiencing makes it impossible to predict the kinds of job skills and other life skills congruent with that short-term future. what is relevant in this dynamic context is the necessity to develop strong personal learning competencies and relational mindsets in the asean population. rhizomatic learning: for asean community 5 both learning competencies and relational mindsets are in fact actually developing in asean society in a more or less organic way and are essentially cultural and specific to the region. as a consequence, modern asean educators are faced with the obligation to develop flexible and adaptable teaching and learning systems capable of dealing with the great variety of learning issues generated by the demands of regional diversity. at the same time as these phenomena are occurring at the regional level, a number of important global phenomena are occurring in society all over the world. characteristics of 21st century education first and foremost, the world is changing at an unprecedented rate because of an unprecedented richness of information and an unprecedented richness of communication systems (lian, 2011). nowadays, not only are mainstream dominant voices heard but, at least potentially, so are those of the intellectual fringe and of “little” people everywhere (even the digitally deprived have some access, albeit tiny, to communication networks). as a planet we now have more choices than ever before, and the average individual has more “power to know” than ever before. much of this empowerment and emancipation has been generated by the exponential growth of modern communication and storage/retrieval systems accompanied by the subsequent flattening of power structures driven largely by the growth of the internet (friedman, 2007). in this scenario, a critically important agent of change has been the development and growing power of social networks such as facebook (deemed responsible for the fall of the moubarak government in egypt in 2011 (knowles, 2011). these developments also mean that information and decisions are more prone to popular review than ever before, not only by one or two dozen privileged individuals but by millions, perhaps even billions, of people who previously had no access to such materials. as a consequence, the world is democratizing, 6 rhizomatic learning: for asean community sometimes even against the will of governments which are effectively helpless in the face of these changes. accompanying these developments we also find unprecedented mobility. people are travelling more and living away from their traditional home bases, their “hometowns”. this has special relevance in the asean context which highlights employment mobility as one of its major objectives. once people become mobile, they will need to learn new languages (even if english is the official language of the asean community, knowing only english will not suffice) and they will have to adapt to new cultures, i.e. new ways of thinking and understanding, in order to be successful in their everyday lives as well as in their professional lives. as a result, they will be required to deal with countless unpredicted and unpredictable real life problems occasioned by changing circumstances. to overcome these problems they will need to engage in new forms of learning which must be able to respond rapidly and adaptively to their specific needs as and when they arise. this unpredictability, coupled with the power of technology, has given rise in both the community and elsewhere to a form of learning referred to as: just in time, just enough and just for me. learning will happen (is already happening) when it is needed (just in time and using the latest available information), in sufficient quantity (just enough) to solve their specific problem (just for me – resources/information tailored to the learner’s needs). this is one of the new characteristics of learning derived from recent technological change and it contrasts with the traditional view of education where a specified body of knowledge was taught just in case it were needed some day. nowadays, even if one did teach in a “just in case” perspective (and many still do), there is a serious risk of failure as the rate of knowledge production, especially in technical areas, is so high that some or all of the “ just-in-case” knowledge might actually be outdated by the time a course of study is completed. of course, this rhizomatic learning: for asean community 7 cannot be a blanket rule as some forms of knowledge are more stable than others by their very nature. furthermore, we are now encountering what might be called the generalized growth of a research mentality or even of community intelligence. this seems due very largely to the availability of sophisticated search engines (e.g. google, bing, yahoo). almost universally, whenever people have a problem to solve or require information they consult google or some other search engine well before turning to an expert (if ever). as evidence of this, we see that the number of hits on all search engines in just the united states in january 2014 reached 19.6 billion. google alone accounted for 13.2 billion searches (67.6% of the total) (comscore, 2014), attesting to the fact that the performance of personal research is growing at an amazing rate. this has created consternation in some quarters, generating fears that we will stop remembering information but simply remember where to find it (sparrow et al., 2011). while it is actually true that the rate of change of knowledge makes it impractical to rely on our memory for up-to-date information we need to remember that this phenomenon is simply a reflection of our evolution and society will adapt in much the same way as it adapted to calculators and motor cars and other technological developments in the past. more important though is the growing realization that people need to learn to reflect critically about the mass of information provided by the search engines and one of the roles of educators will be, inter alia, to assist people to learn how to identify and select information of value. while search engines have indeed placed much power in the hands of ordinary users, there is also a serious potential risk that the kinds of information offered may be biased, the reasons for such bias ranging from commercial profit to ideological manipulation by the owners of the search engines in question. in this scenario, knowledge, instead of being controlled by experts, as in the past, runs the risk of being controlled by large 8 rhizomatic learning: for asean community corporations (or even governments) which will provide and, necessarily, filter, monitor, ration and otherwise potentially manipulate what the public is allowed to know, and how it is presented. some of the risk just identified above is at least partially offset by the power of social and professional networks where individuals are able to obtain advice and exchange ideas, including advice regarding how to deal with information gleaned from search engines. social and professional networks also provide powerful opportunities for developing a reflective attitude toward life, partially or fully compensating for lack of specific knowledge by participants and, most importantly, for learning to see things differently, thus enabling intellectual progress to happen (max planck: “change the way you look at things and the things you look at change”, n.d.). the power of connecting people to each other is also reflected in such phenomena as the growth of serious online research through game-playing e.g. the foldit game (http://fold.it/portal) where biochemical problems such as protein-folding have been solved by the public (consisting of people from all walks of life) whereas the solution had eluded expert scientists for more than 10 years (gray, 2011). faced with their own frustrations in not finding a solution, scientists invented a game to multiply the number of brains attacking the problem – and it worked: a solution was found in a wonderful example of community intelligence at work. this phenomenon heralds an important shift in our intellectual arsenal from independent thinking/learning to interdependent thinking/learning: we are no longer alone in our efforts to learn, something that educationists have recognized increasingly: we learn best in groups. with people taking charge of their personal information needs, it is arguable that they are automatically learning to become researchers and engaging in research activities albeit at many different levels of sophistication: an important educational development. in the frame rhizomatic learning: for asean community 9 below is an illustration of this kind of development in a study conducted by pineda and bernhadsson (2012). a great learning experience: a 21st century learning experiment (pineda and bernhardsson, 2012) from june to december of 2011, a study was conducted by pineda and bernhardsson to gather short two-minute videos encapsulating student experiences of what they consider as “a great learning experience”. the study went through a conscious planning and orientation of the students. the two cohorts of students have technology know-how, the first set was information system students from manila, philippines and the second set was digital media students, from trollhattan, sweden. some of the significant findings indicated that first, if the students or the learners were made to understand and reflect on the purpose of what they will do like in this video experiment, the outcome proves that learning is contextual and personal rather than social. second, the learner is able to define her learning priorities as well her preferred learning activities. there is significant gratification when she is able to perform learning by herself. this means she has her methods and ways of pulling knowledge or information and carryout deliberate learning actions. at the same time, having access to technology that she is able to source and select the tools that will support her learning tasks. it is also significant to note that the students, given the proper planning and orientation, they can freely determine which are the effective and affective learning experiences for them, and that generally, these experiences were derived from their personal learning experiences. hence, this study strongly suggests that a deliberate induction of the importance of defining one’s personal learning environment, accompanied by the tools, technologies and all learning artifacts around, would be a critical role of 21st century education systems. an understanding of the potential of the above factors and their related complexities lead us logically to understanding that there is a need for creative and divergent thinking to maximize this potential. disappointingly, there is also evidence that educational systems, especially with their emphasis on standardized testing, are stripping creativity out of society and 10 rhizomatic learning: for asean community transforming highly imaginative children into conformist adults (land and jarman, 1992; vint, 2005). also disappointingly, there is further evidence that while people and organizations say they welcome and value creativity, they also resist it vehemently (mueller, melwani and goncalo, 2012). educational systems will need to navigate through these developments. the combined effect of these trends, heavily influenced by computer-based technology, has resulted in the empowerment of the people who have the technology to solve many problems previously beyond their reach. this empowerment has been embraced with surprising alacrity by the general public thus demonstrating the readiness of the population to take charge of its own problems and to exercise both freedom of action and independence of thought. in a sense, this is the “natural” thing for humans to do: we like to control our own destinies. while we have recognized this love of independence in many areas of ordinary life, such independence is not commonly offered in the educational world where tight control still tends to be exercised by governments and academic institutions such as universities, colleges and schools – usually in the name of quality control and the setting of standards. the mooc phenomenon there are, however, some signs of change, once again under the impetus of technological development. such change is symbolized by a relatively recent phenomenon in publicly accessible education: the growth of moocs (massive open online courses). a mooc is characterized by the following (fairly obvious but important) features. it is massive: it has huge numbers of students often organized in forum and discussion networks. it is open: often free of charge but often also free of time constraints, with flexible commencement and completion dates, and often free of accreditation requirements. typically, it is not connected with any accreditation or certification system. it is online: which means that it is easily accessible all rhizomatic learning: for asean community 11 over the world and it is a course: containing large amounts of teaching materials and activities often videos of lectures with assessment of the material taught. this feature also signifies that this is one area which is not open and where, somewhat paradoxically, people’s choices are controlled, limited and constrained in a traditional way. the strengths of the moocs consist of their flexibility of access (including availability), their low cost (so far), their social nature, their lack of academic credit i.e. the lack of obligation to pass tests, and the fact that they are often taught by “famous” people. it is particularly interesting to note that, while very large numbers of people enroll in moocs, the dropout rate is also very high – typically around 90% (jordan, 2013). so what does this mean? first and foremost, and most importantly for society in general, it is clear that there is considerable public demand for education (otherwise people would not enroll). such education needs to be affordable: moocs are usually free. third, education needs to be easy of access, as are moocs. and academic credit is not a priority: moocs do not demand academic credit. in short, and encouragingly, people seem to value education for its own sake. those who enrol seem to do so out of interest and do not seem to need or care much about academic credit. taken together, the lack of obligatory accreditation (i.e. low/no stress) and the low cost means that people can take the of risk enrolling and either learn something needed for their lives, indulge their curiosity or simply have intellectual fun: all are good. given the degree of participation in everyday social networking, people may also be attracted by the social aspect of moocs and enjoy, and benefit from, the stimulating academic/intellectual discussion sessions. in a surprising way, education may have found a kind of niche in people’s world of entertainment. the high dropout rate seems to indicate that all of these factors may be relevant. nowadays, people can actually afford the risk of “trying out” education and are able to treat it 12 rhizomatic learning: for asean community with various degrees of seriousness. not surprisingly, this analysis reflects and confirms trends identified earlier, in particular, and most significantly, the “just in time, just enough and just for me” basis of course selection and attendance. it is even possible that this aspect of modern life may account for the dropout rate: once the course has outlived its usefulness, or its fun, it is simply abandoned. thus, the mooc phenomenon signals both an opening of the academic world to the “ordinary” person and the existence of a latent interest in society for education. in a nutshell, education is valued more than we might think, but it is not education in its traditional form. the next part of this article responds to the above considerations by proposing a general model of learning supported by technology and capable of simultaneously meeting society’s unpredicted and unpredictable learning needs through both individualized and/or social intervention. this makes it of particular relevance to asean contexts. the ple framework and guiding principles the model we propose is based on five quasi-axioms, or principles, that all of us might arguably agree on. they are: (a) we (human learners) are physiological beings (this forms the basis for the other principles). we are “embodied”. even allowing for a spiritual dimension to the concept of mind, our consciousness, our mind, is primarily enclosed in and isolated by our body. communication between mind and physical world is necessarily mediated by the nervous system which is fundamentally fragile. it can be affected by physical circumstances such as injury, drugs, medications and, most importantly, our past, our operational history. thus, a sensation, a smell, is not observed “objectively” but generates a meaning, evokes an emotional response: a set of distinctive feelings associated with it. in other words, we rhizomatic learning: for asean community 13 do not necessarily sense the world as it really is but as we perceive it, as our past experience dictates. (b) all that we do is based on acts of meaning-making. if we do not make sense of the world around us, of the thing we call “reality”, then we cannot function, we literally cannot live. the inability to make some kind of sense of the world around us spells inevitable death. we do not need to construct a true representation of reality, just one that works for us and enables us to act. (c) the meanings that we create and live by are internal, individual and unknowable by others. we say that people share meanings between them, but in fact we cannot share the meanings in our heads: we are not telepaths. we can talk about them or use other semiotic systems to produce discourses about them, but they are entirely contained within each of us. (d) as we have no way of communicating (or sharing meanings) directly all attempts at communication (or “sharing meanings”) are mediated by semiotic or symbolic systems (language, gestures, drawings etc.) which we use in order to “communicate”. these attempts at getting our meanings across are constructed on the basis of our internal logical and representational systems i.e. how we organize knowledge and the world for ourselves and how we represent knowledge and the world to ourselves. (e) logical and representational systems are constructed through our interactions with our environment by our attempts to understand the world including “reality”, people’s actions or ideas in multiple ways. they necessarily contain our operational histories, (world knowledge, strategies and much more, some of which is potentially undefinable or undescribable). it is these operational histories which enable us to make sense of the 14 rhizomatic learning: for asean community world. because these operational histories are different for each of us, they make each of us understand the same phenomenon differently (otherwise we would all understand the same “thing” in the same way and there would never be any misunderstandings or confusion. we would never need to say things more than once as our utterances would be univocal and not prone to misunderstanding. clearly, this does not happen). as a simple example, the same food smell can be delicious for one person or totally unpleasant for another. the same is true of abstract thoughts and language-based meanings. these operational histories necessarily also hold our entire functional personal knowledge and understandings and the things that we have learned: the operational sum total of our experience. they enable us to function by helping to organize or categorize the world and, at the same time, limit us to what is contained in the categories we create. they literally tell us what is relevant and what is not. most of all, from a learning perspective, they account for the countless variables which distinguish us from one another and make each of us truly unique and experience specific learning needs. taken together, the above five principles tell us, in essence, that meaning/understanding is necessarily individual. learning/teaching needs to respect this. subjecting all learners to the same teaching/learning regime is not optimal. another way of expressing this is to say that because of differences in personal history, learning needs must be different and, for optimal results, must be addressed differently. a pedagogic consequence of this, then, is how to elicit needs in order to meet them, especially as learners are often not aware of what they actually need (they may think that they know what they need, but they may be mistaken). thankfully, there are both pedagogic and “natural” models for externalising needs. both revolve around the same principle: creating a collision between the learner’s abilities/skills/knowledge (i.e. the learner’s rhizomatic learning: for asean community 15 operational history) and specific tasks. as learners attempt to perform tasks they will discover their weaknesses or have them identified by others, and be able to seek help and support to deal with them. this is in keeping with the previously-mentioned 21st century notion of “just in time, just enough and just for me”: you deal with problems as and when and if you encounter them. it also has the serious logical consequence, especially for educational institutions, of requiring the abandonment of a fixed content-based or arbitrarily-sequenced curriculum, and its replacement with something like performance-based outcomes which would, of course, also have content but would be accessed and organised according to need rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. pedagogic settings for needs-elicitation, the heart of the above learning systems, could include such structures as long term simulations, for instance macrosimulations (mestre & lian, 1985) or other closed spaces/systems with a structured social organisation such as a radio station (lian, a. b., et al., 2004), a company office, a university or even a family. these settings and accompanying activities provide an artificial but realistic operational space where collisions occur between each learner’s logical and representational systems and the tasks to be performed, thus generating needs to be dealt with by rejecting old understandings, refining them or replacing them with new ones. in this context, students obtain individualized feedback and move forward at their own pace according to their own requirements, ideally with appropriate support, and navigate along their own paths. normally, such support would be provided either by learning institutions, if any were involved, or by shared online and other resources. learners would traverse this space, solve their problems and, in a serendipitous fashion, discover new ones which they could then also proceed to solve. while we somewhat glibly state that “people would solve their problems” as if it were a simple matter, this is just a short-hand way of way of 16 rhizomatic learning: for asean community addressing the issue. clearly this is far from trivial and the subject of major research some of which is being built into the systems described above. importantly, not all learning spaces are pedagogic in nature (i.e. contrived for teaching purposes), not all learning needs to happen in a school or classroom. there may be better alternative spaces in the long run. today’s modern population of willing and able diy “researchers” (described earlier) provides an equally powerful and perhaps more interesting learning space: real life. attempts to complete tasks which, in turn, lead to the identification of needs, is what people actually do. it is the “natural” way of doing things. like their counterparts in pedagogic settings, they too can discover their shortcomings, seek appropriate help, solve some problems and/or discover new ones. while they do not have a formal curriculum, they actually do have the equivalent of performance objectives or “jobs to be done” (johnson, m. w. christensen, c. m. and kagermann, h., 2008) in this perspective, the distance between pedagogic settings and real life effectively disappears. this is very much in keeping with the notion and principles of 21st century pedagogy. it is also interesting to note that both settings are subject to the same conceptual and practical issues. the conceptual issues are based on the following logic: (a) people identify a learning need and seek to solve it. (b) learning needs depend entirely on one’s personal operational history (c) learning something means changing one’s personal operational history (or, put otherwise, if you want to learn something, then change your history). (d) changing one’s history means altering one’s logical and representational systems rhizomatic learning: for asean community 17 (e) acting on a learner’s logical and representational systems to achieve a specific goal cannot be applied uniformly to everybody (because each person’s operational history requires different forms of intervention) and (f) each person’s actual learning path will almost certainly be different in some significant way from everyone else’s. as a result, it should, most appropriately, be under the direct control, of the learner under the guidance but not the prescription of a teacher/mentor. in traditional curricular terms such an environment, with its unpredictable trajectory through content and other learning structures, may seem chaotic. actually, it would simply be organized according to a different logic, that of learner need and preference, and would essentially be self-regulating, equilibrium being struck between learner, task and support systems (whether human or ict-based) in the same spirit as sugata mitra’s hole-in-thewall experiments (e.g. dolan, p., leat, d., mazzoli smith, l., mitra, s., todd, l., & wall, k., 2013). from a practical perspective, in response to learning needs, we can envisage the creation of a personal learning environment (ple) for each learner whether participating in a formal course or not. the ple would be based partly on need and partly on personal preferences and would be fixed neither in time, nor space nor form. it would be part human and part computerbased and all nodes/points in it could connect, potentially, to any other node/point. it might resemble the diagram below (a small network fragment taken from a hypothetical language/culture-learning system where every point shown is actually connected to every other). 18 rhizomatic learning: for asean community fragment of a personal learning environment for foreign culture/language learning the student (bottom left) is at the origin of the entire system. human support can be found locally in either face-to-face mode (i. e. in person) or through computer-based communication, to reach friends, peers, teachers or even cloud-based social and professional networks. it is a natural path for students to seek support or answers from their defined personal learning network. support can be sought from mentors, schoolmates, friends, family or experts in the academic spaces, social and professional spaces, virtual networks, forum sites or even chatrooms. support can be sought as well from credible websites such as youtube, wikipedia, askme; search engines such as google or yahoo; or specialized software tools and applications. rhizomatic learning: for asean community 19 while human support may be location-specific and restricted in time, the technological support envisaged is ubiquitous, being based on permanently-connected networks (e.g. the internet). these networks would provide not only communication facilities but also access to an advanced infrastructure consisting, inter alia, of information-rich multimedia databases with personalized front-ends (e.g. a database of linguistic and cultural events/information for learners of english), learner-generated exercises (e.g. learners actually create exercises based on issues that they wish to focus on (lian, 2014)), specialized teaching/learning materials, learnergenerated documents, specialized intervention systems such as listening comprehension systems (e.g. lian,985; cryle & lian, 1985) with individualized feedback, sophisticated data manipulation tools (e.g. audio filters or concordancers) and other tools enabling activity (e.g. facilities for preparing multimedia presentations) (based on lian, 2004, 2011, 2014). also important, would be the provision of a decision support mechanism based (where known) on such variables as learner preferences, patterns of behavior and analysis of needs, perhaps drawing on learner analytics (e.g. johnson, et al., 2013). this would provide learners with guidance beyond what they may be able to self-generate (from their ples and past experience). as pointed out above, a particularly important feature of this network is that every node in the network can connect to every other node in the network. no assumption is made as to the ways in which the network can be traversed and no sequencing of connections is imposed. importantly, the computerized part of the network will contain many multimedia and other resources as well as activities, and will have the potential to grow as more and more material is added in response to learners’ needs. thus the system will keep increasing in size and complexity and, as a consequence, will be able to respond to the needs of more and more learners, wherever they may be. 20 rhizomatic learning: for asean community a critically important component of this system, with its potential for quasi-infinite connections and no pre-determined sequencing, would be the raising of awarenesses (lian, 1987). awareness-raising is the first step in the reconstruction of personal operational histories as, without it, it would be essentially impossible to bring into the learner’s field of relevance what had, until now, been irrelevant, i.e. unknown. the rich combination of networked people power and networked technological power supports awareness-raising and offers learners a form of triangulation (or verification) of perceptions and understandings through interaction with multiple discourses including personal observation, information, descriptions, explanations, opinions, modified or enhanced input, i.e. through enhanced rich multimodal input. this enables learners to maximize their chances of seeing things differently (planck, n.d.), to begin modifying their histories, and, ultimately, to make a permanent change in their histories. a short scenario will illustrate. a group of thai-speaking learners of english need to understand how “yes/no” questions work in english in the context of greetings. they get together both in person and virtually to discuss the issue, but they need further clarification. they query the computer network. the multimedia database returns a list of yes/no questions in their original “greeting” contexts e.g. movies, or interviews or other authentic interactions. each instance is accompanied by relevant information and explanations (e.g. linguistic commentaries, cultural commentaries, even an analysis of gesture). students observe these interactions and, in the light of available commentaries and their own experience, discuss how these yes-no questions seem to work and, then, they experiment with “what-if” scenarios. because the media used are information-rich (rather than information-poor as in many “carefully constructed” textbooks), they also decide to study further instances of questions, specifically “information questions”. intrigued by what they discover, they decide to expand their search beyond questions rhizomatic learning: for asean community 21 in “greeting” contexts and to examine how “greetings” work in general by scanning various online movies for examples of greetings in action. one particular movie attracts their attention and they decide to view it in its entirety. as they view the movie, they stop at various checkpoints to verify their understandings of the events of the film. they do so by responding to short comprehension questions built into the movie playback system. remembering their original purpose in interrogating the database, they request the system to generate individualized lessons for “yes/no questions in a greetings context”. they spend some time on these but still have unanswered questions. three hours later, after some reflection, two of them write jointly to social and professional networks. five hours later, they receive answers from their teacher, from a language expert who works on development of the system and from two native speakers (with whom they have been corresponding in english). over time, other people, perhaps total strangers, interact with them and a collection of responses and information built on their query is constructed, indexed and published in the network. the sequence just described can be summarized as follows. first, an arbitrary entry point was selected. in this case, it happened to be a specific question type, but it could also have been a function (e.g. a greeting) or a genre (e.g. an advertisement), a gesture or a facial expression (e.g. a raised eyebrow). the students engaged in a self-directed serendipitous adventure supported by self-constructed lessons. their chosen path was not pre-established but enabled by the database, the underlying communication network and associated pedagogic and non-pedagogic systems. most of all, the students were able to have their questions dealt with efficiently and effectively in a rich and engaging way at a time and place which suited them, with a minimum of effort and a maximum of information or feedback. in the end, new nodes were added to the system to the benefit of all system users. 22 rhizomatic learning: for asean community such a system, by virtue of is structure and dynamic construction, is impossible to circumscribe or fix in time, space, or content as it (self-)adjusts to new circumstances. this makes it of particular relevance to the asean context with its special richness in diversity of all kinds, a diversity which does not make it amenable to pre-regulation and artificial constraints. in particular, it can comfortably address (a) the considerable linguistic and cultural diversity of the asean population, (b) the unpredictability of likely needs of that population, especially at times of great mobility, (c) the impossibility of having a fixed pedagogic structure responding to all of the needs of all of the people, and (d) the many developments in 21st century educational and learning priorities as previously outlined. this kind of educational system, which is adaptable in that is meets needs as and when and if they arise, and potentially connects any part of the system and its resources to any other part can be described as rhizomatic or rhizomic (based on the metaphor of the rhizome). the rhizome is a term originally derived from botany and adopted by postmodern thinkers gilles deleuze and félix guattari (1987). it is a metaphor used to represent a dynamic, open-ended, self-adjusting personal learning network constructed by the learners themselves to meet perceived and actual needs. students navigate through nodes of knowledge representations or relevant challenges and, in turn, construct personal knowledge organically rather than according to some arbitrarily predetermined external pedagogic sequence such as a curriculum mandated by an authority structure such as school or government. rhizomatic learning: for asean community 23 thus, the system described in this paper can properly be categorized as rhizomatic (or rhizomic), supporting the development of personal learning environments which, in turn, depend on the constant generation, and re-generation of dynamic personal learning networks (i.e. unpredicted, unpredictable, potentially infinite connections to and from knowledge representations and relevant activities). while research into rhizomatic systems is still in its infancy, the authors have been active in the field for some time (pineda (2011, 2012) for rhizomatic ples in the philippines and lian (2004, 2011, 2014) for theoretical descriptions and small implementations of rhizomatic models for culture and language learning). the ple and rhizomatic movement is now beginning to attract interest in the us, europe and asia, not only in terms of language and culture study but in other areas of learning as well. the model described here is currently being investigated further by a team of international researchers drawn from five countries (the philippines, thailand, vietnam, china and sweden). areas to be covered include professional service workforces, collaborative teaching/learning networks, citizen participation in communities, culture studies, language studies, mathematics studies, science studies and work-integrated learning. these studies, both intellectual and data-driven will serve as a springboard for the development of the kinds of model described in this paper as well as offer a testing ground for systems already developed. in this paper we have focused on our perceptions of the needs of the highly diverse asean community. in order to meet the challenges set we have sought to explore and lay down the basis for a general learning theory and learning system responsive to both diversity and need. in so doing, it is hoped that the rhizomatically-based ple system described here will help to determine solutions to learning problems of a general nature and not just asean-specific 24 rhizomatic learning: for asean community problems. it is intended that it will help produce clearer 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(2013). article on moocs. waldrop, m. mitchell; nature magazine. retrieved march 13, 2013, from "massive open online courses, aka moocs, transform higher education and science". scientific american. 15 bibliometric analysis bibliometric analysis of the l2 writing journal jiun-iung lei sure54japhan@yahoo.com.tw department of applied foreign languages central taiwan university of science and technology taichung, taiwan, r.o.c. article history abstract received: 9-12-2021 reviewed: 03-03-2022 revised: 17-05-2022 accepted: 20-05-2022 keywords: l2 writing; histcite; bibliometric; journal of second language writing doi https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i1.3614 while researchers have begun to clarify the status of l2 writing studies, past bibliometric assessments of l2 writing research may still designate it as a field of applied linguistics. they sought the topic of l2 writing in key databases and journals, retrieved relevant publications, and ran a bibliometric analysis. they might increase the number of papers for review, but they undermine the value and influence of specialized publications, notably the flagship journal of l2 writing. the goal of this study was to undertake a bibliometric analysis of 656 publications published in the l2 writing journal from 2002 to june 2021, retrieved from wos and based on histcite pro. the histcite graph marker indicated 30 articles as nodes and 59 combinations of nodes as links. four out of the five clusters on the citation map originated in 2003, demonstrating that major research issues emerged in the year and took root in subsequent studies. this study concludes with recommendations for further research. introduction second language studies have stayed in the shadow for a long time. when applied linguistics started at the end of the nineteenth century, literary texts no longer dominated. therefore, it emphasized speech more than written texts, regulating l2 writing as its subfield (matsuda, 2003). l2 writing remained a minor field of applied linguistics until the 1980s when it finally developed into a unique terrain (hyland, 2019). after that, numerous l2 writing theories emerged, matured, and developed into a comparably beyond words vol. 10, no.1, may 2022 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya mailto:sure54japhan@yahoo.com.tw https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i1.3614 16 bibliometric analysis perfect system (liu & wei, 2020). nevertheless, even though researchers have paid more attention to the field of l2 writing, its current trends and status are still unsettled. lately, researchers have attempted to capture the local and global shifts and changes in the terrain of second language studies. locally, fatimah and masduqi (2017) conducted a literature review of l2 writing studies in indonesia, grouping them into studies on writing products, the writing process, and a genre-based approach. in addition, liu and wei (2020) chose the l2 writing studies published in eight primary foreign language journals in china and performed a statistical analysis to examine their numbers of publications, research content, research categories, and development trends. globally, arik and arik (2017) did a bibliometric analysis of l2 writing studies fetched from the web of science (wos) to capture the development and trends of l2 writing research. between 1900 and 2013, a total of 266 l2 writing publications were published in the web of science, the bulk of which were in the linguistics research area (92 percent). articles, book reviews, and bibliographies had an average of 1.64 authors per publication, suggesting a low level of collaboration among scholars. although researchers have begun to identify the status of l2 writing studies, past bibliometric analyses of l2 writing research may still treat it as a subfield of applied linguistics. they searched for the topic of l2 writing in core databases and journals, collected related publications, and performed a bibliometric analysis. they might increase the number of publications for examination, but they dilute the importance and contribution of individual journals, especially the flagship journal of l2 writing. the l2 writing journal (j. second lang. writ.), launched in 1992, is the first specialized journal on l2 writing (jun, 2008). it is the flagship publication of l2 writing because not only does it present current l2 writing research, but it also works as a change agent, being proactive and directing study (iso-ahola, 2009, p. 301). more importantly, it promotes l2 writing studies as a legitimate area of research. thus, mapping and conducting a bibliometric analysis of it might yield valuable information for future l2 writing research. no single bibliometric study exists that focuses on a flagship journal in the field of l2 writing. in addition, researchers have not utilized the software histcite pro to deploy a bibliometric analysis on this topic. therefore, the specific objective of this study was to perform a bibliometric analysis of 656 documents published in the l2 writing journal from 2002 to june 2021, retrieved from wos and based on histcite pro. 17 bibliometric analysis an overview of bibliometric analyses due to the numerous publications annually, it is difficult for researchers to present a coherent account of the trend in an academic field. as a result, interest in bibliometric analysis is growing (meara, 2014). bibliometrics is a quantitative method that employs mathematical and statistical tools to analyze the interconnections and influences of published studies within a particular field of study (lee et al., 2020). researchers often rely on content or citation analysis as a bibliometric method (ellegaard & wallin, 2015). its quantitative output mainly includes the number of publications, researchers, and vocabulary items (liu et al., 2021). researchers have employed it for several reasons: to detect developing trends in article and journal performance, cooperation patterns, and research elements, and to study the intellectual structure of an area in the current literature (donthu et al., 2021). the growth of bibliometric studies has rapidly increased since the late 1960s and has grown into a distinctive scientific discipline since the beginning of the 1980s (glänzel & schoepflin, 1994). scholars have widely deployed bibliometric analysis in the natural and life sciences, but few have focused on the humanities (nederhof et al., 1989). meara (2014) conducted a co-analysis of 201 papers published in modern language journal from 1916 to 2010, attempting to illustrate the trend of vocabulary acquisition research. the study found that the recent papers in this journal are more inward-looking and selfreferential than the previous ones. it suggested future studies select journals more cautiously to avoid bias. by the same token, after conducting a bibliometric analysis of l2 vocabulary studies published in 1983, meara (2015) concluded that a coherent approach to vocabulary research has not emerged based on the identified research clusters. arik and arik (2015) explored the bibliometric aspects of world english (we) studies from 1975 to 2013 based on the social sciences citation index and the arts & humanities citation index of the wos. interestingly, it was only until 2005 that the number of studies started to increase, and most of them appeared between 2005 and 2013. the study predicts that the number will grow continuously. more recently, radev et al. (2016) analyzed academic papers compiled by the association for computational linguistics to uncover the most central authors and their research, the correlation between different ranking measures, and the patterns of the overall impact of various venues in computer linguistics. arik and arik (2017) examined the bibliometric indicator of l2 writing research in wos. they pointed out that the 18 bibliometric analysis number of l2 writing studies will increase in the future and that linguistics and education influence l2 writing more greatly. while arik and arik’s study (2017) is the first bibliometric analysis on l2 writing, they may overlook the importance and contribution of the flagship journal, journal of second language writing. methods data source the data for the study came from the web of science (wos). while wos is no longer the only citation analysis tool available, its quality is better than google scholar's, and it remains one of the primary sources for citing data (mongeon & paul-hus, 2016). i searched and retrieved the data from the wos through the online library of the central taiwan university of science and technology on oct. 11, 2021. the public-ation title, journal of second language writing, was the search phrase. the obtained publication began in 2002 and terminated in 2021.the total number of publications was 656. bibliometric software this study employed the bibliometric software, histcite pro, to analyze the 656 documents in the l2 writing journal. histcite pro is a click-and-run version of the original histcite that generates the citation network, developed by qing wang of the chinese academy of science, with similar features to histcite (he et al., 2020). histcite, created by garfield and istomin, made its debut at the 65th annual conference of the american society for information science and technology on november 8, 2002 (barreiro, 2015). it has the capability of precisely locating a discipline's popular topics, historical progress, ongoing development, and future trends from complex and diverse material (liu & wang, 2020). besides, it creates historiography in chronological order, highlights the most frequently mentioned works in the retrieved data, and enlists authors, journals, institutions, and vocabulary rankings (garfield, 2009). vocabulary analyses, which show the frequency of singular terms and title word pairs, are newer features (garfield & pudovkin, 2004). results annual output of the l2 writing the yearly publishing data for the journal are shown in table 1. as indicated in table 1, the publishing year 2019 had the largest number of publication records, followed by 2017 and 2013. the publishing year of 2012 rated top for the overall local citation ratings (tlcs), whereas the years 2003 and 2004 placed second and third individually. the year 2003 rated top in terms 19 bibliometric analysis of the overall global citation ratings (tgcs), followed by 2004 and 2007. table 1 yearly output of the l2 writing journal # publication year recs percent tlcs tgcs 1 2002 20 3.0% 0 540 2 2003 20 3.0% 124 1480 3 2004 23 3.5% 115 1368 4 2005 18 2.7% 68 903 5 2006 18 2.7% 68 986 6 2007 18 2.7% 105 1357 7 2008 20 3.0% 85 1068 8 2009 26 4.0% 66 1049 9 2010 20 3.0% 66 516 10 2011 27 4.1% 77 779 11 2012 40 6.1% 145 1315 12 2013 48 7.3% 97 818 13 2014 41 6.3% 77 703 14 2015 42 6.4% 58 735 15 2016 33 5.0% 37 522 16 2017 53 8.1% 58 421 17 2018 44 6.7% 33 227 18 2019 60 9.1% 19 200 19 2020 45 6.9% 0 106 20 2021 40 6.1% 0 9 recs=records; tlcs=total local citation score; tgcs=total global citation score countries table 2 shows the top ten countries with the most publication records in the journal of second language writing. histcite pro could not recognize the publication sites of 19 papers and labeled them as unknown because the concerned authors may not have registered them (wu, 2018). as indicated by the table, the united states of america, the people's republic of china, and the united kingdom were placed first, second, and third in terms of publishing records. the united states of america is the top nation in terms of publication records, with 376 pieces in the flagship journal. arik and arik (2017) noted the same thing: the united states of america was the most prolific nation in terms of publications, accounting 20 bibliometric analysis for 65.41 percent of all l2 writing studies covered by wos. table 2 top ten countries with the most publication records # country recs tlcs tgcs 1 usa 376 579 5864 2 people’s r china 90 144 2222 3 uk 33 99 1476 4 canada 31 74 707 5 japan 30 47 630 6 australia 27 81 978 7 unknown 19 107 1265 8 new zealand 21 67 808 9 spain 17 20 240 10 taiwan 11 34 698 as indicated by hunter (2006), acknowledging sources is critical since ideas are like the money of academics. consequently, academics want to amass that cash; they desire recognition for their accomplishments. when writers reference ideas, they pay homage to those who conceived them. tlcs stands for the total number of local citations in the collection. users can see it on the lists of authors and sources (barreiro, 2015). it serves as a measurement of noteworthy authorship since it indicates how much credit authors receive from their peers in the publication. table 3 top five countries by total local citation score # country recs tlcs tgcs 1 usa 376 579 5864 2 people’s r china 90 144 2222 3 unknown 19 107 1265 4 uk 33 99 1476 5 australia 27 81 978 table 3 illustrates the top five countries by the total local citation score. data from this table can be compared with the data in table 2, which shows that the united states of america, the people’s republic of china, and the united kingdom ranked the same for the total local citation score. table 4 displays the top ten nations by total global citation score in the l2 writing journal. the global citation score (gcs) is a numerical value that indicates the total 21 bibliometric analysis number of citations as reported by web of science. consider the united states of america as an example. as indicated in the table, wos authors mentioned the authors from the nation in the l2 writing journal 5,864 times between 2002 and 2021. as demonstrated in table 4, the united states of america, the people’s republic of china, and the united kingdom led in this category. interestingly, the top three nations were the same for publication records, and the overall local and global citation ratings. table 4 top ten countries by total global citation score # country tlcs recs tgcs 1 usa 579 376 5864 2 people’s r china 144 90 2222 3 uk 99 33 1476 4 unknown 107 19 1265 5 australia 81 27 978 6 new zealand 67 21 808 7 canada 74 31 707 8 taiwan 34 11 698 9 japan 47 30 630 10 sweden 37 9 418 table 5 top fifteen institutions for publication records # institution recs tlcs tgcs 1 purdue univ 92 35 196 2 georgia state univ 23 81 706 3 univ hong kong 19 42 537 4 arizona state univ 17 27 206 5 ohio state univ 12 11 276 6 penn state univ 12 22 219 7 univ arizona 12 22 83 8 univ auckland 12 24 263 9 chinese univ hong kong 11 29 387 10 city univ hong kong 11 46 566 11 michigan state univ 11 29 245 12 univ british columbia 11 24 152 13 univ melbourne 11 58 757 14 no arizona univ 8 27 262 15 univ london 8 39 669 22 bibliometric analysis institutions table 5 covers the top fifteen colleges by publication records in the l2 writing journal. purdue university ranked first with 92 publication records, followed by georgia state university, the university of hong kong, and arizona state university. from the statistics in table 5, it can be observed that eight out of the 15 institutions were in the united states. this result is not unexpected given that the united states is the nation with the most publishing records, tlcs, and tgcs. table 6 indicates the top ten institutions for the total local citation scores. georgia state university, with a total citation score of 81, was rated top, followed by the university of melbourne, the california state university at sacramento, the city university of hong kong, and the national tsing hua university. as table 6 reveals, three out of the fifteen institutions were from asia, including the city university of hong kong, the national tsing hua university, and the university of hong kong. table 6 top ten institutions by total local citation score # institution recs tlcs tgcs 1 georgia state univ 23 81 706 2 univ melbourne 11 58 757 3 calif state univ sacramento 4 47 437 4 city univ hong kong 11 46 566 5 natl tsing hua univ 4 43 517 6 univ hong kong 19 42 537 7 univ london 8 39 669 8 univ lancaster 4 38 255 9 purdue univ 92 35 196 10 auckland univ technol 4 34 507 table 7 presents the top ten universities by total global citation scores. with a total global score of 757, the university of melbourne was rated the highest, followed by georgia state university, the university of london, the city university of hong kong, and the university of hong kong. the university of melbourne and georgia state university were the two most important institutions in the l2 writing journal in terms of their total local and worldwide citation rating 23 bibliometric analysis table 7 top ten institutions by total global citation score keywords keywords refers to the terms that appear in the journal's article titles and keyword lists. they represent the central idea of an article and are the most essential aspect of citation analysis study (wu, 2018). table 8 top fifteen keywords in publication records keywords recs tlcs tgcs 1 writing 448 799 10057 2 language 221 311 3019 3 second 179 204 1914 4 scholarship 78 6 57 5 bibliography 75 0 11 6 recent 75 0 11 7 selected 73 0 11 8 writers 58 119 1358 9 research 57 92 1115 10 english 55 73 1117 11 academic 53 80 983 12 students 42 109 1476 13 feedback 38 163 2283 14 student 35 133 1673 15 genre 32 119 1285 # institution recs tlcs tgcs 1 univ melbourne 11 58 757 2 georgia state univ 23 81 706 3 univ london 8 39 669 4 city univ hong kong 11 46 566 5 univ hong kong 19 42 537 6 natl tsing hua univ 4 43 517 7 auckland univ technol 4 34 507 8 calif state univ sacramento 4 47 437 9 brigham young univ 3 11 406 10 chinese univ hong kong 11 29 387 24 bibliometric analysis table 8 counts the top fifteen keywords in the l2 writing journal for publication records. the five most used terms were writing (68.3 percent), language (33.7 percent), second (27.3 percent), scholarship (11.9 percent), and bibliography (11.4 percent). we can see that the journal elicited serious and detailed studies on second language writing. in addition, as demonstrated by the statistics, it stressed more on the components of second language writing than second language writers because the keyword "writing" was more frequently used than the term "writer. table 9 provides the top ten keywords in the journal based on the overall local citation scores. it shows citations earned by studies containing certain keywords from other journal articles. it also indicates how much credit the publication's writers give to the research containing the keywords. data from this table may be compared with the data in table 8, which reveals that the top three keywords were the same for both tables. the data demonstrate that the journal was a specialized journal of l2 writing. furthermore, feedback and written products were two prominent themes in this publication in terms of its overall local citation ratings. table 9 top ten keywords by total local citation score # keywords recs tlcs tgcs 1 writing 448 799 10057 2 language 221 311 3019 3 second 179 204 1914 4 feedback 38 163 2283 5 written 31 135 1353 6 student 35 133 1673 7 genre 32 119 1285 8 writers 58 119 1358 9 students 42 109 1476 10 complexity 23 97 776 table 10 lists the top ten keywords based on the overall global citation scores. it exhibits citations gathered from other wos articles by papers containing certain keywords. in addition, it defines how much credit the wos article writers give the researches with the keywords. writing(66.6 percent), language (20.0 percent), and second (12.7 percent) held the first, second, and fourth ranks based on the tgcs, reinforcing the concept that the 25 bibliometric analysis l2 writing journal is a specialized l2 writing journal feedback is another prominent theme in terms of its tgcs. in addition, data from this table can be compared with the data in table 9, where nine out of the ten keywords were the same for both tables. efl was the only keyword table 9 did not include. table 10 top ten keywords by total global citation score # keywords recs tlcs tgcs 1 writing 448 799 10057 2 language 221 311 3019 3 feedback 38 163 2283 4 second 179 204 1914 5 student 35 133 1673 6 students 42 109 1476 7 writers 58 119 1358 8 written 31 135 1353 9 genre 32 119 1285 10 efl 30 62 1120 table 11 the type of research document # document types recs tlcs tgcs 1 article 344 1091 13336 2 book review 115 4 26 3 editorial material 92 117 738 4 bibliography 74 0 11 5 article; proceedings paper 13 34 599 6 review 10 46 392 7 correction 6 0 0 8 biographical-item 2 0 0 document types table 11 lists the categories of papers in the l2 writing journal. as indicated by the table, there were eight types of documents in the publication: articles (52.4 percent), book reviews (17.5 percent), editorial materials (14.0 percent), bibliographies (11.3 percent), 26 bibliometric analysis proceedings papers (2.0 percent), book reviews (1.5 percent), corrections (0.9 percent), and bibliographical-items (0.3 percent), also called obituaries. articles were the most common type of document in the journal, acounting for 52.4 percent of all records. it should be mentioned that the kind of docment proceedings paper was added to the wos database to produce materials that were first given at a conference or workshop and subsequently converted for publication in a journal (gonzález-albo & bordons, 2011). table 12 top fifteen authors by publication records # authors recs tlcs tgcs 1 silva t 77 5 20 2 wang zz 18 0 7 3 cimasko t 17 6 39 4 paiz jm 15 0 4 5 matsuda pk 13 12 170 6 yang k 13 0 6 7 hyland k 11 74 1094 8 lee i 10 38 505 9 li yy 10 22 328 10 lucas k 9 0 1 11 mcmartin-miller c 9 0 0 12 atkinson d 8 18 135 13 bitchener j 8 62 755 14 kapper jl 8 0 0 15 polio c 8 21 192 authors table 12 illustrates the top fifteen authors in terms of publication records. silva was the most prolific researcher in the l2 writing journal, followed by wang, cimasko, paiz, matsuda, and yang. matsuda and yang ranked fifth and produced 13 papers each. table 13 presents the top ten authors of the journal based on their total local citation score. hyland was the most influential in the journal’s collection, followed by bitchener and storch. kormos and lee retained the same rating because they had the same tlcs. 27 bibliometric analysis table 13 top ten authors by total local citation score # authors recs tlcs tgcs 1 hyland k 11 74 1094 2 bitchener j 8 62 755 3 storch n 8 44 608 4 truscott j 4 43 517 5 kormos j 4 38 255 6 lee i 10 38 505 7 chandler j 3 36 402 8 kubota r 6 31 172 9 pecorari d 3 29 317 10 ferris dr 2 28 313 table 14 top ten authors by total global citation score # authors recs tlcs tgcs 1 hyland k 11 74 1094 2 bitchener j 8 62 755 3 storch n 8 44 608 4 truscott j 4 43 517 5 lee i 10 38 505 6 chandler j 3 36 402 7 baker w 2 10 388 8 li yy 10 22 328 9 pecorari d 3 29 317 10 ferris dr 2 28 313 table 14 illustrates the top 10 writers in the journal based on their total global citation ratings. as mentioned in the table, hyland had the largest amount of citations to his studies in the web of science core collection, followed by bitchener, storch, and truscott. they were the most influential writers in the publication since their tlcs and tgcs were higher than everyone else's. interestingly, despite their publication record numbers were not the greatest, their themes were fascinating enough to draw other researchers’ attention. 28 bibliometric analysis histcite citation mapping figure 1 displays the co-citation networks among the 656 papers from 2002 to 2021. the histcite graph marker revealed 30 articles as nodes and 59 combinations of nodes as links based on tlcs. note that the larger the node, the greater its influence (wu, 2018). furthermore, shah et al. (2020) stated that an arrowhead between two nodes illustrates the citation connectivity between two articles. the vertical scale in the cocitation networks indicates the year of publication, and each node with a particular number identifies each article. as demonstrated by figure 1 with 19 nodes, the first half of the time axis from 2003 to 2009 was a productive age during which 63.3 percent of the 30 articles were produced. a detailed inspection of the figure suggests that 2003, 2008, and 2012 were fruitful, as four highly cited papers emerged in each of the three years. figure 1 citation mapping of the most influential authors in the l2 writing journal 29 bibliometric analysis the 59 linkages may be further divided into five clusters that each contained more than one link. article 22, 35, 37, 39, 121 led the clusters. article 35, created by chandler (2003), led to the greatest cluster on the map. this article was based on experimental research which explored the impact of several forms of corrective feedback on l2 learners’ writing. as illustrated by tables 12, 13, and 14, chandler may not be the most prominent author in the journal, but her 2003 work on error correction and feedback spearheaded a larger cluster of highly cited papers. the outcome is instructive since the study issue of error correction and feedback may be more prevalent than we thought. more importantly, four of the clusters started in 2003, indicating that important research issues surfaced in the year and took root in the following studies. interestingly, although hyland was the most influential author based on his tlcs and tgcs, he merely generated three links on the map. keeping track of sources is essential because academics must be able to trace the ancestry of concepts (hunter, 2006). the table below depicts the five clusters identified based on the citation map. as seen in table 15, cluster 2, which is headed by article 35, has 50 links, the most of the five clusters. in contrast to the 59 ties detected by the histcite graph marker, the researcher discovered 61 linkages using the citation map. the bibliometric software may ignore some node combinations as links. table 15 links to the citation networks # node combination starting year cluster 1 1 article #22-86 2003 2 article #22-110 2003 3 article #22-147-335 2003 cluster 2 4 article #35-44-76-116-136-179-243 2003 30 bibliometric analysis 5 article #35-44-76-116-136-179-273 2003 6 article #35-44-76-116-136-241-246 2003 7 article #35-44-76-116-241-246 2003 8 article #35-44-76-116-243 2003 9 article #35-44-76-243 2003 10 article #35-44-102-136-179-243 2003 11 article #35-44-102-136-241-246 2003 12 article #35-44-102-179-243 2003 13 article #35-44-116-136-179-243 2003 14 article #35-44-116-136-179-273 2003 15 article #35-44-116-136-241-246 2003 16 article #35-44-116-241-246 2003 17 article #35-44-116-243 2003 18 article #35-44-125-179-243 2003 19 article #35-44-125-179-273 2003 20 article #35-44-125-243 2003 21 article #35-44-125-273 2003 22 article #35-44-136-179-243 2003 23 article #35-44-136-179-273 2003 24 article #35-44-136-241-246 2003 25 article #35-44-136-243 2003 26 article #35-44-273 2003 27 article #35-61-116-136-179-241-246 2003 28 article #35-61-116-136-179-243 2003 29 article #35-61-116-136-179-273 2003 30 article #35-61-116-136-241-246 2003 31 article #35-61-116-136-243 2003 32 article #35-61-116-241-246 2003 33 article #35-61-116-243 2003 34 article #35-61-125-179-243 2003 35 article #35-61-125-179-273 2003 36 article #35-61-125-179-241-246 2003 37 article #35-61-125-243 2003 38 article #35-61-125-273 2003 39 article #35-61-241 2003 40 article #35-61-243 2003 41 article #35-76-116-136-179-243 2003 31 bibliometric analysis 42 article #35-76-116-136-179-273 2003 43 article #35-76-116-136-241-246 2003 44 article #35-76-116-136-243 2003 45 article #35-76-116-241-246 2003 46 article #35-76-116-243 2003 47 article #35-76--125-179-243 2003 48 article #35-76-125-179-273 2003 49 article #35-76-125-243 2003 50 article #35-76-179-243 2003 51 article #35-76-179-273 2003 52 article #35-147-335 2003 53 article #35-241 2003 cluster 3 54 article #37-96-147-335 2003 55 article #37-147-335 2003 cluster 4 56 article #39-196 2003 57 article #39-230-335 2003 cluster 5 58 article #121-180 2008 59 article #121-196 2008 60 article #121-241-246 2008 discussion employing the tool histcite pro, this study conducted a bibliometric analysis of 656 papers published in the l2 writing journal from 2002 to june 2021, obtained from wos. the primary findings of the bibliometric study are as follows. the publishing year 2019 has the largest number of publication records, followed by 2017 and 2013. year 2012 ranked first for the total local citation ratings. the years 2003 and 2004 placed second and third separately. year 2003 scored highest in terms of the total global citation ratings, followed by 2004 and 2007. additionally, the united states, people's republic of china, and united kingdom were the top three nations for publication records, and overall local and global citation ratings. the evaluation of the data indicated the rankings of the institutions based on the publication number, tlcs, and tgcs. to begin with, purdue university placed top with 92 publication records, followed by georgia state university, the university of 32 bibliometric analysis hong kong, and arizona state university. eight out of the top 15 institutions for publishing records were in the united states. next, georgia state university, with a total citation score of 81, was ranked first, followed by the university of melbourne, the california state university at sacramento, the city university of hong kong, and the national tsing hua university. even more, with a total global score of 757, the university of melbourne was ranked the highest, followed by georgia state university, the university of london, the city university of hong kong, and the university of hong kong. the five most often used terms were writing, language, second, scholarship, and bibliography. we can observe that the journal stimulated significant and extensive investigations into second-language writing. as suggested by the total and local citation scores, the journal was a specialized journal of second language writing. furthermore, feedback was an important theme in this publication in terms of its tlc and tgcs. there were eight types of documents in the publication: articles (52.4 %), book reviews (17.5 %), editorial materials (14.0 %), bibliographies (11.3 %), proceedings papers (2.0%), book reviews (1.5 %), corrections (0.9 %), and bibliographical-items (0.3 %), also called obituaries. articles were the most prevalent sort of document in the journal, accounting for 52.4 % of all entries. the study also found that silva was the most productive researcher in the l2 writing journal, followed by wang, cimasko, paiz, matsuda, and yang. hyland was the most influential in the journal’s collection in terms of his tlcs, followed by bitchener, storch, and truscott. besides, hyland got the most citations for his research in the web of science core collection, followed by bitchener, storch, and truscott. the four authors were the most influential in the publication, as their tlcs and tgcs were higher than everyone else's. and yet, evaluating the co-citation mapping graph with the aid of histcite pro, i discovered that chandler may not be the most dominant author in the journal, but her 2003 paper on error correction and feedback influenced the biggest cluster on the map. the subject of error correction and feedback may be more prominent than we imagined. one paper published in 2003 generated the biggest cluster in the citation networks. four out of the five clusters on the citation map began in 2003, suggesting that key research concerns arose in the year and took root in future studies. using the bibliometric analysis tool antconc, arik and arik (2017) collected data from papers on l2 writing covered in ssci and a & hci of wos between 1900 and 2013, and 33 bibliometric analysis between 1975 and 2013. even though their and my studies employed different bibliometric tools and data sources, the results in authors, countries, institutions, document types, and keywords are comparable. the comparison of the two research using various bibliometric approaches may enable us to determine whether the study's conclusions are clear and consistent. to begin with, both studies identified silva and cimasko as two of the three most productive researchers. in addition, both investigations classified the united states and china as two of the top three nations based on their publication records. what is more, arik and arik's research and this one selected purdue university and georgia state university as the top universities based on their publication numbers. likewise, articles, book reviews, editorial materials, and bibliographies were the most common kinds of documents in both studies. arik and arik (2017) compiled a list of the ten most frequent terms as follows: writing, language, second, bibliography, scholarship, recent, selected, research, english, and instruction. apart from "instruction," nine of these words were in the top ten in my study. in spite of the differences in bibliometric tools and data sources, arik and arik's research and mine may have found comparable results. conclusion some of the similarities between my study and that of arik and arik (2017) may be attributable to the prestigious position of the l2 writing journal. according to iso-ahola (2009), the political purpose of a flagship journal is to legitimize the investigation of a subject area and boost a field's standing in the greater academic community. thus, not only does it publish the most recent theoretical and empirical research, but it also functions as a change agent, being proactive and directing research. as a result, the presence of a prominent publishing nation, institution, or author in the journal may have a similar effect in other wos journals. by the same token, the typical formats of papers in this flagship journal may have formed a benchmark for scholars of l2 writing who publish in other wos journals. in the same way, the researchers of the other wos publications who study l2 writing may use the journal's most common words. hairston (1982) observed that the movement of a process-oriented theory of teaching writing was probably in the early stages of a paradigm shift based on his interpretation of kuhn's book (1970). lei (2015) investigated whether the writing process paradigm had 34 bibliometric analysis lost its pedagogical hegemony and whether a paradigm change had ushered in the postprocess age. following the methodology outlined in hairston's research, this report found that a paradigm shift promising to usher in a "post-process" period was in its infancy. however, both studies were argumentative academic articles devoid of statistical data. bibliometric techniques could help explain the key trends in a vast body of work in a way that would be difficult to do normally (meara, 2014). thus, to determine whether the field of second language writing has experienced systemic changes, researchers might do bibliometric analysis on data gathered over many decades. only histcite pro was used to analyze data for this investigation. future research may include a second biliometric equipment, such as the vosviewer, to confirm the accuracy and consistency of data. in addition, it is recommended to do such a bibliometric study in combination with a content analysis to gain more depth in l2 writing research in databases other than wos (kölemen, 2021). references arik, b. t., & arik, e. 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(2016). the journal coverage of web of science and scopus: a comparative analysis. scientometrics, 106(1), 213-228. nederhof, a. j., zwaan, r. a., de bruin, r. e., & dekker, p. j. (1989). assessing the usefulness of bibliometric indicators for the humanities and the social and beha vioural sciences: a comparative study. scientometrics, 15(5), 423–435. radev, d. r., joseph, m. t., gibson, b., & muthukrishnan, p. (2016). a bibliometric and network analysis of the field of computational linguistics. journal of the association for information science and technology, 67(3), 683-706. shah, s. h. h., lei, s., noor, s., & anjum, a. (2020). research synthesis and new directions of prosumption: a bibliometric analysis. international journal of information and management sciences, 31(1), 79–98. wu, j. f. (2018). huáyǔ wén jiàoxué yánjiū wénxiàn jìliàng xué fēnxī: yǐ 1992 zhì 2016 wos zīliào kù wèi jīchǔ [bibliometirc analysis of chinese teaching research based on wos database between 1992 and 2016], journal of sciences & humanities, 5(3), 144-169. authors’ bio jiun-iung lei associate professor jiun-iung lei teaches at central taiwan university of science and technology. he has taught college-level english for almost twenty-five years. his research interests include reading and writing in a second language, tesol, and discourse analysis. please contact him through email at sure54japhan@yahoo.com.tw running head: writing ability and self-esteem 111 beyond words vol. 1, no. 1, november 2013 widya mandala catholic university surabaya the correlation between the writing ability and self-esteem of surabaya merchant marine academy students dias agata surabaya merchant marine academy balai pendidikan dan pelatihan ilmu pelayaran surabaya diasagata@yahoo.co.id 112 writing ability and self-esteem abstract writing in efl has been an essential requirement for students of surabaya merchant marine academy because it is used when they are on board. even though it is compulsory, the writing progress is unsatisfactory. recent studies widely investigate and find the correlation between affective factors in learning, especially self-esteem, and student’s writing improvements. following the issues, the present study investigated the correlation between surabaya merchant marine academy students’ english writing progress and their selfesteem. the data were collected using two instruments; test of english writing (tew) and questionnaire of self-esteem (qse) which covers three sections of questionnaire; global, situational and task self-esteem. the instruments were distributed to 107 students. then the data were analyzed using pearson product moment. results of the study revealed that the overall scores of tew indicated that the level of the student’s writing ability was fair; the highest correlation level appeared between situational self-esteem and writing ability and the lowest correlation level appeared between global self-esteem and writing ability, and finally the correlation between self-esteem and writing ability of the students was significantly positive. keywords: self-esteem, global self-esteem, situational self-esteem, task selfesteem, writing ability, correlation, efl. writing ability and self-esteem 113 introduction jerome b. dusek (1996) stated that self-esteem is positively correlated to the grades earned in the achievement test given to the students. the results depict students with higher self-esteem achieve better than those with lower self-esteem. several research quoted in santrock (2007, p. 147) reported that self-esteem often decreases when students make the transition to higher level of education, for example, adolescent who has just graduated from senior high school and attend freshman year at college will feel the decrease of self-esteem. students of surabaya merchant marine academy or balai pendidikan dan pelatihan ilmu pelayaran surabaya (bp2ip) are slightly different from students of other schools in general because they live daily in dormitory with strict rules, high level of discipline, and vulnerable to punishment. in the context of learning, semi-military environment is often perceived as a factor that could affect students’ degree of self-esteem. bp2ip1 is a state institution under the indonesia ministry of transportation that provides educational seafaring courses, where english as a foreign language (efl) is a compulsory subject matter that students have to take and pass. it is a mandatory course because as merchant ships officer candidates, students are expected to use both written and oral communication in english (imo, 2000). thus, international maritime organization (imo) established maritime english to facilitate the seafaring students and to equip them with communication skills for later use on board. maritime english is the international language used by seafarers for ship communication around the world (imo, 2000). the objective of maritime english course is that the students are able to use written and oral english. the model course of maritime english integrates the practice of language items such as grammar, vocabulary and 1bp2ip has changed its name into politeknik pelayaran, surabaya. 114 writing ability and self-esteem phonology with the language skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. the skills activities are adapted from authentic maritime situations. there are two core sections of maritime english course. the first core section is especially designed for students in elementary proficiency level of english up to lower intermediate language level, while the second core section is especially reserved for students in lower intermediate to upper intermediate. derived from the illustration of the english language levels (imo, 2000, p.13) the students of dp-iii program in bp2ip surabaya, which are high school graduates, have been classified in elementary language level because their ability in using english is basic, everyday needs but without sustained fluency and still found many errors. they also have limited understanding of spoken english which requires a lot repetition and simplification of the language. the writing task given to the students in the elementary level is mainly about describing the location, role or purpose based on the object being studied, for example the course outline of core section 1 (imo, 2000, p.16) column 4, section 4.4 denotes the competence that teacher should teach to the students is the communication skills such as listening, speaking and writing which enable students to describe the location and purpose of safety equipments on board ship. this inferred that the students in elementary levels are not forced to write a certain genre of writing such as descriptive or expository writing, but they are expected to write a basic informational writing about the location and purpose of safety equipments on board because the writing skill of maritime english is adapted to the communication skills that related to the authentic maritime situations. english writing skill is a personal requirement for every seafarer because it is used on board and it has been one of the requirements for seafarer to hold a certificate of competency in seafaring after passing series of test conducted by the seafarer board of examiners. based on this reason, writing skill in english is necessary for the students of surabaya merchant writing ability and self-esteem 115 marine academy. thus to support the improvement of the learning of english writing skill, there should be research conducted related to the students' writing skill in english. english as a foreign language (efl) writing is seen as a fairly complicated skill. it involves the learner’s cognitive and affective aspects. there are still many problems in efl learning caused from affective aspects. in the writing process, of writing that could not be separated from the cognitive and affective involvement, self-esteem is a small part in the affective domain that has a major influence in the success of writing as lawrence (2000) insisted that self-esteem construct is recognized today to be a major factor in learning outcomes. writing is seen as more than a standardized system of communication, but also as an essential tool for learning (hyland, 2002; weigle, 2002). weigle (2002) also emphasizes that efl writing concerns the content of the writing, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanics as well. jacobs et al (1981) defines the criteria of a good piece of writing and embraces them to the so called esl composition profile, a holistic scoring rubric widely used up to now. based on this situation, the self-esteem degree of bp2ip surabaya students allegedly plays role in student’s efl writing achievement. this evidence shows that the changing of self-esteem which is experienced by students in school transitions can influence the academic outcomes as well. bp2ip surabaya students are classified as adolescents who can be at risk suffering low self-esteem; this can be harmful for their ability in efl writing. the strict rule and semi-military environment of bp2ip surabaya are able to drive the unstable degree of self-esteem in learning among the students as well. meanwhile, the merchant ships industry as the party that will employ the graduated students of bp2ip surabaya, has uttered that they require qualified seafarers who comprehend the written and oral communication using english. this has been a strong issue to conduct a research about the correlation between the writing ability and self-esteem of bp2ip surabaya students. 116 writing ability and self-esteem bloom (2000) asserted that self-esteem is a crucial cluster in affective factor which will affect the confidence of students in learning the entire language skills especially writing skill. students who write in the context of efl generally encounter problem in concentrate both on the content of the writing and the use of the language (weigle, 2002), thus writing in efl is categorized as a fairly complicated skill. brown (2000) supported bloom’s claim that self-esteem is involved in student’s writing and oral performance. the correlation is shown by several studies (al-hattab, 2006; fahim and rad, 2011). coopersmith (1967) defines that self-esteem is a personal judgment of worthiness that is expressed in the attitudes that individuals hold towards themselves. it can also be seen from one's subjective experience conveyed to others verbally or through an overt expressive behavior. in line with that, brown (2000) defines that self-esteem refers to the evaluation which individuals make and customarily maintain with regard to themselves, expresses an attitude of approval or disapproval and indicates the extent to which individuals believe themselves to be capable, significant, successful and worthy. subsequently, wilding and palmer (2010) define that self-esteem is having confidence in his own abilities and values, feeling comfortable and accepting his self with all the strengths and weaknesses, while still taking opportunities for self-development. brown (2000) through the book principles of language learning and teaching has been sifting through self-esteem into three dimensions; global self-esteem, situational selfesteem and task self-esteem. global self-esteem is general or prevailing assessment one makes of one’s own worth over time and across a number of situations, it can be analogized to a statistical mean or median level of overall self-appraisal, global self-esteem for students is intended to the student’s self-esteem whenever they are and wherever they are, even when they are outside the campus, the global self-esteem will always be their personal judgment towards themselves which always exist in their daily activity. situational self-esteem is one’s writing ability and self-esteem 117 self-appraisals in particular life situations such as social interaction or on certain relatively defined traits. a person may have different degree of situational self-esteem depending upon the situation or the trait in question, for example, situational self-esteem is the degree of selfesteem while students are learning about maritime english. their personal judgment toward themselves while learning the subject matter is their situational self-esteem. task self-esteem is the self-esteem that relates to particular tasks within specific situations. task self-esteem refers to one’s self-evaluation of a particular aspect of the process, for example on efl learning, task self-esteem can be exemplified in speaking or writing task. self-esteem is also divided into three levels. the first level (is high self-esteem. parecki (cited in franken, 2007) proposed that high self-esteem is a pride of oneself in which he becomes aware and accepting of his imperfections while cherishing his inherent strengths and positive qualities. rosenberg cited in mruk (2006) depicts that a person with high-self esteem always feels that he is a person of worth with no awe to himself nor expect others to awe him. the second level is moderate self-esteem. people with moderate self-esteem consider themselves valuable, even though in certain situations, they sometimes still feel dissatisfied toward themselves. they have lower negative emotional state as well because they recognize that emotions always play role in people’s lives (jantz, 2010). lastly, the third level is low self-esteem. franken (2007) defined that low self-esteem is a highly negative emotional state when individuals believe they are lacking in important skills and abilities that will drive them to feel a persistent sense of hopelessness. rosenberg (cited in mruk, 2006) states that a person with low self-esteem rarely feels satisfied and feels lack of respect toward himself, and his behavior implies self-rejection, self-dissatisfaction and self-contempt. furthermore, according to the self-esteem definition and concept reviewing from the literature, self-esteem can be defined as the self-worth that is obtained from personal judgment of one’s self and it is reflected through their verbal communications and attitudes. 118 writing ability and self-esteem several related studies were conducted in many countries, but they came out with varieties of results. several researchers claimed that there were no significant correlation between self-esteem and academic achievement (grodnick, 1996; joshi and srivastava, 2009; naderi, et al, 2009). but other researchers (tremblay et al, 2000; hisken, 2011; rashidi et al, 2011) reported that there were positive correlation between self-esteem and academic achievement. tremblay, et al. (2000) mentioned that there is a positive correlation between self-esteem and academic achievement of students in canada. hisken (2011) supported that there is a positive correlation between self-esteem and student’s reading ability in united states of america. rashidi et al. (2011) also pointed out that self-esteem and student’s oral communication in saudi arabia is significantly correlated. grodnick (1996) who investigated the correlation between self-esteem and writing ability of american students claimed that there was non-significant correlation between self-esteem and writing ability. but other studies in non-english-speaking countries pointed out different result from grodnick (1996). the studies that investigated the correlation between self-esteem and writing ability in saudi arabia (al-hattab, 2006) and in iran (fahim and rad, 2011) reported significant correlation between self-esteem and writing ability. the controversial issues about the different results of previous related studies, and the special condition of bp2ip education system, triggered me to investigate the correlation between the student’s writing ability and their respective self-esteem and to see the correlation between the writing ability and self-esteem of surabaya merchant marine (bp2ip). as there are three sections of self-esteems that have been investigated as well, the study also look at the correlation between writing ability and global self-esteem, the correlation between writing ability and situational self-esteem as well as the correlation writing ability and self-esteem 119 between writing ability and task self-esteem. the students’ level of writing ability has been critically discussed in detailed as well. method this study selected the samples using purposive sampling. those that included in the samples must be adolescence that with age ranging between sixteen and twenty-five years (mönks, 2002); they should be high school or vocational school graduates, and those who are registered as the students of diklat pelaut-iii program in bp2ip (translation, third year students of bp2ip surabaya hence abbreviated into dp iii). students of bp2ip surabaya who did not meet the criteria were excluded. there were two instruments used in the present research, questionnaire of selfesteem (qse) and test of english writing (tew). tew is a writing test as the implementation of maritime english course outline core section 1, section 4.4 which requires the test takers to write an essay of 200 words about the location, description and purpose of safety equipments on board ship. the tew also provided 18 safety equipments which can be selected randomly three items by the test takers. the tew was valid in terms of content as it was a part of the course outline of maritime english, and the material of tew were about the safety equipment on board taught to the test takers before it was tested. the tew was assumed reliable since the same kind of test has been used for several times in the seafarers skills examination or ukp (ujian keahlian pelaut) held by the transportation ministry of indonesia. the other instrument was qse, a sixty-item likert scale questionnaire adapted from al-hattab (2006) which involved three dimensions of self-esteem to be measured; global self-esteem, situational self-esteem and task self-esteem. section a of qse elaborated twenty statements of general assessment a person’s make of one’s self; section b of qse elaborated twenty statements of specific situation such as foreign language context; and section c of 120 writing ability and self-esteem qse elaborated twenty statements of a particular task within situations such as writing in efl context. qse as one of the research instruments has been proved valid and reliable since it has been employed on al-hattab’s study (2006), a jury of experts including three educational psychologists and six specialists in tefl were involved in the study to determine the face and content validity of the qse. besides that, it also has been modified based on the need of the research, such as replacing several statements and turning all the statements into positive. this is done to inspire the students to think positively toward their self-esteem (mruk, 2006). the questionnaire was translated into bahasa indonesia and has been evaluated by a professor in tefl as well before it was distributed. this was to facilitate the subjects in filling the questionnaire so that they were not misinterpreting what they read in the questionnaire. the research involved 116 students from four classes of bp2ip surabaya in dp-iii program, since several questionnaires and tew did not completely filled in; the total subject of the study became 107 students. first of all, the researcher distributed the tew by assistance from the english teachers from bp2ip surabaya, then the students were asked to write an essay of 200 words about safety equipments on board ship, the time allocation was 35 minutes. afterwards, the subject’s tew was scored by two raters based on the esl scoring rubric designed by jacobs et al. (1981) and the average score from the rater and researcher depicted the subject’s writing ability (data y).the qse was distributed after the subjects have submitted the essay. the time given for filling the questionnaire is 15 minutes. subsequently, the qse was scored and the scores represented the subject’s self-esteem in three dimensions; global self-esteem (data x1), situational self-esteem (data x2) and task self-esteem (data x3). the correlation between self-esteem and writing ability was analyzed using pearson product moment. finally the results were depicted in figures and scatter plots which describe the correlations between the variables. writing ability and self-esteem 121 results based on jacobs et al (1981) the level of writing ability is classified into five levels. the highest percentage was 40.19% which represents the scores of 43 students whose writing ability are in good to average level, the second highest percentage was 28.97% which represents the students in fair level of writing ability and the third highest percentage was 18.69% which represents the students in poor writing ability. table 1 presents the scores of the tew which represent the level of the subjects’ writing ability. table 1 percentage of student’s writing ability based on its level writing ability tew scores range frequency percentage excellent to very good 88 – 100 10 9.35% good to average 75 – 87 43 40.19% fair 64 – 74 31 28.97% poor 49 – 63 20 18.69% very poor 34 – 48 3 2.80% total 107 100.00% the highest percentage was 40.19% which represents the scores of 43 students whose writing ability are in good to average level, this indicated that most students could probably accomplish the writing requirements in maritime english course and they are able to take the undergraduate education even tough eventually they will need deeper learning about the other skills in english such as grammar enrichment. the second highest percentage was 28.97% which belongs to fair level of writing ability, about 31 students in fair level of writing ability tends to find great difficulty in completing a writing task, because of their lack vocabularies or the other supporting english skills which are beyond their capabilities. the third highest 122 writing ability and self-esteem percentage was 18.69% which belongs to poor writing ability, about 20 students were categorized in poor writing ability. these students unfortunately seen as not feasible yet to enroll the courses of undergraduate education (jacobs et al, 1981), nevertheless, they still have the opportunity if they were determined to improve the writing skill through a preparatory course with another complementary course to support the other skills in english. based on the overall scores of tew, it was found that the mean of subjects’ scores in tew was 73.06. according to the jacobs’ level of writing ability (1981), the mean of the student’s scores of tew represented the fair writing ability. it means that generally, the students were probably encounter great difficulties while they were assigned to write in english. the main problem was not about the content, but more about the grammar mastery or the lack of vocabulary. students need to be taught to the other skills of english besides writing such as speaking, listening and reading as well, to maintain and improve their ability in writing. the questionnaire of self-esteem (qse) covered three sections of self-esteem such as global self-esteem, situational self-esteem and task self-esteem. table 2 below reveals the students’ means of the variables, including their global self-esteem, situational self-esteem, task self-esteem, overall self-esteem and the test of english writing (tew). as seen in table 2, the level of global self-esteem was moderate because the mean was 3.60. the situational self-esteem and task self-esteem also depicted in moderate level. the highest mean between three sections of self-esteem was the mean of situational selfesteem and the lowest was the mean of global self-esteem. the overall self-esteem revealed that the subject’s self-esteem was in moderate level, as well as their level of english writing ability which was in moderate level. jantz (2010) maintains that people with moderate level of self-esteem will tend to consider them valuable even though sometimes they still feel unsatisfied toward their ability. this is interpreting that the students’ self-esteem are writing ability and self-esteem 123 table 2 means of the variables variable mean standard deviation global self-esteem (x1) 3.60 .388 situational self-esteem (x2) 3.65 .286 task self-esteem (x3) 3.64 .314 overall self-esteem (x) 3.63 .028 test of english writing (y) 73.06 11.503 generally good in efl writing. even though trivial mistakes were found in their writings, it can be improvedthrough their low negative emotional state. derived from the means of variables in table 2, the correlations between variables were analyzed using pearson coefficient product moment. the result depicted in table 3 below. table 3 coefficient of correlations between the three section of self-esteem and writing ability table 3 depicts the correlation between the bp2ipsurabaya students’ global selfesteem and their writing ability. the correlation between the two variables was .323, which implied the correlation between the two variables was positive. the correlation between situational self-esteem (x2) and writing ability (y) is .442. it means the correlation between two variables is positive. concerning the correlation between task self-esteem (x3) and writing ability (y), r = .374 means the correlation between two variables was significantly coefficient of correlation writing ability (y) significance global self-esteem (x1) r = .323 .001 situational self-esteem (x2) r = .442 .000 task self-esteem (x3) r = .374 .000 overall self-esteem (x) r = .443 .000 124 writing ability and self-esteem positive. lastly, the correlation between overall self-esteem (x) and writing ability (y) was .443, it implied the correlation between two variables was positive. figure 1 the correlation pattern between subjects’ overall self-esteem and subjects’ writing ability figure 1 presented the correlation of the writing ability and self-esteem of bp2ip surabaya students. a line that extended in the middle of the scatter plot was sloping from the bottom to top and the dots around the line represented the subjects’ scores of overall qse and tew were scattered but remains close to the line. this captured that the correlation between writing ability and self-esteem of bp2ip surabaya students was positive. the overall results showed that the correlation between writing ability and global self-esteem was positive, the correlation between writing ability and situational self-esteem was positive as well, so did the correlation between writing ability and task self-esteem. lastly, there was a significant correlation between the writing ability and overall self-esteem of bp2ip surabaya students. discussion the results of the study pointed out that there was a correlation between self-esteem and writing ability of bp2ip surabaya students. this is consistent with the theory presented by james as quoted by mruk (2006) that self-esteem can motivate a person to become an writing ability and self-esteem 125 expert in a certain ability and self-esteem can be the cause of failure or success because it is possible to change. besides that, the theory presented by dusek (1996) maintained that selfesteem involved in the student's academic achievement, in which writing ability was one of academic needs. dusek (1996) investigation about the correlation between self-esteem and academic achievement pointed out that the students with higher self-esteem got better academic achievement than those with lower self-esteem. it was reinforced by brown (2000) that emphasized the influence of self-esteem in learning to write. he mentioned that selfesteem is one of the affective factors that influenced the success of learning to write in english. on the other hand, the present study results did not support davies and brember's statement concerning the correlation between self-esteem and school achievement. santrock (2007) quoted that davies and brember declared that high self-esteem has no correlation on school achievement including writing ability; and the efforts deployed to increase the student's self-esteem cannot improve school performance. through the present study, it was not proven because the correlation between self-esteem and writing ability showed r = .443 which means significantly correlated. concerning the students’ level of writing ability as displayed in table 1, there were five levels of the students’ writing ability categorized based on jacobs et al table of interpretive guide (1981). the lowest percentage of the writing ability level was in very poor level because there were merely 3 students in this level. the students in very poor level has no virtually writing competence (jacobs et al, 1981) because it was not supported by the mastery in other skills of english such as reading, listening and speaking, and students in this level unfortunately will not be able to complete a writing course independently, they need much attention from the efl teachers such as being facilitated to learn simple initial step to learn writing in efl, such as introduced to vocabulary as well as vocabulary drilling. the 126 writing ability and self-esteem second lowest percentage of the student’s level of writing ability was the 10 students who are in excellent to very good level. contrast with the students in very poor writing ability level, the students of this level are in the best level of writing ability. students in excellent to very good level are adequate to compete with native writers in writing course, they also will not encounter many difficulty in writing because their ability on the other skills in english are able to support the writing process. students in this level of writing ability tend to be more ready to carry out the efl writing class without any complement course of preparation. meanwhile, the highest percentage of writing ability level lied on good to average level; about 43 students were in this level. the student’s ability of writing in this level is slightly different compared to the excellent level. students in this level can probably compete with the native writers in writing course, although sometimes they still encounter minor or insignificant obstacles in writing. to be ready with the undergraduate education, students in this level may need the grammar review (jacobs et al, 1981). afterwards, the second highest percentage of writing ability level was in fair level, about 31 students found to be in this level. the mean of students’ tew scores showed was 73.06 which were also indicated that generally the students of bp2ip surabaya are in fair level of writing ability. the students with fair writing ability usually experience great difficulty while they are writing in efl, they are also not yet feasible to compete with the native writers before they are given a certain preparatory course to improve their writing ability (jacobs et al, 1981). the preparatory course also should be designed from the easiest material to the most difficult ones, such as it is started from the vocabulary introduction, grammar review and equipped with the enrichment from the other skills in english communication like reading, listening and speaking. unfortunately, the third highest percentage of the writing ability level still lied on poor level, about 20 from 107 students are in this level. those students according to jacobs (1981) are not prepared for the college level writing, because students in this level certainly writing ability and self-esteem 127 have low ability in the other skills of english communication such as reading, listening and speaking. students in this level should be reinforced through a preparatory writing course (jacobs et al, 1981). the efl teachers also should give specific reinforcement to improve the writing ability of students in poor writing ability level. teachers may put them together and give an extra class of writing and provide them applicable steps to master writing in efl, by providing them simple writing task such as controlled writing from simple paragraphs as well as planning content by organizing ideas for writing, and then drafting before they start to write (imo, 2000). concerning the correlations between three sections of self-esteem and writing ability as presented above, the correlation between the global self-esteem and writing ability was r = .323 which means that they were significantly correlated. the most dominant items in global self-esteem questionnaire were number one, eleven and three. the first most dominant items was number one, “i do not give up when i face any difficulty” with 30% students strongly agree with the statement, 62% agree, 7% undecided, the rest were disagree and none chose strongly disagree. it showed that the students generally do not easily give up when they find difficulties, this indicated the level of global self-esteem within themselves were strong enough. the second most dominant items was number eleven, “i speak confidently when i am sure of what i am saying” with 34% students strongly agree with the statement, 53% agree, 11% undecided, the rest were disagree and none chose strongly disagree. this result emphasized that the students’ global self-esteem generally considered fair. this was in accordance with wilding and palmer (2010) that a person with a healthy self-esteem is having confidence in one’s own abilities and values. wilding and palmer’s statement was also supported by item number three as the third most dominant item, “i do not avoid the leadership role in my life” with 20% students strongly agree with the statement, 47% agree, 28% undecided, the rest were disagree and none chose strongly disagree. this implied that 128 writing ability and self-esteem students felt they were worth enough to be a leader. the most dominant phase of global selfesteem that affect students’ writing ability obtained from the most frequent responses was “the confidence toward their own ability”. the level of correlation r = .323 implied that the relationship between global selfesteem and writing ability was positive. this means that when students have a high global self-esteem, then their writing ability were also high and vice versa. the degree of correlation between two variables is the lowest compared to the level of correlation between the other set of variables but it does not mean that the result is insignificant such as several related studies conducted by grodnick (1996) and al-hattab (2006). grodnick (1996) investigated the relationship between self-esteem and writing ability among students at the union country college, united states of america and found that selfesteem did not impact significantly on the writing ability level. this was possible because the instrument used to measure the subjects' self-esteem was coopersmith self-esteem inventory. it was one of the weaknesses of grodnick's study because the self-esteem test (coopersmith self-esteem inventory) was mainly focused on general self-esteem. whereas, the test should be more specific that directly measures the global or situational or task self-esteem. therefore, in the present study the researcher used a more specific instrument for measuring the three-dimensions of self-esteem, so it can be found that self-esteem was positively correlated with writing ability. another difference found was the subject of the study. grodnick's subjects were using english as their mother tongue (l1), whereas in the present study, english is efl for the subjects. thus, it was possible that grodnick's subjects evidenced self-esteem insignificantly correlated to their writing ability. the results of this study were also not in line with the results of a study conducted by al-hattab (2006) in saudi arabia. al-hattab investigated the correlation between self-esteem and writing achievement of secondary school students. even though the instrument used to writing ability and self-esteem 129 measure self-esteem was a questionnaire with three sections (section a to measure global self-esteem, section b to measure situational self-esteem and section c to measure task selfesteem) which was similar to the instrument used in the present study, but her study showed that the correlation between global self-esteem and writing achievement was insignificant. despite both subjects were using english as their foreign language, the present study showed different result from al-hattab (2006). it was possible caused by the difference of background of the subjects from both studies. there was a significant correlation found between global self-esteem and writing ability of bp2ip surabaya students because their global self-esteem influenced the success of their writing. based on james as cited by mruk (2006, p. 108), self esteem lives in a person as a social role that is impacted by several factors such as history, culture, family, interests and circumstance. global self-esteem seem as an essential issue that affect the students' writing ability because the global self-esteem of bp2ip surabaya students were often fostered through a tight semi-military circumstance, dissimilar to the learning environment where al-hattab carried out her study which was a general learning environment at a secondary school in saudi arabia. this difference can lead to the contrast of correlation between global self-esteem and writing ability in the present study and in al-hattab's study (2006). concerning the correlation between situational self-esteem and writing ability, it was showed that r = .442 which means that there were a significant correlation. based on three sections of self-esteem, this correlation was the highest. the most dominant items in situational self-esteem questionnaire were number one, ten and nineteen. the first most dominant items was number one, “i like english lesson” with 30% students strongly agree with the statement, 51% agree, 18% undecided, the rest were disagree and none chose strongly disagree. it showed that in a particular condition especially while learning english, the students generally agreed that they liked to learn english, it implied that passion for 130 writing ability and self-esteem learning english can lead to a sense of high situational self-esteem while learning english. the second most dominant items was number ten, “i do not feel embarrassed when my english teacher asks me to repeat my answer” with 19% students strongly agree with the statement, 73% agree, 7% undecided, the rest were disagree and none chose strongly disagree. it depicted that 92% students were courageous enough to take risk when they revealed their answers in english, this is accordance with brown (2000) who insisted that learning efl requires the courage to communicate using the language and take the risk of being wrong. the third most dominant items was number nineteen, “i believe my abilities in english are not the worst in the class” with 25% students strongly agree with the statement, 57% agree, 16% undecided, the rest were disagree and none chose strongly disagree. through this statement, 82% of the students revealed that they believe to their ability in writing were not the worst in their classes, this indicated their level of situational self-esteem considered moderate to high, and this evidenced by their scores in english writing which correlated positively with their situational self-esteem. the most dominant phase of situational selfesteem that affect the student’s writing ability as obtained from the most frequent responses was “the confidence in ability to learn english”. concerning the correlation between task self-esteem and writing ability, it was showed that r = .374 which means that they were significantly correlated. the most dominant items in task self-esteem questionnaire were number five, fifteen and six. the first most dominant item was number five, “i prefer to write an incorrect sentence than leave my paper blank” with 33% students strongly agree with the statement, 52% agree, 15% undecided and none chose disagree or strongly disagree. the second most dominant item was number fifteen, “i believe my english teacher always appreciate my english writings” with 28% students strongly agree with the statement, 54% agree, 16% undecided, the rest chose disagree and none of them chose strongly disagree. the third most dominant item was writing ability and self-esteem 131 number six, “i write a sentence even though i am not really sure it is correct” with 25% students strongly agree with the statement, 58% agree, 12% undecided, 5% disagree and none of them chose strongly disagree. the most dominant phase of task self-esteem that affect the student’s writing ability as obtained from the most frequent responses was “the awareness of the lack of english writing skill but brave enough to attempt”. based on those three most dominant statements, the subjects implied that they were brave enough to take risk of being wrong through their writings in english, this is in line with brown (2000) who claimed that person who do not take errors in learning as shame, tends to have better degree of selfesteem. based on the mean of the task self-esteem scores, the level of task self-esteem was in moderate level, results obtained from the task self-esteem questionnaire responses in line with their level of task self-esteem task and this is supported by jantz (2010) who maintained that person with moderate self-esteem consider themselves valuable, though sometimes they still feel unsatisfied toward their abilities. based on the correlation results of the three variables of self-esteem with writing ability, it depicted that the correlation between situational self-esteem and writing ability is the highest, r = .442. this was slightly different with the results of similar studies carried out by al-hattab (2006) in saudi arabia. she also conducted a correlative study of the three dimensions of self-esteem with writing ability and the results of the study showed that situational self-esteem was correlated with writing ability, but the highest correlation was between the task self-esteem and writing ability. of course it was different, because as has been mentioned previously that the subjects of each research, the learning environment and the circumstances were much different, obviously this difference possibly arouse. brown (2000) maintained that a person may have different degree of situational self-esteem depending upon the situation or the trait in question, this was also supported by james as cited by mruk (2006, p. 108) which declared that circumstance is one of the factors that gives 132 writing ability and self-esteem impact toward one’s self-esteem. this is in accordance with the difference in the learning environment of the subject’s of al-hattab’s study (2006). bp2ip surabaya students indicated that their situational self-esteem was the highest correlated with writing ability because of their daily circumstance in semi-military education environment largely determines their writing ability. conclusion derived from the overall scores of the students’ tew, the mean scores indicated that in general the surabaya merchant marine academy students' writing ability level was fair. it was revealed that the highest number of students were in good to average writing ability level, the second highest number of students lied in fair writing ability level and the third in poor writing ability level, meanwhile the lowest number of students were in very poor writing ability level and the second lowest were in excellent to very good writing ability level. the level of global self-esteem, situational self-esteem and task self-esteem were all moderate. the correlation between overall self-esteem and writing ability of surabaya merchant marine academy students was shown significantly positive. the highest level of correlation appeared between situational self-esteem and writing ability and the lowest level of correlation appeared between global self-esteem and writing ability. finally it can be deduced that there was a positive correlation between the surabaya merchant marine academy students’ writing ability and their self-esteem. recommendations for efl teachers since the writing ability of the students are found in fair level, it is suggested to the efl teachers to conduct a separate writing complementary course for the students to improve their writing ability, basically to enrich their vocabulary so that when students are starting to write, they will feel more confident because of the increasing level of their vocabulary size. the materials given in the complementary course should be compiled from the easiest to the writing ability and self-esteem 133 most difficult ones. efl teachers probably should start it from the vocabulary enrichment, grammar review, planning content by organizing ideas for writing, and then drafting and then provide them simple writing tasks such as controlled writing from simple paragraphs. besides that, to improve the students’ writing ability, teachers may also involve students to give feedback to their friends’ writing. peer feedback can facilitate students to be evaluated without being judged, they also may take lessons from their friends’ mistakes and errors in writing. it is also important for the efl teachers to concern was the students’ fair level of writing ability, efl teachers should conduct remedy so that students will have opportunity to improve their score in writing, and it is suggested that before teachers conduct the remedy, reviewing the latest writing task is highly recommended to avoid the same mistakes or error which may occur. the positive correlation which is drawn between the writing ability and self-esteem implicitly signifies a hint for efl teachers to be able to take advantage from this correlation to improve the student’s writing ability. in order to build the student’s self-esteem, healthy learning environment within a semi-military circumstance should be created by supporting a non-threatening interaction between teacher and students as well as among students. besides that, efl teachers should facilitate students to utter their needs and expectations while they are learning to write in efl and develop strategies to overcome the difficulties they encounter. collaborative and cooperative atmosphere in classroom which involves students into every interaction in classroom is required to be created to encourage students’ selfconfidence. besides that, teachers should create a multidimensional classroom which supports students to achieve success through many pathways besides writing in efl, this will lead them to reach the same success while learning to write in efl. the last and the most important support is that efl teachers should praise the students’ positive progress in 134 writing ability and self-esteem learning efl writing skills and accept the student’s errors in writing as the part of natural process of learning. suggestions for further studies this study was conducted with seafarer students. other researchers could do studies to those having similar education system, or military learning environment, studying the english for specific purpose (esp). they could be students of the military academy of indonesia, air force academy of indonesia, or navy academy of indonesia. besides that, similar study could be done using different instruments (instruments with higher reliability and validity indexes) in order to obtain more optimal result is suggested as well. writing ability and self-esteem 135 references al-hattab, a. a. m. (2006). self-esteem and writing achievement of saudi efl students in secondary schools. al-madinah al-munawarah: taibah university. brown, h. d. (2000). principles of language learning and teaching. new york: addison wesley longman, inc. burns, r., (1982), “self-concept development and education”, holt, rinehart and winston, london coopersmith, s. (1967).the antecedents of self-esteem. san francisco: w.h. freeman dusek, j. b. (1996). adolescent development and behavior (3rd ed.). new jersey: prenticehall inc. fahim, m. and rad, s. k. (2011). the relationship between self-esteem and paragraph writing of iranian efl learners. scientific research , 24-29. franken, r. e. (2007). human motivation (6th ed.). california: wadsworth. grodnick, j. r. (1996). self-esteem and writing achievement. new jersey: kean college of new jersey. hisken, l. j. (2011). the correlation between self-esteem and student reading ability, reading level, and academic achievement. missouri: university of central missouri hyland, k. (2002). teaching and researching writing.london: pearson education international maritime organization. (2000). model course 3.17 maritime english. london: imo publication jacobs, h.l. zinkgraf, s.a., wormuth, d.r., hartfiel, v.f., andhughey, j.b. (1981).testing esl composition. rowley, ma: newbury house. 136 writing ability and self-esteem jantz, g. l. (2010). do you have healthy self-esteem? 8 telling traits.retrieved february, 7, 2013, from: http://www.aplaceofhope.com/blog/self-esteem/do-you-have-healthyself-esteem-8-telling-traits joshi, s. and srivastava, r. (2009).self-esteem and academic achievement of adolescents.retrieved february, 12, 2012, from: journal of the indian academy of applied psychology, 33-39: http://medind.nic.in/ jak/t09/s1/jakt09s1p33.pdf lawrence, d. (2000). building self-esteem with adult learners. california. malbi, r. s., and reasoner, r. w. (2000).self-esteem, enhancing. kuala lumpur: selfesteem seminar sdn. bhd. mruk, c. j. (2006). self-esteem research, theory, and practice (3rd ed.). new york: springer publishing company mönks, f.j., knoers, a. m. p., and haditono, s. r. (2002).psikologiperkembangan. yogyakarta: gadjahmada university press naderi, h., rohani, a., aizan, t., jamaluddin, s. and kumar, v. (2009).self esteem, gender and academic achievement of undergraduate students. retrieved february 14, 2012, from: american journal of scientific research, 26-37: http://www.eurojournals.com/ajsr_3_03.pdf purves, a. c. (1988). writing across languages and cultures issues in contrastive rhetoric.california: sage publications, inc. rashidi, n., yamini, m. andshafiei, e. (2011).oral communication apprehension and affective factors: self-esteem and introversion/extroversion. retrieve december 1, 2012, from: journal of english language teaching and learning.no.7 year 5/spring and summer: http://language-journal.tabrizu.ac.ir/files/journal/2012-0701_09.43.03.pdf writing ability and self-esteem 137 reasoner, r. (2004). review of self-esteem research. national association for self-esteem (nase).retrieved february 14, 2012, from:http://www.self-esteem-nase.org/ reid, j. m. (1993). teaching esl writing. new jersey: prentice hall regents santrock, j. w. (2007). adolescence (11th ed.). new york: mcgraw hill tremblay, m. s., inman, j. w. and willms, j. d. (2000).the relationship between physical activity, self-esteem and academic achievement in 12-year-old children.retrieved december 1, 2012, from: http://extranet.nuorisuomi.fi/download/attachments/3245041/the+relationship+betw een+physical+activity,self-esteem,+and+academic+achievement+in+12-yearold+children.pdf weigle, s. c. (2002). assessing writing.cambridge: cambridge university press wilding, c. and palmer, s. (2010). beat low self esteem with cbt. us: the mcgraw-hill companies, inc. yount, r. (2006). research design and statistical analysis in christian ministry, 4th edition. fort worth, texas: southwest baptist theological seminary. 112 running head: extensive reading materials beyond words vol.2, no.1, may 2014 widya mandala catholic university surabaya selecting extensive reading materials george m jacobs james cook university, singapore extensive reading materials 113 abstract this article offers guidance to teachers and students in selecting materials for extensive reading (er). first, the article explains characteristics of er and reviews some of the potential gains for students who do er. second, the article considers criteria for teachers to bear in mind when selecting er materials. third, the article then suggests ways that teachers and students can find er materials. fourth, guidance is provided to students for when they select what to read from among the er materials available to them. finally, advice is given on integrating er with course textbooks. keywords : extensive reading, reading, reading materials. 114 extensive reading materials introduction understanding spoken and/or written communications in a language comprises an essential path towards proficiency in that language (ellis, 2005). “comprehensible input” (krashen, 2011) is a well known term used as part of this concept, with the idea being that learners build their language competence when they understand communications in the language. reading provides a means of obtaining such comprehensible input. to promote reading, many approaches to language learning include what is called extensive reading (er) (day & bamford, 1998; extensive reading foundation, 2011; jacobs & farrell, 2012). table 1 displays characteristics of er characteristic of extensive reading explanation the difficulty level of the reading materials is such that students can understand what they are reading with little or no assistance. students may not necessarily know all the language items, such as vocabulary and grammar structures, in the reading materials, but they are able to and motivated to figure out the main ideas. sometimes, students read materials that are at or below their current level of language competence. students read large quantities of reading materials. this contrasts with intensive reading in which students usually read short passages, such as reading passages in a textbook. instead, in er, students read entire books, short stories, articles and collections of articles, including both nonfiction and fiction. students often have some choice in what they read while sometimes an entire class will read the same er material, more often, individual students or small groups of students choose their own reading materials. extensive reading materials 115 after students finish a book or other work, they may do activities, but these activities are designed to enhance thinking and enjoyment and promote further reading. care is taken to avoid activities that may discourage reading. too often, post reading activities have discouraged students from reading more. with er, sometimes there may be no post reading task, other than encouragement to read more. in er, when post reading tasks are used, they tend to be short and involve student in advertising to peers what they have read. research suggests that er boosts overall language competence, including vocabulary, grammar and spelling knowledge, reading skill, and writing ability, as well as overall knowledge of the world (krashen, 2011; renandya, 2007). the remainder of this article first looks at characteristics of er materials. the next and longest part of the article provides ideas of how to find such materials. then the article offers guidance to students in selecting from among the er material available to them. the final section makes suggestions on how er can be a well fitting part of general courses on reading or on characteristics of extensive reading materials appropriate reading materials constitute an essential foundation of any er program. students need a large quantity of engaging, approachable, readily available materials if they are to read extensively. this section of the article discusses some points to consider regarding the type and quantity of er materials. materials’ reading level as suggested in table 1 above, er materials should most often be at students’ independent reading level. reading level can be divided into three categories: frustrational, instructional, and independent. students find frustrational level materials too difficult to understand, even with assistance from teachers and other resources. instructional level reading 116 extensive reading materials materials can be difficult for students, but can become comprehensible with significant assistance from teachers, peers, and other resources, such as online dictionaries. normally, students find er materials to be at the third reading level: their independent reading level. in other words, students can comprehend the materials with little or no outside assistance. students make such materials comprehensible by using clues, such as contextual clues, and their knowledge of the content area. furthermore, some language items need not be understood in order to comprehend and enjoy a reading text. day and bamford (1998) suggest that reading materials below students’ independent level can also be suitable for er. reasons for the potential suitability of such easier materials include: a. less challenging materials build students’ confidence. students reading in a new language may lack confidence. b. when students understand the language of what they read, they can devote more cognitive resources to other activities, such as considering how ideas and information in the reading connect to their own lives. c. language challenge can be introduced to easier-to-read materials by adding additional activities. for instance, during or after reading, students can take part in peer speaking activities in which they discuss ideas from the reading in groups of two to four. as stated above, an er program needs materials at and perhaps below students’ independent reading levels. this becomes complicated because in every class, even in programs that use streaming to group students according to language level, students in any one class will probably be reading at somewhat different levels, and students’ levels are likely to rise as they read more. thus, materials should be at a variety of reading levels, so that all students have extensive reading materials 117 materials at their independent reading level. students may turn away from reading if the materials are too difficult. as a side point, when students are keen on a topic, an author, or a particular book, they will put in the effort necessary to comprehend materials above their independent reading level. for instance, students can bring instructional level materials down to their independent level by rereading or by consulting online dictionaries and peers. this leads to a second point about characteristics of er materials: interest level. interest level students may hesitate to read unless they find materials that interest them. two areas in which students’ interests may diverge are topics and text types. as to topics, some students enjoy reading about our fellow animals, while others enjoy materials about food, fantasy, facebook, or families. the list of interests is long and growing. in addition to topic, students also vary as to the types of text they prefer to read. for instance, some students prefer mysteries, while others are keen on adventure. furthermore, students’ interests can change. indeed, one role for teachers and peers in an er program involves introducing new topics and text types. several means exist for teachers to learn what students want to read. first, teachers can observe what their students past and present read in various languages. second, the international reading association’s website offers lists of books popular among different age groups and their teachers (international reading association, 2014). however, books enjoyed by first language readers may be at the frustrational level of students of the same age reading in a second language. third, teachers can consult librarians. last but not least, teachers can collaborate with students to create, administer, and analyze a survey of reading interests. 118 extensive reading materials ideas for finding extensive reading materials for an er program to succeed, students need materials that they are capable of reading and want to read. below are 16 ideas for finding such materials, in addition to the standard route of schools and other educational institutions purchasing the materials. no doubt, readers of this article and their students will have more ideas. 1. online materials are becoming increasing available. these materials often come with audio accompaniment. unfortunately, any list of sources of online materials quickly goes out of date. consult colleagues, librarians, and students for the latest information. one source is extensive reading central (n.d.). of course, online resources require reliable hardware and internet connections. 2. students can become keypals, i.e., internet friends, with students their age in other locations. these locations can be other classrooms, schools, cities, or even countries. social networks offer a related source of reading materials. of course, especially with younger students, care must be taken, as the internet can be a dangerous place. 3. former students can donate materials that they no longer want. 4. similarly, graduating students can donate books as farewell gifts to the school and as a way to leave a bit of themselves behind. they might also want to write a message to future readers of the books and include their name in the books they donate. for example, in their notes to future readers, graduating students could explain why the books meant something special to them when they were younger. 5. teaching and administrative staff can contribute books. maybe after a thorough spring cleaning, they have books that they no longer have space for. some adults use the “ten extensive reading materials 119 year rule,” i.e., if they have not read a book in ten years, it is time to pass it on to someone more likely to read it. 6. students’ family members may have reading materials to donate. as with any donation solicitation, it is important to specify the types of books requested; otherwise, many of the donated books will not be appropriate to your students. 7. old magazines, yearbooks, etc. can also become er materials. anything that students might enjoy reading is fine. 8. civic organizations, foundations, embassies and consulates, and companies are eager to help education, and almost everyone agrees that reading is fundamental to education. 9. teachers can exchange er materials with colleagues. after one class has read many of the books in one classroom’s collection, why not exchange some of all the books with another class? 10. subject files can be compiled with articles from newspapers and magazines. such files allow students to pursue their interest in particular topics. students can help find and bring in new articles for a particular file, and then can suggest new files on different topics. 11. second-hand book shops and families’ moving sales can be treasure troves of reading materials. 12. students can swap books with each other. to facilitate the swap, they can draw numbers to decide who can choose which book or who swaps with who. if student a receives a book that student b wants, student a can bring the book for the next swap session. after students read the book they received in the swap, they can give their reaction to the person with whom they swapped. 120 extensive reading materials swapping can be a regular affair to encourage students to think ahead about which books they might want to swap with classmates. a good time for swapping is just before a school break, to help students gather reading materials to enjoy during the break. 13. student writing, after it has been polished and suitably published, and teacher-written materials tailored especially for students offer rich veins of er materials. 14. libraries and bookstores. for instance, some public libraries periodically have book sales. what the public libraries in one town do is to invite teachers to shop one day before the sale is open to the general public. that way, teachers have the best choices in order to stock their class library. bookstores often have special bargain sections with reducedprice books. 15. some bookstores will give students a tour – highlighting areas of the store of specific interest to a particular class or to particular students and a special discount after the tour. some students, even older students, have never been to a bookstore, may not know how they are organized, and may not feel comfortable spending time reading and browsing. 16. on students’ birthdays, students and their families can donate books to the class library. these can be a new or gently used, but they should be ones that students believe will be enjoyed by classmates. students whose birthday falls on a date when school is not in session can donate on their “half birthday,” i.e., the day six months before their birthday. along the same lines, students or others can donate a book to honor: a. a friend, relative, teacher (such as on the teacher’s birthday or a holiday. b. a favorite author’s birthday, e.g., roald dahl. if students cannot afford to purchase even a used book for the class library, some options are: extensive reading materials 121 a. the students tell the teacher the title of a favorite book, and the teacher purchases it using money from special funds, such as a budget for purchasing books or money from the school’s parent teacher association. b. these students select from donated books, read a few, and then choose the one that will have their name on it. helping students choose er materials wisely as noted in table 1, normally, in er, students choose their reading materials. the following questions and suggestions guide students to choose well. 1. what types of books do you enjoy – fiction, non-fiction, comic books, encyclopedias, joke books? look for that type of book. 2. what topics do you enjoy? look for more books on those topics. 3. who are your 121avourite authors? can you find more books by them? 4. what is a tv show, video game, or movie that you enjoy? can you find books that are connected to them? 5. does the book have pictures, drawings, and other visuals? do they help you understand and enjoy the book? are you comfortable reading a book that does not have many visuals? 6. what length of book do you like to read? 7. what about the size of the print? is it too big, too small, or just nice? 8. what books do your friends and other classmates enjoy? 9. what books do older students and adults say that they enjoyed when they were your age? 10. if you have already read a book, would you enjoy reading it again? sometimes, you can enjoy a book just as much or even more the second or third time you read it. 122 extensive reading materials 11. spend about five minutes reading a book before you decide to choose it. is the book interesting? is it understandable? 12. try the “five finger test.” open the book to any page and start reading. every time you meet a word or term that you do not know, put a finger on that word. if you run out of fingers on one hand before you finish the page, the book may be too difficult for you to enjoy. to say the same thing another way, if there are five or more unknown words on a page, you may want to wait a few months before you read that book. 13. it is okay to change your mind. maybe after you have read a book for a while, you will change your mind about it. maybe when you are choosing books, you think you like a particular book, but after reading it some more, you change your mind. that is okay. stop reading that book and start reading another. therefore, choose more than one book. then, if you decide that you do not like a book you chose, you have other books to read. extensive reading materials 123 incorporating extensive reading with other types of reading once er materials have been obtained and students know how to choose among the er materials on offer, finding time for er becomes a key challenge. courses dedicated solely to er do exist; however, more often er is a component (sometimes an optional component) of an overall course on reading or even a four skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) course. the problem becomes finding time in the curriculum for er. brown (2009) listed some reasons why administrators, teachers, students, and other stakeholders may be reluctant to set aside class time for er. 1. the positive effects of er may not emerge on exams until after a year or more (davis, 1995). 2. er represents a move away from teacher-fronted direct instruction. stakeholders may not be comfortable with this (renandya & jacobs, 2002). 3. it can be difficult to monitor whether students are really reading the er materials. when considering the place of er in the curriculum, a key point to understand involves the interdependence of er and ir (intensive reading). in ir, students read short passages, seldom more than two to three pages and, in the case of less proficient students, often less than a page. ir materials are at students’ instructional reading level, i.e., they need assistance provided by teachers to understand the materials. (see table 1 near the beginning of this article to contrast these ir characteristics with the characteristics of er.) ir and er fit together well for a few reasons. first, in ir, students receive explicit instruction in reading skills, such as guessing meaning from context, understanding the roles of topic sentences and headings, and self-questioning while reading. second, ir can also be a time for explicit instruction in grammar and vocabulary. all this skill and knowledge can aid er by 124 extensive reading materials enhancing the comprehensibility of materials that might otherwise have been too difficult for students. at the same time, ir needs er, because to really master skills and information learned via explicit instruction, students need time for more natural language use (ellis, 2005). toward this end, er offers a range of topics and genres well beyond what any textbook can hope to do. furthermore, while textbooks are often seen as work, er strives to be a more enjoyable path to language competence. brown (2009) proposed ways that textbooks, a learning vehicle most often associated with ir, can also foster er. below are some of his suggestions. 1. textbooks can specifically recommend er. helgesen, brown, and mandeville (2004) is one reading textbook which does that. 2. textbooks can suggest generic post reading activities for er, such as logs in which students record information on and reactions to the books they have read. 3. graded readers are books that are specifically written or simplified with language learners in mind. textbooks can promote specific graded readers relevant to topics in the textbook. excerpts from those graded readers can be included in the textbooks, along with activities that go with the readers. returning to the links between ir and er, additional suggestions for combining textbooks and er include: 1. as students learn conversational skills, such as asking for clarification, they can practice those skills by discussing the er they have done, e.g., students in groups of four taking turns to tell each other about a book they have read (jacobs & gallo, 2002). 2. similarly, as students learn writing skills, those skills can be practiced when writing about the books they have read or are reading. extensive reading materials 125 3. more and more er books come with audio, which can be combined with reading in various ways. (for more on extensive listening, join the extensive listening list at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/extensivelistening/info or see renandya, 2012.) 4. doing er can be a sponge activity, i.e., something students do to soak up extra time near the end of an activity, lesson, or day. conclusion this article has explained characteristics of er, discussed considerations in selecting er materials, offered ideas for finding appropriate materials, provided guidance to help students choose wisely from amongst the available er materials, and proposed means of incorporating er into courses on reading or overall language skills learning. despite the strong support for er from research, theory, and many teachers’ and students’ successful personal experiences with er, er programs do not always succeed. teachers’ enthusiasm constitutes a key ingredient of successful er programs (renandya & jacobs, 2002). this article has described ways that enthusiastic teachers can compile er materials and guide students to select from and read these materials. perhaps equally important is teachers’ role as models of enthusiastic reading of materials in whatever language, because as nuttall (1989, p. 192) very aptly wrote, “reading is like an infectious disease: it is caught not taught.” 126 extensive reading materials references brown, d. (2009). why and how textbooks should encourage extensive reading. elt journal, 63(3), 238-245. davis, c. (1995). extensive reading: an expensive extravagance? elt journal, 49(4), 329-336. day, r., & bamford, j. (1998). extensive reading in the second language classroom. cambridge, england: cambridge university press. ellis, r. (2005). principles of instructed language learning. the asian efl journal, 7(3), 9-24. http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/september_2005_ebook_editions.pdf extensive reading central (n.d.). library. retrieved from http://www.er-central.com/library extensive reading foundation. (2011). guide to extensive reading. retrieved from http://erfoundation.org/erf_guide.pdf helgesen, m., brown, d., & mandeville, t. (2004). english firsthand. hong kong, people’s republic of china: longman. international reading association. (2014). choices reading lists. retrieved from http://www.reading.org/resources/booklists.aspx jacobs, g. m., & farrell, t. s. c. (2012). teachers sourcebook for extensive reading. charlotte, nc: information age publishing. jacobs, g. m., & gallo, p. (2002, february). reading alone together: enhancing extensive reading via student-student cooperation in second-language instruction. reading online, 5(6). retrieved from: http://www.readingonline.org/articles/art_index.asp?href=jacobs/index.html krashen, s. d. (2011). free voluntary reading. santa barbara, ca: abc-clio. extensive reading materials 127 nuttall, c. (1989). teaching reading skills in a foreign language. oxford, england: heinemann educational books. renandya, w. a. (2007). the power of extensive reading. relc journal, 38, 133-149. renandya, w. a. (2012, november). materials and methods for extensive listening. paper presented at the teflin conference, surabaya, indonesia. retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/2462863/materials_and_methods_for_extensive_listening renandya, w. a., & jacobs, g. m. (2002). extensive reading: why aren't we all doing it? in j. c. richards & w. a. renandya (eds.), methodology in language teaching: an anthology of current practice (pp. 295-302). new york, ny: cambridge university press. robb, t., & kano, m. (2013). effective extensive reading outside the classroom: a large-scale experiment. reading in a foreign language, 25(2), 234-247. retrieved from http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl/october2013/articles/robb.pdf 77 acknowledgement we’d like to express our gratitude to the reviewers: prof. eugene sadtono, ph.d., a senior professor at ma chung university, malang, indonesia, and a retiree from the state university of malang, prof. deepti gupta, ph.d, a professor at the department of english, panjab university, chandigarh, india, professor dr. veronica l. diptoadi, a professor at the department of english, faculty of teacher education, widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, indonesia, willy ardian renandya, ph.d., a senior lecturer at the ell department, national institute of education, singapore, feng teng, a lecturer at nanning university, nanning city, china, rouhollah askari bigdeli, a lecturer at yasouj university, iran, siti mina tamah, ph.d., the department of english, faculty of teacher education, widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, indonesia, and some other anonymous reviewers. the peer reviews they contributed are very significant to maintain the quality of this online journal. the same thankful expressions also came from authors for the reviewers’ scholarly comments and feedback. and last but not least, our great appreciation goes to all authors for their writings. 76 about the authors josefa j. mardijono is currently a senior lecturer of the english department-faculty of letters, petra christian university in surabaya-indonesia. she graduated from the english education department in teaching english as a foreign language (tefl), widya mandala catholic university. she has participated and presented papers in both local and overseas conferences. dr george m jacobs teaches at james cook university, singapore. his interests include humane education and such student centred learning methods as cooperative learning and extensive reading. many of his previous articles are available at georgejacobs.net. yustinus calvin gai mali is a lecturer at english language education program, satya wacana christian university, salatiga, indonesia. he earned his master degree from the graduate program of english language studies, sanata dharma university. his research interests are in the area of english education, education technology, and second language acquisition. andrias tri susanto. is currently residing in melbourne, australia for his independent field work in sociolin-guistics research. it majorly taps upon practical issues on how english as a foreign language (efl) successful learners interact socially with others (both efl users and native english speakers), particularly within business communication settings. this is based upon the findings of his research on associative cognitive creed published in this issue. fatemeh mahdavirad (phd in tefl) is an assistant professor of elt at the english department of yazd university, iran. her main research interests include task-based language teaching, syllabus design, discourse analysis, and sla research. sapto dwi anggoro was born in surabaya, indonesia on february 7, 1977. he is currently teaching english in a nursing school, stikes (nursing undergraduate department) hang tuah university, surabaya. he got his undergraduate degree from unesa (the state university of surabaya) and his master degree from universitas widya mandala surabaya. grace silviana bastian is an ielts tutor in aused-unied group (aug) student service surabaya. she holds an ma in tefl from widya mandala graduate school. her pedagogical interests include course evaluation, language assessment, and writing development especially in efl. http://georgejacobs.net/ beyond words vol.3, no.2, november 2015  the author 2015. published by widya mandala catholic university press; all rights reserved. applying second language acquisition research findings to materials: a cognitive-interactionist perspective lani freeborn l.freeborn.14@ucl.ac.uk ucl institute of education university college london uk in recent years, elt publishers have been criticised for not incorporating the findings of second language acquisition (sla) research into the design of their teaching materials. the first aim of this article is to inform teachers of key research findings from the cognitiveinteractionist approach to sla by discussing five environmental ingredients that contribute to optimal l2 learning. the second aim of this article is to demonstrate how these research findings can be practically applied to the selection and adaptation of teaching materials. it is the author’s hope that teachers will be encouraged to apply this knowledge to their teaching contexts, and be motivated to keep themselves informed of sla research findings. keywords: materials development, sla research, cognitive-interactionism introduction the british council estimates that there are currently one billion people in the world learning english, with this figure predicted to double by 2020. parallel to this growth, elt publishers are producing a multitude of teaching materials designed and sold for mass market consumption. elt publishing is a multi-million pound industry, and one of the only publishing sectors to see growth in the last few years. however, it has been suggested that elt publishers are more concerned with the quantity of materials they sell, rather than the quality of the materials’ design. richards (2005: 18) points out that “educational publication is after all, a business, and the challenge for materials writers is to meet educational objectives and standards while at the same time meeting market requirements.” several linguists have criticised elt publishers for not incorporating findings from second language acquisition (sla) research into their materials. over twenty years ago in an evaluation of teaching materials, littlejohn (1992) found no direct link between the materials and applied linguistic discussion. in 2008 tomlinson and masuhara (2013: 233) published a survey review of adult coursebooks, by which they were “disturbed by the apparent disregard of the findings of second language acquisition research” and “disappointed that many of the main findings of sla research were still being ignored.” it would appear that elt publishers’ lack of interest in sla research findings has remained unchanged for over twenty years. this ‘gap’ between theory and practice is a cause of both frustration and concern. as tomlinson (2011: 6) explains: “(it is) still true that we should not expect definitive answers from second language acquisition research, nor should we expect 146 beyond words one research-based model of language acquisition to triumph over all the others. … but this should not stop us from applying what we do know about second and foreign language learning to the development of materials designed to facilitate that process”. this article aims to inform teachers about what we do know about sla. an overview of key research findings will be presented from the cognitive-interactionist approach to sla. this article will also offer practical ways of applying these research findings to the design and adaptation of teaching materials, to ensure optimal l2 learning. the cognitive-interactionist approach: five ingredients much of what we know about second language acquisition was discovered in the 1980s and 1990s under a cognitive-interactionist framework. within this framework, it is supposed that optimum l2 acquisition occurs when multiple internal (cognitive) factors and multiple external (environmental) factors reciprocally interact. this approach is generally considered to be a well-established and researched field of second language acquisition. within a cognitive-interactionist framework, ortega (2009: 79) prescribes five environmental ingredients that contribute to (but do not guarantee) optimal l2 learning: acculturated attitudes comprehensible input negotiated interaction pushed output noticing tomlinson (2011: 8) also includes all of these ‘five ingredients’ in a summary of what “any sla researcher would agree to be some basic principles of second language acquisition relevant to the development of materials for the teaching of languages”. research findings for each of these five ingredients will now be discussed in greater detail, with examples of how these findings can be applied to teaching materials and the classroom. acculturated attitudes since the 1990s a considerable amount of research has been conducted into the effects of motivation, self-confidence and levels of anxiety in relation to second language learning. according to krashen (1985: 81), “the ‘affective filter’ is a mental block that prevents acquirers from fully utilizing the comprehensible input they receive for language acquisition”. one way of counteracting this, krashen suggests, is to provide input that is interesting and/or relevant to the learner. dörnyei and csizér (1998) offer similar advice based on the results of an empirical survey. in order to increase motivation, they stress the importance of making classes interesting, promoting learner autonomy and personalising the learning process. for coursebook designers and teachers, this means that materials designed for mass market consumption with a ‘one size fits all’ approach are not likely to provide interesting or relevant input for the learners. macmillan, one of the largest elt publishers, now offers regional materials and locally-developed products. shanghai foreign language education press (sflep) is able to compete with international publishing houses because its materials are designed specifically for chinese learners. if materials are adapted and selected sla research findings to materials 147 according to specific contexts, the affective filter is more likely to be lowered and students will be more receptive to language learning. another way to lower the affective filter is by working in pairs or small groups. results of many studies (see ur 1996 & hedge 2000) have shown that working in pairs or small groups can increase student motivation, foster cooperation, and promote collaboration. during a challenging writing task, for example, students are likely to produce better and more accurate work if they work in pairs. playing music in class is another factor which can affect students’ attitudes. in krashen’s (1982: 145) view, music can be “used as a means of lowering anxiety and diminishing tension, and inducing the state of relaxed alertness considered optimal for second language acquisition”. this view is supported by many other studies (see ganschow et al. 1994 and engh 2013) which have shown that music can make students more receptive to language learning. playing music in the background can increase students’ confidence to speak, particularly with lower level adult learners. comprehensible input the second ingredient prescribed by ortega for optimal l2 learning is comprehensible input. according to gass (1997: 1), “the concept of input is perhaps the single most important concept of second language acquisition”. tomlinson (2011: 6) also includes comprehensible input as a prerequisite for the development of materials to facilitate second language acquisition. there are various suggestions how to best make input comprehensible (see krashen 1982, 1985, 2013, gass & mackey 2013), some of which include a low affective filter and materials that are personally interesting/relevant, as mentioned in the previous section. additional ways of providing comprehensible input shall now be discussed. a key concept of the cognitive-interactionist approach is krashen’s input hypothesis. krashen believed that for language acquisition to occur, learners must be exposed to a sufficient amount of comprehensible input, which is slightly above the learner’s ability (i + 1). ideally, learners should be challenged by the input, but not find it too difficult. if input is too challenging for students, lowering the affective filter (for example by working in pairs) can make input more comprehensible. it is recommended that teachers and coursebook designers use syntactic simplification as much as possible. particularly when giving instructions or explanations, sentences should be kept short and clear. input can also be made more comprehensible by avoiding low frequency words, as well as avoiding slang and idioms, which are more likely to impede comprehension. recent findings from corpus linguistics can aid coursebook designers in selecting appropriate vocabulary based on frequency of use. for example, when deciding which phrasal verbs to include in a lower level coursebook, corpus linguistics research shows that ‘tend to’ has a very high frequency of usage (see mccarthy & carter 1995), and so should be included in the text. a further way to provide comprehensible input is by using non-grammatically sequenced input. krashen (2013) argues that providing non-grammatically sequenced input is more likely to achieve i + 1 for more learners. when considering individual variation, krashen (2013: 104) explains that “even if the rule of the day happens to be i + 1 for some 148 beyond words students, it will not be for other members of the class.” this aspect of the cognitiveinteractionist approach will likely be the most difficult for teachers to apply to materials, given that the majority of coursebooks and curriculum follow a grammatical syllabus. yet, research suggests that this is not conducive to optimal l2 acquisition. research into developmental sequences also undermines the grammatical syllabus. for example, although research has shown that one of the last acquired morphemes is the ‘third person –s’ (see pérez-pereira 1989) (e.g. he learns, she works), most coursebooks expect students to ‘acquire’ this morpheme early on. based on research findings, teachers should try wherever possible not to follow a grammatical syllabus, or place too much importance on grammatical accuracy. for most coursebook writers, this would probably involve restructuring the entire coursebook, which would of course be a demanding task, but which would also greatly benefit the learners. in rivers’ (1987: 13) opinion, learning grammar should involve “inductively developing rules from living language material and then performing rules. this process can and should be interactive”. the concept of learning grammar through interaction brings us to ortega’s third ingredient. negotiated interaction the importance of interaction has been established by many research findings. some linguists go as far as to claim that interaction is “the pivot on which language learning turns” (burton & clennell, 2003: 1). this claim is supported by numerous studies and as plonsky and gass (2001: 331) explain, “the overall effects of interaction on acquisition appear to be both statistically and practically significant”. more recently, the concept of negotiated interaction has taken root, which refers to a communicative breakdown which learners need to resolve. tomlinson (2011: 16) also favours negotiated interaction and states that “ideally teaching materials should provide opportunities for such interaction in a variety of discourse modes ranging from planned to unplanned”. concerning specific task types, gass and mackey (2013) suggest that convergent tasks with a particular outcome are better at promoting negotiation of meaning than divergent tasks with no particular outcome. types of convergent tasks include: required exchange tasks, listing, ordering, sorting, comparing and problem solving (see ellis & shintani 2013). coursebook designers and teachers should strive to include a variety of these convergent tasks in their materials. negotiated interaction can also be encouraged by the use of discourse strategies such as clarification requests and confirmation checks. phrases such as ‘i’m not sure i follow you’ and ‘what do you mean by …?’ can help to resolve breakdowns in communication (see gass & mackey 2013). discourse strategies can easily be incorporated into teaching materials by providing students with a list of useful phrases. teachers should also encourage and remind students to use discourse strategies during interactive tasks. additionally, several studies (see nabei 1996 & jacobs 2003) have shown that working in pairs or small groups also encourages negotiated interaction through the use of discourse strategies. this in turn focuses learners’ attention on linguistic form and can engender pushed output. pushed output the importance of pushed output was first acknowledged by swain (2000: 99), who argued that “output pushes learners to process language more deeply”. in relation to sla research findings to materials 149 materials development, tomlinson (2011: 10) similarly recommends “activities which try to ‘push’ learners slightly beyond their existing proficiency by engaging them in tasks which are stimulating, which are problematic, but which are achievable too”. for example, a dictogloss, writing and performing a dialogue, or reformulating a spoken or written text, can ‘push’ and challenge learners to produce output. as brown (1991: 1) explains, “the level of challenge of a task … may be an important variable in ensuring that the learners are pushed into framing their ideas in more novel language”. therefore, materials designers and teachers are urged to consider what type of output tasks will best ‘push’ their learners, rather than presenting learners with tasks that are easily achievable and not sufficiently challenging. although the role of output is not as widely researched as the role of input, several studies have shown that it can also promote noticing of gaps in learners’ language, which is the last of ortega’s five ingredients. noticing according to ellis and shintani (2013: 178) “there is little disagreement that attention is needed for acquisition to take place”. the importance of attention and noticing related to second language acquisition was first acknowledged by schmidt (in robinson 2001: 6), who claimed that “attention is what allows speakers to become aware of a mismatch or gap between what they can produce and what they need to produce”. for the learner, noticing can be driven internally or externally, so is therefore affected by both input and output, and is also influenced by individual factors such as language aptitude and motivation. in some ways, certain ingredients on ortega’s list should, in theory, automatically promote noticing. for example, swain (in gass & mackey 2013) argues that by producing output, learners notice linguistic gaps in their knowledge. similarly, long (in gass & mackey 2013) states that learners notice ‘holes’ in their interlanguage as a result of negotiated interaction. therefore, materials designed to produce output and negotiated interaction should automatically promote noticing. however, some linguists have provided more concrete methods of promoting noticing, such as reformulation tasks and reconstruction tasks. according to johnson (in thornbury 1997: 328), reformulation can be conducive to learning because “learners are predisposed to notice linguistic features that they had struggled with in the first draft”. with reconstruction tasks, teachers can select texts in order to promote noticing of particular vocabulary or grammatical structures. as thornbury (1997: 332) explains, “texts can be chosen that contain examples of an item known to be unfamiliar to the learners so that errors of omission are virtually guaranteed. the cognitive comparison stage forces attention on these errors”. other specific task types can also promote noticing, such as lai and zhao’s (2006) study which showed that text-based online chat enhanced learners’ noticing of their own mistakes, and also promoted the noticing of negotiation of meaning. a further way to promote noticing is by the use of input enhancement, such as textual enhancement. studies have shown (see nassaji & fotos 2011 chapter 3 for an overview of studies) that input can be made more perceptually salient by typographical devices such as bolding, capitalising, italicising, or underlining. for example, the third person ‘–s’ can be made more salient by using textual enhancement (e.g. he plays, she works). input enhancement can easily be incorporated into teaching materials and is likely to increase learners’ noticing. 150 beyond words conclusion this article outlined five environmental ingredients for optimal l2 learning based on key research findings from the cognitive-interactionist approach, and provided examples of how these findings can be applied to teaching materials. it is the hope that with this knowledge, teachers will be better equipped to select and adapt their materials. the research findings presented here are by no means the only sla findings that should be considered when it comes to materials development. the cognitive-interactionist approach is just one of many approaches to sla which can inform the design and selection of teaching materials. other approaches to sla such as information processing, complexity theory, sociocultural theory, and new research into corpus linguistics, also offer a multitude of research findings which could be beneficial to learners if applied to materials development. until elt publishers fully begin to incorporate sla research findings into the design of their materials, teachers should be encouraged to inform themselves of findings, and to apply theory to practice whenever possible. the number of people in the world learning english is increasing rapidly. if teachers are better informed of sla research findings, they will have a greater chance of providing their students with all the ingredients necessary for optimal l2 learning. references brown, r. (1991). group work, task difference, and second language acquisition. applied linguistics, 12(1), 1-12. burton, j. & clennell, c. (eds.) (2003). interaction and language learning. arlington, virginia: teachers of english to speakers of other languages, inc. ellis, r. & shintani, n. (2013). exploring language pedagogy through second language acquisition research. london: routledge engh, d. (2013). why use music in english language learning? a survey of the literature. english language teaching. 6(2), 113-127. ganschow, l., sparks, r., anderson, r., javorshy, j., skinner, s., & patton, j. (1994). differences in language performance among high-, average-, and low-anxious college foreign language learners. the modern language journal, 78(1), 41-55. gass, s. (1997). input, interaction and the second language learner. mahwahh, nj: lawrence erlbaum. gass, s., and mackey, a. (2013). the routledge handbook of second language acquisition. abingdon, oxon: routledge. hedge, t. (2000). teaching and learning in the language classroom. oxford: oxford university press. jacobs, g. (2003). combining dictogloss and cooperative learning to promote language learning. the reading matrix. 3(1), 1-15. krashen, s. (1985). the input hypothesis: issues and implications. london and new york: longman group uk. krashen, s. (1982) principles and practice in second language acquisition. london: pergamon sla research findings to materials 151 krashen, s. (2013) the case for non-targeted, comprehensible input. journal of bilingual education research & instruction, 15(1), 102-110. lai, c., & zhao, y. (2006). noticing and text-based chat. language learning & technology, 10(3), 102-120. littlejohn, a. (1992). why are elt materials the way they are? (doctoral thesis, university of lancaster, uk). retrieved from http://www.andrewlittlejohn.net/website/books/littlejohn%20phd%20chapter%201.pdf mccarthy, m., & carter, r. (1995) spoken grammar: what is it and how can we teach it? elt journal 49 (3), 207-218. nabei, t. (1996). dictogloss: is it an effective language learning task? working papers in educational linguistics, 12(1), 59-74. nassaji, h. & fotos, s. s. (2011) teaching grammar in second language classrooms. london: routledge. ortega, l. (2009). understanding second language acquisition. oxford, england: hodder. pérez-pereira, m. (1989). the acquisition of morphemes: some evidence from spanish. journal of psycholinguistic research, 18(3), 289-312. plonsky, l. & gass, s. (2011). quantitative research methods, study quality, and outcomes: the case of interaction research. language learning, 61(2), 325-366. richards, j. c. (2005). materials development and research: making the connection, presented at the tesol convention, 2005, san antonio. rivers, w. m. (ed.) (1987). interactive language teaching. new york, ny: cambridge university press. schmidt, r. (2001). attention. in p. robinson (ed.) cognition and second language instruction (pp. 321). new york: cambridge university press. swain, m. (2000). the output hypothesis and beyond: mediating acquisition through collaborative dialogue. in j. lantolf (ed.) sociocultural theory and second language learning. (pp. 97114) oxford: oxford university press. thornbury, s. (1997). reformulation and reconstruction: tasks that promote ‘noticing’. tefl journal. 51(4), 326-335 tomlinson, b. (2011). materials development in language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university presstomlinson, b. (ed.) (2008). english language learning materials: a critical review. london: continuum. tomlinson, b. & masuhara, h. (2013). survey review: adult coursebooks. elt journal, 67(2), 223249 ur, p. (1996). a course in language teaching: practice and theory. cambridge: cambridge university press. 72 running head: discourse analysis in the esl classroom beyond words vol.2, no.1, may 2014 widya mandala catholic university surabaya discourse analysis in the esl classroom amir reza nemat tabrizi department of english language, payame noor university, i. r. of iran amemati@pnu.ac.ir deepti gupta professor, department of english, panjab university, chandigarh deepti.elt@gmail.com mohita saxena research scholar, dept. of english, panjab university, chandigarh mohita.saxena@gmail.com discourse analysis in the esl classroom 73 abstract this article attempts a user-friendly definition of discourse analysis. by defining it in this manner, the authors hope to encourage teachers to use it in their esl classrooms. to this end, they suggest certain concrete measures that bring discourse analysis into the esl classroom. keywords: discourse, discourse analysis, elt, communicative approach, second language learning, esl discourse analysis in the esl classroom74 introduction at some time or the other, every teacher trainer faces the ‘this is not feasible’ response on introducing new methodology. by and large, practising teachers remain wary of using what they label as ‘elt procedures’ in the classroom. this article will try to demystify discourse analysis for teachers and hence will try to make a small dent in the resistance to trying novel approaches in the classroom by suggesting ‘teacher-friendly’ ways of using discourse analysis in the esl classroom. defining discourse analysis one possible definition of discourse analysis (henceforth d.a.) is ‘the study of how sentences in spoken and written language form larger meaningful units such as paragraphs, conversations, interviews, etc”. (richards, platt and weber 84). so, d.a., then, is concerned with linguistic analysis beyond the sentence. another definition describes it as the discipline that studies the relationship between form and function in verbal communication (rekema 13). thus, it does not attempt to describe solely the surface of the linguistic phenomena, but also the intentions and purposes that underlie them, sometimes from a critical perspective. a third definition portrays it as “the study of the relationship between language and the contexts in which it is used” (mccarthy 5). therefore, it also aims at setting the linguistic event in a communicative context with the intention of explaining and understanding the production and reception of texts. d.a. appeared in the 1960s as a meeting point between at least four branches of the humanistic sciences: linguistics, psychology, anthropology and sociology. the origin of d.a., then, is also revealing in the sense that it indicates one of the key questions d.a. tries to answer: discourse analysis in the esl classroom 75 what is the relationship between the addresser’s and the addressee’s use of the language and the social context in which communication takes place? d.a. is concerned both with spoken and written texts. in both cases, d.a. attempts to explain how linguistic form relates to functions, a relationship that is not univocal, as one given linguistic form does not lead necessarily to only one function. and, spoken and written discourse has different social uses and communicative functions, which makes the form of spoken and written texts completely different. d.a. also has a descriptive objective. it tries to describe large pieces of text, structuring them into patterns. for example, sinclair and coulthard described the structure of discourse in school classrooms1, and they discovered a very frequent ‘exchange’ that consists of three ‘moves’, the opening move (or initiation), the answering move (or response) and the follow-up move. or, concerning normally written texts, studies of cohesion, or the links between the different parts of the text, and coherence, or the links between the different ‘ideas’ of the text, have also helped to define what a good text is for classroom use. discourse analysis in the esl classroom76 discourse to discourse analysts, ‘discourse’ usually means actual instances of communication in the medium of language. ‘discourse’ in this sense is usually a mass noun. discourse analysts typically speak of discourse rather than discourses, the way one would talk about, for instance, music (‘some music’ or ‘three pieces of music’ rather than ‘three musics’) or information (‘the flow of information’, ‘a great deal of information’ rather than ‘thousands of informations’). communication can of course involve other media besides language. media such as photography, clothing, gesture, architecture and dance are meaningful, too and discourse analysts often need to think about the connections between language and other such semiotic systems. the label could have been ‘language analysis’ but choosing ‘discourse analysis’ underscores the fact that the focus is not language as an abstract system; the focus is on ‘language in use’. rather, the focus is on what happens when people draw on the knowledge they have about language, based on their memories of things they have said, heard, seen or written before, to do things in the world: exchange information, express feelings, make things happen, create beauty, entertain themselves and others and so on. this knowledge a set of generalizations, which can sometimes be stated as rules, about what words generally mean, about what goes where in a sentence and so on is what is often referred to as ‘language’; when language is thought of as an abstract system of rules or structural relationships. discourse is both the source of this knowledge (people’s generalizations about language are made on the basis of the discourse they participate in) and the result of it (people apply what they already know in creating and interpreting new discourse). scholars influenced by foucault2 sometimes use ‘discourse’ in a related but somewhat different sense, as a countable noun. ‘discourses’ in this sense can be enumerated and referred to discourse analysis in the esl classroom 77 in the plural. they are conventional ways of talking that both create and are created by conventional ways of thinking. these linked ways of talking and thinking constitute ideologies (sets of interrelated ideas) and serve to circulate power in society. in other words, discourses in this sense involve patterns of belief and habitual action as well as patterns of language. discourses are ideas as well as ways of talking that influence and are influenced by the ideas. discourses, in their linguistic aspect, are conventionalised sets of choices for discourse, or talk. analysis the word ‘analysis’ demonstrates that discourse analysis typically focuses on the analytical process in a relatively explicit way. it is useful to think of d.a. as analogous to chemical analysis. like chemical analysis, it is a methodology that can be used in answering many kinds of questions. discourse analysts start out with a variety of research questions and these research questions are often not questions that only discourse analysts ask. instead, they are often questions that discourse analysts share with other people, both in linguistics and in other fields. some discourse analysts ask questions that are traditionally asked in linguistics: questions about linguistic structure, about language change, about meaning, about language acquisition. other discourse analysts ask questions that are more interdisciplinary: questions about such things as social roles and relations, communication and identity. what distinguishes discourse analysis from other sorts of studies that bear on human language and communication lies not in the questions discourse analysts ask but in the ways they try to answer them: by analysing discourse that is, by examining aspects of the structure and function of language in use. linguistic analysis is sometimes a process of taking apart. discourse analysts often find it useful to divide longer stretches of discourse into parts according to various criteria and then look at the particular characteristics of each part. divisions can be made according to who is discourse analysis in the esl classroom78 talking, for example, where the paragraph boundaries are, when a new topic arises, or where the subject ends and the predicate begins. are grammatical patterns different when social superiors are talking than when their subordinates are? does new information tend to come in the first sentence of a paragraph? do special markers signal topic change? do sentence subjects tend to be slots in which events or actions or feelings can be presented as objects? discourse can be taken apart into individual words and phrases and concordances of these; sets of statistics about where a particular word is likely to occur, how frequent it is, what words tend to be close to it, can be used to support claims about how grammar works or what words are used to mean. but analysis can also involve taking apart less literally. one way of analysing something is by looking at it in a variety of ways. an analysis in this sense might involve systematically asking a number of questions, systematically taking several theoretical perspectives or systematically performing a variety of tests. such an analysis could include a breaking-down into parts. it could also include a breaking-down into functions, i.e., what is persuasive discourse like? what is narrative like? according to participants it could include questions like ‘how do men talk in all-male groups? how do psychotherapists talk? what is newspaper writing like?’ it could refer to settings, i.e., what goes on in classrooms or in workplaces? it could focus on processes, for example, how do children learn to get the conversational floor? how do people create social categories like ‘girl’ or ‘foreigner’ or ‘old person’ as they talk to, about, among each other? how discourse analysis is useful linguists have long been interested in the structure of words (morphology) and sentences (syntax). d.a. has moved the description of structure up a level, looking at actual stretches of connected text or transcript and providing descriptions of the structure of paragraphs, stories and discourse analysis in the esl classroom 79 conversations. it has shed light on how meaning can be signalled via the arrangement of chunks of information across a series of sentences or via the details of how a conversationalist takes up and responds to what has just been said. it reveals how speakers indicate their semantic intentions and how hearers interpret what they hear and on the cognitive abilities that underlie human symbol use. in the field of pragmatics, discourse analysts looking at corpora of actual talk have helped to describe the basic interpretive principles on which understanding is based and how people use utterances to perform actions. work on cohesion and coherence examines the meaning of utterances in their linguistic context. discourse analysts have also contributed to the study of variation and change in language. looking at records of discourse over time, they have described mechanisms of change that are internal to talk, such as grammaticalisation. forms that regularly serve useful functions in showing how speakers intend their words to be taken at a particular moment tend to change over time into required elements of a language’s grammar. discourse analysts have also described social influences connected with historical changes in patterns of language use, such as individual and group identity and they have studied patterns of variation in how people do things with talk such as making lists, constructing arguments and telling stories. elt and discourse analysis despite the introduction and widespread usage of a plethora of communicative approaches to language learning, the acquisition levels continue to remain dismal in esl classrooms across the globe, irrespective of the places and the people. a few significant reasons behind this include the limited hours of actual language use, dearth of opportunities to practice english beyond the classrooms and lack of interaction with the various types of functions, speech events and discourse types that one finds beyond a language classroom. it is an open secret that discourse analysis in the esl classroom80 in the constantly evolving language classroom, the actual time available for the students to practice and interact with the target language, english in the case, is quite insufficient and insignificant. there, therefore, lies a great need for the language instructors all over the world, to introspect, innovate and increase language learning opportunities for their students within the classroom environs in order to stimulate student participation and language retention, in the long run. the communicative approaches support the use of d.a. techniques in the classroom. among other goals, the communicative approaches suggest one, giving more responsibility to the learner through reduced reliance on teacher-dominant approaches and two, the use of ‘authentic’ language materials and activities. d.a. in the class can address both these requirements. classroom action research is one way for teachers to monitor both the quantity and quality of students’ output. by following a four-part process of record-view-transcribeanalyse (demo, douglas a.) second language teachers can use discourse analytic techniques to investigate the interaction patterns in their classrooms and see how these patterns promote or hinder opportunities for learners to practice the target language. this process allows language teachers to study their own teaching behaviour, especially the frequency, distribution and types of questions they use and their effect on students’ responses. step one: recording or videotaping a lesson, from start to finish. recording a lesson facilitates a valuable documentation of the ongoing classroom activities on a macro as well as micro scale. capturing the teacher’s lessons and questions (aimed at providing ample target language usage opportunities to the students) alongside students’ responses certainly goes a long way in understanding the classroom dynamics. in the absence of discourse analysis in the esl classroom 81 a suitable video-recorder, an effective audio-recorder may be employed in order to capture the live classroom interactions, to be worked upon in the due course of time. furthermore, in the absence of any digital assistance, one may even request a teacher colleague to come and observe the classroom dynamics and transcribe the ongoing interactions into a welllabelled script. after all, it is the end result that matters, whatever may be the source. step two: watching the videotapes /listening to the audiotapes/reading the script. a review of the collected speech samples whether audio/video/print, certainly lends far more deep and impressionistic insights into the comprehension levels of the esl learners. taking a quick recap of the kinds of questions asked and the respective responses generated helps an esl instructor in revamping his/her lesson plans and interaction patterns for more sustained classroom interactions. a closer look at the recurring patterns in one’s questioning style and the impact it has on the students' responses further helps a teacher in furthering the motivation levels and interests of the language learners in the speech acts. step three: transcribing the lesson at hand: irrespective of the presence or otherwise of the latest digital assistants, it would be a great idea to transcribe the speech acts being exchanged in the classroom among the students and teachers. a transcribed lesson or script as it is more aptly called, will certainly serve a long way in helping an els instructor in identifying the various types of questions emerging out of the present data and thereafter, focusing on the more relevant and specific questions along with appropriate student responses. step four: analysing the videotapes/audiotapes and transcripts. analysing the collected speech samples along with their respective transcripts empowers an esl instructor in breaking through most of the challenges that emerge while trying to discourse analysis in the esl classroom82 comprehend the classroom interaction patterns in a struggling esl classroom. some of the likely questions that are bound to emerge in your head as you analyse your transcripts include:  your intention behind framing specific questions?  identifying the most frequently asked type of questions? open or closed?  what were the students’ responses to different types of questions?  which questions elicited maximum language exposure and usage from the students?  were the questions in sync with your goals for teaching and learning?  did the students ask any questions?  did your questions have a likely effect in facilitating the students’ with ample opportunities to practice the target language?  were you satisfied with their responses? focusing on such actual classroom interactions, esl instructors can explore, experience and thereby, focus on the different aspects of their teaching styles that are in consonance with creating sound learning language opportunities for their esl learners. this would certainly help esl teachers and learners alike in progressing further on their journey towards target language acquisition using a wide range of suitable discourse types. besides, language instructors may also use the record-view-transcribe-analyse scheme to explore suitable cross-communication patterns in various classroom activities, such as studentto-student or small-group cooperative or student-teacher interactions. communicative activities provide a wide range of interaction patterns to the students in order to facilitate them in overcoming their inhibition to speak and thus, muster up the courage and enthusiasm to engage in uninhibited and free spoken interactions within the classroom. the wide array of speech patterns that the students come up with during such interactions makes the teacher equip with all discourse analysis in the esl classroom 83 the requisite knowledge that he/she may need to process and analyse while working on their swot analysis. for example, a reading theatre activity is likely to provide students with an opportunity to modulate their voices and pronunciation patterns in consonance with the text at hand, whereas an individual speaking as you think task gives students a chance to process information quickly and present thoughts as they come to their mind. since communicative tasks enable a teacher to evaluate learners’ proficiency in a much practical way, a better understanding of the influence of specific activities on learner discourse is bound to motivate teachers to infuse a variety of speaking prompts and tasks in their lesson plans in order to gain a more insightful grasp of students’ abilities. therefore, a thorough recording, transcribing and analysing of students’ discourse lends teachers a valuable insight into the effect of specific tasks on students’ language production and, in due course of time, into their language development as well. a discourse analysis of classroom interaction also paves way for an observant teacher to identify and work on various cross-cultural linguistic patterns that may be contributing to communication difficulties within the classroom in one way or the other. for example, some speakers may look forward to prompts given by their peers while they speak, they may appreciate such help being sourced out to them while expressing their views. for some linguistic groups, this discourse behaviour can be interpreted as a signal of peer bonding and team spirit. however, there may other linguistic groups who may view it as a breach on someone’s attempt to learn at his/her own pace. in order to take a better call on such cross-cultural linguistic patterns, teachers may employ the record-view-transcribe-analyse technique in order to help discourse analysis in the esl classroom84 themselves and students identify and explore multifarious communication strategies and their potential for miscommunication within the classroom. without discounting the fact that not all variables of language learning are within the purview and control of language teachers, it cannot be denied however, that discourse analysis certainly gives a useful benchmark to language users and instructors alike in making informed changes in classroom communication patterns. discourse analysis and second language learning language learners all over the globe face the daunting and exhaustive task of acquiring not only new vocabulary, syntactic patterns and phonology, but also discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence, strategic competence, and interactional competence. in order to develop a good grasp on such language elements, they ought to be presented with sufficient language usage opportunities and moments in order to inquire and investigate the systematicity of language at all linguistic levels, especially at the highest level. it is in this regard that the discourse analysis holds a pivotal importance. in the absence of suitable knowledge and experience with the discourse and socio-cultural patterns of the target language, language learners are left with no other option but to turn to the strategies acquired as part of their first language development, which as a matter of fact, may be highly inopportune and inappropriate for their second language environment. such misinformed practices may lead to grave communication difficulties and misunderstandings that may even last an entire lifetime. a major challenge that is faced by all second language learners is the limited exposure and experience with a just a handful of interactive practices in their target language. this thwarts not only their interest to learn and communicate in the target language but also demotivates and dispels them from using it even within the necessary classroom interactions. therefore, one of discourse analysis in the esl classroom 85 the primary aims of second language teaching is to present language learners with sufficient and varied discourse patterns in different texts and interactions in order to quench their thirst for getting ample opportunities to learn and relearn target language elements. as mentioned earlier, the importance of discourse analysis here plays a major role. giving the students necessary freedom to study and use target language, and thereby encouraging them to become discourse analysts in the process, is an effective practice in this regard. upon being given appropriate opportunities to practice language use in authentic environments, second language learners gain a much better and insightful understanding of the discourse patterns associated with a given genre or speech event along with the sociolinguistic factors that bring in indelible linguistic variation across settings and contexts. language instructors may encourage the students to folow the record-view-transcribe-analyse technique in order to engage in meaningful discourse analysis during classroom conversations. given below are a series of practices that may help the language instructors and teachers alike in this regard: step one: audio-tape or video-tape a pair of proficient language users engaged in healthy and meaningful conversation, over coffee or a casual walk. step two: play the recording for students. ask them to identify relevant patterns in the recorded linguistic behaviour and note down significant deviations or any new development. step three: transcribe the conversation so that students can gain a more in-depth view of the language material. step four: ask students to analyse significant discourse features individually, in pairs or in small groups. once the students have been familiarized with the process, they may be asked to take up a similar exercise entirely on their own in future. upon collection, such authentic language data discourse analysis in the esl classroom86 may serve as an invaluable data bank for future and subsequent examination for various conversational features, to later taken up in comparison to discourse features identified in other speech events. such a kind of discourse approach to language learning widens the horizons of language use beyond the mere purview of textbooks and makes it more feasible, and thus, lends students with ample opportunities and strategies to explore language as interaction rather than as grammatical units. it therefore, creates a win-win situation for both, language teachers as well as users by making them more equipped and empowered in a dynamic second language learning classroom. conclusion it is time that language teachers give up on undermining the scope and impact of discourse analysis and give it its due weightage in terms of usage and employability. language teachers, especially, second language teachers can use it not only as a research method for evaluating their own teaching practices but also as a valuable classroom strategy for studying interaction among language learners. similarly, they must also encourage their students to reap rich dividends by employing the technique of discourse analysis in exploring and understanding the target language and the multifarious contexts in which it is used. this would definitely go a long way in empowering students’ command over the second language and thus steer classroom dynamics in a desired direction. once d.a. reaches the classroom, the teacher can approach its use in framing tests and can also look towards critical discourse analysis for the teaching of literature. the important first step is the initiation of the classroom in discourse analysis, the rest follows naturally once teacher and taught become partners on the road to proficiency. discourse analysis in the esl classroom 87 endnotes the birmingham model is a relatively simple and powerful approach to analysing discourse. sinclair and coulthard (1975) found a rigid pattern in the language of traditional native-speaker school classrooms. they found that teachers and students spoke according to very fixed perceptions of their roles and their talk conformed to highly structured sequences. the categories mentioned in the article is just a small set of labels that can be used during the d.a. of the classroom, the actual range is quite vast and a teacher can successfully analyse all aspects of spoken discourse in the classroom in an attempt to evaluate its naturalness and effectiveness. in literary theory, discourse can be a very loosely used term. foucault’s formulations on discourse add to this plurality. for foucault, at a given moment in history, there will be a particular discourse of a particular field: a set of rules, conventions, systems of mediation and transposition that will govern the way that field will be talked about when, where and by whom. these ‘discursive formations’ (1972) not only embody the beliefs and values of a society, rather they force them on everyone by imposing certain ways of looking upon the world while excluding alternatives. discourse analysis in the esl classroom88 references celce-murcia, m., & olshtain, e. (2000). discourse and contect in language teaching. new york: cambridge university press. clancy, p., thompson, s., suzuki, r., & tao, h. (n.d.). the conversational use of reactive tokens in english, japanese, and mandarin. journal of pragmatics(26), 355-387. demo, d. a. (2001). discourse analysis for language teachers. retrieved from eric digest: http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/0107demo.html celce-murcia, m,. & olshtain, e.(2000). discourse and context in language teaching. new york: cambridge university press. clancy, p., thompson, s., suzuki, r., & h. tao, h. (1996) . “the conversational use of reactive tokens in english, japanese, and mandarin.” journal of pragmatics 26 (1996): 355-387. demo, douglas a. "discourse analysis for language teachers. eric digest." eric clearinghouse on languages and linguistics washington dc.(2001) 6 september, 2006 <http://www.ericdigests.org/2002-2/discourse.htm. >. ferguson, charles a. “baby talk as a simplified register.” in catharine e. snow and charles a. ferguson. eds. talking to children. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1977. foucault, m. the archaeology of knowledge. a. m. sheridan-smith. trans. london: tavistock, 1972. ---. power/knowledge: selected interviews and other writings 1972-77. in c. gordeon. ed. brighton: harvester, 1980. grabe, william. annual review of applied linguistics. vol.ii,1990. usa: cambridge university press, 1991. discourse analysis in the esl classroom 89 hoey, m.p. on the surface of discourse. london: allen and unwin, 1983. johnson, k. understanding communication in second language classrooms. new york: cambridge university press, 1995. mccarthy, michael. discourse analysis for language teachers. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1991. mccarthy, m., & r. carter. language as discourse: perspectives for language teachers. new york: longman, 1994. rekema, jan. introducción a los estudios sobre el discurso. barcelona: gedisa, 1999. richards, jack, john platt and heidi weber. longman dictionary of applied linguistics. harlow, essex: longman, 1985. riggenbach, h. discourse analysis in the language classroom: volume 1. the spoken language. ann arbor, mi: university of michigan press, 1999. sinclair, j. mch., and r.m. coulthard. towards an analysis of discourse. oxford: oxford university press, 1975. young, r., & a. he. talking and testing: discourse approaches to the assessment of oral proficiency. philadelphia: john benjamins, 1998. beyond words vol.3, no.2, november 2015  the author 2015. published by widya mandala catholic university press; all rights reserved. authority, academic discourse and ideology in the esl writing class: an esl teacher’s experience aseel kanakri akanakri@kent.edu kent state university ohio, usa this paper describes an esl teachers’ perspective on teaching esl writing to advanced second language learners reflecting on her experience as an esl teachers drawing on the students’ responses to survey questions. it shows that writing in english as a second language has political, cultural, and historical aspects since the “nature and functions of discourse, audience, and persuasive appeals often differ across linguistic, cultural, and educational contexts” in addition, acquiring the discourse proprieties is challenging because they represent culturally bound, conventionalized, and abstract characteristics of academic prose that are frequently absent in written discourse in rhetorical traditions other than the english dominant educational environments. esl teachers should get the awareness of the needs and challenges that the face and understand the linguistic, cultural, and educational background they are coming from in order to help them overcome these challenges which also should dictate the instructional pedagogies, curriculum and assessment. keywords: academic discourse, esl writing, teacher’s perspective, ideology introduction according to the us department of education, there were 4.1 million english as a second language (esl) students in the usa (2013). in response to this great increase in enrollment, many esl educators and researchers are trying to come up with innovative techniques to help students learn english as fast as possible. most esl centers at many universities now use intensive programs, a fact that makes the need to find new teaching techniques an urgent necessity. technology, one-on-one tutoring, peer instruction and peer feedback are among the methods used nowadays to liven up the teaching and encourage esl college students to learn (li, 2006; min, 2006; rollinson, 2005). however, regardless of the good work that has been put into improving the quality of esl education, the writing class in particular seems to be in need of more attention (yoon and hirvela, 2004). composition in english is extremely important to international students who are expected to use a lot of written english for academic purposes at the university level during their stay in the us. seen by many as a preparation course for the writing section of english standardized tests like the toefl and the ielts, the esl writing class has been limited to one style of writing—the mailto:akanakri@kent.edu http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2006/07/07272006.html discourse analysis in the esl writing class 153 five-paragraph pattern—with great attention given to imitation and replication of certain topics and writing styles (hyland 2012; leki and carson,1997). a classroom experience after three months of teaching an advanced esl writing class, i decided to have one class to chat with my students and listen to their concerns about writing, which is typically their least favorite class. there were 23 students in this class mostly from saudi arabia and china. this decision came after realizing that my students are simply making little to no progress. i wanted to know why they find writing difficult or uninteresting. their unanimous answer was that they did not think writing was difficult or boring; their problem was about the way esl writing in general is taught. one student, for example, said that she had taken six writing classes before, yet she never ever liked any topic chosen for her to write about, whether by the book or the instructor. she added that she never felt free to express how she truly felt about a topic. it turned out students did not find writing difficult or boring; they just disagree with what they write about and how the instructors teach the class. towards the end of the meeting i asked each member of this group what they would like to write about if i gave them the complete freedom to choose a topic. one student said she would like to write about how she felt that morning when her three year old son hugged her and begged her not to leave him. another student said she wanted to write about how much and why she disliked the toefl and the gre tests. a third student wanted to write a romantic poem, and another wanted to write a letter of appreciation to her parents. in the two class meetings following that, i gave the students the freedom to write about these topics, and after reading their essays, i noticed that there was a huge difference between what the students wrote throughout the semester and what they wrote that particular time. although their writings were mostly personal and nonacademic, they were full of meaning and life. they showed me a side of my students i have never seen before, not on the personal level but in the way they expressed the ideas they felt a strong connection to. this experiment made me realize a few important points about esl composition which will be discussed in the following paragraphs. authority unlike l1 composition, the issue of personal voice and authority is usually neglected in esl composition and the focus is mainly on form not content. esl writing is a part of applied linguistics programs where the focus is more on the linguistic level of language which more often prioritizes form over content. terry santos (1992) explains this tendency in esl composition, the injunction in linguistics to be nothing but descriptive has carried over to its applied branch and to tesol. esl writing has, in consequence, adopted the research paradigm of applied linguistics, as can be seen in any survey of the literature, where the dominant studies on text analysis, contrastive rhetoric, and academic writing tend to be quantitative. (p.8) 154 beyond words santos argues that since esl is seen as a part of linguistics, which is a science, esl writing becomes different from l1 in several ways, and one of them is that it tends to neglect issues of free expression, ideology, authority and diversity in its research. esl classes usually are seen as practical preparation courses for the toefl test, not for college in general or life in the united states. in the writing class, the students are required to stick to certain patterns of writing. from intermediate to advanced levels, students are asked to write comparison and contrast, cause and effect, classification, or process essays with preselected topics. the teacher chooses the topic and the students write the essays. personal narratives or nonacademic forms of writing are normally not part of the curriculum, and they are not encouraged by either the teachers or the departments. therefore, students usually write essays they feel no connection to and have no interest in. personal narratives and opinion pieces on the other hand teach the esl students critical thinking and the ability to have and defend a position. gaining in-depth understanding as my interest in voice and authority in esl writing increased, i decided to create a short survey in which i asked the students about their experience in esl writing classes since arriving in the united states. the survey was distributed to 60 students currently taking advanced esl writing classes at two public universities in northeast ohio. when asked if they have a choice in the topic or type of essay in the writing class, most students responded that they don’t. with the exception of some teachers, it appears that most teachers have absolute control over what the students can write about in class. one student commented, “not only do the teachers choose the topics for us, sometimes they even give us an outline with the thesis statement and supporting topics, and all we have to do is just write the details. sometimes, i don’t agree with the topic, but i have to agree to make the essay long and complete.” esl students take reading classes in which they mainly learn new vocabulary and the proper way to use the words they learn in sentences. they also take grammar classes in which they apply grammatical rules and structures to sentences. these two classes are enough for esl students to learn about form. the writing class is supposed to teach students to express themselves, think critically and transfer their ideas into organized texts. focusing on form more than content in the writing class makes students less interested in writing and more interested in imitation because it makes writing seem like a rigid subject in which all you have to do is to follow certain rules over and over again. in a research study, li (2007) shows how esl writing and the research about it have all focused on the strategies of writing and learning to write whereas the esl writer's identity and beliefs in writing have rarely been addressed. academic discourse.one other student comment from the survey caught my attention. “most of the esl writing classes that i took focus more on the form of the essay. as for the content, the teachers always choose topics that are appropriate for an academic institution,” wrote the student responding to what she thought about the essay topics the teachers always choose. what i understand from the student’s comment is that her writing teachers choose discourse analysis in the esl writing class 155 certain academic topics in order to emphasize the importance of learning and using academic discourse. therefore, in order to keep all the students within the boundaries of this discourse, teachers choose topics for them. just like l1 composition students, esl students come from different disciplines, and academic discourse differs from one discipline to another and even from one tendency or school to another within the discipline. this means that it is simply impossible to teach all students a so-called academic discourse in an esl class. peter elbow (1991) comments on this issue saying i cannot teach students the particular conventions they will need for particular disciplines (not even for particular teachers within the same discipline), but i can teach students the principle of discourse variation-between individuals and between communities. i can't teach them the forms they'll need, but i can sensitize them to the notion of differences in form so that they will be more apt to look for cues and will pick them up faster when they encounter them. (p.152) students will have enough time to become familiar with academic discourses once they start their academic discipline classes. an esl writing class, just like an l1 composition class, can help students use personal narratives and opinions from their lives in order to understand and relate to academic discourse. this is a point that peter elbow emphasizes more clearly. he stresses the importance of using non-academic discourse in the writing class in order to help the students relate knowledge to everyday life and not just imitate academic discourse. he argues, many students can repeat and explain a principle in say physics or economics in the academic discourse of the textbook but cannot simply tell a story of what is going on in the room or country around them on account of that principle-or what the room or country would look like if that principle were different. (p.137) elbow does not say that academic discourse is not important; on the contrary, he thinks it is important, but it is not the only important discourse to encourage in the writing classroom. as elbow recommends, i think the best thing to do is to allow writing by choice. there will be students who want to stick to topics from their discipline, and they will definitely enjoy writing about it because it is something they choose out of personal interest. in fact, several students in my class choose to write about topics relevant to the majors they are interested in. “i don't rule out the writing of academic discourse by choice,” writes elbow, “but if we teach only academic discourse we will surely fail at this most important goal of helping students use writing by choice in their lives.” (p.136). using writing in life is extremely important to esl students. most esl students study in the esl centers for academic purposes, so most of them do not know how to function outside of an academic environment in the united states. sometimes they even feel unable to explain what they study at the university to their friends in simple words. esl writing should help students find that connection between the academic environment and everyday life. similarly, bilton (2009) emphasized elbows understanding of writing instruction. she argued that the current state of esl writing is unsatisfactory due to its reliance on the pragmatic approach, and recommends turning esl writing into an expressive 156 beyond words approach that can give students more room for self-expression, which leads to great improvement in their fluency and mastery of writing. ideology.the second point i think is important is that the majority of esl students in the us today come from asian countries, with the majority coming from china and saudi arabia, where learning is still widely seen as a teacher-centered process. many of our students went to schools where to pass a test you need to remember everything the teacher says and copy it word for word. what i am trying to say is that many of the esl students we have in us universities may not even be aware of the idea of choice, freedom and authority in writing since they have always been prone to imitate and do what they are asked to do by teachers. one saudi student in my writing class told me she repeatedly spotted mistakes in teachers’ writings and comments when she was a student in her home country, but it never occurred to her that she needed to correct them because she was always taught to take everything the teacher says for granted even when she did not believe it was right. just like l1 composition is transitioning towards a post-process pedagogy where the writing is no longer a linear process that starts with the teacher and ends with the teacher (the teacher gives a topic, the students respond to it, the teacher assesses it), esl writing can go in that direction too. dwight atkinson in”l2 writing in the post-process era” raises this issue back in 2003. he poses two important questions: what do notions like ‘‘voice,’’ ‘‘critical thinking,’’ ‘‘originality,’’ ‘‘clarity,’’ and ‘‘plagiarism’’ mean outside the cultural contexts in which they have been developed and are so deeply embedded? at the level of teaching, for example, how do the student-centered, process-oriented, and fluency-focused elements of process pedagogy impact students from educational backgrounds that are teacher-centered, knowledge-oriented, and accuracy-focused? (p.6) these questions by no means indicate that we need to force the students to adopt the american way of writing. if we do that as esl teachers, then our pedagogy is not different form the teacher-centered pedagogy we criticize. we need to help students realize the importance of voice and critical thinking themselves without pushing them. we can show them that it is ok to be critical of our writing as teachers and also critical of their own writing. giving the students the chance to develop voice and authority is a kind of empowerment that will not only benefit their writing but will also make them better citizens. moreover, the students need to see the teacher in the class not as an authority figure but as a contributing member, not as someone who always gives (teaches), but as someone who gives and takes (teaches and learns). political agendas. finally, another important point in this regard is the use of esl classes by some teachers to serve political agendas. this is a very critical issue both in l1 and l2 composition. however, this issue has received much more attention in l1 composition than it does in l2 composition, and part of the reason is what i discussed earlier regarding the fact that l1 composition is part of english departments whereas l2 composition is considered part of linguistics departments. maxine hairston (1992) in “diversity, ideology and teaching discourse analysis in the esl writing class 157 writing” discusses the issue of using political agendas in the composition classroom, an issue, she argues, that contradicts with the idea of free speech. hairston blames all this on the fact that writing classes are still seen as part of the english department. english departments, according to hairston, are home for many radical leftists and marxists who see literary criticism and writing as a constant protest against the hegemonic power or the government. turning a writing class into a place for the instructor to express his or her political views and assigning topics accordingly can affect the students’ opinions especially that students in these classes are not sophisticated enough to freely express their opinions even when they do not agree with the teacher’s. many people do not know that the situation in esl composition classes is not much different. in fact, the situation can even be much more serious since the majority of esl students feel much less sophisticated than american students to express their opinions. this feeling does not only come from the cultural background of many of these students, but it can also be a result of the language barrier. this may make students completely unable to argue with the teacher or try to challenge his or her political views. yet, some teachers defend their use of politics in esl classrooms claiming that esl students need to learn about the politics of the united states in order to better their understanding of the culture. just like hairston argues against the use of politics in l1 composition, i also think that by injecting political and ideological content in the esl writing class we will be working against the diversity and freedom of speech that we always celebrate in our colleges. hairston (1992) explains that “students develop best as writers when they can write about something they care about and want to know more about.” so if the teacher or the department limits these courses to discussions of politics and ideology, students may easily lose interest in writing since what they are writing about is not something that interests them in their day-today lives. the second reason she presents is that “young writers develop best as writers when teachers are able to create a low-risk environment that encourages students to take chances.” in this case, if students feel pressured to write about certain topics, they might go for mediocrity instead of creativity and survival instead of honesty. they might even become hypocritical in order to please the teacher. finally, such actions can “severely limit freedom of expression for both students and instructors” (p.189) if they have to conform to topics chosen by the department even when these topics may contradict the students’ (and instructors’) beliefs and feelings. politics in the esl writing classroom can be even more problematic. some teachers tend to raise political issues form the countries that these students come from. for example, a chinese student in my class complains that one of the writing teachers raised the issue of taiwan and its attempts to become independent from china in a class that has several chinese and taiwanese students. for these students, this issue is extremely sensitive. the students were all silent, but the teacher kept pushing them to talk about the issue, probably thinking he was doing them a favor. according to the student, the teacher made everyone in the class, including students from other (neutral) countries, very uncomfortable. in another case, a saudi 158 beyond words woman in the my class complained that some teachers repeatedly raise the issue of women’s rights in saudi arabia, always citing the example of denying women the right to drive. the woman said that the teacher insisted that students discuss this issue in groups and write an essay about it. she said “i felt the teacher did not want to learn about our culture, she just wanted us to criticize our own, on purpose.” these examples show that in addition to the influence the teachers’ use of politics in class can have on students’ opinions and political orientations, using politics and ideology in the esl class can result in discomfort, stereotyping and conflict between the students. some teachers will cite james berlin to argue that all types of pedagogy including writing are ideological and that no matter how we try, ideology and bias will always be present in writing. one of the people who adopt this position is sarah benesch, an educator and researcher in l2 composition. benesch (1993), like berlin, thinks that all forms of writing, including esl writing, is ideological. she asserts, l1 composition is not more political than l2. both are political because all educators make choices, influenced by their political understandings of school and society that affect the development of students. those choices can encourage or discourage critical thought about school and society. whether l1 or l2 teachers enable or inhibit critical thinking, they are taking a political stance toward learning and society. (p.714) while this may be true, the idea here is to try, as a teacher not to make the classroom a political venue. the writing class can be much more useful to both the students and the teachers if the focus is more on the writing itself and the free generating and exchanging of ideas. students should decide what they want to believe in or what they want to write about and to try not to limit them to certain topics that are of interest to the teacher. implications esl composition needs to be more student-centered and that it is our duty as teachers to make the students feel that they are in an environment where they can freely express their opinions and feelings, exchange ideas, receive feedback and help one another become better writers. i am not trying to underestimate the role of the teacher in the esl classroom. in fact, i think the teacher is an integral part of the class. she is needed to manage the class and provide help and assistance to students. the teacher encourages the students to be creative and to express their opinions without fear of being rejected or mocked by her. teachers should also encourage non-academic topics especially ones where the students get the chance to see themselves, their lives and their experiences as part of what they write about. this does not mean academic discourse is not important, it just means both academic and non-academic discourses in the esl composition class can be mutually supportive. when it comes to politics, students can write and talk about politics if they feel that they really want to and if it helps to explain what they are trying to learn; otherwise, teachers should not try to impose their politics and ideological agendas on students which may cause hostility or lack of interest. discourse analysis in the esl writing class 159 references atkinson, d. (2003). l2 writing in the post-process era: introduction. journal of second language writing 12(1), 3-15. bilton, l., & sivasubramaniam, s. (2009). an inquiry into expressive writing: a classroom-based study. language teaching research, 13(3), 301-320. benesch, s. (1993). esl, ideology, and the politics of pragmatism. tesol quarterly, 27(4), 705-717. cccc statement on second-language writing and writers (2001). college composition and communication, vol. 52 (4), 669-674. elbow, p. (1991). reflections on academic discourse: how it relates to freshmen and colleagues. college english, 53(2), 135-155. hairston, m. (1992). diversity, ideology, and teaching writing. college composition and communication, 43 (2),179-193. hinkel, e. (1999a). culture in second language teaching and learning. cambridge: cambridge university press. hinkel, e. (2014). culture and pragmatics in second language teaching and learning. in m. celce murcia, d. brinton, & m. snow (eds.), teaching english as a second or foreign language (pp. 394-408). boston, ma: national geographic learning. hinkel, e. (2015). effective curriculum for teaching l2 writing: principles and techniques. new york, il: routledge. hyland, k., & hyland, f. (2012). you could make this clearer: teachers’ advice on esl academic writing (pp53-72). in limberg, h (ed.). advice in discourse. amsterdam: john benjamins pub. leki, i., & carson, j. (1997). “completely different worlds”: eap and the writing experiences of esl students in university courses. tesol quarterly, 31(1), 39-69 li, j. (2006). the mediation of technology in esl writing and its implications for writing assessment. assessing writing, 11(1), 5-21. li, x. (2007). identities and beliefs in esl writing: from product to processes. tesl canada journal, 25(1), 41-64. min, h. t. (2006). the effects of trained peer review on efl students’ revision types and writing quality. journal of second language writing, 15(2), 118-141. rollinson, p. (2005). using peer feedback in the esl writing class. elt journal, 59(1), 23-30. santos, t. (1992). ideology in composition: l1 and esl. journal of second language writing, 1(1), 1-15. u.s. department of education, national center for education statistics. (2013). the condition of education 2013 (nces 2013-037),english language learners. yoon, h., & hirvela, a. (2004). esl student attitudes toward corpus use in l2 writing. journal of second language writing, 13(4), 257-283. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgf.asp 100 running head: efl in the swing of curricula beyond words vol.3, no.1, may 2015 widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia indonesian efl teachers in the swing of curricula ashadi ashadi@uny.ac.id universitas negeri yogyakarta yogyakarta, indonesia efl in the swing of curricula 101 abstract in the era of standard-based education which is marked by the reforms in many areas of education including curriculum, it is necessary to understand how indonesian efl teachers coped with curricular change in the course of their profession. this study attempts to discover how efl teachers in indonesia perceive the curricular changes through their beliefs, attitudes, and practices. employing an on-line survey combined with semi-structured individual interviews, the qualitative study began with mapping efl teachers’ generic perceptions towards curricular change. the initial map was then used to probe major emergent themes through individual interviews on purposively selected participants. the result showed that: (1) teachers’ belief was perceived to reshape through adequate socialization and training. (2), it took time to witness teachers’ belief formation and eventually attitudinal change, and (3) as their beliefs and practices were reshaped, teachers’ practice was highly likely to change moreover when improvement in learning gains were achieved by the students. however, the latter is often dismayed by the implementation of high-stakes testing (the national examinations). this article is closed with relevant recommendations based on the particular findings. keywords: curricular change, teacher belief, teacher practice, qualitative 102 efl in the swing of curricula indonesian efl teachers in the swing of curricula every curriculum needs to change and adapt in order to meet the evolving demands and recent developments in the society. as the nature of the labor market has changed significantly, curriculum changes become unavoidable. the emergence of world knowledge-based and service-based economies has shaped a new industrial order. indonesia is moving from a developing nation to one of asia’s biggest economy together with japan and india. in relation to education, it is interesting to ask if curriculum change is merely to prepare learners for the changing market place or to achieve broader education outcomes. it is widely believed that schools need to prepare students with the life skills, knowledge and individual potentials to be flexible and adaptable in any social changes. hence, whatever role they hold in the future, students can really learn new skills and acquire new knowledge to move forward regardless of any changes. mills (2006) urges to “take change by the hand and make a future and shape it before it grabs us by the throat.’ however, fullan (2007) and (dyer, 1999) warn that the status quo is difficult to evolve if the selected change agents (the teachers), do not recognize themselves as having any stake in the construction. indonesian efl teachers are not different, without such a stake, it is unlikely that they would undertake the fundamental changes in practices and beliefs that every new curriculum demands. fullan adds “educational change depends on what teachers do and think it’s as simple and as complex as that” (2007, p.117). in indonesia, curriculum change becomes a logical consequence of the change the social and political system. the national curricula have generally been based on the same basis, the pancasila and the 1945 constitution, foundations that unite the nation. the difference has often been the weight on implementation approaches and subject matters as reflected in the teaching hours. efl in the swing of curricula 103 this inquiry is an attempt to understand how efl teachers in indonesia make sense of the curriculum changes they experienced in their professional course. sense making of the curriculum change is an important endeavor to comprehend the impacts of the change in teachers’ beliefs and practices. this article discusses how efl teachers in indonesian schools perceive their (1) beliefs, (2) practices, and (3) attitudes in response to curriculum changes they experienced. further recommendations on practice and policy are discussed in the end of this article. teachers’ beliefs, practices and attitudes understanding teachers’ beliefs, practices and attitudes is central to recognize improvements in educational processes including the teachers’ own development. these notions are closely related to teachers’ strategies in dealing with challenges in their professional routines and they shape students’ learning environment and influence student motivation and achievement (oecd, 2009). guskey (1986) argued that teachers adjust their beliefs through changing their practice and reflecting on the result. criticizing guskey’s model as linear, clarke and hollingsworth (2002) claimed the process as a cycle with numerous entry points. their model, called teacher professional growth, considers four different realms that cover the teacher’s world namely: personal domain, external domain, domain of practice, and domain of consequence. the model assumes that principle change happens through the processes of reflection and performance. when teachers act purposively and make continuous reflection on the action, their belief may change as they find an external source of information as stimulus and salient outcomes. hence, the notions of stimulus and outcomes are crucial in order to understand teacher change. 104 efl in the swing of curricula in relation to teacher change, guskey (2002) further proposed three major goals of change in the classroom practices of teachers: change in the learning outcomes of students, change in their attitudes, and change in their beliefs. he emphasized the significance of having successful experiences that can change teachers’ prior attitudes and beliefs. when teachers believe it works as they experience themselves, that experience shapes their fresh attitudes and beliefs. built on the james-lange theory of emotion feedback, guskey’s model of teacher change implies that change in teachers’ attitudes and beliefs is principally an outcome, rather than a trigger, of change in the learning outcomes of students. without any evidence of positive change in students’ learning, significant change in the attitudes and beliefs of teachers is unlikely to occur. thus, it is their belief that professional development will increase their understanding and competence, grow their professionalism, and develop their instructional practices to what drives teachers to professional development. attitude is believed to be influenced by a belief system and experience, and this is also true of teacher attitudes (jenkins, 2005). for this reason, basalama (2010) raises the concern that high job security among government teachers in indonesia may affect their motivation towards professional learning and thus, their capacity to develop into more effective teachers. additionally, she argues that it is not easy to maintain a positive attitude towards learning to change across the course of a teacher’s career. in a stronger account, yeom, acedo, and utomo (2002) claim that teachers in indonesia are reluctant to follow directions from the government because government officials are perceived to lack the background knowledge and skill to provide advice to schools. these impressions of public school teachers’ attitudes towards change and professional learning need to be verified through an in-depth study involving efl teachers often regarded as agents of change. efl in the swing of curricula 105 sense-making through organizational learning school as a learning institution (for all of its stakeholders) have gained a central function and its leaders and teachers have significant roles to play in school improvement. in guskey’s (1995) terminology, these leaders’ and teachers’ active learning and collaboration will bring about productive change, leading to organizational learning. it is the inner creative capacity of schools to adjust to the dynamics of educational change (sleegers & leithwood, 2010, p. 558). sleegers & leithwood add that research often describes this conception of collective learning in school cultures as a professional learning community which has three strong principles: a professionally oriented culture, a learning focus, and appreciation of teachers’ inquiry and association. hence, it would be suitable to ask relevant teachers and school stakeholders to know to what extent they make sense of curricular changes. despite the different indicators and variables to describe and define the learning community, the essential idea of school organizational learning is to help form teachers’ attitudes towards new pedagogies and curricula. the key implication for schools that wish to create learning organization is that they must provide a range of targeted opportunities for teachers to learn and participate in the organizational learning. such a view inevitably places schools in a significant role as learning opportunity providers for teachers as the agents of school change in this particular study. thus, knowing how school stakeholders make sense of the changes, the barriers they encounter, and the efforts they make to adapt is essential in the current study. sense-making is the process through which individuals select, interpret, assign meaning to, and act on stimulation they perceive from their environment (weick, 1995). research has taken into account how organizational theories such as sense-making can help us to better understand teacher learning in schools. the theory highlights the interpretive, social, and on106 efl in the swing of curricula going nature of constructing understanding, directing away from a notion of learning as simple, properly designated activities. on the contrary, teachers might engage in sense-making any time for instance when they encounter difficulty in understanding a policy instruction or have classroom teaching experiences they find bewildering. moreover, the interpretations teachers draw from these matters is, to a certain extent, related to their identity, including their knowledge, beliefs, and current practices. thus, employing a sense-making lens to the study of teachers’ sense making facilitates the study to the conception of why, what, how, when, and where teachers change in response to curricular changes. the process of learning from experiences takes time and allows teachers to ponder what they have encountered in their professional experiences. they have impressions, judgments, and interpretations of the particular experiences they have lived because teachers’ knowledge is mostly formed through narrative accounts of experience in order to construct a shared understanding of their work (johnson, 2009). doyle (1997) argues that narratives can locate and link facts to one another and that the real meaning of truth lies in how phenomena are connected and interpreted by the participants. narrative also enables the unheard, unseen, and undocumented – the ordinary, marginalized, and silenced to give voice (riessman, 2008). within this set of assumptions, the exploration of teacher beliefs, practices and attitudes in response to curriculum change can be obtained through rigorously analyzing their perceptions and stories which leads to how they identify, respond and make-sense of the change. efl in the swing of curricula 107 indonesian efl context according to lie (2007), indonesia underwent six efl curricular changes with three different approaches prior to her publication. with the two recent changes, there have been eight english teaching curricula implemented in the country. table 1 below describes the english teaching curricular changes that happened in the indonesian education system (the shaded rows could be found by lie (2009)). table 1. list of curricula implemented in indonesia no starting year name of curriculum approach 1 1945 unknown grammar translation 2 1968 oral approach audio-lingual 3 1975 oral approach audio-lingual 4 1984 communicative approach communicative 5 1994 meaning-based curriculum communicative 6 2004 competency-based curriculum communicative 7 2006 school-based curriculum communicative 8 2013 curriculum 2013 scientific criticizing the communicativeness of the curricula, lie (2009) noticed two ambiguities emerged from the implementation of the curricula in the 80s and 90s. first is the mismatch of the claimed ‘communicative’ curriculum and the very structured syllabi. second is the incongruity of the claimed ‘communicative’ curriculum and the priority for the four language skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. the integration of the four skills was halted by discreet pedagogy in classroom practice due to teachers’ incompetency. 108 efl in the swing of curricula overall, lie (2009) noted four main constraints in all of the curricular changes experienced by elt in indonesia. first, the number of students in classrooms is so large and their socio-economic disparity is so wide that it is difficult to design a curriculum that would work effectively all students in schools. in other words, a one-size-fits-all curriculum would be inappropriate for the indonesian education setting. the next constraint is the budget shortage which has implications on the large class size, the low teacher salary, and the lack of educational resources. the third constraint is the nature of efl learning environment where unequal opportunities exist in the learning environment for learners of english in indonesia. the last constraint is the politics of policy and curriculum. although teachers were supposed to have the autonomy to develop and carry out the curriculum based on the basic competencies and minimal standards as set in, for instance, the 2004 curriculum, school practices in regard to efl teaching did not reflect the ideals of the curriculum. the national exam pressure forces teachers to teach to the test and drill their students for several months of their last year in high school. such conditions have put efl teachers into a dilemma of following the prescribed curriculum or achieving the high scores in the national examinations (nes). they are in between the extreme pendulum which to a certain extent impact on their pedagogical practices. the competency-based curriculum approach employed since 2004 is dismayed by the implementation of high-stakes testing as the nes. after the political heat, the new government seems to take the pro-teacher steps in terms of educational policy. however, still, the voice of teachers remains central despite the policy shifts. teacher resistance the desire and intention to maintain existing practices in response to changes teachers consider being undesirable and threatening is often defined as teacher resistance (giles, 2006). efl in the swing of curricula 109 such resistance is believed to happen when teachers do not comprehend and value the need for change. under such conditions, they tend to be more interested in keeping the status quo to continue. it must be easier to continue the existing instructional practices in the same way rather than trying to learn new approaches and methods. greenberg and baron (2008) argue that teachers might fear the loss of what is familiar and comfortable, and might feel anxious about the new changes when their fixed professional and instructional routines are disturbed. teacher resistance might also arise from a lowered commitment to change in the late years of career cycle (huberman, 1989), and from drives to retain status and self-interest when recommended changes are considered intimidating (fullan and hargreaves, 1996). however, achinstein and ogawa (2006) and gitlin and margonis (1995) remind the danger of stereotypical and biased stigma on teachers who resist curricular reform proposals, and argue that teachers show ‘principled resistance’ only when they identify proposed curriculum changes as unfavorable to their students’ learning. this article argues that teacher resistance should not always be perceived as a problem because it provides opportunities for policy makers to reflect on the reform proposals and to learn from teacher responses. fullan (2007) also suggests that curricular change does not necessarily mean progress especially when policy makers never carry out an evaluation on the previous curriculum. hence, efl teacher resistance to the curricular changes in indonesia can be seen as a form of negative response when there is disagreement about an innovation. this why the current study attempts to understand to what extent efl teachers respond to curricular changes with regards to their beliefs, attitudes and practices. 110 efl in the swing of curricula brief methods in order to answer the proposed research question, the study was designed to accommodate extensive and in-depth information from the participants. for that reason, the study had to cover wide-ranging participants while at the same time the depth of their responses was central. thomas schwandt (2007, p. 296) argues that “to thickly describe social action is actually to begin to interpret it by recording the circumstances, meanings, intentions, strategies, motivations, and so on that characterize a particular episode. it is this interpretive characteristic of description rather than detail per se that makes it thick.” thus, the interpretations of the phenomena made the current study reach what so called ‘thick description’. embracing a qualitative approach, this study was carried out through two phases of data collection. the first was in the form of on line survey involving efl teachers of different backgrounds in which the obtained information was used as the initial data. sent through on line channels such as e-mails and social media applications, the survey gained considerable responses from efl teachers due to the spiral nature of these technologies. only expecting for about forty responses, fifty one teachers voluntarily gave their responses within a fortnight. the following table summarizes the details of the participants in the study. table 2. summary of participants & data collection instrument participants gender duration output analysis m f survey 51 16 35 2 weeks semi-structured interview questions mapped interviews 16 5 11 60 minutes/ participant verbatim data coded efl in the swing of curricula 111 the initial data from the on-line survey was utilized to construct questions for the second stage of semi-structured individual interviews. sixteen participants were selected purposively to represent different gender, academic background, school type, and teaching experience. with twelve pre-designed questions and probes mapped from the first phase of data gathering, each participant took about sixty minutes to respond in a relaxed situation. all individual interviews were conducted in indonesian to facilitate comprehension, recorded by means of an audio tape, and the verbatim data were transcribed in order to ease subsequent coding processes. results and discussions in line with the research questions, this section is divided into three sub-sections to facilitate the discussion. the first sub-section discusses the perceived impacts on efl teachers’ beliefs. following that, the perceived impacts on their attitudes will be discussed and finally, this section will elaborate the perceived impact of curricular change on teachers’ practices. every finding of the study is followed by a discussion with relevant literature to make sense of the data and to locate the findings among the existing studies in related area. the perceived impact on teachers’ beliefs more than half of the received initial responses showed teachers’ preference in the school-level curriculum which actually still embraces competency-based approach. as probed further through the interview, the response was due to their familiarity and satisfaction with the curriculum. luke, a high school teacher from northern suburbs said, “it took a rather long time for us to learn and understand this curriculum (2006) so that we could enjoy it in the classroom but then the government decided to change with the new one.” several other participants from different schools who had longer experiences also had concern over the length of learning time they had to learn a new curriculum. richardson et al. (1991) warn that ignoring fixed beliefs 112 efl in the swing of curricula when implementing curricular reform often results in disappointing outcomes. therefore, it is necessary to first understand set belief incorporated by the teachers before implementing change. reflecting on her own experience, another teacher in a well-established vocational school, anne argued, “it is not easy for us to learn new things instantly. we have to make sure that the change is really favorable for us and for our students.” her statement reflects teachers’ concern over the short socialization and speedy learning expected from the teachers who have been comfortable in using their preferred curriculum for years. as they claim, it requires time and effort to change their beliefs in the curriculum. in a rather cynical way, brad who teaches english in a junior school in the city claimed, “they (the authority) never conducted any study on the (competency-based) curriculum. how could they change it?” as probed further, his voice was not meant to be rebellious but a reflection of his disappointment towards the marginalization he experienced at school, exclusion from policy making, and a form of critical voice that was also heard from most interviews with the participants. these teachers argued that, by all means, they had to comply with the regulation (curriculum) as it has been enacted; they would change. in other words, they would inevitably reshape their beliefs in the existing curriculum in the light of the new one despite their resistantlook and apathy. in spite of the qualitative nature of the current study, it is interesting to present the quasistatistics of their responses in the on-line survey. most of the responses related to their relevant activities were in contrast with the commonly perceived negative attitudes. when asked, “as an efl teacher, what did you do when the curriculum changed” the survey participants answered: efl in the swing of curricula 113 table 3. summary responses of participants’ attitudes asked relevant questions to the school(s) 18 35% found information through outside network 21 41% asked questions to the school supervisors 6 12% waited until i got the information 6 12% others 0 0% only a half-dozen participants showed their averseness while the rest tried to positively look for information about the change through different channels. it demonstrates that most of the survey participants (efl teachers) were aware of the curricular change despite their perceived attitudes which are discussed in the following sub-section. the perceived impacts on teachers’ attitudes two major voices in common among the participants are the demand for better communication and the emphasis for curricular evaluation before any change. these two themes were consistently emergent both in the survey and the interviews. the two themes can be said to become the main drive for teachers’ attitudinal reactions in the study. while some teachers are resistant in their strategies to ignore such agendas, others obviously try to search of a way around the system (smagorinsky et al. 2002; starnes 2000). this phenomena can be tracked trough and is well-reflected the participants’ responses both in the survey and interviews. a fairly young teacher of 27 years old who teaches english in a vocational school declared, “i had to search for information about the details of new curriculum by myself through different sources such as the internet, colleagues and professional network”. 114 efl in the swing of curricula despite his colleagues’ reluctance, he admitted that it would be too long to understand the change if he only waited for the official socialization from the authority. ling (2002) finds changes in teacher feelings during curriculum reform. in her study, teachers’ feelings changed from frustration during the first phase of curriculum change to confidence when they were able to adapt the materials. it is similar to what maria, an efl teacher who participated in the interview, said, “i was struggling with the new curriculum but after attending several trainings and workshops, i gradually understood what was required by the curriculum”. burns (1995) admits that curriculum change challenges familiar practices but with the passing of time that brings familiarity, initial concerns are normally resolved. the familiarity which came with experience as time passed was the factor that helped in reshaping the teachers’ belief of the change and contributed to improving the teachers’ attitudes. this could be what happened to the teachers in this study whose initial perceptions of reform in curriculum changed over time and this adjustment in belief was reflected in their attitudes and eventually practices. it needs to be emphasized that there are similarities and differences between teachers in the way they internalize the changes. as what the survey captures, teacher participants have mixed-responses towards the curriculum reform. regardless of their dissatisfaction with their roles in the process of curriculum change, the participants showed different reactions to this top-down policy and marginalization. it is, therefore, possible that different teachers drew on their different educational, social, and cultural backgrounds in managing their responses and reactions towards the newly implemented curriculum. the perceived impact on teachers’ practices “i know they change the curriculum, but i will maintain my way of teaching because i know my students better”, claimed paula a middle-aged teacher with limited access to efl in the swing of curricula 115 professional learning in a rural school. she seemed to resist the change in the way she maintained her instructions. it is interesting to review the literature regarding the phenomenon. allington, johnston, and day (2002, p. 462) viewed teaching as “a complex activity that is not amendable to scripted materials, standardized lessons, or any one-size-fits-all plan for the organization of instruction”. in line with that, teachers, according to fang (1996), organize instruction in alignment with previous classroom interactions, personal reflections and beliefs, and the observed needs of their students. in more recent research, van der schaaf, stokking, and verloop (2008) find that quality teaching is bred when competent teachers align their personal beliefs with their professional practice. thus, what teachers believe is normally represented in their instructional practice. three interview participants voiced their concerns over their hesitation to implement the suggested instructions in the new curriculum. “my friends and i don’t feel confident and comfortable with the new curriculum. we can’t see the difference in the competence standard and the approach is not familiar elt”, said charlie, acting as a spoken person for his colleagues. “we are worried that our students also get confused with our new way of teaching”, explained jessica who also stressed the focus on the national examinations (nes). the latter emphasis was a clue to understand the teachers’ reluctance to shift their instructions. the suggested approach and practices on skills and competencies had to collide with the drive of the nes on the other extreme of the pendulum which noticeably creates disharmony. regardless of the curriculum, the participants’ pedagogical practices seemed to be driven more by the force of the nes. as au (2007, p. 63) claims, “whether in the form of increased teacher-centered instruction or increased student-centered instruction, the evidence suggests that high-stakes testing exerts significant pedagogic control over curriculum.” the phenomena that 116 efl in the swing of curricula occurred among the current study’s participants resemble au’s meta-synthesis study. most participants argued that they normally practice (a method) which they believed to be practicable and effective in their classrooms. when a new method or approach to teaching is introduced (through a new curriculum), they tend to ‘wait and see’. until its benefits and effectiveness are proven, they will seek information on it but maintain their practices regardless of the invitation to change. hence, it is actually both matters of time and result for teachers to ‘learn’ and embrace a new change. they realize the work to implement the curriculum through their instructional practices. they want to make sure that the change will facilitate their practice and is effective in terms of achieving students’ academic success. with the implementation of the nes, the term academic success has been reduced to gaining high scores in the subject (english). although less than half of the survey participants felt that the problem is on the content of the new curriculum, the interviews suggest that how it is socialized and introduced to them as practitioners and users in the classrooms matters more. conclusions & suggestions the results and discussions show that teachers kept their practices because the new curriculum is considered as alien and understanding it takes time. during the period of adaptation, teachers are actually testing their beliefs and learning to familiarize themselves with the new curriculum but unfortunately their attitudes are often misinterpreted as forms of resistance. mckernan (2008, p. 86) argues that teachers need to be given “a fair stake in qualitative judgment, classroom research and evaluation … (and) decision-making belongs to individual teachers.” according to elliott (1994), curriculum development means a process in which teachers play a key role in the sense that they keep experimenting with their students to efl in the swing of curricula 117 develop the curriculum. similarly, rea-dickens and germaine (1998) argue for the importance of involving teachers in curriculum development. being alienated from policy making has made efl teachers in indonesia more calculative in response to curricular changes. the partial revocation of curriculum 2013 by the new government demonstrates the importance of engaging teachers the processes of curriculum development, implementation and evaluations. in terms of developing a language curriculum, the processes of articulating broad educational philosophies, policies, needs analysis, goals, and methodological approaches need to take into account efl teachers’ voice. for instance, agustien (2014) exemplified that teachers noticed the flaws in the curriculum particularly in the interpretation of the embraced paradigm with the reality they faced in the dissemination. she also found that there was no clear guidance for the teachers in training materials as to how to accommodate scientific approach elements in the genre based approach method to achieve the targeted communicative competence. consequently, teachers interpreted the principles in the approach differently. this example should become a lesson in policy learning so that future decision can consider a more participatory approach. as the current study suggests, teachers know best what happen in the classrooms as they are the true users of the curriculum. their criticism and cynical attitudes towards the withdrawn curriculum should be marked as significant signals from the practitioners in the schools that have been neglected so far. in relation to the negligence, fullan (2006) said, “i am not saying that standards, assessment, curriculum, and professional development are wrong things to do. i am saying that they are seriously incomplete theories of action because they do not get close to what happens in classrooms and school cultures.” hence, it is important for policy makers to realize the importance of taking teachers’ voice into account. simultaneously, teacher educators need to 118 efl in the swing of curricula make teachers and teacher candidates aware that change is inevitable and they have to be ready for any change including in their instructional practices. the education context is changing rapidly and efl teachers need to be equipped with the ability to adapt in order to be able to cope well with the speed of transformation. as most of the participants in the study underwent three or less curricular changes in their professional experience, their responses tend to focus on the reform that occurred in the last two decades. this demographic issue might be due to the employment of on-line survey which was probably novel for more senior teachers. therefore, methodologically, it will be useful for future studies to combine both online and paper survey to accommodate more and deeper insights. such an approach can provide wider perspectives and more comprehensive information from the participants. efl in the swing of curricula 119 references achinstein, b., & ogawa, r. t. 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(2008). teacher beliefs and teacher behaviour in a portfolio assessment. teaching and teacher education 34: 1691–1704. karl e. weick. (1995). sensemaking in organizations (vol. 3). sage. yeom, m., acedo, c., & utomo, e. (2002). the reform of secondary education in indonesia during the 1990s: basic education expansion and quality improvement through curriculum decentralization. asia pacific education review, 3(1), 56-68. 78 running head: learning autonomy and efl vocabulary beyond words vol.3, no.1, may 2015 widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia assessing learner autonomy and efl vocabulary acquisition: a case study teng feng tengfeng@uni.canberra.edu.au nanning university, china learning autonomy and efl vocabulary 79 abstract the importance of autonomy learning is widely acknowledged in teaching english as a foreign language (efl) in asian contexts. the present study attempted to report low proficiency level students’ autonomous vocabulary learning. the first part of the present study focused on exploring how learners perceived and experienced their autonomous vocabulary learning, with a questionnaire and group discussion applied to collect data. during the second part of the study, the data were discussed collaboratively by six teachers to identify the different approaches utilized by learners. priorities included setting weekly goals, self-planning and self-monitoring the process of learning vocabulary. results also revealed that a weak ‘top-down’ approach in implementing learner autonomy is inadequate. teachers need to provide scaffolding skills tailored to learners’ context-specific needs, for which a strong ‘bottom-up’ approach is more appropriate in supporting autonomous learning. in this case, classroom time should be allocated to demonstrate the strategies and teachers should work collaboratively to develop resources and materials for learners’ autonomous vocabulary learning. the present study also addressed the need for establishing an effective intervention for supporting learner autonomy. keywords: learner autonomy, vocabulary learning, self-plan, self-monitor 80 learning autonomy and efl vocabulary assessing learner autonomy and efl vocabulary acquisition: a case study vocabulary is an important sub-field of language learning, with which learners are able to use four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing (nation, 2001; richards & renandya, 2002; schmitt, 2010). this importance is recognized regardless of l1, l2, or efl learning (decarrico, 2001). however, learning words is an incremental process involving a variety of sub-processes. one process is primarily concerned with lexical entry, i.e., the enrichment, refinement of lexical information, which many efl tertiary-level learners lack (nan, 2004). in other words, with a limited vocabulary size, it is very difficult for learners to effectively engage in an intensive or extensive reading course. accordingly, they need an effective way to improve their vocabulary size. concerning vocabulary acquisition, there are mainly two approaches: incidental learning and intentional learning (schmitt, 2000, 2008; teng, 2014a). in some studies, for example, paribakht & wesche (1993, 1997) fully supported the idea that intentional vocabulary learning yielded a better result than incidental vocabulary learning. however, when considering the limited classroom time for intentional and explicit teaching of every word, many researchers have resorted to incidental vocabulary learning. incidental learning, which is learned in an implicit way, is a “by-product” of any teaching activity (hulstijn, 2001, p.266). when learners try to understand the embedded meaning of the context, then the acquisition of words occurs subconsciously (paribakht & wesche, 1999). many studies have been conducted on the effects of extensive reading on incidental vocabulary learning (day, omura, & hiramatsu, 1992; horst, 2005; teng, 2015; webb, 2008). however, incidental vocabulary gain is very limited (teng, learning autonomy and efl vocabulary 81 2014b). therefore, other factors that affect vocabulary learning have been suggested; for example, topic familiarity, time spent on learning, level of intake, and strategies (nation, 2008; pulido, 2004). the present study investigated how efl learners perceive out-of-class autonomous vocabulary learning strategies, and reported some suggestions on how to encourage learner autonomy with the support of teachers. literature review the concept of learner autonomy (la) is one of the major theoretical constructs in language learning. likewise, the importance of learner autonomy is widely acknowledged in english language teaching. indeed, a majority of teachers regards la as an approach that positively impacts efl students when learning english. moreover, autonomous learners often have an enhanced ability to make decisions for their learning (borg & al-busaidi, 2012; humphreys & wyatt, 2014). holec (1981) firstly pointed out the notion of la, for which he stated autonomy is “an ability to take charge of one’s own learning” (p. 3). he was the pioneer in taking the idea of la into second and foreign language teaching and learning. from late 1980s to the early 2000s, the notion of learner autonomy became increasingly popular as more and more new terms appeared, e.g., “learner-centeredness” (candy, 1991, p.459), “intrinsic motivation” (ushioda, 1996, p.19), “self-directed learner” (winnie & perry, 2000, p.533). learner autonomy quickly entered a new stage, and was different from holec’s (1981) concept that the learners should assume the responsibility for all the decisions (p.7). teachers are required to develop skills and knowledge of la because teachers play a scaffolding role (dickson, 1995, p.167; little, 1991, p.68; nunan, 82 learning autonomy and efl vocabulary 1996, p.15). in regard to the learning outcome achieved from la, benson (1996, 2001, 2006) stressed that language learning proficiency could be improved when learners were encouraged to become more autonomous by developing effective strategies. he also called for a rethinking towards developing learners’ la, and the learner should be trained to control over the language, resources, and learning process. to put it in other words, efl learners should be responsible for determining their objectives, contents, methodologies, monitoring the process of acquisition, and evaluating what has been acquired. while previous studies support and acknowledge the uncritical notion of la, and accept it as a universally promoted method for learning english socially and culturally in japan (ogawa, 2012), and vietnam (nguyen, 2009), similar research is absent in china. in ogawa’s study, she analyzed japanese efl learners’ perceptions of la and the related variables concerned with vocabulary learning. in nguyen’s study, she also analyzed university students’ perceptions of la in vietnam and the effects of metacognitive strategies in learning english. with regards to efl learner’s perceptions of la in china, there is still a lack of attention or support, which is the first part of the current study. as mentioned above, learner autonomy is an idea rooted in european philosophy (benson, 2006). thus some researchers argued that la might not be appropriate to asian contexts (pennycook, 1997; phuong-mai, terlouw, & pilot, 2006). nevertheless, littlewood (2000) surveyed 2,600 students in asian countries and found out that most of the students were unwilling to be merely obedient listeners. this raises the question of how to encourage efl students in asian countries to develop autonomous learning strategies. learning autonomy and efl vocabulary 83 smith (2003) proposed a ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ approach to encourage learner autonomy. a top-down ‘weak’ approach proposes that effective training of adequate learning strategies should be provided for a learner who lacks autonomy. for example, offering technical practice in self-access centers. this approach is criticized for failing to engage with variations in individuals’ capacity for la. in other words, a state of psychological readiness is the prerequisite for autonomous learning. many efl students entering a university may have already formed some personal habits of being heavily dependent. in this case, it would be difficult for them to adjust to a new system which requires autonomous learning. therefore, teachers should adopt a bottom-up ‘strong’ approach, which focuses on learners’ needs. in other words, teachers should consider students’ current key ability level to work autonomously. for this, nunan (1997) clearly pointed out five levels: ‘awareness’, ‘involvement’, ‘intervention’, ‘creation’, and ‘transcendence’. ideally, teachers can attempt to help their students develop autonomous learning skills that they can sustain and manage. therefore, it is necessary to investigate how teachers can work collaboratively to understand what kind of autonomous learning that their students need, and how intervention should be planned. this is the second part of the present study. purpose of the current study the first part of the current study attempts to investigate whether or not the weak awareness and acknowledgement of la exist in university efl students in guangxi, china. the results will help present a clearer understanding of how low proficiency efl learners perceive la and identify their use of autonomous vocabulary learning strategies. the second part of the 84 learning autonomy and efl vocabulary current study will attempt to find ways on how autonomous learning strategies can be promoted with the collaborate support of teachers. in order to meet the research aims in the present study, two questions were addressed: 1. how do tertiary-level efl students perceive out-of-class autonomous vocabularylearning strategies? 2. what strategies can be developed to improve levels of autonomy? methods participants the 80 first-year students selected in the present study were from different majors at nanning university. they were from six parallel classes. according to the scores of their final exam, these participants were considered to be at the low-proficiency level. among the 80 participants, there were 50 males and 30 females. six english teachers were invited to a two-hour discussion as they all had teaching assignments in the classes mentioned above. they were all experienced teachers with a master’s degree in english education. they also worked as an instructor at the self-access center. thus they had a basic understanding of learner autonomy. in addition, they were familiar with their students’ background. questionnaire a five-point likert scale questionnaire was used in the study. the questionnaire contained ten items eliciting learners’ perceptions of out-of-class autonomous vocabulary-learning strategies; for example, goal-setting, self-planning, and self-monitoring (appendix i). learning autonomy and efl vocabulary 85 to collect the data, the questionnaire was administered in class. participants were not required to write down any personal information. thus learners’ identity was kept confidential. students’ group discussion ten students who filled out the questionnaire were also invited to participate voluntarily in a small group discussion. the discussion was to encourage participants to reflect on their experiences of learner autonomy, and to express opinions on sociocultural influences that might affect how they perceive the notion of learner autonomy (see some questions in appendix ii). the group discussions were open. the author proctored the entire process and took notes. participants were encouraged to express their own opinions. although teacher involvement might have inhibited their willingness to talk, this factor was mitigated by the design of the discussion, which was based on voluntary participation. teachers’ group discussion six teachers from the six classes mentioned above took part voluntarily in a two-hour discussion. teachers were informed that their opinions were kept confidential. in order to conduct an in-depth discussion on students’ autonomous learning, the author shared the data collected from students’ questionnaires and their group discussion with the six teachers before the teachers’ discussion. as mentioned above, all the teachers had a basic understanding of learner autonomy. the discussion first attempted to provide an opportunity for teachers working collaboratively to identify the strengths and weaknesses of different autonomous learning strategies. second, this discussion was also an opportunity to encourage teachers’ collaboration in providing scaffolding skills for students’ autonomous vocabulary learning. 86 learning autonomy and efl vocabulary results and discussions question 1 to answer the first research question of how tertiary-level efl students perceived out-of-class autonomous vocabulary-learning strategies, the results of the questionnaire were presented in the following table. table 1. percentage of conducting the out-of-class strategies note: sa=strongly agree a=agree n=neutral da=disagree sda=strongly disagree as presented in table 1, the results revealed that most of participants had relatively low levels of awareness and involvement in out-of-class autonomous vocabulary learning. for example, 70 % of the participants reported uncertainty on setting their own goal. this was done by combining the percentage of disagree and strongly disagree. it was found that 68 % of the participants felt they did not self-plan their vocabulary learning, and 72 % were also unsure of learning autonomy and efl vocabulary 87 self-monitoring their learning processes. this uncertainty was further demonstrated in that 80% of the participants reported a lack of confidence in speaking with new words and had a lack of a plan to find their own way of learning vocabulary. this is evidence that the specific focus on encouraging students’ learner autonomy was to address the skills of goal setting, self-planning, and self-monitoring. regarding students’ behaviors on conducting out-of-class independent learning, the figures appeared to show an unsatisfactory result. although 40% of the participants reported that they would go to the self-access center and also try to read materials to enlarge their vocabulary size. this data was found by combining the percentage of agree and strongly agree. only 30% reported they would review newly-learned words. this was further demonstrated by 20% of the participants reporting their willingness to check the meanings of new words and a lower proportion of 10% asked for help from others. this is evidence that participants seldom spent time on out-of-class autonomous vocabulary learning. this result is also in line with previous studies (nguyen, 2009), wherein low-proficiency students are more unlikely to use autonomous strategies than advanced level students. group discussion the results collected from the group discussion first revealed that learners had a mixed feeling about autonomous learning. some reported that autonomous learning is not necessary. for example, one said “we, do not see the value of autonomous learning because we have many english courses.” however, some students regarded learner autonomy as an indispensable part of language learning. for example, one said “autonomous learning is very important because it is 88 learning autonomy and efl vocabulary impossible to learn everything only from in-class learning, and i think i am confident in it.” this demonstrates a readiness for autonomous learning. nevertheless, many of them reported it was very difficult for them to conduct autonomous learning after class. for example, one said “although we are told to learn autonomously, we do not know how.” accordingly, it is concluded that while some students have a level of awareness and involvement to explore autonomous learning, others hold negative views. this is evidence that a weak ‘top-down’ approach might not work for the low proficiency students, because this method does not focus on their individual needs. this is consistent with a previous study (smith, 2003), wherein teachers are encouraged to adopt stronger forms of autonomy support for students. as expected, students all reported that learning english at the university was very different from what they did in secondary school. problems in conducting autonomous learning as a result of sociocultural factors were exemplified by comments such as “chinese students are heavily dependent on their teachers. this is a tradition rooted in chinese confucian philosophy.” moreover, some students regarded autonomous learning as a conflict with their traditional learning, arguing, “it is very strange for chinese to learn autonomously.” accordingly, making the transition from secondary school to the university level for first-year students can be difficult. this difficulty is also shown in other asian countries, e.g., in helping vietnamese tertiary-level students to become more autonomous (humphreys & wyatt, 2014). it is widely acknowledged among these students that the role of their teachers in supporting autonomous learning was important. without teachers’ instruction and guidance, they felt it would be impossible to learn autonomously. for example, they commented: learning autonomy and efl vocabulary 89 “teachers need to give us more instructions.” “teachers should help us set a plan for learning.” “teachers should help us monitor our learning.” “teachers often explained the meaning of new words in class, but they did not tell us how to learn vocabulary autonomously.” it appears that students need their teachers to be proactive in implementing autonomous learning. as proposed in humphreys & wyatt (2014, p.58), teachers cannot expect their students to make the transition by themselves. therefore, it is suggested that teachers should focus on students’ specific needs, and provide scaffolding skills. put simply, in the pedagogy for autonomy, teachers should scaffold the development of autonomy (smith, 2008). question 2 to answer the second research question of what strategies might be devised to improve levels of autonomy; resulting data were collected from discussion with teachers. it is widely acknowledged that there is a need for applying a ‘bottom-up’ strong approach to scaffolding autonomous learning. hence, teachers should provide more guidance with regards to students’ individual, context-specific needs, as the following comments from teachers demonstrated: “teachers should take more time to instruct students on how to learn vocabulary autonomously.” “teachers play a dominant role in classroom practice, students are simply obedient listeners. although teachers assign homework for students, that is not equal to autonomous 90 learning autonomy and efl vocabulary learning.” “teachers understand the importance of learner autonomy. however, we seldom monitor students’ performance in autonomous learning.” in addition to the guidance that was required in scaffolding autonomous learning, some teachers also admitted that a lack of consistency occurred across their teaching. for example, while some teachers put more time on instructing students’ autonomous learning, other teachers did not. moreover, some teachers might develop reading materials for students’ autonomous learning, while others did not. it was appreciated that most of teachers spent much time in explaining new words to students and that they all agreed on the importance of teaching vocabulary. however, teachers also admitted that they did not guide students to learn vocabulary autonomously. one teacher commented: “teachers spent time on explicitly explaining and teaching every new word to the students. students also followed, but it seems that the effect is insignificant. we need to guide them how to learn vocabulary autonomously. however, we seldom do this.” all teachers acknowledged the effects of a strong approach on learners’ uptake of vocabulary, especially when the teachers needed to facilitate learners setting a goal, as well as planning and monitoring their learning. one teacher stated, “setting a plan is an effective way,” while another said, “monitoring can help learners understand how words can be learned.” for future teaching, teachers suggested that the first step is to establish a rapport with students by which teachers can earn trust from students. this is a basis for starting discussions on learning autonomy and efl vocabulary 91 out-of-class learning. the second step is to motivate students’ engagement on classroom decision-making. teachers also suggested that class time be allocated to guide students on how to learn vocabulary autonomously. the third step is to encourage reflection on learning. later, teachers collaborated on providing scaffolding skills for students’ autonomous vocabulary learning. for example, materials for autonomous vocabulary learning should be developed collaboratively. it was suggested that a weekly autonomous learning plan be set by teachers and students. this also required teachers and students’ cooperative efforts to monitor and reflect on the learning process. this is evidence that teachers should teach with, not at students. this is also proposed in other studies (smith, 2001; ushioda et al., 2011), that ‘teacher-of-the-students’ and the ‘students-of-the-teacher’ cease to exist and a new term emerges: ‘teachers-students with students-teachers.’ this means teachers are no longer merely ‘the-one-who-teaches’, but one who is himself taught along with the students, who in turn, while being taught, also teach. overall, teachers agreed on the importance of providing opportunities for learners to self-plan, self-monitor, and self-reflect on their vocabulary learning. teachers also needed to show them the effectiveness of using autonomous vocabulary learning strategies. one stated, “students should know how to monitor the extent to which they have learned from their weekly goal, work together to reflect on what they have learned, which strategies they have used, which things they have enjoyed doing.” another added, “then learners are instructed to identify the useful strategies for next weekly goal with the support of their teachers.” in conclusion, with teachers’ helping to tailor to individual’s needs, and with specifically developed resources and materials, autonomous learning seemed achievable. in addition, while 92 learning autonomy and efl vocabulary in-class teaching based on the requirements of curriculum is necessary, allocation of class time to demonstrate the application of autonomous learning strategies and allowing learners to work together to reflect on their previous learning seemed worthwhile. conclusion the present study attempted to address the problems of applying autonomous vocabulary learning among low proficiency efl university students. the first part attempted to answer the question of how the students perceived their autonomous vocabulary learning. questionnaires and group discussions were applied to seek insights into learners’ view of teacher’s role and their needs. resulting data were shared with teachers in a small-scale discussion, which was the second part of the present study. results revealed that a weak ‘top-down’ approach in implementing learner autonomy is not adequate. teachers need to provide scaffolding skills tailored to learners’ context-specific needs, for which a strong ‘bottom-up’ approach is more appropriate in supporting autonomous learning. this means that the teacher’s role in supporting learner autonomy is indispensible. ideally, any change in instructional practice needs to be guided by the teachers themselves. therefore, teachers should work collaboratively to develop resources and materials for learners’ autonomous vocabulary learning. in this case, teachers are no longer merely ‘the-one-who-teaches’, but one who is himself taught along with the students, who in turn, while being taught, also teach. although it was appreciated that teachers spent too much classroom time in explicitly teaching every word meaning, it was suggested that class time be allocated to demonstrating the application of relevant strategies. learning autonomy and efl vocabulary 93 students’ efforts were also crucial to autonomous learning. with teacher’s guidance, students needed to form greater awareness in setting plans or goals, and monitoring their vocabulary learning process. limitations and future research although the present study proposed some possibilities for future teaching of autonomous vocabulary learning in this and similar contexts, an effective intervention approach was not suggested. as teachers reported, sometimes it was impossible to allocate class time in instructing autonomous learning strategies since teaching is driven by the curriculum requirements. in addition, it was also difficult to develop the uptake of autonomous vocabulary learning for all students. therefore, an effective intervention approach that could help learners make a transition from their passive learning formed in secondary school towards a higher level of autonomous vocabulary learning is needed. this addresses the need for future research on this issue. 94 learning autonomy and efl vocabulary references benson, p. 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(2000). measuring self-regulated learning. in m. boekaerts, p. r. pintrich, & m. zeidner (eds.), handbook of self-regulation (pp. 532-566). san diego, california: academic press. learning autonomy and efl vocabulary 99 appendix i this questionnaire is concerned with how you feel about learning vocabulary and all the information will be kept confidential. 1= strongly disagree 2=disagree 3=neutral 4=agree 5=strongly agree after class, i will… 1. try to find my own way of learning new words. ( ) 2. try to read many reading materials to enlarge my vocabulary size. ( ) 3. review the newly-learned words. ( ) 4. check the meaning of any new words that i encounter. ( ) 5. ask for help when i don’t know the meaning of a word. ( ) 6. set my own learning goals. ( ) 7. have a plan of accumulating words and i will strictly follow my plan. ( ) 8. monitor my own learning progress. ( ) 9. go to the self-access center or library for study. ( ) 10. always encourage myself to speak english with new words. ( ) appendix ii questions for students’ group discussion 1. how do you think of autonomous learning? 2. do you think learner autonomy important for vocabulary learning? 3. how is english learning in university different from that in your secondary school? 4. what sociocultural factors might affect your autonomous learning? 5. how do you think the role of teacher in implementing learner autonomy? 6. how have the teachers here facilitated you in developing autonomous learning? about the authors eric sulindra w., m.pd. is a graduate of the graduate school, widya mandala catholic university, majoring in tefl, teaching english as foreign language. he is currently a lecturer of business english writing, business correspondence, and business english communication for students of widya mandala secretarial academy, surabaya, indonesia. he is also supervising an english debating club and english society of the students in widya mandala secretarial academy, surabaya, indonesia reza rezvani did his undergraduate (english literature) and master degrees (tefl) at shiraz university, iran. he received his ph.d. degree from the same university in 2010. he has taught translation studies and tefl courses. his areas of interest include language assessment, translation, quality assessment, materials development & evaluation, teacher education, and teaching language skills. safiyeh pakdaman took her undergraduate degree (tefl) at islamic azad university, shiraz branch, iran, and her master degree (tefl) at the same university, fars science and research branch. her areas of interest are tefl studies and teacher education. rouhollah askari bigdeli holds an ma in tefl from yasouj university, iran. currently he is a lecturer at yasouj university. he is the senior associate editor of the iranian efl journal and has published and presented papers in the areas of teacher identity, translation teaching, critical literacy, and call. lani freeborn has been teaching english as a foreign language for five years. she is a student at the institute of education university college london. lani currently teaches english in nanjing, china. aseel kanakri is a ph.d. candidate and a graduate assistant at the college of education at kent state university, ohio. she specializes in curriculum and instruction and teaching english tp speakers of other languages (tesol). she is also a senior lecturer of english at the university of akron and kent state university. she has a master’s degree in rhetoric and composition from university of akron. her research interests are esl, curriculum & instruction and literacy studies. mateus yumarnamto is an educator from indonesia and a fullbright scholar at iu bloomington. he is interested in language teaching and cultural studies, especially in the area of language teacher education. he is also interested in how teachers’ professional identities are shaped and reshaped in their life history and narratives. he is an adjunct lecturer, east asian languages and cultures, and a ph.d. candidate at the department of literacy, culture, and language education, school of education. hadis toufani has been studying english in different language institutes in tehran since she was 18. due to her interest in english language, she decided to opt for english major and got her ba in english language and literature in 2009 at azad university, karaj branch. afterwards, she decided to change her major and study tefl for her ma and graduated in 2014 at the university of tehran, kish international campus with an ma thesis entitled "narrative discourse of second language learners: language and task effects." 230 beyond words her research interests include discourse analysis, contrastive analysis and bilingualism and their applications to second language aquisition. she has taught general english for nearly a year in an english institute in tehran sultan a. almuhaimeed is an assistant professor of curriculum & instruction. he has a ba in english language & translation, m.ed in curriculum & instruction, and a ph.d in curriculum & instruction with emphasis on tesol/efl. he is a faculty member in the dept. of curriculum & instruction, college of education, qassim university, saudi arabia. he teaches graduate and undergraduate levels courses related to: curriculum theories, new approaches of curriculum, research in curriculum, teaching methodology. his research interests are related to bridging the gap between theory and practice with topics related to constructivist practices when applied to the field of tesol/efl. running head: cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells 91 beyond words vol.2, no.2, november 2014 widya mandala catholic university surabaya cultural and linguistic obstacles for english language learners natasha h. chenowith kent state university nschonbe@kent.edu 92 cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells abstract this qualitative study aims to assess which aspects of learning a second language english language, learners find challenging and to uncover the role that culture plays in learning a second languages as observed by the students themselves. students were asked to make note of how cultural differences, assumptions, and biases have either enhanced or hindered the teaching and learning process. it was found that students experienced a sort of indirect marginalization or cultural “othering”. integration into the mainstream population of society, of the community, or even of the school was described as a major challenge for this particular group of students. consequently, students had much difficulty achieving a comprehensive understanding of the language and surrounding culture. keywords: esl, higher education, culture, identity, teaching english, sla cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells 93 introduction as educators in a pluralistic and culturally diverse society, it is important to understand the diverse ethnic and cultural environments that are our classrooms. if teachers and administrators want to truly be committed to the learning of all students, then they must first understand and attempt to meet the needs of culturally diverse students. culture is an important concept for educators to recognize because it influences how a person perceives others, how that person is motivated, and the extent to which they will value the educational process. teachers are not required to be experts in every single cultural tradition, but they must have some knowledge of the culture and ethnic background of the students in their schools and surrounding communities in order to understand the perspective from which students approach learning. when educators understand the beliefs, biases, and behaviors of their students, they can make culturally specific and informed decisions about how to make teaching and learning most effective. review of literature defining culture culture is very difficult to operationalize because it comprises ways of living, beliefs systems, rules, norms, rituals, rites of passage, types of clothing, food, artifacts, personal and societal realities, and many other items that define a group of individuals. “culture, like any other social or biological organism, is multidimensional and continually changing. it must be so to remain vital and functional for those who create it and for those it serves” (gay, 2000, p. 10). in order to define culture, it is necessary to explore the beliefs and assumptions that make up everyday realities and consider the consequences of those characteristics. culture specifically involves rules of interaction and implications for the individual and for society (o’brien, 2006). 94 cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells the problem faced when attempting to clearly define and understand culture is that it requires one to identify those areas of life that are generally taken for granted and then make them explicitly recognizable. in essence, culture ultimately regulates how individuals react and interact with each other within specific contexts (farr, seloni & song, 2010). furthermore, individuals assign meaning to those interactions according to shared cultural understandings and motivations (o’brien, 2006). thus, humans are social beings who manifest individualized patterns of biological, social, and psychological traits as well as the customs and patterns of organization defined by their ethnic histories, heritages, and cultural experiences (gay, 1994). culture can be problematic in education when schooling occurs ethnocentrically, or “operates on one cultural model to the exclusion of others, or when culturally different students are asked to set aside all their cultural habits as a condition for succeeding in school” (gay, 1994, p. 7). cultures is an essential concept for educators to understand because the misconceptions and preconceptions towards certain cultures can potentially lead to marginality, isolation, or alienation of a student, and consequently, prevent academic and personal success (ladsonbillings, 2009; delpit & dowdy, 2002). disagreements or disparities in behaviors, values and cultural understandings can be obstacles for learning because they have the potential to directly influence teaching practices (gay, 2013). unintended cultural discontinuities “occur when people behave naturally, because their behavior is strongly conditioned by cultural conditioning” (gay, 1994, p. 7). cultural ‘othering’ is a form of social representation that is closely related to stereotyping and can easily be expressed unconsciously in the classroom (salmi & dervin, 2009). othering involves the process of objectifying a person or group while ignoring the subjectivity and complexity of the individual (salmi & dervin, 2009). othering allows for the cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells 95 construction of not only what the individual is, but also what s/he is not. this means that educators must make decisions within the context of a pluralistic society and must also be “conscious of how culture shapes their own and their students’ attitudes, values, and behaviors” (gay, 1994, p. 7-8). the role of language in learning language is what gives humans the capacity to participate in culture; it is the primary method by which humans exchange and communicate meaning; it is a symbolic and abstract form of communication (o’brien, 2006). the idea that language gives meaning to cultural experiences is essential to understanding the relationship between language and culture. since language guides the meaning of experiences, language acquisition must play an important role in learning (lightbown & spada, 2006). the context in which a language is learned is a significant factor in achieving proficiency (farr, seloni & song, 2010). individuals are typically exposed to a first language from family members (parents, siblings) in informal settings and thus acquire some language before entering formal schooling settings (lightbown & spada, 2006). a second language learner is quite different from a first language learner in terms of learner characteristics and the environment in which learning takes place (lightbown & spada, 2006). second languages are often learned in artificial settings (a classroom) in which exposure to native speakers is often limited. consider the difference between an adolescent learning a foreign language in a high school setting (in their own country) versus a newly immigrated adult with limited education learning english as a second language. differences can be noted in a number of characteristics and conditions that include but are not limited to cognitive maturity, metalinguistic awareness, world knowledge, anxiety about speaking, motivation for learning, corrective feedback, and cultural understandings and interpretations of language (lightbown & 96 cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells spada, 2006). something that all second language learners share in common, however, is that they have some knowledge of at least one primary language (the first/native language). knowledge of a first language can be a benefit to the second language learner because it should give the individual a sense of how language operates. however, this knowledge can also lead learners to make incorrect assumptions about grammar and syntax in the second language, especially when the two languages do not share common roots (lightbown & spada, 2006). language affects culture language is formed to express and present the ideas of a given culture (o’brien, 2006). whenever language grows and new words are created, the culture of a particular society changes (kuo & lai, 2006). a modern example of language expansion is the vocabulary of technology. fifteen years ago or so, the word ‘ipod’ had no real meaning in any society, but today, this word is widely used to describe a device that plays digital music files. words can also change meaning or have additional meanings attached. a ‘mouse’ at one point in time simply referred to a small rodent, but today, a mouse can also be a device used to navigate a computer screen. these examples show that language is evolutionary as it changes in response to its historical and social context (kuo & lai, 2006). the culture of the united states is constantly being changed and formed by other cultures and languages (o’brien, 2006). each of these foreign languages impacts american culture by adding new words and concepts to the standardized american english. the word ‘sushi’, for example, is not (originally) a word of the english language; it is simply accepted and borrowed for the purpose of assigning a symbolic label to fish wrapped in rice and seaweed. language speakers accept this borrowing of language as part of the standard cultural practice. cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells 97 culture affects language cultural knowledge is necessary for achieving linguistic proficiency (kuo & lai, 2006). learned systems of values, norms, mores, and beliefs form the vocabulary, and therefore, the meaning of words in a given language (farr, seloni & song, 2010). cultures can be changed depending on the language that is used by members of the society (hornberger & mckay, 2010). the elements of the culture are named using language; each of those names assigns meaning to the object, artifact, idea, or concept. new language cannot be mastered until students have understood the cultural context in which the new language occurs (kuo & lai, 2006). therefore, “understanding a new culture is an important element in achieving success in second language acquisition” (kuo & lai, 2006, p. 6). improving learning for culturally diverse students improving learning for english language learners (ells) requires a systematic method of prevention designed to implement early interventions strategies. according to ortiz (1997), english language learners require two important elements in order to be successful learners. firstly, educators must provide a learning environment that supports the students’ needs. secondly, the teachers must utilize strategies that are proven to be effective with english language learners (ortiz, 1997). a positive school environment is one in which the studentteacher relationship is mutually supportive and is also characterized by strong leadership, high achievement expectations, and appropriate curricula and instructional strategies (ortiz, 2011). furthermore, teachers, administrators, and school specialists must establish effective and communicative relationships with guardians and parents. the student’s native language cannot be ignored in this process. educators must integrate the teaching of academic skills with 98 cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells instruction of higher order thinking skills in the student’s first and second languages (ortiz, 2011). lamorey (2002) suggests that educators need to examine the ways in which culture affects assessment, interventional goals, child development, learning theory, and the preparation of personnel. an effective and responsive esl program makes considerations for both the student’s second language acquisition skills (motivation, personality, learning style) and those aspects of the child’s specific needs (attitude, cognitive functioning, behaviors). when designing an esl program, the educators involved must also consider the learner’s current stage of proficiency; the particular strengths and weaknesses in listening, speaking, reading, and writing; the degree of the disability; the learner’s age, maturity, and interests; the student’s communication needs; the level of integration the child experiences in the school environment and surrounding community; and language learning styles (garcia & tyler, 2010). other authors, such as reyes and vallone (2008), highlight that quality learning programs for english language learners must also be based on a meaningful second language pedagogy and curriculum. in order to provide equitable programming, they suggest that students must be able to maintain their own cultural and linguistic heritage and experiences while also giving the student the opportunity to explore and gain an understanding of the ‘new’ culture associated with the second language (reyes & vallone, 2008; ladson-billings, 2009). in general, a program that is designed to meet the specific needs of the english language learner will produce a greater chance of language improvement and academic success for the student (spolsky, 1988). statement of the problem and research questions this research study investigates the cultural and linguistic obstacles that act as barriers to learning for culturally diverse students attempting to learn english as a second language. the cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells 99 study also identifies how culturally responsive teaching practices can be improved to support learners in english as a second language (esl) contexts. the researcher asks three main questions: a) what cultural obstacles and differences exist in the english as a second language classroom for international students? b) how do those obstacles hinder the learning of a second language? c) which teaching strategies do students find to be most and least effective for supporting their learning? the ultimate goal of this study is to make recommendations for teaching practices that will improve the learning process of english language learners. methods research was conducted through structured interviews with english language learners (ells) in preparatory english as a second language (esl) program at the university level. students were asked questions relevant to their study of english as a second language. a 50minute interview was conducted with each student. the interview was designed to assess which aspects of learning a second language the student finds easy or difficult and to uncover the role that culture plays in learning a second languages as observed by the students themselves. in essence, students were asked to make note of how cultural differences, assumptions, and biases have either enhanced or hindered the teaching and learning process. it is necessary for each student to assess his/her learning through the lens of his/her own cultural background. individualized responses and perceptions were important to this study as an investigation of cultural and linguistic obstacles. since the students are the “experts” in their own cultures, the cultural lens through which each participant answered the interview questions is 100 cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells what provided the description of phenomenon that was examined. the researcher cannot provide this insight because she does not have the same cultural experiences as the participants. the methodology used in this study is not necessarily intended to explain a causal relationship, but rather, to describe how a particular group of individuals have experienced second language learning through the lens of a specific cultural background. the researcher examined themes in responses and common attitudes among the participants. research design the design used for this investigation was an interpretive qualitative study with phenomenological understandings of how meaning and knowledge are constructed (merriam, 2002). a qualitative approach to the study allowed the researcher to gather detailed information from the perspective of participants. the aim of the study is to describe in detail what is happening in terms of cultural and linguistic barriers for a specific group of students and the extent to which those barriers affect learning. student expectations and perceptions of language learning were used to ascertain those barriers. themes related to learning obstacles were used to suggest potential relationships between cultural experience and second language learning. this investigation focuses highly on the individual as a means to explain the difficulties of learning a second language rather than generalized social trends. in other words, the individual voices of the participants are valued and respected as important sources of personalized information. ‘giving a voice’ to subjective experience in order to explain social issues is a key element of the philosophical view of phenomenologism (bouma, ling & wilkinson, 2009; merriam, 2002). phenomenologists assert that humans make sense of the surrounding world through perception and have the ability to extract information from experience and to ascribe meaning to behavior (hatch, 2002). additionally, phenomenologists believe that research cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells 101 methods that attempt to assign numerical values to opinion and personal experience do not fully capture the human experience (merriam, 2002). collecting detailed qualitative data allowed the researcher to gain a deeper understanding of a particular phenomenon. the researcher interprets phenomenologism to be closely related to symbolic interactionism, a social theory that is important for understanding how languages are learned through interaction with others and how language mediates subjective experience (merriam, 2002). both theories highlight the importance of the individual’s experience and subjective interpretation as being of prime importance to fully understanding a human phenomenon. since cultural experience and understanding often regulate how individuals react, interact and assign meaning under certain conditions, the research design for this study needed to involve methods that would place a strong emphasis on inductive reasoning, individual voices, and the collection of comprehensive descriptive information. sample selection the sampling procedure used for this study was purposive sampling. this method was used in order to select students from a variety of cultural backgrounds. ten students in preparatory university esl programs were selected to be interviewed for the study. in order to create a sample that is more representative of english language learners as a whole, it was necessary to select students from various ethnic backgrounds. since this particular study does not specifically examine the obstacles for one particular culture, and the population available to the researcher was composed primarily of chinese students, the researcher decided to directly solicit students for study and target students with different cultural backgrounds. the sample included ten students ranging in age from 19 to 26. the participants came from four different countries: china, bangladesh, india, and saudi arabia. each student spoke at 102 cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells least one other language in addition to english. these languages include mandarin chinese, cantonese, bengali, hindi, and arabic. additionally, some students spoke regional dialects of their first language. all students intend to pursue master’s degrees in the united states in a variety of subject areas, which include business, public administration, information systems, mechanical engineering, and computer science. none of the students intend to pursue degrees in english or another foreign language. all students have previously obtained an undergraduate degree from universities in their home countries. it is important to note that not all international students can also be considered esl students. for example, students from canada, australia, and other english-speaking countries whose first language is english. for the purposes of this study, the term ‘international student’ will refer specifically to those students whose first language is not english. data collection methods the instrument used in the data collection process was a series of questions in the form of an interview with english language learners. students were asked questions relevant to their study of english as a second language. each interview consisted of 17 questions about learning english as a second language. the questions aimed at determining the extent to which cultural background, classroom experiences, and other factors have had an effect on the student’s learning. the first five questions of the interview aimed at primarily obtaining information about the student’s home country, culture, first language, and motivation for learning english as a second language. the remaining questions deal with the student’s learning experiences in formal and informal settings; the formal setting being the esl classroom, and the informal setting being public or home settings where there is no formalized instruction. since language acquisition cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells 103 occurs consciously and unconsciously in both formal and informal settings, the researcher aimed at assessing where students benefit most from learning and which obstacles occur most in specific settings. the basis for the interview questions originates from other authors who suggest that a) prior learning experiences in home countries have a great influence on the student’s ability to adapt to learning in the american classroom (lightbown & spada, 2006); b) knowledge of a first language should facilitate the learning of a second language (lightbown & spada, 2006); c) the influence of native speakers on the language learner (spolsky, 1988); d) the effectiveness of culturally responsive teaching strategies, curriculums, and assessments (gay, 2000); e) cultural discontinuities and cultural ‘othering’ (o’brien, 2006); and f) perceptions of instructors, administrators, and students about ‘foreign’ cultures (gay, 1994). the answers to the interview questions were compared to the conclusions of other researchers in an attempt to evaluate whether or not these claims apply directly to this specific group of students. some conclusions were supported, while others were opposed and refuted. students were asked to identify what they find easy in learning english as a second language, what they find difficult in the classroom, and what helps to facilitate learning. the purpose of the interview is to identify potential strategies, methodologies and other experiences that may prevent or make it more difficult for an english language learner to obtain and retain language. the purpose of these questions is for the student to identify specific areas of language learning that they find to be difficult and begin to think about why that area is challenging. students were asked to express how culture affects their learning experiences in the classroom, especially in those areas/classes that they find most difficult. students identified how racial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity is addressed in the second language classroom. students 104 cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells shared how cultural issues may have hindered or improved the learning process. they were also asked questions about how they feel their culture is/is not valued in the classroom and how language barriers may have influenced their learning. while paying specific attention to cultural experiences and differences, students were asked to identify how cultural differences affected their learning both negatively and positively. students expressed strategies they found most effective for learning a second language. the data was collected from ten student interviews over a period of three months. each participant’s interview was digitally recorded, transcribed, and then reviewed by the principle investigator. the researcher also took notes while the students were being interviewed. the detailed descriptive data was compiled in order to obtain a personal and individualized depiction of the experiences for english language learners in the college setting. the following data discussion describes the responses of the participants to the questions by grouped category. discussion the answers to the questions about student motivation for learning english indicate that all of the students interviewed view english as a global or international language. several of the participants expressed that learning english is the first step towards completing a master’s degree in the united states, which would ultimately lead to professional advancement and job opportunities in their home countries. in some cases, the students must learn to read documents, manuals, and other paperwork in english in order to be successful in their chosen field of work. in other cases, students are essentially required to speak english in order to engage in international business. two students explained that studying english abroad in america is a great opportunity not only to learn english, but also to learn about the rest of the world. in the words of one student: “in america, i [can] touch real english.” cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells 105 all of the students reported that they have had some previous experience learning english in their respective home country. they all learned english beginning in elementary school. each student also studied english in high school and during undergraduate studies. all of the previous learning experiences of these particular students included instruction of british english, not american english. subtle differences in vocabulary, tone and inflections, orthography, and even choice of tense can be very confusing for a student who is trying to form systematic framework for understanding a language. for example, british english distinguishes between the words dependent (adjective) and dependant (noun), whereas american english utilizes dependent as both an adjective and a noun, despite the fact dependant is considered an acceptable alternative for the noun. other orthographic differences include the use of the letter u in words such as colour, flavour, rumour, and favourite; the reversal of er in words such as centre and theatre; and the usage of the suffix –ise instead of –ize in words such as realise, organise, and recognise. the participants indicated that making the transition from learning british english at home to learning american english in the united states was quite difficult because of the different accents, regionalisms, spelling, and vocabulary. in fact, several students cited the american accents as a major obstacle to understanding native speakers. in most cases, students stated that the experience of learning english in their home country was quite ineffective as compared to learning english in america. the previous formal learning experiences of the students focused primarily on the grammatical and syntactical structures of the language. many of the students felt that they did not learn much english from the teachers in their home countries; primarily because the students were learning english from a teacher whose first language was not english. many of the participants indicated that they really did not care about 106 cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells english class in previous school settings because it was boring and they never need to practice or speak english. the chinese students who were interviewed described learning english in china as learning “chinese english”. furthermore, the chinese students all agreed that, for the majority of the time, the teacher (and the students) would primarily speak chinese during english class. one chinese student described a situation in which a native english speaker had moved to china because of his parents’ work. the student failed english class in high school because he did not have the “right” answers on the exams. although the specific circumstances of this situation are not known, it does raise the question of quality and the content of the teaching of the english language in foreign contexts. evidently, the proficiency of the teacher could positively or negatively affect the quality of learning that takes place in the language classroom. the chinese students were adamant that their teachers taught solely from the textbook, that they would essentially translate the majority of the material, and that english was taught theoretically and was taught just like any other math or science class, not necessarily as a language class. students from other countries agreed that they learned very little english in elementary, middle, and high school from the non-native english-speaking teachers. however, some students did have the opportunity to learn some english from teachers of english to speakers of other languages (tesol) trained (british & american) teachers in university. this learning experience was generally described as being a positive and effective one, but the students also highlighted the fact that they were never in a situation that required them to practice english outside of the classroom in their home country. every student who was interviewed found it extremely difficult to operationalize the culture of his or her home country. students struggled with the fact that culture can be so implicit cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells 107 that it is difficult to define in specific terms. the participants described certain customs, ways of thinking, festivals, holidays, religious practices, foods, and cultural norms that compose the cultural climate at home. students did not necessarily find that their own culture acted as a barrier for learning in english america, but rather, that they had to learn about american culture quickly and effectively in order to adapt. several students admitted that most of what they knew about american culture prior to coming the united states came primarily from the movies and the media. many of the participants wished that they had more opportunities to learn about american culture by spending time with native english speakers. the students described american culture very positively in comparison to their native cultures: “i am surprised by how friendly americans are to each other – even strangers greet and smile at each other; this is not normal where i am from, but i think it is very nice.” “at home, it is normal not to be yourself, but to be what the culture wants you to be. everyone should be the same; people think you are weird if you stand out. there isn’t much individuality.” “there is much more diversity in america than where i am from. [americans] accept you for who you are. people ask your opinion.” “what i like most about america is that i can do what i want; no one asks why, people don’t care; they accept you how you are. in my home country, you shouldn’t do something out of the ordinary.” students view the overall culture of america to be very welcoming, however, when asked about individual experiences and exchanges with americans, students admitted that their interactions with native speakers are quite limited, and in some cases, have been quite negative in nature: “i don’t speak with native speakers too much. i have experienced some frustration from native speakers when they cannot understand me.” “sometimes i feel like foreigners are not welcome. i know this from their body language. older people are usually nice to me, but americans my own age are not interested in being friends.” “to be honest with you, 108 cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells some americans have a bad stereotype of us from the media. every country has good people and bad people.” when asked about experiences in the esl classroom in the united states, students had varied responses. some students were very satisfied with their learning, while others were quite disenchanted with their experience in the esl classroom. students were pleased that much of the content of the textbooks used in the esl classes specifically addresses american culture. students also reported that certain teachers made accommodations to respect the cultural norms of the students. they expressed that in the esl classroom, students need to adapt to each other and be considerate of each other because of the differences in culture and ethnic background. the majority of the students who were interviewed were dissatisfied with the lack of detailed feedback they received on assignments. “my teachers don’t have time to correct every single mistake in my essay, but if they don’t do that, then how will i know what is right and what is wrong?” “all of us speak wrong, when we speak english with each other, we don’t know if we’re talking correctly. we don’t know the right way to practice.” students felt that there simply was not enough feedback given to them by their teachers. the participants expressed that much of their learning was done independently outside of the classroom. some students felt that they benefited from attending class, while others simply attended to ensure they had completed the homework correctly. students stated that the teachers rely too heavily on direct instruction, the textbook, and writing assignments: “in class we learn formal language and grammar, which is important for writing, but we don’t learn enough non-academic language to be proficient speakers outside the classroom.” “we need better explanations from our teachers. we do too much teaching from the book.” cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells 109 most of the students who were interviewed agreed that reading, vocabulary, and listening were the hardest concepts to master in the study of english as a second language. students found reading to be difficult primarily due to limited vocabulary. the readability level of most academic materials is generally too high for an individual who has recently started learning the language. students worry about starting academic classes and not being able to read the assignments, textbooks, and other materials necessary to be a successful student. students overwhelmingly expressed that listening was a very difficult skill to achieve. many of the participants attributed this to difficulty understanding various english accents. furthermore, students clearly identified that it is very challenging to understand native speakers when they use slang or informal language. additionally, the speed at which most native speakers utilize the language orally is much too fast for the second language learner to understand without repetition or a slower pace. students generally agreed that writing is the easiest skill to develop: “writing is much easier than speaking or listening. i can write grammar, but i can’t use it properly in speech.” students who spoke arabic and chinese as first languages agreed that speaking english was difficult because of the different ways of pronouncing letter combinations as compared to their first language. most students agreed that when they compared their first language to english or english to their first language, it simply made acquisition and understanding much more difficult. chinese students, for example, found that tenses were a very difficult concept to master because chinese places actions temporally based on the aspect of the action rather than the tense. in addition to the educational and linguistic obstacles faced by the students, two overwhelming concerns emerged from the discussions with the students. the first issue is an 110 cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells internal concern that can be defined as a fear of not being understood by others and a lack of confidence: “the hardest part about learning english is in my heart. i am very shy to open my mouth. i am afraid that people will not understand me.” students consistently expressed that they feel very uncomfortable conversing with native english speakers. “when i can’t express myself, it is very frustrating because i feel like i cannot be myself.” the students use repetition as a tool to be understood by others, but they expressed that repetition is embarrassing when the speaker needs to repeat himself or herself two, three, or four times. pronunciation of certain sounds and words acts as a major obstacle to being understood, and thus, lowers the level of confidence experienced by the second language speaker. every student who was interviewed expressed that they feel shy when speaking and they are afraid of making mistakes and of not being understood. the second major obstacle for students is the fact that they only speak to native english speakers when it is absolutely necessary. in general, the international students who were interviewed have friends who are from the same home country and share a common first language. they naturally converse in their first language with each other, rather than practicing english as a second language. one student’s comments clearly explain this issue: “when a foreigner speaks to another foreigner, how do we know if we are speaking correctly? we make mistakes all the time, so we just speak in our first language. this is much easier.” some students expressed that they practically have no interaction whatsoever with native english speakers despite living in the united states. they feel that there are not enough opportunities to practice english with speakers of their own age. in general, students did not feel they had much opportunity to practice with native speakers. as one student put it: “it is much more difficult to connect with people in my second language.” cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells 111 conclusions the cultural obstacles faced by these students were generally not obstacles of involving direct marginalization for personal beliefs or traditions. students experience a sort of indirect marginalization, or what salmi and dervin (2009) would term as cultural “othering”, simply because they are unfamiliar with the norms of american culture. the students generally live out their own cultures in america and do not necessarily live american culture. in other words, integration into the mainstream population of society, of the community, or even of the school is very challenging, and thus, acts as a barrier to achieving a comprehensive understanding of the language and surrounding culture. as was previously shown through the literature, cultural knowledge is closely linked to linguistic understanding and acquisition. when the culture is understood, the language can also be understood. when isolation or marginalization from the mainstream culture occurs, it can be very difficult for the individual to achieve second language proficiency because the context in which the language occurs does not make sense or is not fully comprehended by the non-native speaker. this isolation described by the study participants seems to be due to the fact that the students are unfamiliar with american culture and have limited experience in interacting with native speakers. the lack of interaction with native speakers indicates that students do not practice oral language skills on a regular basis. the feelings of fear and embarrassment as expressed by the students have acted as a major obstacle for practicing english in authentic settings. there is a definite connection between how a student feels about speaking the second language, how well they believe they can be understood, and the motivation to practice the language with native speakers. the study revealed that when the second language learner experiences frustration in expressing thoughts and emotions in the second language, he/she experiences a sense of isolation 112 cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells and a lack of connectedness with other individuals. as a student spends more time immersed in american culture and increase interactions with native speakers, the level of confidence in speaking a second language seems to improve, and thus, language skills progress towards proficiency. second language learners will generally default to speaking their native tongue with those who are culturally similar. in the case of the students studied, several students expressed that they want to spend more time with native speakers, but they did not really know how to approach individuals or build friendships with american english speakers. in general, the students believed that native speakers of the same age seemed unapproachable and disinterested in establishing relationships with them. this lack of interaction in the second language seems to produce situation in which second language learners have very limited opportunity to practice speaking outside of the classroom setting. consequently, the students have developed their reading and writing skills as a result of studying in artificial settings and studying textbooks, but have limited listening and speaking skills due to the absence of authentic practice. other than academic studying, the students’ actions generally did not contribute to the advancement of learning english or practicing language skills. the participants only “practiced” speaking the second language when it was absolutely necessary. these settings include public places such as grocery stores and restaurants. the participants identified that they felt that their language skills improved as the spoke with native speakers, but that they did not have many opportunities to interact with native speakers regularly for any extended period of time. in some cases, students believe that they are perceived negatively by native speakers who are easily frustrated by the learner’s inability to express himself or herself clearly and succinctly. cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells 113 consequently, the learners generally avoid speaking in english, and thus, loose the opportunity to practice the knowledge and skills learned in the second language classroom. the participants clearly expressed that learning english as a second language in the classroom setting did not generally contribute greatly to their oral language skills. the areas of language found to be the easiest to grasp were the same subject areas that were taught by nonnative speakers in the home countries. grammar and writing skills are most familiar to these students from previous learning. the participants did not always perceive that the esl classroom supported their needs as language learners. the strategies used in the classroom, such as question and answer, fill-inthe-blank, and lengthy exams were not reported to be effective in helping students understand american culture or learn english as a second language. furthermore, in some cases, the students did not always perceive the student-teacher relationship to be mutually supportive. although students could clearly identify differences in difficulty as they passed from one level of esl to the next, students did not think that the curriculum necessarily promoted or incorporated cultural diversity or understanding. a culturally responsive curriculum, by definition, incorporates a student’s culture, language, and prior schooling experiences to develop a plan for successful learning. the participants did not perceive that the esl curriculum incorporated these elements effectively. a curriculum conceived for culturally diverse students must engage and motivate students by “making connections between what [is taught] – the formal, written, mandated curriculum – and what culturally different students want to learn” (ford, 2010, p. 52). if the curriculum is culturally relevant, then the instructors of that curriculum must recognize the need for differentiated and modified instructional practices. these strategies are actually very similar to those one might implement for a child with a learning disability, a 114 cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells gifted student, or teaching to a specific learning style. according to ford, culturally responsive instruction requires scaffolding of “cultural knowledge, prior experiences, and learning styles of culturally different students to make learning more appropriate and effective for them” (ford, 2010, p. 52). in the case of the participants of this study, learning was not necessarily tailored to address prior knowledge or cultural experiences. students were also somewhat unclear on the specific assessment practices used in the esl classroom. culturally responsive assessments are necessary, in order to refer, screen, place, and identify students. teachers must take a critical look at assessment tools in order to evaluate the validity and accuracy of those tools. when culturally diverse students score poorly on formative and summative assessments and evaluations, it is important to ask whether the score is a result of a lack of content knowledge, a lack of language, or simply a lack of cultural understanding. the culturally responsive curriculum must be used in conjunction with culturally guided instruction and assessment practices. culturally responsive teaching requires that the teacher acknowledges the legitimacy of cultural heritages, make connections with various learning styles, and use a variety of culturally appropriate resources. this implementation must be guided, however, by the understanding that previous and current learning experiences are likely to facilitate, or hinder the student’s learning process and academic success. the development of such curricula, however, is highly dependent upon the protection of cultural heritage and identity. maintenance of a positive culturally identity in key in assuring that the student is actively involved in the school as a community. the student’s native language will also greatly influence his or her ability to access the content of the taught curriculum and successfully accomplish the tested curriculum. it becomes increasingly difficult to identify the cause of a low cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells 115 test score for an english language learner because the student might (a) be unfamiliar with western testing practices; (b) be unable to understand the language used in the test; (c) be unfamiliar with the cultural contexts and references of the test; or (d) simply lack the background knowledge to successfully learn the content of the test. consequently, educators must critically examine the tested curriculum as it applies to culturally diverse students. in some cases, the methods of assessment could lack validity and reliability as a result of cultural experience. similar to those students who require special programs, modification, and accommodations, culturally diverse students need a culturally adjusted and tested curriculum that accurately and fairly evaluates learning. in order to avoid student disengagement with learning a second language, the culturally responsive curriculum must be informed by subject matter that is relevant to the lives of the students it aims to reach. in other words, there must be some form of cultural meaning achieved by the curriculum that will motivate students and reflect their real-world experiences. if the curriculum informs student learning in such a way, then success in terms of learning achievement and assessment is likely to follow. all parts of the curriculum must work in sync to produce a learner that can apply his or her knowledge in practical life situations. recommendations in order to improve the second language proficiency of english language learners, it is necessary that students engage in conversation with native speakers on a regular basis. students must interact orally with native speakers in order to not only understand and practice the language, but also to gain an improved understanding of the culture. this practice could be accomplished by establishing a program in which international students are paired with native speakers. such a program should be part of the esl curriculum for these students. student 116 cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells organizations such as an international or multicultural clubs could potentially be involved in such language development partnerships. the development of another program in which students live with native speakers while in the united states would also provide an opportunity for english language learners to become more familiar with both the language and the culture. in this way, students would at the very least be able to observe the culture, if not gain an opportunity to practice living american culture. that is not to say that students need to forget or give up their heritage cultures, but students would at least have the chance to compare cultures and to understand the context in which the english language functions in the united states. since several students reported that they did not find the time spent in the esl classroom to be particularly effective for learning, it is also recommended that current teaching and assessment practices be reviewed. internal influences, such as lack of staffing and clear curriculum goals could be affecting program outcomes and student satisfaction. esl students would greatly benefit from clear curriculum standards and outcome goals. curriculum goals and standards are an important component of language learning. learning should take place within the context of these objectives. descriptions such as ‘further improve reading skills’ or ‘practice writing an essay’ do not provide a specific standard for the student to attain. specific objectives for learning should also be accompanied by a method of tracking progress and an effective system of assessment. summary international english language learners are a very diverse group of students. thus, the needs of this particular subset of students are unique and somewhat non-traditional. through this study, it was discovered that international esl students in a college settings feel somewhat cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells 117 marginalized due to their inability or limited ability to communicate effectively with native speakers. students reported that they often feel embarrassed, shy, or nervous when speaking with native english speakers. the fear of not being understood or not expressing oneself effectively is a major obstacle for second language learners. previous language instruction in the students’ home countries seems to have contributed to reading and writing skills, but not to oral speaking skills. in the american classroom setting, however, students indicated that they learned a lot of formal language, but not necessarily enough commonly used language that would provide opportunities to communicate in every day situations. the teacher-student relationship reported by some of the study’s participants was perceived as an obstacle for learning. teacher attitudes, behaviors, and expectations towards students were perceived negatively in some cases, and thus, students did not feel that culturally responsive teaching was practiced effectively. students felt that teachers did not recognize their existing strengths and did not provide enough constructive feedback that would allow for improved language skills. in the case of the study participants, language teaching and learning experiences have primarily focused on the structure of the language rather than practical usage. culturally responsive teaching involves much more than simply conveying the grammatical structures of a language; it involves understanding the social context in which the language develops and changes is equally if not more important for achieving language proficiency. finally, culturally responsive teaching should provide access to academic success for diverse populations of students. if language teaching is to be effective, it must also be transformative. that is to say, language teaching must provide opportunities for learning that do not just impart knowledge of 118 cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells grammar, syntax, or composition, but that encourage students to develop skills, values, and opinions that will allow them to function within the culture without fear, marginalization or embarrassment for practicing a second language. cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells 119 references bouma, g.d., ling, r., & wilkinson, l. (2009). the research process (canadian ed.). don mills: oxford university press. delpit, l.d., & dowdy, j.k. (2002). the skin that we speak: thoughts on language and culture in the classroom. new york, ny: new press. farr, m., seloni, l. & song, j. (2010). ethnolinguistic diversity and education: language, literacy, and culture. new york, ny: routeledge. ford, d.y. (2010). culturally responsive classrooms: affirming culturally difference gifted students. gifted child today, 33(1), 50-53). gay, g. (1994). a synthesis of scholarship in multicultural education. learning point associates home. retrieved april 11, 2012 from http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/educatrs/leadrshp/le0gay.htm gay, g. (2000). culturally responsive teaching theory, research, and practice. new york, ny: teachers college press. gay, g. (2013). teaching to and through cultural diversity. curriculum inquiry, 43(1), 48–70. garcia, s. b., & tyler, b. (2010). meeting the needs of english language learners with learning disabilities in the general curriculum. theory into practice, 49 (2), 113-120. hatch, j. a. (2002). doing qualitative research in education settings. albany: state university of new york press. hornberger, n. h., & mckay, s. (2010). sociolinguistics and language education. bristol: multilingual matters. 120 cultural and linguistic obstacles for ells kuo, m., & lai, c. (2006). linguistics across cultures: the impact of culture on second language learning. journal of foreign language instruction, 1(1). november 2006:10. ladson-billings, g. (2009). the dreamkeepers: successful teachers of african american children. san francisco: jossey-bass publishers. lamorey, s. (2002). the effects of culture on special education services: evil eyes, prayer meetings, and ieps. teaching exceptional children, 34(5), 67-71. lightbown, p., & spada, n.m. (2006). how languages are learned (3rd ed.). oxford: oxford university press. merriam, s. b. (2002). qualitative research in practice: examples for discussion and analysis. san francisco: jossey-bass. ortiz, a. (1997). learning disabilities occurring concomitantly with linguistic differences. journal of learning disabilities, 30, 321-32. ortiz, a. (2011). english language learners with special needs: effective instructional strategies. eric digest. o’brien, jodi. (2006). the production of reality: essays and readings on social interaction. thousand oaks, ca. reyes, s.a., & vallone, t.l. (2008). constructivist strategies for teaching english language learners. thousand oaks, ca: corwin press. salmi, r. & dervin, f. (2009). cross-linguistics and cross-cultural perspectives on academic discourse. philadelphia: john benjamins publishing company. spolsky, b. (1988). bridging the gap: a general theory of second language learning. tesol quarterly, 22(3), 377-396. 54 running head: the effectiveness of adjunct class the effectiveness of adjunct class on the mastery of vocabulary and course content of students of accounting department patrisius istiarto djiwandono universitas ma chung, malang patrisius.istiarto@machung.ac.id the effectiveness of adjunct class 55 abstract the paper reports a classroom action research that aimed to determine the impact of a content and language integrated learning on the mastery of vocabulary and of course contents of a group of students in the accounting department of universitas ma chung. it also intended to identify their opinions about the effectiveness of such approach. to achieve these objectives, a time series design was used in a classroom action research framework to introduce an adjunct class to the accounting class. the baseline data in the form of their vocabulary mastery and knowledge of the course contents were gained before the adjunct session was given. then, the adjunct sessions were given for a period of two months. a few tests were administered to measure their progress in the mastery of vocabulary and course contents. further, a comparison was drawn between the scores of the baseline data and the subsequent measures. in general, although they gained better mastery of new words, they failed to utilize them to increase their mastery of the course contents. further exploration into the interview data reveals that most of them did not feel any significant assistance in mastering the course contents, although many of them admitted the benefit of mastering new vocabulary. there are some possible causes of the results. first, the limited duration of the adjunct sessions was felt to hinder the effectiveness. second, the explanations in the adjunct sessions were not matched quite well with the focus during the main content course. on the basis of the results, the recommended points are the matching between the emphasis of both classes, and the lengthening of the duration of the adjunct sessions. keywords: content and language integrated learning, adjunct class, content course. 56 the effectiveness of adjunct class introduction technology advancement, cultural exchanges, the increasingly rapid flows of capital and goods as boundaries between countries are fading trigger every nation to participate actively. such ambition spurs them to educate their young generations to be able to compete on the global stage. one of the ways is to arm them with proficiency in the language that has for many decades been the medium of communication, english language. in the spirit of pursuing high english proficiency, universities across the country have been determined to teach various subject matters in english. despite the ambition and efforts, however, the outcome is still far from satisfactory. this seems to be attributable to the poor readiness of lecturers and students alike to conduct teaching and learning activities entirely in english. another additional factor that compounds the problem is the academic style of english which in itself presents a challenge for indonesian students and lecturers. the incessant exploration into the realm of language learning has given birth to what is called content-based instruction (cbi) and content and language integrated learning (clil). these two approaches in turn generated two techniques, sheltered model and adjunct model. both intend to arm non-language students with adequate receptive and productive english skills that will enable them to study their own subject matters and comprehend written and oral lessons presented in english language. despite the popularity of the two techniques, not many studies have been undertaken to explore the implementation of these techniques in indonesian academic contexts. as a result, lecturers are at loss to implement appropriate techniques in their clil classes. in many educational institutions the aspiration to teach non-language subjects in english language has not been met with effective realizations, and problems that spring up here and there are solved in piecemeal and incidental fashion. this research was conducted to see how such endeavor can have a the effectiveness of adjunct class 57 positive impact on non-language students’ preparation to follow their content course, and what they think about such effort. the research was conducted to achieve the following objectives: 1. to identify the impact of english adjunct class on the mastery of vocabulary and mastery of subject matter of students who were learning intermediate accounting delivered in english. 2. to identify the students’ opinions about the effectiveness and benefits of the english adjunct class. as the main topic of this paper is clil (content and language integrated learning), a definition of clil is proposed first as “an activity in which a foreign language is used as a tool in the learning of a non-language subject in which both language and the subject have a joint role” (marsh, 2002: 58). thus, it is obvious that the medium of instruction is inseparable from the content of the instruction. learning the content will implicate learning the language as well. another term often used besides clil is cbi, which davies (2003) defines as “a teaching method that emphasizes learning about something rather than learning about language”. thus, cbi is an approach that makes the learners learn their subject matter through english as the means of communication. they use the language mainly to study the subject matter. some experts argue that in cbi, the students learn two things simultaneously: their subject matter, and the language. this apparently promising claim has boosted the popularity of cbi among learners whose mother tongues are not english. stoller (2002) contends that cbi provides a conducive learning environment for foreign language learning. students who learn a content matter through cbi can learn the lesson through the language. at the same time, as they advance in their mastery of the subject 58 the effectiveness of adjunct class matter, they also refine their language mastery. my research was conducted to see if this claim is supported by the empirical evidence from a class adopting cbi approach. according to davies, cbi can be implemented in two different methods, namely adjunct model and sheltered model. adjunct model prepares the learners in a special class designed to enable them to follow a subsequent subject matter class. the adjunct class is taught by a language teacher, whose main task is to make sure that the learners come to grips with patterns, vocabulary, and other linguistic aspects that will appear in the ensuing subject matter class. sheltered model, on the other hand, combines two teachers in a class, one of whom is the teacher of the content or subject matter, and the other one is a language teacher. while the content teacher teaches the content, the language teacher assists the students with the language matters. because of its relatively short period of existence, not many studies have been done to adequately form a solid empirical basis for cbi and clil. this is also the opinion of dalton-puffer (2008), “clil is still far from being a consolidated and fully articulated educational model in any of the european countries surveyed and that a great deal more needs to be done, for instance, in order to consolidate the theoretical underpinnings of clil and create a conceptual framework that is both coherent and applicable to different local conditions.” this makes for a rationale of this present study. this study aims to investigate a clil setting and elicit data from it to see if the data can support the claims made by clil proponents. a summary of previous studies on clil by dalton-puffer (2008) suggest that in general clil brings about positive impact on the mastery of subject matter and new the effectiveness of adjunct class 59 vocabulary. a number of language knowledge and skills that tend to increase after clil include morphology, reading, and vocabulary. another study that accords with my research is a survey by bebenroth and reidfeld (2004) at a university in japan. they found high level of enthusiasms among the students toward clil classes, and they are keen on learning both the language and the subject matter. at universitas ma chung, a survey like that has never been conducted formally and systematically. what is often heard, however, are students’ complaints about the difficulty in understanding lectures in their non-language subjects given in english language. graaf, koopman and westhoff (2007) conducted a thorough investigation of an effective clil and conclude at least 5 features of such approach: (1) lecturers expose the learners to english and give them scaffolding to assist with the contents of the lessons and the medium of instruction., (2) lecturers encourage processing of meaning by giving exercises, corrections, and new vocabulary items. (3) lecturers encourage processing of language forms by giving recasts and feedback, without explicit teaching of the forms,; (4) lecturers encourage the learners to produce speech and essays in various genres, such as debate, arguments and the like, (5) lecturers teach them how to use strategies that solve communication breakdown when using english. my study attempted to determine to what extent those instructional aspects can be effective in the context being investigated. addressing the question of whether learners in clil setting tend to have increased english proficiency, craen et al. (2007) argue that although they have mastered reading comprehension skills in their l1, they are still unable to attain the same level of comprehension in english as a foreign language. with regard to whether clil will enable them to master the subject matter better than when the subject matter is taught in their l1, craen et al (2007) find that studies in this area are still far from being conclusive. some find that clil will enhance the mastery of subject matter, and some others find otherwise. thus, 60 the effectiveness of adjunct class craen et al conclude that more studies need to be carried out to identify factors that contribute to the success or causes of failure of clil. indeed, some studies maintain that clil will promote mastery of a content subject, while some others do not make such claim. coyle (2007:548) presents the fact that studies on clil abounded in the 1990s. in certain conditions and contexts, clil was proved successful in increasing language proficiency, boosting self-confidence, heightening the risk-taking nature and improving problem solving abilities. with respect to learning aids, laufer and hill (2000) suggest the use of electronic or conventional dictionaries. hyperlinks on some important key words on power point slides can gives students easy access to glossaries, which in turn help the learners prepare beforehand prior to following the subject matter course. still, another way that was also done in this present study is giving the keywords and their meanings prior to the main subject matter class. students who find materials easy to understand because they have the opportunity to catch a glimpse of it can be more highly motivated to follow the class. this accords with a study by bab and ross (2009), who found that the availability of course materials can encourage more attendance and participation from the students. a notorious constraint in clil is the low english proficiency among the students, a phenomenon that plagues even countries where english is a second language. evans and green (2007)’s survey among 5000 hong kong students reveals that their biggest difficulties lie in english academic writing and academic speaking, especially in the areas of style, grammar, coherence, pronunciation, and fluency. finally, of equal importance is the need to master academic words, that is, a set of words that make up around 10 percent of the running words in a common academic text. chen and ge (2007), found that in the area of medicine science, the words account for 10 – 12 % of all words. a study by vongpumivitch, huang and chang (2009) in a similar domain the effectiveness of adjunct class 61 also generates a similar result, that is, 11%. this implies the necessity of teaching the english academic words to students of any discipline. method the research was basically a classroom action research, which according to burns (2010) is a cycle that starts with planning, execution, observation of the execution, and finally reflection or evaluation, before entering the second cycle with similar steps. due to time constraint, the research was executed in one cycle only. the research used a time series design. this design enables a comparison between a set of baseline data, which in this study was the students’ mastery of key words and contents of the book chapters prior to the adjunct class, and accumulated data of their mastery of the vocabulary and course contents after a few adjunct class sessions. the scheme is visualized as follows: o1 – o2 – x1 – x2 – x3 – o3 – x4 – x5 – x6 o4 o1 and o2 = initial measurement of mastery of vocabulary and course contents before the adjunct class was given. the data formed the baseline data. x1 and x2 = adjunct class sessions, where the researcher taught the key words and the outlines of the chapters to be learned, and gave the translation of some important words/phrases and ideas on the power point slides. o3 = measurement of the learners’ mastery of the course contents and essential vocabulary. x4 – x6 = further assistance with some modified aspects based on o3. o4 = measurement at the final stage. 62 the effectiveness of adjunct class at the final stage, a profile of progress of their mastery was obtained. the profile gave an indication of the effectiveness of the adjunct class sessions in helping them understand the course content and the vocabulary. however, since there was no control group, a valid claim of causal relationship between the treatment and the effect could not be established. thus, it is wise to see the finding of this study as a point of reference for further research with more rigorous experimental design. also, the vocabulary tests did not undergo a strict check on their difficulty level. because a single lecturer wrote the tests, they were only assumed to be of equal difficulty level. the second research objective was attained by an interview session with the respondents followed by filling out of questionnaires. the interview transcripts were then analyzed through open, axial, and thematic coding to obtain a relatively comprehensive pictures of their opinions. the results of the initial interview were used as a basis for determining the questions in the questionnaires. after the questionnaires were collected, a tabulation was done to identify patterns of answers. the coding of the transcripts and the tabulation were used to build an answer to the second research question. respondents the respondents were the students in one class of accounting department at universitas ma chung who were taking advanced financial accounting course in the even semester of 2011/2012 academic year. the class was chosen because the course was reportedly conducted in english language. english textbooks were used, and the power point slides were also presented in english language. in addition to that, the students were often asked to respond in english, too. the effectiveness of adjunct class 63 the adjunct class the adjunct class session was given in the period of february 2012 to the end of april 2012, and usually was held a few days before the primary content class. the researcher presented the main slides with some phrases and key words translated into their native language, gave glossaries after the chapter, and the main points of the lesson that they were going to discuss in the primary content class. occasionally, the researcher also explained a few meaning-related grammatical points which were vital to the understanding of certain parts. on some occasions before a test, the researcher led the students through a review of the main points of the chapters, drawing attention to some key words, and some grammatical patterns that determine meanings, such as passive voice, compound nouns, and order of adjectives. results the content course the intermediate financial accounting, worth 2 credit hours, aimed to teach the fundamental concepts of accounting and the skills of calculating various accounting functions by using sets of formulas explained and elaborated in each chapter. the course referred to the main textbook, “intermediate accounting” (15th edition), by kieso, weygandt, and warfield. each session presented the students with an average of 50 slides, all of which were written in english and contained elaboration of concepts and formulas, accompanied by examples of cases. at the end of every session, the lecturer assigned one or two items from the textbook to the students to be done individually. 64 the effectiveness of adjunct class baseline data and time series data the baseline data were gained through a vocabulary and summarizing test at the beginning of the semester on 16 february 2012. the students were asked to give the native language meanings of some english key words, and summarize the content of chapter 13 of the main textbook. the next test was conducted on 28 february 2012. like the first test, this test measured the knowledge of vocabulary presented in the previous sessions, and assessed the mastery of main concepts through brief questions. the main objective of the test was identifying the students’ gain after they attended several adjunct class sessions. the last test with the same objective was done on 12 march 2012. the results of the three tests were summed up in table 1 and 2 below: table 1 the results of the three tests on vocabulary baseline test ii test iii mean 27.41 70 60.48 sd 14.59 25.02 31.68 the students’ progress in vocabulary mastery within the two-month period was visualized in the graph below: figure 1. the progress in vocabulary mastery 27.419 70 60.48 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 1 2 3 test the effectiveness of adjunct class 65 the following table shows the progress in mastering the contents of the course: table 2. the results of tests measuring mastery of contents baseline test ii test iii mean 0.192 51.16 57 sd 0.750 35.23 38.49 the students’ progress in mastering the contents of the course is visualized below: figure 2. progress in mastery of contents of the course the tables and charts above show significant increase in vocabulary one month after the beginning of the project. but, this was immediately followed by a slump in the next period. nevertheless, the students fared better in their mastery of the contents. after knowing almost nothing at the beginning, they improved a lot a month afterwards, and made another slight increase in the third stage. their opinions this section answers the second research objective, which is, identifying the students’ opinions about the impact of the adjunct class on their learning. their answers are summarized in the following table. 0.19 51.16 57 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 1 2 3 test 66 the effectiveness of adjunct class table 3. the respondents’ opinions no opinions answers (in percent) how helpful is the adjunct class (n=17) 1 very helpful 5.88 2 helpful enough 58.82 3 not helpful 35.29 on what area is the adjunct class very helpful (n=17) 4 understanding new words 88.23 5 understanding contents of the chapters 17.65 6 understanding the entire content course 17.65 what part of the adjunct class is most helpful (n=17) 7 translation of slides 41.18 8 all of the above 11.76 9 explanation of the general ideas of the chapter 11.76 10 the glossaries 35.29 why is the adjunct class not helpful (n = 6) 11 the time is too limited 50 12 what is explained in the adjunct class is not the same as in the content course. 50 suggestions (n=6) 13 explain the exercises 33.33 14 give more words 16.67 15 translate the exercises 33.33 16 translate every slide 16.67 the effectiveness of adjunct class 67 mastery of new vocabulary and course contents as the graphs above show, the increase in mastery of the contents goes hand in hand with mastery of new vocabulary. this finds a support in the claim by stoller (2002) that the increased mastery of course contents is typically accompanied with better mastery of new vocabulary. likewise, this finding is in line with dalton-puffer’s study (2008) which found improved reading comprehension skills and vocabulary knowledge in clil courses. most of the respondents felt they had received considerable assistance in understanding new vocabulary, but only a few of them felt assisted in understanding the course contents and the textbook. it can be concluded that understanding new vocabulary is not a sufficient condition for them to have a firm grasp on the course contents and the primary lecturers’ explanation. there seems to be at least a factor which may have been responsible for this. the new words may have been interpreted in a context as limited as the glossaries, while in the textbook and the lecture, they are apparently embedded in much wider contexts that demand deeper levels of comprehension. in the area of enhancement of vocabulary knowledge, it is worth noting that the translation of slides and the provision of glossaries are two instructional acts that are highly appreciated. the efforts, however, should have been made more intense by further processing of new vocabulary. as eckerth (2012), and djiwandono (2009) point out, the learning of new words can be enhanced by deep processing of the words and the use of the new words in written production. using the new words and analyzing them will promote better retention and recall than just memorizing them. a response from a respondent highlighting the mismatch between what was taught in the adjunct session and what was actually explained during the main lecture deserves attention. this seems to have been caused by lack of coordination and synchronization among 68 the effectiveness of adjunct class the language lecturer and the main lecturer. the adjunct class emphasized on the mastery of new key words and the main points of the chapters, while the primary class focused more on exercises. some respondents also expected to receive more discussion on computational exercises and translation of the exercises. they seem to be overly concerned about working out the exercises, which later led to tests, rather than focusing on the mastery of the concepts. this is a clear reflection of a negative washback effect of the test, whereby the learners insisted on doing more exercises because they knew that the later tests would center around those exercises. conclusion the research set out to identify the impact of and adjunct class on the mastery of vocabulary mastery of content course of some students in accounting department. the adjunct class was given for a period of two months, each lasting 1.5 hours once a week. the sessions started with the gathering of baseline data in the form of their initial knowledge of vocabulary and comprehension of textbook contents, and interspersed with a few measurement of their accumulative mastery. the adjunct class itself provided them with the meanings of key words, and an overview of the contents of the chapter to be discussed. the results show that although they gained significant vocabulary items, they did not proceed equally well with the understanding of course contents. this is attributable to the limited period of the adjunct sessions, and the mismatch between the emphases on the adjunct class and the emphasis on the content class. recommendations for clil classes and further studies on the basis of the results it is recommended that clil classes, particularly in indonesian instructional context, strive for the alignment between the activities and the emphases in the adjunct class and the activities and the focuses in the subsequent main the effectiveness of adjunct class 69 content courses. it is necessary that the language specialist and the content specialist convene to come to a solid agreement beforehand what areas of learning is to be emphasized in the actual teaching. whenever possible, a stronger emphasis should be placed on the mastery of the contents than on the mere working out of the exercises. it is also suggested that the learning 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(2009). pengaruh written productive task terhadap penguasaan kosa kata bahasa inggris oleh mahasiswa program studi akuntansi di universitas ma chung. unpublished research. eckerth, j. (2012). the effects of word exposure frequency and elaboration of word processing on incidental l2 vocabulary acquisition through reading. language teaching research, 16 (2), pp. 227252. the effectiveness of adjunct class 71 evans, s., dan green, c. (2007). why eap is necessary: a survey of hong kong tertiary students. journal of english for academic purposes 6, pp. 3 – 17. graaf, r.d., koopman, g.j., dan westhoff, g. (2007). identifying effective l2 pedagogy in content and language integrated learning. in vienna english working papers 16 (3), pp. 12 – 19. laufer, b., dan hill. m. 2000. what lexical information do l2 learners select in a call dictionary and how does it affect word retention? language learning & technology, 3, no. 2, pp.. 58-76. marsh, d. (2002). clil-emile the european dimension: actions, trends and foresight potential public services contract dg eac. european commission. stoller, f. (2002). content-based instruction: a shell for language teaching or a aramework for strategic language and content learning? downloaded from http://www.carla.umn.edu/cobaltt/modules/strategies/stoller2002/reading1/stoller 2002.htm vongpumivitch, v., huang, j., dan chang, y. 2009. frequency analysis of the words in the academic word list (awl) and non-awl content words in applied linguistics research papers. english for specific purposes, 28, pp. 33-41. running head: improving english vocabulary 123 improving elementary school students’ english vocabulary through local cultural content materials frans manurung fransigo@yahoo.com universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya ignatius harjanto ig.harjanto@gmail.com universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya, indonesia 124 improving english vocabulary abstract elementary students of a certain public school in indonesia had difficulties in learning english. one of the crucial problems was learning english vocabulary. in an attempt to help the students learn and improve english vocabulary, the researchers decided to use car to teach english vocabulary with local cultural content materials. the aim of this study was to investigate how the teaching of english vocabulary with local cultural content materials contributed to the improvement of the students’ english vocabulary mastery. the topics covered in the materials were selected based on schemata theory. vocabulary learning process was done through several activities provided in the materials: classroom and outside vocabulary learning. the results showed that the teaching of local cultural content materials have contributed to the improvement of the elementary students’ vocabulary mastery. the schematic knowledge found in the familiar topics has aroused the students’ interest and motivation in learning english vocabulary. students who were more familiar with the topics could respond to the vocabulary learning better than those who were not familiar with. the vocabulary mastery was more successful only if the students participated in both classroom and outside vocabulary learning process. keywords: vocabulary mastery, vocabulary improvement, local cultural content materials, vocabulary learning, schemata improving english vocabulary 125 improving elementary school students’ english vocabulary through local cultural content materials the use of inappropriate learning materials could be the causes of english language learning problems at baratajaya elementary school in surabaya, indonesia. one of the most critical problems encountered by the students was vocabulary mastery. the researchers noticed that a lot of previous words learned were usually forgotten even before the students started learning the new ones. when the tests were administered, the average score was 32, quite low from the minimum passing grade, 75. as observed, students did not seem to have an interest in learning english; they perceived that english was difficult because of two things: learning materials and time allocation. most of the topics covered in the materials were not consistent with the students’ needs. they were prone to be half-hearted in their learning process. in addition, the lack of allocated time, two hours a week, has led the students to be unable to optimize their english learning process. according to elley (1991), interesting materials result in very significant increases in vocabulary growth. to provide interesting materials, xiaowen (2008) opines that the teacher must involve students’ daily life in the learning process. when the words are connected to their everyday lives, the students will enjoy learning the words, always remember the words and their meaning, and know how to use them in real life. in line with xiaowen, hedge (2000) argues that in learning vocabulary, the learners acquire not only new words but also new meanings associated with their knowledge of the world. students’ knowledge is active when the students can explore more of their prior knowledge: situations, objects, events, or actions they already know by associating their prior knowledge with the new information provided in the text. english text books which were enriched by schematic knowledge could reinforce the students to acquire english. many books were written based on schemata theory: english text 126 improving english vocabulary book for venezuela by nunez (1988), english text book for turkey dede and emre (1988), and english text book for saudi arabian students by al-quarishi et al. (1999). in their book, dede and emre illustrated the cultural content of an english textbook for turkey. the main themes include turkish food, history, and weather, all discussed in english. nunez described the local geographic features in the text of the english learning materials in venezuela. the sociolinguistic situations, such as asking for and giving directions, also took place in caracas, venezuela. according to hinkel (1999), the textbook written by al-quarishi et al. enriched with schematic knowledge such as making arabian coffee, going to mecca, and arab geographic maps encouraged the students to talk about their culture in english. considering the background, the type of schematic input to be presented to the learners has become one of the salient issues in foreign language pedagogy. it is very crucial to consider appropriate selection of content in the learning materials developed for foreign language students. therefore, this study was aimed to investigate the use of local cultural content materials in improving the baratajaya elementary school students’ vocabulary mastery. methods participants the participants of this study were thirty eight students at fifth grade of an elementary school in surabaya, indonesia, consisting of the same local ethnic group (javanese): 22 males and 16 females who were around 11-12 years old. the researchers have been teaching english as a foreign language for more than 10 years and acted as the teachers in this study. the collaborator observing the teaching-learning process during the study has been teaching english to young learners for more than 5 years. improving english vocabulary 127 the classroom action research as the main objective of this study was to describe some interventions used by the teachers in order to improve a particular linguistic aspect in a classroom, classroom action research (car) was conducted through 3 cycles (mcniff, 1992). every cycle was carried out through four stages: planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. planning: during the planning phase, the vocabulary learning materials were developed using some sources taken from books, magazines, articles, and the internet. the development of the materials was based on the schematic knowledge of the students associated with their everyday lives and local environments (xiaowen, 2008). the materials were in the form of short reading passages provided in twelve different topics; each topic consisted of several learning activities: watching video or doing role play, brainstorming, reading, word study, doing exercises, and home assignment. all the topics were delivered through video except the ninth and eleventh topics which were delivered through role plays. the first topic was ‘traditional market’ in which the situations, activities, and the things sold in the local market were exposed. the second topic was ‘game and sport’ exposing a local game, “makan krupuk” competition. the third topic was music and dance presenting remo dance, a local welcome dance from east java. the fourth topic was ‘food and drink’ discussing about local food and drink of surabaya such as rujak cingur, tahu tek, and rawon. the fifth topic was about ‘family gathering’ talking about family members who gathered in a special occasion. the sixth topic was about my ‘holiday my experience’ discussing a holiday to local places of interest in the city of batu. the seventh topic was about ‘my spare time’ talking about some people who did their activities in their leisure time. the eighth topic was about ‘birthday party’. the ninth topic was about ‘asking and giving direction’ exposing a direction from galaxy mall surabaya to suramadu bridge. the tenth topic was discussing the things and activities in a ‘school library’. the eleventh topic 128 improving english vocabulary was about describing friends’ physical appearance and characteristics. and the last topic was about some famous public places in surabaya: juanda airport, pasar turi railway station, tanjung perak harbour, and many other places. action: the action phase consisted of seven vocabulary learning activities provided in the materials: watching videos, doing role plays, brainstorming topics, reading passages, translating words, doing written classroom exercises, and doing home and field assignments. the teaching process was implemented in three cycles based on the selected learning topics developed by anderson (1977) as follows: cycle one (3-19 march 2014) focusing on the students’ knowledge of environment through the teaching of topic 1 to topic 4, cycle two (21 march – 10 april 2014) exposing the students’ personal lives and experiences through the teaching of topic 5 to topic 8, and cycle three (11-30 april 2014) illustrating the students’ geographic and social lives through the teaching of topic 9 to topic 12. observation: the data were collected from february to may 2014. the pretest and posttest were administered before and after the cycles. the tests were in the form of multiple choices consisting of 100 vocabulary items. the tests were adopted from the students’ workbook and developed based on the curriculum of english for elementary school. the test items were administered to know the average of the students’ initial scores. to complete the tests, the students were asked to choose the correct meaning of a certain word in each item. during the lessons, the students’ responses on how they learned vocabulary in the classroom were observed and noted by the observer with the aid of field notes provided in the observation sheets. at the end of each lesson, a short journal serving as a reflection and description of the lesson was written, and the observer was interviewed for his opinion of it. besides, the vocabulary tests were also administered and the students’ home and field assignments were also examined and scored. all the data were analyzed in a summarized improving english vocabulary 129 manner in order to find out any points that can contribute to the next cycle. the schedule of the data collection phase for the entire cycle is tabulated in the following table. table 1 data collection schedule no data instrument time feb 2014 mar 2014 apr 2014 may 2014 1 students’ vocabulary scores vocabulary tests √ √ √ √ 2 students’ responses on materials interviews √ √ √ 3 observer’s opinion observations and interviews √ √ √ 4 students’ written work document analysis √ √ √ 5 researchers’ journal journal keeping √ √ √ in the final phase, all data were reflected to figure out the aspects that could give contribution to the next cycle and/or to the research as a whole. the comparison of the data before and after the cycles was conducted to find out if any improvement has resulted including the causes of success or failure. the teaching and learning activities in this study, the vocabulary learning process included inside and outside classroom vocabulary learning activities. the inside classroom activities were firstly started by introducing the topic and vocabulary to students using videos, pictures, or role plays. the students were encouraged to give comments on the videos or pictures. thereafter, they were allowed to share their own personal experiences related to the topic based on the instruction in the brainstorming. at the same time, the class discussed the students’ share of personal experiences. next, the students were invited to see the use of the words in topical reading passages. some students were encouraged to read the passages in turns and the other students were asked to listen. after that, the teachers read the passages loudly. the meaning of each 130 improving english vocabulary vocabulary was explained using pictures. at last, students were assigned to do written classroom exercises. to review the taught words, home and field tasks were assigned. the home assignment was in the form of printed papers containing questions in various types of exercises. an example of the home assignment can be seen in appendix 1. the field assignment was designed for the students to practice the vocabulary in real life. an example of field assignment was visiting a market. students were assigned to make a visit to a market near their homes and took notes of the things sold in the market. the field assignment can also be seen in appendix 2. these following extracts are the examples of the teacher (t) and students’ (s) classroom interaction: <when the students watched the videos for certain topics > t: “apa aja tadi yang kamu lihat di dalam videonya?” (what did you see in the video just now?) s: “market”, “sayur (vegetable)”, “food”, “perlombaan (competition)”, “dancer” t: “ok. trus, kegiatan apa yang kamu lihat?” (ok. what activities did you see in the video?) s: “buying”, “menjual (selling)”,“dancing”, “playing”, “eating” t: “okay, yeah, do you know dance”? s: “nari” t: “hmmm…okay!” <when the students watched the video of batu malang tourist object> improving english vocabulary 131 s: “oh, aku uda pernah ke situ…, hari itu aku sama orangtua ku ke sana…” (oh yeah, i have been there…, i went there with my parents…) s: “iya, aku juga bulan lalu baru ke sana…, tempatnya bagus lho, soalnya aku pernah main ke situ, seruu…” (i have also been there last month…, it is a wonderful place. i have ever played there! so exiting…!). <when the students brainstormed about traditional market> s: “aku pernah ke pasar krukah. tempatnya rame, banyak yang belanja. barang-barangnya lengkap, mulai dari sayur, ikan, beras, buah, daging, dan lain-lain.” (i ever visited krukah market. it is crowded and many buyers. the goods are complete, vegetables, fish, rice, fruit, meat, and many others). t: “oh, krukah market is rame? it is crowded. <pause> okay, terus kamu beli apa di sana? (ok. what did you buy there?) s: “daging” (meat) t: “oh..you buy meat. kalo beli daging, pergi ke mana?” <if you want to buy meat, you go to?> s: “tukang daging” t: “alright, to the butcher. <pause> tempatnya bersih apa gimana?” (is the market clean or…?) s: “gak juga, soalnya banyak sampah” <not really, because it is dirty> t: “oh, so it is dirty?” the other parts of the brainstorming process are as follows. 132 improving english vocabulary “oh, so you play makan krupuk game? <pause> oh, kamu menang? (you win?) so you are the winner. got prize? <pause> trus, gimana perasaannya (so, how did you feel?) oh, excited.” “so, you like eating rawon? what else? rujak cingur? it tastes delicious? hmm..the color is black?” “tadi ada yang bilang uda pernah ke batu, ya? <pause> oh, jadi kamu uda pernah liburan ke sana? gimana rasanya? <pause> senang? hmm… kalian tinggal di villa? wah, tempat nya pasti luar biasa dong? (someone said that s/he’s ever gone to batu? oh, you had a holiday there? how did you feel? excited?... oh, you stay at a villa? wow, it must be a wonderful place?) findings and discussions findings as a whole, the students’ english vocabulary mastery tended to improve along the cycles. chart 1 shows the english vocabulary scores across the cycles. the scores of each cycle were different and influenced by the schematic knowledge of the topics learned during the cycles (the lowest english score, 73 was obtained in cycle 1). the local cultural content topics in this cycle could not necessarily benefit the students in their english vocabulary learning. most of the words learned from the topic traditional music and dance could not be answered correctly by the students through the test. the observation showed that the students did not have much interest and were not motivated. they found themselves difficult in learning the new words. according to them, they were more familiar with modern music and dance than the traditional music and dance. the students were more exposed to performance of modern music outside school. they asserted: “iya, mr...kita taunya lebih banyak tentang musik zaman sekarang” (you know, mr.. we know more about the today’s music than the traditional one). improving english vocabulary 133 different from the topic in cycle 1, the topics in cycle 2 and 3 were much more interesting for students. all topics in cycle 2 and 3 exposed the students’ daily life such as, the geographic and public places, friends, and school library; therefore, the students’ english mean score in cycle 2 and 3 were higher than that in cycle 1. chart 1 english vocabulary scores across the cycles as can be seen in chart 2, the teaching of local cultural content materials has contributed to the findings of students’ english vocabulary mastery with an average gain score 48. the highest gain score, 76, was obtained by aura. her pretest score was 23 and her posttest score was 99. the second highest gain score, 74, was obtained by yuliana. her pretest was 21 and her posttest was 95. the third highest gain score, 66, was obtained by patria. her pretest was 29 and her posttest was 95. the fourth highest gain score, 63, was obtained by enjelly. her pretest was 20 and her posttest was 83. the same gain score was obtained by faith. her pretest was 36 and her posttest was 99. all these students as well as dimas, ananda, fikky, and hanif who obtained the best posttest score, 100, were the ones who participated in classroom and outside vocabulary learning activities. they were 134 improving english vocabulary passionate to learn english vocabulary in the classrooms and completed and submitted their worksheets. in other words, activities in and outside the classroom reinforced the students to acquire vocabulary. chart 2 pretest and posttest scores table 2 and 3 show the difference between the pretest and posttest result analyzed by using paired sample t-test. as seen in the table 3, the significance value, 0.000, was lower than 0.05 shows that the students’ vocabulary mastery improved significantly. table 2 mean scores mean n std. deviation std. error mean pair 1 pre 36.5263 38 15.13138 2.45463 post 84.0789 38 14.21340 2.30572 student number scores average gain score 48 improving english vocabulary 135 table 3 paired sample test score paired differences t df sig. (2tailed)mean std. deviation std. error mean 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper pair 1 pre post -47.55263 17.75006 2.87944 -53.38693 -41.71833 -16.515 37 .000 interviews with students and observer revealed that familiar topics encouraged the students to learn english vocabulary in a meaningful way. they were motivated in learning vocabulary through brainstorming. some students commented. “topik nya itu dekat sama kehidupan kita sehari-hari, jadi kita langsung konek”. (the topics are very familiar to our daily lives; so, we are engaged with them directly). “topik-topiknya itu semuanya berkaitan dengan hal-hal yang pernah kita alami, misalnya liburan, keluarga, kegiatan waktu luang, dan ulang tahun. jadi, kita bisa ngomong lebih banyak”. (“all topics reflected the experiences that we ever had, such as, going for holiday, talking about family, doing spare time activities, and celebrating birthday. thus, we can talk much and generate more words”). as told by the students, the observer commented. “topiknya mengangkat kehidupan siswa itu sendiri. jadi, mereka jauh lebih tertarik dan antusias untuk belajar kosa kata”. (the topics reflect the students’ lives. so, they are much more interested and enthusiastic in learning vocabulary). the content of reading passages has also aroused the students’ interest and motivation to learn vocabulary. in his own words, the observer commented. “siswa bisa mengerti teks karena terdapat istilah-istilah lokal yang memudahkan siswa”. (students could understand the passages because of the familiar local terms). 136 improving english vocabulary one of the students, a remo dancer at school named yuliana, commented on the passage of remo dance, “aku ngerasa teks nya gampang dimengerti. soalnya aku uda pernah punya pengalaman seperti yang ada di teks itu”. (i think the passage is easy to understand because i have the same experience told in the passage). the observer and the other students, dinda and hanif, commented on the passage of games and sport, “teks nya menarik untuk dibaca soalnya cerita yang ada dalam teks itu udah pernah kita alami juga kan, jadi gampang ngerti”. (the passages are interesting to read because we have experienced playing the game)”. some students commented on the passage of food and drink, “bacaannya gampang dimengerti soalnya membahas tentang makanan surabaya” (the passage is easy to understand because it is about surabayan food). for the passage krukah market, a student named faith commented, “waktu saya pergi ke krukah, langsung keingat kalau kita uda pernah belajar kosa kata ini sebelumnya, gitu….”. (when i go to krukah market and see the things around, i remember that i have ever learned the vocabulary from the passage). the teaching of local cultural content materials has also benefitted a low achiever, dinda. her pretest score was 28 and her posttest score was 89. she has showed her eagerness in learning english because she had lots of experiences about the topics discussed in the passages. her background knowledge helped her acquire new vocabulary. unlike dinda, aldo, another low achiever was not much benefitted by the teaching of the local cultural content materials. he obtained the lowest gain score because he had few experiences about the topics. his family problem was the cause of it. aldo was shy and did not socialize. along the treatment, he used to be silent and rarely participate in the learning improving english vocabulary 137 process. he had difficulties in giving responses when the teacher asked him. in his own words, he used to say “i don’t know” as the reason. it seemed that, this issue has given effect on to the failure of his english vocabulary learning process. discussions as revealed in the findings, the familiar topics and the content of reading passages could help students acquire vocabulary. as argued by anderson (1977) the findings showed the topics and activities were about the students’ life: when and what the students eat, the students’ attitudes towards their friends, the students’ family lives, the daily time, work values, and the other things. according to brooks (1983) the reading passages in such materials could also help students understand the meaning of vocabulary. such ideas were included in their english vocabulary learning materials, for example, family gathering, my holiday – my experience, my birthday, and my spare time. on the other hand, the cultures which were not familiar to students were excluded from their english vocabulary learning materials (kachru & nelson, 1996; canagarajah, 1999). thus, schematic knowledge in the passages made the words more accessible and the passages more meaningful through the word or concept association (oxford & crookall, 1990). and, the inclusion of such realistic students’ daily life in the learning materials has aroused the students’ interest in their english vocabulary learning process (xiaowen, 2008). this study has also found that background knowledge had a big impact on the students’ vocabulary learning process (nassaji, 2002; steffensen et al., 1979). since the words were mostly learned through brainstorming, students were required to have background knowledge of the topic in order to give responses to the teaching; otherwise, the students could not understand the topic and the learning was not successful. in the same way, this study has also corroborated krashen’ input hypothesis (1982) regarding that humans acquire language in only one way – understanding the message – that is, by receiving 138 improving english vocabulary comprehensible input. as found in this study, the students failed to learn the new words about music and dance because most of them were not exposed to traditional music and dance. another example, aldo was not able to learn the materials well and obtained the lowest gain score because of limited knowledge of the topics. conclusion and suggestions based on the results of this research, this study revealed that the teaching of local cultural content materials for foreign language learners has contributed to the improvement of their english vocabulary mastery. the schematic knowledge found in the familiar topics has aroused the students’ interest and motivation in learning english vocabulary. both classroom and outside vocabulary learning included in the materials appeared to make positive contribution to the students’ english vocabulary learning. however, the brainstorming activity was considered to be the most influential in the students’ english vocabulary learning. therefore, an english teacher was required to be creative in delivering the lessons and energetic in addressing some questions or responses to students during the brainstorming. and, to make the vocabulary learning more successful, the students were required to learn the new vocabulary in and outside the classroom. currently, most of indonesian schools adopted english learning materials from other countries which were not necessarily compatible with the students’ experiences; the content was mostly unrealistic for them. thus, it is hoped that headmasters or english teachers would be selective in providing the expected english vocabulary books for their students. finally, the researcher would like to encourage other researchers to conduct experimental studies by involving two different classrooms by giving different treatments to each in order to give a quantitative support to this study by comparing the two groups in order to figure out whether the materials are the most influential in improving the students’ vocabulary mastery or the teaching process. improving english vocabulary 139 references al-quarishi, k., watson, m., hafseth, j., & hickman, d. (1999). english for saudi arabia. riyadh: ministry of education. anderson, r.c. (1977). schema-directed processes in language comprehension. university of illinois at urbana-champaign. brooks, n. (1983). teaching culture in the foreign language classroom, foreign language annals, volume 16. new york: actfl, inc. canagarajah, a. (1999). resisting linguistic imperialism. oxford: oxford university press. dede, m., & emre, m. (1988). spotlight on english. ankara: hitit product. elley, w. b. (1991). acquiring literacy in a second language: the effect of book-based programs. language learning, 41(3), 375-411. hedge, t. (2000). teaching and learning in the language classroom. oxford university press. hinkel, e. (ed.) (1999). culture in second language teaching and learning. cambridge university press. kachru, b.b., and nelson, c. (1996). world englishes. in s.l. mckay, and n.h. horngberger (eds.), sociolinguistics and language teaching. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. krashen, s. d. (1982). principles and practice in second language acquisition. oxford: pergamon press. mcniff, j. (1992). action research: principles and practice (1st ed). basingstoke, macmillan and london, routledge. nassaji, h. (2002). schema theory and knowledge-based processes in second language reading comprehension: a need for alternative perspectives. language learning, 52, 439–481. 140 improving english vocabulary nunez, r.o. (1988). el libro de inglés, educación básica noveno grado. publisher: maracay: puntoy medio. oxford, r. and crookall, d 1990, vocabulary learning: a critical analysis of techniques tesl canada journal, 7 (2) (1990), p. 566–593 steffensen, m. s., joag-dev, c., and anderson, r. (1979). a cross-cultural perspective on reading comprehension. reading research quarterly, 15, 10–29. xiaowen, l. (2008). a study of english vocabulary teaching for middle school students. esl journal. improving english vocabulary 141 appendix 1 142 improving english vocabulary appendix 2 running head: wisdom and the curriculum 1 beyond words vol.3, no.1, may 2015 widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia wisdom as an outcome of critical thinking in the school curriculum phillip a. towndrow phillip.towndrow@nie.edu.sg senior research scientist, centre for research in pedagogy and practice, national institute of education, nanyang technological university, singapore. 2 wisdom and critical thinking abstract this article considers a way of enacting critical thinking in the school curriculum. an alternative to adopting a formal framework of critical thinking which may not be exhaustive or include desirable components, involves working towards the generation of wisdom— defined as the quality of having the experience, knowledge and insight to think and act aptly in a specific context for a particular purpose—as a way for learners to make meanings that potentially have personal and social significance. the article uses a real-world example to illustrate how critical thinking can be driven by inquiry and underpinned by explanation to demonstrate practical knowledge and understanding in specific circumstances. keywords: wisdom, critical thinking, curriculum, instruction, task design, classroom practice wisdom and critical thinking 3 wisdom as an outcome of critical thinking in the school curriculum this article considers a way of enacting critical thinking in the school curriculum. when researchers, education policymakers and schools include critical thinking as a key 21st century competency (framework for 21st century learning, 2015) teachers need to incorporate this requirement into the coverage of curriculum content. as i attempt to illustrate below, one possibility with significance for both individuals and social groups involves an openness and willingness to use inquiry and explanation as the means of demonstrating understanding in particular contexts and specific circumstances. critical thinking definitionally, critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally, and embraces a variety of skill sets including problem solving, logic, evaluation and reflection. operationally, a starting point is to identify and situate the various components of thinking against the background of desired intellectual standards (foundation for critical thinking, 2015). for the purposes of illustration, a typical framework for reasoning and intellectual standards is richard paul and linda elder’s (2009) elements of reasoning, where critical thinking is defined as, “... the art of analysing and evaluating thinking with a view to table 1. the components of paul and elder’s framework for critical thinking intellectual standards intellectual traits elements of reasoning ● accuracy ● clarity ● relevance ● logical sufficiency ● precision ● depth ● significance ● fairness ● breadth ● humility ● autonomy ● fair-mindedness ● courage ● perseverance ● empathy ● integrity ● confidence in reason ● purposes ● questions ● points of view ● information ● inferences ● concepts ● implications ● assumptions 4 wisdom and critical thinking improving it” (p. 2). in brief, there are three components to the paul-elder model as shown in table 1: (i) intellectual standards, (ii) intellectual traits, and (iii) elements of reasoning. it is important to know and understand that in the paul-elder model for critical thinking, the intellectual standards must be applied to the elements of reasoning which, in turn, lead to the development of the intellectual traits. paul and elder advocate that the regular and consistent operation of their framework produces ‘well-cultivated’ critical thinkers, who are able to raise vital questions and problems, gather and assess information, reach well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, think open-mindedly and communicate effectively. theoretically, the paul-elder process approach to reasoning and critical thinking would seem to cover a wide range of possibilities. but the question of whether models of this kind are effective and practical mechanisms is, i suggest, moot. this is because we cannot be sure the taxonomies are exhaustive or indeed desirable. nor is it clear how such elements interact specifically to improve thinking for particular individuals and specialised purposes. thus, given this uncertainty, teachers may argue that they do not need a formal model of critical thinking to teach their curriculum content. while i remain neutral concerning the usefulness of critical thinking models (including paul and elder’s conceptualisations) per se, i want to explore a different way of translating critical thought into practical action by setting the generation of wisdom as a situated curricula outcome. my purpose is to show that critical thinking is not just a set of abstract notions but has real-world consequences for both individuals and groups in society. to make this case, i recount a story to set the scene. the two woodcutters1 one day, two woodcutters, sam and fred, decided to compete against each other to see who could cut down the most trees in a day. both men went to different locations in the 1 the story is taken from alan s. l. wong (parable of the two woodcutters, 2005) wisdom and critical thinking 5 forest but they could still hear each other clearly. after about an hour, sam stopped chopping. fred was puzzled but he pressed on regardless. after about five minutes, sam’s axe was back in action but within an hour it fell silent again. this pattern continued for the remainder of the day much to fred’s delight. he was bound to win, he thought. at the end of a busy day, both men stopped and looked at each other’s piles of wood. fred was disappointed to see he hadn’t done as well as sam. “how can this be?”, he asked. “i never stopped once but you (pointing to sam accusingly) kept taking a break”. “yes, that’s true”, sam replied. “but the reason i stopped was to sharpen my axe”. traditionally, the moral of this story is a simple one: small investments in effort and preparation can have big rewards. the time we spend equipping can make a large and significant difference in our work and lives. i agree with this lesson but i would also like to suggest there are three other take-aways from the story with particular relevance to the nature and outcomes of critical thinking. to do this, we need to imagine we know a little more about sam and his thinking. first, the story of the two woodcutters illustrates the value of experience. anyone who has tried to cut down a tree with an axe will know it is extremely hard work. in particular, it takes confidence, strength, stamina and a great deal of technique to swing an axe well. we can only learn these things through practice. second, the story shows the value of knowledge. sam probably knew a dull blade is inefficient and ineffective. while it is certainly possible, it is extremely tiring to cut wood with a blunt axe. finally, and most importantly, there is a lesson in the value of wisdom. combining his knowledge and experience, sam was wise enough to act by sharpening his tool regularly to keep it at its optimal performance level even though this took time away from chopping. in short, he understood what he needed to enact in order to win the day convincingly and 6 wisdom and critical thinking knowingly. the implication is that his wisdom had personal significance and is something we can account for and potentially learn from. on these bases, i tentatively define wisdom as the quality of having the experience, knowledge and insight to think and act aptly in a specific context for a particular purpose. arguably, sam may have been both clever and logical in his thinking but his wisdom allowed him to manifest and transform his ‘critical head knowledge’ into understanding and successful hands-on activity. moving from the fictional realm, how is the same outcome possible in a school setting? the first step, i suggest, is for teachers to be intentional in their learning task designs. intentional learning task design i propose that intentional learning task design is a mechanism to actualise wisdom as i have defined it. but for this to occur, an essential prerequisite is an awareness of the characteristics of instructional task types. this is because different task designs can be more or less apt for different learning objectives and we need to know, as educators, what our parameters are so that we can choose appropriately within and across our curricula options. in brief, there are four basic task forms to consider and choose from (cf. towndrow, 2007; towndrow & vallance, 2004): 1. single output, single strategy. this is where there is a single known or acceptable answer to a question or problem and there is only one way to reach it. for example, find the length of the unknown side of a right-angled triangle. tasks of this kind are necessary but they are not particularly flexible. 2. single output, multiple strategies. this is where there is a single objective, but there is more than one way of achieving it. for example, lose 25 kilograms in 6 months. tasks of this kind are slightly more open. wisdom and critical thinking 7 3. multiple outputs, single strategy. for example, using a data set derived from standard formulas and accepted procedures, produce tables, graphs and charts as necessary. tasks of this kind are moderately open. 4. multiple outputs, multiple strategies. for example, invent: devise and carry out a solution for x (where x is any problem or issue you have chosen to explore). tasks of this kind are the most flexible in terms of outputs and strategies. this learning task classification has two immediate instructional affordances. first, in terms of scope, it can accommodate a wide variety of learning outputs (products) and outcomes (processes). second, the model is meant to be neutral and therefore flexible concerning the recruitment of instructional approaches in teaching and learning. for example, while it is possible to learn facts and routines through whole-class instruction and individualised practice, the achievement of multiple outputs and outcomes through multiple strategies might favour group-based inquiry and joint decision making because they are the most open. nevertheless, if we make wisdom an outcome of learning to think critically then there is an affinity with tasks of all kinds so long as they feature explanation as a component of the work done. explanation according to renowned curriculum designers grant wiggins and jay mctighe (2005), explanation is a key facet of understanding where “sophisticated and apt theories, and illustrations, provide knowledgeable and justified accounts of events, actions and ideas” (p. 85). for example, a student who can explain why steam, water and ice are the same chemical substance has a better understanding of h2o than a counterpart who cannot. in addition, and crucially as far as the generation of wisdom is concerned, explanation allows for demonstrations of understanding by connecting events and thinking about why they happened 8 wisdom and critical thinking from a particular critical standpoint. once this is done, we have a basis for generating insights about what is apt and appropriate action under specific circumstances. potentially, from curriculum and task design perspectives, there is a vast store of material for us as teachers and learners to explore and explain (i.e., understand). for example, in october 2010, the world witnessed the rescue of thirty-three men who had been trapped half a mile inside the san josé mine in the atacama desert, chile, for over two months. the disaster began on a normal day shift around noon. miners excavating deep underground for precious metals started feeling vibrations. suddenly, there was a massive explosion and the mine shafts were filled with thick dust. when the dust settled, the men could see that an immense rock had broken off a mountain and penetrated the layers of the mine destroying everything around and below it. thinking and planning quickly, engineers designed and constructed an escape tunnel into which they repeatedly lowered and raised a single-person capsule using a giant crane over several hours. incredibly, none of the trapped men or their family members waiting above ground in a makeshift area called ‘camp hope’ completely succumbed to despair. this was the case despite the fact that for over seventeen days before the drill finally broke through to the ‘refuge’ where the men were gathered, no one knew if they were alive or not. my line of argument is that the chilean mine rescue is typical of thousands of real-life stories in that it invites curiosity and exploration concerning the circumstances before, during and after the events that took place. for example, from a curriculum perspective, we could investigate what happened (where were the miners? how were they rescued?) and write a factual recount in an language class. alternatively, we could study chilean geography and geology to find out what might have caused the rock to fall from the mountain. in economics, we could explore world trade in precious metals and attempt to justify mining as a human enterprise involving high risk and low wages. or we could look at the engineering, wisdom and critical thinking 9 mathematics and physics involved in drilling a half mile hole into the ground. what would be the optimal angle and direction? how was the capsule lowered into the ground so far without stopping? what kind of forces were involved and how can they be calculated? basically, when we ask questions about an event or phenomenon we can get to the root of an issue and we are then able to focus on the development of enacted solutions to it (wrobel, 2015) that potentially have wisdom and social significance as outcomes. for example, researchers have argued there are lessons for business executives to learn about leadership from the chilean mine rescue. according to rashid, edmondson, and leonard (2013) the successful example of andré sougarret, the chief of the rescue operation, is an exemplary case study in how to lead in situations where there are high stakes, multiple risks and uncertainties, and intense time pressure. seemingly, sougarret was faced with competing and conflicting demands: should he be directive and take command of the situation himself or enable and empower others to take action through innovation and experimentation? in the end, he decided to do both in order to overcome the extreme odds. the approach he adopted involved three tasks: (a) instilling hope that the trapped miners would be located but at the same time stressing that it would be extremely difficult (given the depth of the mine and the unstable ground) and they might not survive, (b) setting clear boundaries about who was involved in the rescue (only experts engineers with specialist equipment and geologists with knowledge of the location were allowed access to the rescue site), and (c) leading while allowing experimentation. in this last case, sougarret employed three separate drilling techniques to see which one would reach the trapped men first. he creatively defied logical thinking by letting the engineers make mistakes in their drilling but on the strict basis that there was constant monitoring of progress, and instant recovery and correction as necessary. as knowledge and experience quickly combined, a solution was found (from a number of alternatives) that was 10 wisdom and critical thinking apt for the purposes at hand (i.e., find and rescue the men if possible). arguably, we can explain sougarret’s actions by showing that he acted wisely in alternating his leadership styles in response to the multi-faceted crisis he faced. in sum, i suggest that when learners can demonstrate their understanding of world events via inquiry, they have a foundation and method for asking questions and providing explanations about their own situations and circumstances that can eventually lead to the generation of wisdom based on and around discussion and dialogue. one concern teachers might have with this methodology is that student questioning is time-consuming and can lead to much off-topic, misdirected chatter. however, marc prensky (2010) roundly dismisses this teachers’ myth. he argues that when questions are well-chosen and handled appropriately in classrooms, the same amount of curriculum content can be covered but with additional results (e.g., engagement and knowledge construction). however, as curriculum designers and teachers, we need to know that inquiry or question-based approaches to instruction and learning are not instant solutions. rather, inquiry, as a form of talk for learning, requires sustained and directed effort so that it becomes an intentional and regularly occurring feature of classroom interactions (see alexander, 2008; mercer, 2008). mercer (2008) argues how important and necessary it is for students to learn questioning techniques and forms of classroom interaction where turntaking, negotiation and rebuttal lead to discussion and knowledge generation. but this is a long, time-intensive pursuit. conclusion in this short article i have attempted to outline a possible way of combining critical thinking with curriculum coverage. the central idea involves positioning wisdom, defined as the quality of having the experience, knowledge and insight to think and act aptly in a specific context for a particular purpose, as a curricula outcome with the potential for learners wisdom and critical thinking 11 to make meanings that have personal and social significance. my argument has been that critical thinking need not be an abstract concept. rather, the quest for wisdom can be a unique means of providing an authentic context and a practical purpose for critical thinking that is driven by inquiry and underpinned by explanation as a way of demonstrating practical knowledge and understanding. the task ahead is for curriculum designers and subject-based teachers to intentionally design and enact learning tasks that incorporate wisdom as an outcome. as i believe this is a new idea, i am particularly interested in seeing examples of how this can be done in various teaching and learning contexts. acknowledgement this article is based on a keynote presentation given at the acts (anglican character, thinking and service) leadership academy seminar, anglican high school, singapore, on 27 february 2015. all views expressed in the article are the author’s. 12 wisdom and critical thinking references alexander, r. (2008). essays on pedagogy. abingdon: routledge. foundatation for critical thinking (2015). the elements of reasoning and the intellectual standards. retrieved 19 may 2015, from http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/theelements-of-reasoning-and-the-intellectual-standards/480 framework for 21st century learning. (2015). retrieved 10 april 2015, from partnership for 21st. century learning: http://www.p21.org/our-work/p21-framework mercer, n. (2008). the seeds of time: why classroom dialogue needs a temporal analysis. the journal of the learning sciences, 17(1), 33-59. retrieved from https://thinkingtogether.educ.cam.ac.uk/publications/journals/mercer2008.pdf parable of the two woodcutters. (2005). retrieved 26 may 2015, from alan's gleanings: http://www.vtaide.com/gleanings/woodcutters.htm paul, r., & elder, l. (2009). the miniature guide to critical thinking-concepts and tools (thinker’s guide). dillon beach, ca: foundation for critical thinking. prensky, m. (2010). teaching digital natives: partnering for real learning. thousand oaks, ca: corwin. rashid, f., edmondson, a. c., & leonard, h. b. (july-august, 2013). leadership lessons from the chilean mine rescue. harvard business review, 91(7). towndrow, p. a. (2007). task design ilmplementation and assessment: integrating information and communication technology in english teaching and learning. singapore: mcgraw-hill education (asia). towndrow, p. a., & vallance, m. (2004). using it in the language classroom: a guide for teachers and students in asia. singapore: longman pearson education. wiggins, g., & mctighe, j. (2005). understanding by design (2nd. ed.). alexandria, va: assn. for supervision & curriculum development. wisdom and critical thinking 13 wrobel, s. (9 january, 2015). the question game: a playful way to teach critical thinking. retrieved 10 april 2015, from te@ch thought: http://www.teachthought.com/learning/question-game-playful-way-teach-criticalthinking/ beyond words vol.3, no.2, november 2015  the author 2015. published by widya mandala catholic university press; all rights reserved. teacher perfectionism and iranian english language learners’ motivation and achievement reza rezvani yasouj univeristy, iran rezvanireza@gmail.com safiyeh pakdaman nazipakdaman@yahoo.com islamic azad university, fars science and research branch, shiraz, iran rouhollah askari bigdeli raskari90@gmail.com yasouj university, iran educational psychology has recently reflected a policy shift from focusing on “what goes wrong” in schools, including psychological, physical, and educational disabilities, to recognizing and promoting strengths and positive aspects of students and their environments. within this scope, some lines of research have examined the extent to which setting personal high standards influences such positive outcomes as educational achievement and high level of motivation. the present study was motivated by the concern that iranian english language teachers' setting high standards, i.e. perfectionism, may predict english language learners’ motivation and language achievement. through cluster random sampling, a total of 30 english language teachers with more than one year of experience and 300 elementary english language learners were selected from english language institutes in fars province, iran. frost multidimensional perfectionism scale and motivations underlying english language learning questionnaire were used to measure teachers' perfectionism and learners’ language learning motivation, respectively. the learners' final scores in the english courses were collected as a measure of their language learning achievement. the result of simple regression analysis revealed that the teachers' perfectionism did not predict english language learners’ motivation and language achievement. in other words, iranian english language teachers' perfectionism did not account for any variance in these two variables of interest. keywords: perfectionism, motivation, language learning achievement introduction learning english is viewed to be a multifaceted phenomenon affected by a host of cognitive, affective, and social factors. thus far, much of what was carried out by researchers and accordingly employed by teachers within the realm of english language teaching (elt) have been massively directed by a cognitive-driven perspective that tries to provide a clear picture of what takes place in learners' brains and of how the brain processes and internalizes the information. following that, affective and social factors start to receive attention with the mailto:rezvanireza@gmail.com mailto:nazipakdaman@yahoo.com teacher perfectionism 185 emergence of new paradigms such as constructivism. some social factors pertain to teacherrelated issues such as teacher identity, teacher efficacy, and teacher perfectionism that are thought to influence the labyrinth of the foreign/second language learning process. teacher perfectionism, the primary concern of the present study, was first viewed and addressed as a unidimensional concept that was mainly self-oriented. such a perspective is evident in the definition proposed by burns (1980). he defined perfectionists as people "whose standards are high beyond reach or reason…who strain compulsively and unremittingly toward impossible goals and who measure their own worth entirely in terms of productivity and accomplishment" (p.34).other researchers, however, proposed that perfectionism be viewed from a multidimensional perspective. unlike burns (1980) who understood perfectionism merely based on a self-oriented perspective, hewitt and flett (1990) believed that perfectionism has other dimensions. they argued that perfectionism is not only self-oriented but also other-oriented and socially prescribed. self-oriented perfectionism is concerned with setting high standards and perfectionism motivation for oneself. other-oriented perfectionism refers to setting high standards and expecting perfect performance from others. socially prescribed perfectionism deals with the perception that others define unrealistic standards for oneself, and that others expect one to be perfect. in the past decade, perfectionism was investigated mainly in clinical psychology and the researchers were curious to find out whether there was any association between perfectionism and other affective factors. there were two groups of researchers with conflicting views. some personality psychologists found that perfectionism is healthy and can be regarded as a salient part of human development (lazarfeld, 1966; maslow, 1970). other researchers, however, did not view perfectionism positively and argued that perfectionism is associated with trait anxiety (hewitt & flett, 1991a,b), depression and social anxiety (downey &chang, 2007, hewitt, &dyck, 1986, onwuegbuzie & daley, 1999, rosser, issakidis, & peters, 2003) as well as low self-esteem and low self-efficacy (dunkley, zuroff & blankstein, 2003; stoeber & otto, 2006). in addition to the clinical studies on perfectionism, the educational researchers explored perfectionism from different angles and tried to find out whether perfectionism influenced students' performance negatively or positively. some research has linked perfectionism with achievement motivation in higher education settings. neumeister (2004) investigated how socially prescribed and self-oriented perfectionism was developed within gifted college students and influenced their achievement motivation and their attributions for successes and failures. he found that the socially prescribed students perceived their perfectionism to be developed due to pressure they received from their perfectionism teachers. in the same vien, other researchers found positive correlation between perfectionism and academic achievement and test performance (e.g., bieling, israeli, smith, & antony, 2003; stoeber&kersting, 2007; stumpf& parker, 2000). further, it was found that perfectionism has been associated with a number of positive adaptive qualities, including self-efficacy and good academic performance (blankstein & dunkley, 2002; burns &fedewa, 2005). other researcher, however, argued for the negative influence of perfectionism on the performance of learners. pishghadam and akhoondpoor (2011) indicated that perfectionism teachers make students afraid of making mistakes and taking risks. this will make the 186 beyond words learners remain silent and wait for the proper chance; otherwise they do not try to express themselves when they are not sure about the correctness of what they want to say. this striving for perfection would cause many serious problems in learners’ performance. in such situations, learners have high levels of fear and anxiety in english classes. teachers set high standards and overemphasize on correctness and this results in error phobia and learners may have an unpleasant experience in language classes (akhoondpoor, 2008). as fahim and pishghadam (2009) argued, language classes have become “sites of fear and anxiety”. in such circumstances, learners prefer to avoid performance as they have fear of being criticized by the teacher so they refrain from involving themselves in the class, and this will reduce risktaking in them. motivation has been greatly agreed upon as the impetus for driving people to learn, directing and reinforcing them to invest some effort to reach their goals (gardner, 2001; dörnyei & csizér, 1998). dörnyei (2003) proposed a dynamic picture of motivation affected by diverse factors ranging from the context of classroom, teaching materials, and different tasks to the role of teachers. attitudes taken by teachers toward language learning, teaching methods and practices, and their personality traits are likely to influence learners' motivations variably. as for the association between perfectionism and motivation, stoeber and rambow (2007) found that perfectionism in school students is correlated with positive characteristics such as motivation, well-being, and a pursuit of excellence. in another study, neumeister (2004) came to this conclusion that perfectionism that was characterized by underlying motive to avoid failure influenced the students' achievement goals and behaviors. these studies focused on the extent to which perfectionism exercised by students influenced their disposition, achievement, and motivation. the association between teacher perfectionism and students' achievement and motivation to learn, however, has not been adequately addressed. the present study was motivated by the concern that iranian english language teachers' setting high standards, i.e. perfectionism, may predict english language learners’ motivation and language achievement. the study sought the answer to the two following research questions: 1. does efl teachers’ perfectionism predict iranian elementary efl learners’ language learning motivation? 2. does efl teachers’ perfectionism predict iranian elementary efl learners’ language achievement? methods participants the participants that took part in the study were selected from among english language teachers and learners. to choose the participants of the study, a list of 50 english language institutes in fars province, iran was made first. then, through random sampling, 10 institutes and 30 elementary classes were chosen for the purpose of the present study. the teacher participants included a total of thirty efl teachers (16 male and 14 female) with at least one year experience of teaching english at english language institutes in fars province, iran. fourteen of the selected efl teachers have majored in tefl, thirteen teachers had studied english literature and three of them majored in english translation. the student participants were 300 elementary english language learners (151 male and 149 female) learning english at language institutes. teacher perfectionism 187 instruments the data were gathered through the two instruments. frost multidimensional perfectionism scale (frost et al., 1990) was used to evaluate the perfectionism propensities of the teacher participants in the study. participants responded to the items on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly agree) through 5 (strongly disagree). the fmps yields six subscales: concern over mistakes (9 items), personal standards (7 items), parental criticism(4 items), parental expectations(5 items), doubts about actions (4 items), and organization(6 items). support for the reliability and validity of the subscales has been established by frost et al. (1990, 1993) in several studies. the reliability index of the questionnaire was 0.90. motivations underlying english language learning (muell) developed by khodadady and ashrafborji (2013) was utilized to collect the data on learners’ language learning motivation. the student participants were asked to read the 25 items and indicate whether they ‘completely disagreed’, ‘disagreed’, ‘disagreed somewhat’, ‘had no idea’, ‘agreed somewhat’, ‘agreed’, or ‘completely agreed’ with them. cronbach’s alpha for muell was 0.83. the student participants' achievement scores in the elementary level were used as a measure of their language learning achievement. the achievement score for each participant was the average of the midterm and final exams he or she took during the term. data collection at the very beginning of the study, permission was gained from the principals of the targeted english language institutes. to guarantee a positive participation, the subjects were informed that their answers would be confidential and they were not required to write or give their names at any stage of the study. the perfectionism questionnaire was administered to the thirty efl teachers at the beginning of the term. efl teachers were assured that the main objective of the study was to find out whether their perfectionist view could affect their efl learners’ language learning motivation and achievement. the student participants' achievement scores in the elementary level (midterm and final exam scores) were collected as an index of their language learning achievement and at the end of the term they were asked to fill in the muell questionnaires. results the first research question concerned the effect of efl teacher perfectionism on the efl learners’ language learning motivation. the purpose was to pinpoint the prediction of efl learners’ language learning motivation as the dependent variable by efl teacher perfectionism as the independent variable. to test the prediction a simple linear regression was conducted with one independent variable, that is efl teacher perfectionism, and one dependent variable, say, efl learners’ language learning motivation. the analysis lead to an r square value of .002 showing that efl teacher perfectionism accounts for 0% of the variance in efl learners’ language learning motivation. table 1 reveals that efl teacher perfectionism with a standardized coefficient of .043 did not predict efl learners’ language learning motivation. table 1. 188 beyond words linear regression between teacher perfectionism and learners’ motivation the second research question addressed the prediction of efl learners’ language learning achievement by efl teacher perfectionism. the result of linear regression showed an r square value of .003 indicating that efl teacher perfectionism did not account for the variance in efl learners’ language learning achievement. table 2 indicates that efl teacher perfectionism with a standardized coefficient of .058 was not a statically significant predictor of efl learners’ language learning achievement. table 2. linear regression between teacher perfectionism and learners achievement discussion perfectionism behaviors are characterized by tendencies for flawlessness and setting high standards beyond reach or reason. perfectionism teachers are excessively concerned over mistakes in students' performance, doubtful about the quality of students' performance, and have an exaggerated emphasis on precision, order, and organization. it is assumed that if teachers incorporate such features, students may have to put a great deal of time and effort into learning in order to meet the high standards set, thereby enhancing their motivation and achievement. this assumption, however, was not supported by the findings obtained from the present study. the current study found that the teachers' perfectionism behaviors failed to predict the rise in the students' motivation and achievement levels. the results from the linear regression analysis provided a support for the idea that teachers' perfectionism did not account for any variance in learners' language learning motivation and achievement. such findings can be attributed to the change we have witnessed in the educational goals, assessment and teaching practices in iranian elementary education. the first dramatic shift that took place in the educational system of iranian elementary teacher perfectionism 189 education in 2002 was related to the assessment and evaluation practices. it is over twelve years that the quantitative orientation in assessment has been abandoned and a qualitative perspective has been followed in elementary education. that is to say, students' performance is evaluated and reported qualitatively rather than numerically or quantitatively. under the aegis of the qualitative assessment policy, there is scant emphasis on precision and flawless performance on part of students. what the educational researchers and teachers agree on is that the current crucial goal of elementary education is to enable students to move toward learning and mastery rather than toward getting prefect grades in school subjects. in this regard, the role of schooling is to promote knowledge and learning rather than advocating numerically-driven assessment practices that trigger the unhealthy competition among the students and expect flawless and perfect performance. this trend is in striking contrast with the traditional assessment policy which did not emphasize the act of ongoing learning process but sought the perfect performance by the end of the year. in the light of this consideration, it can be argued that perfectionism exercised by teachers might not be beneficial to students owing to the fact that there is less emphasis on precision and impeccable performance in the current educational system. thus far, contradictory results have been obtained regarding the role played by perfectionism behaviors in educational contexts. some researchers believe that perfectionism can lead to students putting more time and effort into learning, hence contributing to and enhancing achievement (bieling, israeli, smith, and antony, 2003; neumeister, 2004; stoeber & kersting, 2007; stumpf & parker, 2000). other researchers, however, argue against the prevalence and persistence of perfectionism behaviors in learning and teaching contexts. they found that perfectionism teachers make students afraid of making mistakes and taking risks (pishghadam & akhondpoor, 2011). the current study extended the literature, revealing that english language teachers’ perfectionism did not predict any variance in language motivation and achievement level of iranian english language learners. one possible explanation for the contradictory results within the area of perfectionism and its effect on different aspects of teaching and learning can be referred to antecedents of perfectionism behaviors. as pointed out by hewitt and flett (1990), the antecedents of perfectionism behaviors are different. they argued that in some cases the source of perfectionism originates from self, i.e. self-oriented perfectionism. in this case, an individual sets high standards and perfectionism motivation for oneself. the second antecedent includes high standards socially prescribed by others. in this case, an individual has to meet the standards and conditions set by others. thus, in interpreting results and discussing implications of studies on perfectionism, it is important to clarify the antecedents of perfectionism behaviors. in the present study, teacher perfectionism, which was a socially prescribed phenomenon for the learners, did not account for any variance in language learning motivation and language achievement. thus, it is pedagogically important for iranian english language teachers to balance their perfectionism view in order to avoid the negative consequences stemming from perfectionism behaviors and practices. setting demanding standards and expecting perfect performances from the learners might lead to decrease in their motivation and achievement level. since setting unrealistic high standards and expecting perfect and precise performance is fading away in the new qualitatively driven educational system of iranian elementary education, it can be concluded that perfectionism practices and 190 beyond words behaviors employed by teachers may not pedagogically benefit learners. as a result, it is important for elementary teachers to make a shift in their perfectionism tendencies because, as far as the results of the present study are concerned, they do not give rise to the increase in language learning motivation and the achievement of learners. conclusion in other words, instead of focusing exclusively on pathology and remediating students’ weaknesses, educational psychologists and researchers have embarked on exploring positive personal and environmental factors that not only lead to high levels of achievement 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(2000).a hierarchical structural analysis of perfectionism and its relation to other personality characteristics.personality and individual differences, 28(5), 837-852. 90 running head: students’ voices on writing using blogs beyond words vol.2, no.1, may 2014 widya mandala catholic university surabaya the student-bloggers’ voices on the contribution of efl writing through blogging silvana devinta sari surabaya silvana.devinta@gmail.com students’ voices on writing using blogs 91 abstract blogging is an effective way to help students write better as it positively enhances the students’ efl writing skills. the following study is an attempt to evaluate student-bloggers’ opinions on blogging activity as it gives valuable contributions to student’s efl writing skill. the research aimed at investigating student-bloggers’ attitudes towards the application of class blog in an informal learning situation. a descriptive case study was conducted to get more information on blogging contributions to student-bloggers’ efl writing both for the process and the product of writing. the subjects were the student-bloggers of a language course whose blogging activity was intense. the data gathering was employed by probing interview and observation. additionally, the thorough and meticulous analysis on the product of the writing was performed and scored using a rubric. findings gathered from the interview depict the benefits and positive contributions of blogging to student-bloggers’ efl writing. blogging was certainly seen as a fun writing activity by the student-bloggers. it resulted from the fact that contrary to school learning, while blogging the students experienced autonomous learning, getting direct feedback from readers, and most importantly a complete freedom in writing. some of blogging contributions for efl writing are multi-literacy, direct feedback from readers, motivation, autonomous learning, critical thinking and language awareness, networking, freedom to write, and self confidence. keywords: blogs, blogging, student voices, student-blogger, contribution, efl writing 92 students’ voices on writing using blogs introduction the development of the internet in the 1999 marked a new era in the establishment of web 2.0 technology. among a plethora of new properties, methods and technological solutions not present in web 1.0 the most stunning and perhaps cardinal feature of web 2.0 is new, technologically advanced and free environment which allows for a greatly increased interaction and collaboration between users. examples of the most popular web 2.0 technologies are social networking website and weblog. weblog, commonly referred to as “a blog”, is another example of the web 2.0 technology. zhang described a blog as a web-based space for writing where all the writing and editing of information is managed through a web browser and is immediately and publicly available on the internet(zhang, 2009). in a report about weblog and english writing, noytim (noytim, 2010) stated that weblogs provide learners with the opportunities for a real communication in an authentic learning environment. comment, correction and input on writing posted by readers help bloggers to write better. these are feedback given by the readers which will be positive input for student-bloggers’ efl writing. the input also motivated bloggers to produce more writing and to create better writing quality. the learning motivation and opportunities for autonomy and readership are things that cannot be easily gained with paperbased writing only. blogs equipped with easy applications provided spaces for student-bloggers’ to maximize their writing experience. in addition, blogging enhances analytical and critical thinking skills, because bloggers, due to the fact that they are genuinely interested in what they write about, compose and monitor their writing carefully. though a reliable statistics pertaining to indonesia students’ writing ability has not been found, it has been known that despite a great potential many students still lack the ability to produce a satisfactory piece of writing. in an article questioning why indonesian youth find it so students’ voices on writing using blogs 93 difficult to produce coherent pieces of writing a critic toward writing exercises at school highlight the national curriculum which neglects the importance of reading and writing as very crucial subjects at school (efendi, 2011). the teaching and learning process which focuses more on memorizing and answering multiple school subject choice questions in exams could possibly be blamed for students’ low writing ability. furthermore, poor appreciation on literacy affects students’ interest on literatures. the condition is compounded by the national exam which does not require students to write a composition either in bahasa indonesia or english. taking into consideration the lack of substantial writing practice at school, blogging seems to be a promising way to help students to create better writing. questions which addressed in this study are what are the student-bloggers’ opinion on efl writing through blogging, what are the studentbloggers writing experiences and what are blogging contribution on their writings. theoretical framework constructionism constructionism is a theory proposed by seymor papert. papert’s theory is developed from piaget’s constructivism, whose cardinal belief is that knowledge is constructed by the learner. constructivism stresses that a person generates knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas. each person (student) constructs their own, unique meaning for everything that is learned. the philosophy of constructivism states that learners will construct their own unique meanings for concepts. papert sees that a perspective is created when learners generate and construct idea when they construct a public artifact. the artifact of tools, media, and other visual learning product are a result of one’s knowledge construction (ackerman, 2001). seymour claims that students will be more deeply involved in their learning if they are constructing something that others will see, critique, and perhaps use. 94 students’ voices on writing using blogs through that construction, students will face complex issues, and they will make the effort to problem-solve and learn because they are motivated by the construction (guzdial, 1997). during the artifact production learners learn and acquire things, this point is what papert highlight as a differentiator with constructivism papert’s differentiates constructionism and constructivism as the following. “constructionism—the n word as opposed to the v word— shares constructivism’s view of learning as “building knowledge structures” through progressive internalization of actions… it then adds the idea that this happens especially felicitously in a context where the learner is consciously engaged in constructing a public entity, whether it’s a sand castle on the beach or a theory of the universe.”(ackerman, 2001) blogging is a learning activity in which blogger learns and gains his knowledge through his artifact production, the postings. in blogging, bloggers learn how to use blog’s feature and all supporting applications. the experiences which are transformed into knowledge enrich the blogger’s knowledge horizon. the trial and error on artifact publishing directly taught bloggers on brand new knowledge. through online publishing, a blogger is not capable to see and learn what is happening in the blogging process but can also consciously engage in the construction of the public entity. writing as metacognitive activities writing involved mental process during writing production which consists of thinking about one’s cognitions, analyzing, drawing conclusion, learning from and putting into practice (peirce, 2004). writing is recursive rather than linear. ability in strategizing and coordinating students’ voices on writing using blogs 95 thoughts to create a piece of writing is needed. the relationship of both metacognition theory and learner autonomy explains how knowledge is constructed by students. writing is seen as both process and product and they requires metacognition awareness and also full support of autonomous learning. writing does not only require writers’ role but also the readers’ role. writers need input from readers to avoid readers’ confusion of not supporting enough info, illogical organization, word choice etc. feedback acts as corrector, judgment evaluator, and also advisor on writers writing performance. flower in keh (keh, 1990) states that feedback serves as comments, questions, suggestions from readers for writing to produce “read-based” prose. feedback given on the result and the process of writing aimed to give input and critique to writers. the self determination theory the self-determination theory states that to be self-determining means to experience a sense of choice in initiating and regulating one's own actions’ (keblawi, 2006). the way to be self-determine as mentioned in the theory is referred to as autonomy. according to the theory, there two kinds of motivations: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. intrinsic motivation is an individual’s motivation to perform a particular activity because of internal rewards such as joy, pleasure and satisfaction of curiosity. on the other hand in extrinsic motivation the individual expects an extrinsic reward such as good grades or praise from others. according to noels, vallerand and colleagues, the intrinsic motivation (im) is divided into three categories: im-knowledge (the pleasure of knowing new things), im-accomplishment (the pleasure of accomplishing goals), and im-stimulation (the pleasure sensed when doing the task) (keblawi, 2006). whereas the external motivation refers to motivation to learn, which is 96 students’ voices on writing using blogs determined by sources that are external to the individual, such as tangible benefits and costs. if these benefits and costs, the incentive, is removed then the activity of learning will halt. autonomous learner learner autonomy according defined as the way a learner take charge of his/her own learning, to have, and to hold, the responsibility for all decisions concerning all aspects of this learning. the aspects involved in the learning are how a learner determine the objectives; define the contents and progressions; select methods and techniques to be used; monitor the procedure of acquisition properly speaking (rhythm, time, place, etc.); and evaluating what has been acquired (schuchlenz, oct 2002 – jan 2003). dickinson in conttia (2007) describes autonomous learners with the characteristics of those who have the capacity for being active and independent in the learning process; they can identify goals, formulate their own goals, and can change goals to suit their own learning needs and interests; they are able to use learning strategies, and to monitor their own learning (conttia, 2007). the capacity to manage the learning is related to the cognitive skill which, on the other hand, influences learners abilities to plan the learning strategy, make all decisions concerning the learning, experience the learning process, decide on actions which are to maximize the learning and finally to focus on the goal. feedback feedback is a fundamental element of a process approach to writing. feedback can be defined as input from a reader to a writer with the effect of providing information to the writer for revision (keh, 1990). in writing it is particularly important to a writer to receive the feedback from the readers since, as a result, the writer might understand which parts of his/her piece of writing confused the reader, lacked proper development of ideas or were simply erroneous. by receiving feedback form readers, writers learn where the writing can mislead the reader and students’ voices on writing using blogs 97 therefore receive support, allowing them to improve the piece of writing. feedback can be given by student-writers’ friends (peer feedback) and by teacher. peer feedback is a critical feedback given by students’ peer which can train writers to gain a greater sense of audience with several readers other than the teacher (keh, 1990). apart from the constructive feedback that might help the students to produce better writings, a student-reader actually learns more about writing through critically reading others’ papers, as it allows him\her to detect the mistakes made by the peers and possibly avoid making them in his\her own paper. blog is a powerful tool for gaining feedback not only from other students and teacher but also from worldwide readers. the openness of blog eradicates borders of bloggers as writers and readers. thus, the continuous process of writing supported by useful feedback happens constantly. rationale for using blog in education blogging is applicable to be used in education because of its ability to create real environment for students to apply the knowledge. blogs provide chances for students to project their ideas and make the idea tangible and shared with others. dickinson in o’donnel (2006) has related blogging to the stages of learning outlined in bloom’s taxonomy, which sees learning in a series of cumulative stages ranging from knowledge gathering through to synthesis and evaluation (o'donnel, 2006). the constructivist point of view on blogging depicts the activity encouraging for higher order learning skills. the constructivist also places blogging within a vast progressive model of teaching a learning (o'donnel, 2006). zhang believes that blogs provide opportunity for learners to experience learning in a deeper level rather than the surface level only (zhang, 2009). the characteristic of surface learning is the learners complete only the minimum content to meet the requirement demand. on 98 students’ voices on writing using blogs the other hand the deep learning presents when learners reflect on experiences, find out connections between context, and contextualize meaning. blogs are way of documenting learning and collecting information for self-analysis and reflection, they helps students adapt to the deep learning from the surface learning. methods the research was a descriptive case study and it is qualitative in nature. creswell in duff describes a case study as an exploration of a “bounded system” or a case (multiple case) over time through detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of information rich in context (duff, 2008). the research deals with blogging activities performed by studentsbloggers. there were several stages that were performed by the researcher to effectively conduct the study. the initial stage consisted of the identification of the possible research problem. once the problem has been established the research questions were formulated with the aim to provide possible concluding solutions to the aforementioned problem. during the next step the objective of the research was defined and the researcher started collecting the data using appropriate sources. having been collected, the data was categorized and selected for further, deeper analysis. data collection and analysis two student-bloggers were chosen for this study. the main reason behind choosing the two students is their great devotion, effort and active interest in maintaining the blog both students have exhibited. furthermore, both participants have been actively involved in a reflective journal writing project conducted by the researcher before they were engaged in blog writing. among the other students joined in the project, the two participants were the students that show the most positive attitude among others. interviews were conducted for 3 times to students’ voices on writing using blogs 99 obtain the data from the subjects. interview aimed at getting information on student-bloggers’s blogging opinion on blogging activity, blogging experiences, and contributions that they got from blogging. to obtain additional information, observation was done to investigate the writing process. the data obtained was saturated and categorized described in detail. findings opinions on efl writing through blogging preliminary interview with student-bloggers has found interesting fact that blogging is easy to do. compare to writing and managing a website which requires special skill and knowledge, running a blog is easy to do and can be done by everybody. for the first subject, f, sheonly learned from her friends, although she also learned from her teacher, to manage the blogging well. and for the second subject, m, although sometimes blogging was difficult for her, in terms of making a good post with specific topic, but m think she enjoys blogging. f found out that blogging is a good and interesting activity. her blogging habit has developed as a result of the class blog’s blogging activity. the habitual blogging activity became intense when she started to write on the class blog. in addition, m realized that blogging may indeed have a positive influence for her writing. the power of blogging in publication attracts student-bloggers to keep writing. student-bloggers answers to the question indicate that publication is important for them. student-bloggers want their personal stories to be acknowledged by the worldwide readers although at first the student-bloggers published their postings in indonesian, and only later did they start to write in english. the acknowledgement of one’s writing is important as it will boost the motivation of the writers. in terms of readers’ feedback, the student-bloggers think that blogging is very interesting since it opens big possibility for readers from all over the world to read and leave comment on 100 students’ voices on writing using blogs their post.the student-bloggers realize that getting comment is important and they think it will be better if they got more critic for their better writing not from the teacher and classmates only but also from people all over the world who come and visit their blog.both student-bloggers agreed that getting comment from the readers is the most expressive experience. for f, the comments that she received are more like a suggestion on the display of her blog. for m, the comments of her post in her personal blog and some grammatical correction given by her class blog’s readers make her more enthusiastic in doing blogging. the student-bloggers’ blogging experience the interview started by asking student-bloggers’ general opinion about writing in english. the student-bloggers’ genuine feeling and thought about writing in english in general could be revealed from the interview. the student-bloggers mentioned that writing in english is not easy to be done, as the language often becomes a barrier. english is not the student-bloggers’ first language and thus making an essay in english is difficult. the fact that student-bloggers are active bloggers and they write in english in spite of their difficulties led the researcher to get more information especially on their english writing habit. in terms of composing process both f and m experienced almost the same kind of activities. for f before joining the class blog she relied a lot on her dictionary. but after she joined the class blog, she tried to write as much as she could and then she would check her writing in the process of editing. m, learned that in creating a good writing she needs to make an outline before she make her postings. she learned the steps of composing from generating idea, outlining, drafting, and editing from her bahasa indonesia teacher at school, instead of her english teacher. from the interview, the researcher found out that the student-bloggers mostly students’ voices on writing using blogs 101 gained their writing skill by their own effort, either by self experience or with the help of other people which could not happen during the english class. the student-bloggers mentioned in the interview that writing in a blog gives more chance to publish for public. unlike the conventional writing assignment when the readers are only the teacher and the classmates, blog enables comments from readers all over the world. for the student-bloggers this is very beneficial for their writing quality because the comments that they receive become a feedback for their writing. knowing that their posts are read by wider public, the student-bloggers explained that they changed their writing procedure, from free writing into a planned writing where they carefully make an outline before they write to develop their idea and also doing some editing before they publish it online. the ability to think and be aware of their writings is also influenced by the comments that they received from the readers at the class blog. although the teacher gave them guidance on how to write on a blog and share and discuss how english writing should be, the studentbloggers tried to learn how to create good postings by themselves. the student-bloggers have learned continuously about blogging from their posting and managing activity. the studentbloggers are also more aware of their writing since their postings are published publicly and might be read by anyone. the process of efl writing through blogging the process of writing stresses the creativity of the individual writer, and which pays attention to the development of good writing practices rather than the imitation of models (holmes, 2012). despite focusing on the product of writing, the process in creating a piece of writing is important as in this process the student-bloggers go through several stages which resulted on their writing product. during the process of writing student-bloggers might have 102 students’ voices on writing using blogs developed their writing skill or even facing some writing problems. thus, the process is important to be investigated as it gave clear description on how the process of writing especially through blogging takes place. there are five stages in the writing process namely prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. these stages generally involve different forms of brainstorming, selecting and ordering ideas, planning, drafting, redrafting and revising and editing. the process itself is seen by raimes as recursive rather than linear(holmes, 2012). the process of the student-bloggers’ writing were explained by conducting observation. the observation was aimed at strengthening the researcher argument on the efl writing of the student-bloggers which was done through blogging activity and confirmed that blogging gave benefit for the students’ efl writing especially from the writing process. the observation mainly observed the stages in writing; the prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. the observation which was done three times depicted these stages. starting with the first one until third observation the student-bloggers’ brainstormed for writing ideas and then they planned their writing by making simple outlines. the outlines which consisted of sentences as main ideas were then added by some supporting sentences and developed into writings. although the outlines were made in simple form, this has become evidence for the researcher on how student-bloggers’ developed their ideas in writing.other following stages in the writing process such as revising and editing were done recursively by the student-bloggers. detail observation noted by the researcher using a field note described how each subject m and f had their own strategy in the writing process.m made simple outline before she made her writing. she typed down the outline on a new ms.word document. the outline consisted of main ideas being listed. under each sentences she typed either 2 or 3 supporting sentences. she sometimes checked on the dictionary installed on her mobile phone. this process took almost 20 students’ voices on writing using blogs 103 minutes. she spent time thinking and consulting the dictionary. this same process also happened at the second and third observation.although in the interview m mentioned that the feedjit, chatbox, and readers’ comments are very important and motivate her to blog, she did not check them initially. instead, she spent a few minutes checking after she has posted her writing. however, this might have happened because of the presence of the researcher. knowing that she had to make a post and publish it, she might have felt less relaxed and a bit nervous being observed by the researcher. on the contrary, f never browsed or read any online sources during the observations. she preferred to write what she had on her mind and typed it on an ms.word new page document. she said by writing on the ms.word it would automatically detect misspelled words and erroneous sentences. unlike m who relied mostly on her mobile phone installed dictionary, f used the google translate more. she typed some words to find the english translation but not once did the researcher find her typed a complete sentence for translation. m followed the exact same procedure, she just checked for some words translation only on her mobile phone and just few times on google translate. for f, making and developing an outline was important and needed to be done first on ms.word page before being cut and pasted to the blog page. compared to m, f took less time in composing a posting and between composing and publishing she checked on the blog dashboard and checked her previous writings. reading the previous post helped her to check again for some grammatical error and she reflects on what she has written and learned to her new post. this activity shows that blogging makes student-bloggers perform independent learning and they become aware of what they write since it is published for wider public. 104 students’ voices on writing using blogs for the last part of composing process, m checked her draft and browsed for pictures on google search engine. while checking the researcher could see that she omitted some words and sometimes changed a few words. after having finished with the draft she inserted the picture that she had downloaded, typed her name at the end of the draft and then published her post. for f, all the drafting and correcting was done on ms.words document page. the final draft was then copied and pasted to the blog page and the last stage was the page publication. the writing process done by the student-bloggers depicted all the stages that they had undergone independently without assistance of their teacher. although sometimes activities mentioned in the observation guide such as discuss about the subject did not happen but it did not omit the essence of prewriting activity done by the student-bloggers. other activity such improve style and clarity could not clearly seen by the observer because the student-bloggers’ revised and edited their writing recursively with other activities, so the observer might had missed this stage. however the observation had shown the whole writing process which was done by the student-bloggers. blogging contributions on student-bloggers’ efl writing blogging provides opportunity for student-bloggers to enrich their learning experience by shifting from surface levels of learning to deeper levels of learning. the characteristic of a surface learning is creating the postings to meet the assessment requirements, as in completing the assignment or a test. meanwhile the deep learning is characterized by student-bloggers’ blogging experience and perceiving the connections between concept and the contextual meaning. student bloggers in this study were experienced the deep learning in their blogging activity. they develop the blog, posted, and they communicated with the readers and acquired students’ voices on writing using blogs 105 the input to be implemented in their postings. the process of learning resulted in the better writing. in terms of authority, blogging allows blogger to control and manage the site. bloggers are able to personalized the page in easy way. bloggers can change the setting on the page. this feature might also be found in other online writing, but blogging positively give student-bloggers authority to manage and learn about how to create good english post. blogs publication also motivates the student-bloggers because they can make an impact on the readers with topics that were important for them. the emotionally connected feeling, happiness, and eagerness to get readers’ responses were resulted from the postings that they have made. publishing especially empowers them because they felt in control of their writing, and as such they were “intellectual explorers” (zhang, 2009) the findings about student-bloggers knowledge on using blog’s features revealed another important fact about student-blogger’s literacy. literacy is not merely an ability to write and read, it is an ability to read and write and use written information and to write appropriately in a range of contexts. not only do blogs encourage students to write more, they also promote the development of reading skills. by blogging student-bloggers have more chance to read materials which are needed as the references in creating writings. student-bloggers can also choose a variety of blogs on the internet based on their interest which contains genuine materials. ward in bendriss (bendriss, 2012) mentioned that blogs also promote active reading, because through writing, the writer becomes more aware of the notion of audience; and through blogging, s/he becomes more familiar with the corresponding idea of purpose. another blogging contribution is that the student-bloggers can communicate with the readers directly, though not done face to face. publishing postings in a blog is comfortable for 106 students’ voices on writing using blogs students and increases self confidence. the features of a blog where bloggers can communicate intensely with the readers without meeting face to face created a comfortable communication way. although the posting is published worldwide and can be read by public, surprisingly the student-bloggers did not lack of self confidence in publishing their writings despite of the quality of their writings. the contributions of blogging in the process of writing directly help studentbloggers to write easier and better. the positive and fun writing situations during blogging creates a good writing ambience which in the end resulted in student-blogger’s better writing quality and quantity. the student-bloggers’ writing quality an additional data for the research was taken from assessing student-bloggers’ writing quality. by employing this technique the positive contributions of blogging can be clearly seen. the writing or the blog post are the product of the student-bloggers’ writing. the writing product of the student-bloggers is analyzed using the rubric based on the esl composition (holy l. jacobs, 1981). according to brookhart in moskal (moskal, 2000) a rubric is a descriptive scoring schemes that are developed by teachers or other evaluators to guide the analysis of the products or process of students’ efforts. the scoring guides used in this research comprise the components of the esl composition profile. the components are content, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanics. the student-bloggers’ writing quality is good although it is not perfect. it is satisfying considering the fact that the student-bloggers created the writing by themselves without any help from a language teacher. the content of the postings are substantive, as they presented good argument to support their explanation. the arguments were arranged in effective sequencing and the organizational structure was well formed. although misused words may occasionally appear students’ voices on writing using blogs 107 in the writings but the meaning is understandable. some occasional errors in spelling are occurred. further editing is needed to polish the essay to be perfect however the effort given by the student-bloggers in creating the posts is outstanding. conclusion blogging positively contributes to student-bloggers efl writing skill. firstly, the userfriendly blog enables student-bloggers to master blogging without help from teachers. in addition, the plethora of optional gadget applications in a blog make blog writing a fun activity, therefore increasing its attractiveness and making it more interesting to students.secondly, blogging develop student-bloggers’ writing and reading skill as by blogging student-bloggers read and browse for reference moreactively and therefore unconsciously increase their literacy. thirdly, the motivation and direct feedback from blog readers significantly help the studentbloggers tobe autonomous learner. the appreciation is an extrinsic motivation which influences student-bloggers’ self determination in writing. the intrinsic motivation exists in studentbloggers happiness and satisfaction when they can share their writings to public. the class blog is perhaps more challenging and yet undeniably more interesting than conventional writing. unlike the conventional writing assignment in which the readers are only the teacher and the classmates, blog enables comments from readers all over the world. fourthly, feedback is a fundamental element in writingand it is abundant in blogging. the input from readers to writers provides information to the writers for revision(keh, 1990). blogging promotes direct feedback from readers and gives input for student-bloggers. the studentbloggers explained that after getting the input they changed their writing procedure, from free writing into a planned writing where they carefully make an outline before they write to develop 108 students’ voices 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(2009, march). the application of blog in english writing. journal of cambridge studies , 64-72. 46 two english teachers’ narratives two english teachers’ narratives of professional growth: major stories and critical events vivi prihendriani surabaya, indonesia mateus yumarnamto english language education study program universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya surabaya, indonesia article history received:03-08-2023 reviewed:04-08-2023 accepted:06-08-2023 keywords: efl teachers; indonesia; narrative inquiry; professional growth, doctoral candidates doi: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v11i1.4881 abstract the academic journey for advanced degree is challenging. it reflects the professional endeavours of those who take the route. this study explored life-stories of two efl teachers who were pursuing their advanced degree (doctoral degree) for their career advancement. the guiding question for this inquiry is related to the stories and challenges and the impacts of the challenges on the participants’ professional growth. the data were collected in the form of narratives from interviews with the two participants. supporting documents related to the participants’ experiences were also collected. the data were analysed in the framework of critical event analysis. thus, the life-stories of the participants were identified in terms of episodes and events. the major stories of challenges were identified by looking at the emerging themes. the transformation and changes in their professional identities were identified by looking at the critical events intertwining in the narratives. the narratives of the two participants indicated that the challenges they faced have contributed to their professional transformation as teachers and researchers. introduction the academic journey of studying for advanced degree is challenging and reflecting the professional endeavor of those who take the route. this study explored the life-long learning stories of two efl teachers at the university level to understand their professional growth through their stories. this narrative exploration was meant to understand the meaning of teachers’ experiences while they were completing their advanced studies for the career advancement. understanding teachers’ stories could shed light on how teachers navigate their career and their lives in the profession (mattos, 2009; richert, 2002; watson, 2006). in this way, we can see how their professional identity changes through their important event in their lives. in the contexts of indonesia, the government has encouraged teachers and educators to study for advanced degrees in beyond words vol. 11 no.1 may 2023 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v11i1.4881 two english teachers’ narratives 47 relevant fields. the formal advanced education is considered an avenue for their professional development and career advancement. this is especially true for those who pursue academic career in higher education institutions. university instructors and lecturers must have at least master’s degrees in relevant fields. doctoral degrees are also required for pursuing the career ladder in higher education. studies on professional growth of teachers at higher educations in indonesia are still limited (yumarnamto, 2016). therefore, this study is an effort to contribute to the pool of knowledge on indonesian english teachers’ professional identity formation at higher education level. this area is important in that it can shed light on the trajectory of english teachers’ professional growth and career as well as providing relevant clues on needed teacher professional development to enhance the professional growth. therefore, the pedagogical implications of understanding the professional identity formation in this current study are relevant for teacher education and for continuing professional development of teachers. there are two guiding questions in this study: (1) what are the major stories of challenges shared by the two participants as graduate students? (2) how did the challenges transform their professional identities? teacher professional growth becoming an english teacher is life-long endeavor, especially for those of non-native speakers. to begin with, teacher education is the formal gate to the profession (freeman, 2009). in a teacher education program, students are prepared for the profession by exploring the pedagogical content knowledge (shulman, 1987, 2000, 2005). at this stage, teachers learn the essentials of their field to prepare for the profession. the next stage of professional education is when teachers enter the profession, starting from the preservice learning, to junior teachers and to become expert teachers in their fields (shulman, 1986, 1987). the preservice teaching is essential in preparing teacher candidates with teaching principal skills and techniques in real world of school and classrooms (richards et al., 2005). in addition, during the pre-service teaching, teacher candidates are exposed with the professional world of teaching and they can imagine their future profession based on their experiences—to determine whether they will commit themselves and stay in the profession or not (barkhuizen, 2010). once they decide to commit themselves in the profession, they can grow as professionals. in shulman’s conceptions (2009), learning in the profession is the determining factor of professional growth. when a teacher learned from their practices as a teacher, they will develop “the wisdom of practice” – the knowledge and skills as an expert teacher that separate them from novice ones. the growth trajectory in teaching profession is outlined by freeman (2009) and confirmed by (yumarnamto, 2016) that teachers grow from the knowledge and skills gained in their formal education and training, to honing their expertise in the profession, and to expanding their influence in the profession and the wider social sphere. eventually, expert teachers are the ones who claim their professional identity and are recognized as being so in their profession and in public. the trajectory of professional growth indicates the nature of continuing teacher learning from their engagement with the students and with the professional community and with the wider contexts of the society (burns, freeman, & edwards, 2015; freeman, 2009). in indonesia, a similar trajectory has been identified and the government has provided guidance and regulations for such development. the four teacher competencies as determined by indonesian government (professional, pedagogical, social, and personal competencies), for example, are 48 two english teachers’ narratives based on the reality that in the profession, teacher should teach effectively in the classroom, collaborate with colleagues, engage in their communities, and become an example of good characters for their students (n.a, 2005). for the formal education, the requirements have been set up higher. public school teachers must have completed the teacher professional education program (pendidikan profesi guru/ppg) and for lecturers at higher education institution, at least they must hold a master’s degree in the relevant field. teacher professional identity teacher professional identity (tpi) and professional growth are closely related as the growth provides the path for the professional identity formation. therefore, as outline by freeman (2009, 2013), language teacher learning and education is basically the process of forming tpi. in this case tpi can be understood in terms of how teachers want to be known and want to be affiliated with certain professional communities. to be known as a professional teacher, a teacher must have certain characteristics and qualities. under the indonesian teachers’ law (n.a, 2005) professional teachers are known to have pedagogical knowledge and skills, to master the subject matters, to have adequate social skills to collaborate with others, and to become an example of strong moral character for their students. these characteristics have become the core characteristics of the ideal teachers in indonesia and the government has put its efforts to develop such professional teachers. the latter reference of tpi is related to affiliation with certain teacher professional communities—real and imagined ones (yumarnamto, 2017; yumarnamto & prijambodo, 2020). real professional communities for english teachers in indonesia are the ones in which the teacher holds a membership such as teflin (teachers of english language in indonesia) or other international organizations of english language teachers. imagined communities are the imagined ones, in which the teacher wants to be affiliated with and to be member of. these communities are not real organizations established with statutes and issued membership cards. these imagined communities are the ones existing in our minds—perceived as communities of professionals and expertise. the community of teacher-researchers can be an imagined professional community for english teachers and the membership claims of belonging to the community can shape tpi. a teacherresearcher identity, for example, can be a manifestation of a teacher’s membership claim to an imagined community which has dual sociocultural settings—the practitioners’ communities and the researchers’ ones. the engagement with both communities shape tpi in the forms of being known as good teachers in one hand and as good researchers in the other hands. in short, tpi can be shaped and formed with the engagements with various professional communities, real and imagined ones, in which the teachers want to be affiliated with and to be known as. these engagements may lead to tpi formation of teachers where teachers claim their tpi and the communities acknowledge their claims— the dances of tpi negotiation. critical events in narratives and tpi of english teachers teacher professional growth can be seen as the path of tpi formation and the path can be understood in narratives and chronologically and reflectively can be seen as the past milestones of teachers (barkhuizen, 2016, 2019, 2021). these milestones are critical events in teachers’ experiences embodied in their life stories (mertova & webster, 2019; webster & mertova, 2007) because they are determinant factors in shaping the trajectory of tpi and professional growth. critical events are told in narratives two english teachers’ narratives 49 and they are the core of the stories as they are important and influential in the formation of tpi as well as determining the trajectory of professional growth. an event can be seen as critical because of its importance and its impact on the story teller – the person undergoing the event. it is often a life changing event that can bring about changes in the person’s life, career, and beliefs. a critical event can only be identified post-facto – afterwards as reflected and narrated by the story teller. so, it is unpredictable and unplanned and its impact can be felt beyond the immediate time surrounding the event (mertova & webster, 2019). in a teacher’s career, a critical event may impact the decision to stay or leave the profession. it may also impact the changes in teachers’ beliefs such as english teachers’ beliefs in teaching grammar explicitly while in pressure of teaching using communicative approach (tsui, 2007). therefore, the following definition by mertova and webster can subsume the importance of critical events in narratives. “critical events are ‘critical’ because of their impact and profound effect on whoever experiences such an event. they often bring about radical change in the person. these events are unplanned, unanticipated and uncontrolled. to the researcher, the opportunity to ‘access’ such profound effects holistically is an avenue to making sense of complex and human-centred information.” (mertova & webster, 2019, p. 63) as mertova and webster (2019) suggested, critical events can be used as an analytical tool as well as the subject of analysis in narrative inquiry. as an analytical tool, critical event provide a framework for the analysis of story development as a narrative can be seen as sequence of events. as the subject of analysis critical events provide a starting point for narrative development. identified critical events can be used to interpret current events experienced by individuals. methods to understand the professional growth and tpi of two english language teachers who were studying for their doctoral degree, this study was designed as a narrative inquiry. the two teacher participants share similarities in that they were both english language lecturers at different universities in east java. the first teacher participant was male, aged 36 and he had been teaching english for 10 years during this study in 2022. he taught reading, writing, and elt curriculum. the second participant was a female teacher aged 47. she had been teaching english for 12 years and she taught various courses related to english language skills and research methods. table 1 forms of data collected from the participants no forms of data descriptions 1 documents biographical documents (vitae), documents from the narrative frames, publications 2 the results of in-depth interview biographical interviews (confirming the vitae and getting more narratives), in-depth interviews (getting the narratives related to experiences and professional challenges 50 two english teachers’ narratives the data collected from the two participants were documents (biographical information, information from the narrative frames) and the results of the in-depth interviews. both forms of data were the bases of the co-constructed narratives of their lives and their experiences as students pursuing advanced degrees in elt. table 1 describes the forms of data collected for this study. the data were reconstructed for more meaningful and chronological narratives. from the reconstructed narratives, the data were analyzed further in terms of critical event analysis (johnson & golombek, 2002; mertova & webster, 2019; pino gavidia & adu, 2022; yumarnamto, 2016). the critical events were events which affected the participants and events which brought about changes in the participants. the events also involved challenges undergone by the participants and how they engaged with the challenges. the narratives were also analyzed in terms of identifying emerging themes to understand the professional transformation of the participants. results and discussions in this section, the narratives of the two participants were presented and discussed. joan and steven’s narratives and the critical events were central in their career growth and personal changes. joan’s narratives and major stories joan’s family members were not well educated as she was the only one who graduated from university. in the beginning, she did not imagined to be an english teacher as she learned english because she wanted to be a tour guide to allow her to go around the world. however, her original motivation to learn english changed and she enjoyed to become an english teacher and to pursue further studies. table 2 outlines joan’s major story related to her professional growth, and it describes the major critical events that she underwent. table 2 joan’s major stories and critical events joan’s major stories professional growth realizing that her english was not good motivating her to improve her english by taking english courses becoming an english teacher as a role model motivating her to broaden her knowledge and to hone her skills in elt. joan’s critical events professional growth presenting paper in international conference motivating her to work more for her community and for her career (writing and publishing). writing journal article motivating her to graduate her advance degree program immediately writing dissertation motivating her to graduate her advance degree program immediately and involving her institution pride 51 two english teachers’ narratives the major stories and the critical events identified from joan’s narratives indicated the professional growth she felt as she reflected on her past experiences. joan’s narratives were developed from two major stories: (1) the realization that her english was not good an (2) the importance of becoming an english teacher with advanced degrees. the former was the major story that led her to become an english teacher. the latter was the major story line of her becoming an english teacher and how she navigated her career in the profession. realizing that her english was not good joan was from uneducated family. when she learned english at school she found it challenging. she remembered the first time she learned english was in junior high school. the first sentence she noticed from her teacher was, "open the book". every time her teacher came in the classroom, he always gave instructions in english—which she did not understand. because her english was very limited, she easily got confused whenever her teacher spoke in english. “my opinion and impression at that time about english lessons from that experience were that i did not like english because i could not understand it. from junior high school to high school, i got a teacher who did not understand the way i studied english and i always struggled to follow the lessons.” (coconstructed narrative from the interview with joan) realizing that she was struggling in english, she finally decided to take english course outside the school. in the english course she caught up the lessons the teacher taught her in the classroom. she realized that to be a tour guide, she needed to be good in english so that she could go abroad and visit various interesting places around the world. so, finishing her high school, she decided to study english education as her major. she did not care that by entering the program she was expected to an english teacher. what she wanted was that she learned english and she would be a tour guide. “the main reason why i majored in english as a foreign language for my undergraduate study was that i wanted to be a tour guide and to be able to travel around the world.” (coconstructed narrative from the interview with joan) realizing the financial issues faced by her parents, she studied hard and completed the program on time. she proved herself as an excellent student and she was good at english. in addition, she found her passion in teaching. so, instead of pursuing his childhood dream of being a tour guide who could go around the world, she taught english in a private university in her hometown. an english teacher with advanced degrees: a role model for colleagues as per government regulations, the minimum requirement to become a lecturer at a university was holding a master’s degree in a relevant field. as joan held only a bachelor degree in education, she needed to pursue a graduate one. so, she decided to study for a master’s degree in english language and literature education in 2011. at that time, she held the leadership position in one study program in her campus. she realized, without a graduate degree, she would not be able to pursue her career any further. more importantly, she wanted to be an example for her colleagues, especially those who were reluctant to study for advanced degrees. in this way, she could maintain a good image of leadership. she acknowledged that by saying, “my main reason for continuing my study was because of the demand of profession and i was lucky i got full scholarship for my study.” 52 two english teachers’ narratives (co-constructed narrative from the interview with joan) working as an english teacher and studying for her master’s degree was challenging. she found that the program was competitive and her classmates were difficult to collaborate. she was in a competitive atmosphere as her classmates were reluctant to help each other related to the academic tasks and responsibility as graduate students. she described them as more individualistic as they like competing than helping and collaborating. she acknowledged that it was a tense competitive atmosphere in her class when saying, “when i took courses for my master’s program (s2), i can say, i felt much pressure and competition among friends.” completing her master’s program, joan was back to full time teaching at her campus. while she felt that she was not young any more, she realized the importance of formal education for her career and she decided to pursue the doctoral degree in the same program and the same university, in which she conferred her bachelor and master’s degree. she successfully secured funding from the state scholarship to complete her new journey as a doctoral student. her motivation was still the same. she wanted to be a good example for her colleagues and her students as she was the chair of a study program at her university. in addition, there were more opportunities for lecturers with a doctorate degree to compete for research grants and other government funding, which would help her advance her career. her plan was clear; she wanted to contribute more to her institution with her degree: competing for government grants and funding for her department. confidently she claimed: “with my graduation, i plan to return soon to participate in competitive grant and funding to uplift my department and my institution.” (co-constructed narrative from the interview with joan) joan’s critical events as seen in table 2, joan’s critical events developed around the her career as an english teacher at a higher education level, which required her to pursue advanced degrees and to engage with the academic community by writing and presenting academic papers for conferences and publications. presenting a paper in an international conference receiving government’s grant for social services, joan had an opportunity to attend an international conference and to present a paper in front of international audience. as this was the first time for her to attend an international conference in hong kong, she was nervous but she felt confidence. she acknowledged the importance of presenting the paper abroad when she said: “we went to hong kong supported by the government grant. we received the grant prior to my application for my doctoral program. that was why with the research and community service grant, i could write an article for the international seminar in hong kong.” (co-constructed narrative from the interview with joan) this event was critical to her because she proved herself her academic credential that motivated her even more to write and to publish. although it was a team work, she felt that she contributed to the success of her team. this critical event strongly contributed to her success to secure her scholarship for her doctorate program. two english teachers’ narratives 53 writing a journal article for international publication for her career advancement and for the requirement to graduate joan needed to publish an academic article in a reputable international journal. for her, it was a challenging task as she never published in an international journal and she realized her limitation. however, she managed to complete the journal article and published it in a reputable international journal. it was a great achievement for her and it was a critical event as since then, she developed her confidence and she felt that she could claim her professional identity as a teacherresearcher. recalling her experience, she said: “when i write, i can't do it fast because it is typical for me to think carefully here and there while writing. it was surprising that i could complete the article in one month—which impressed me.” (co-constructed narrative from the interview with joan) completing the dissertation for joan, it was challenging to study full time and to work at the same time. while she studied for her doctoral degree, she also held her position as the department chair in her campus. the challenges mounted when she had to complete to write her dissertation as it consumed her energy and her mind. she often got frustrated and she almost gave up her ambition: “so, the most demanding challenge was when i had to write a dissertation. i often thought that i would never graduate from the program as i indeed left my dissertation behind.” (coconstructed narrative from the interview with joan) steven’s narratives and major stories steven felt that he was special because he was different from other family members. he was the only one in the family who became an english teacher. his siblings and relatives owned table 3 steven's major stories and critical events steven’s major narratives professional growth realizing the importance of teaching approach motivating him to use collaborative materials in teaching english to attract learners' involvement and achievement. becoming a new researcher motivating him to enroll the doctoral program steven’s critical events professional growth changing students' grades motivating him to improve the teacher's role in education by pursuing a master's program. writing dissertation motivating him to become more productive researcher as well as a good english teacher. motivating him to use technology and applications for better writing. 54 two english teachers’ narratives their businesses. he thought that being an english teacher was an incredible job. he found one of his english teachers was incredible. she encouraged and motivated him to learn english. she was his inspiration to become an english teacher. in addition, he realized the importance of an english teacher as he could pursue further studies. now, he was the only one in the family holding a graduate degree. table 3 shows the outline of steven’s major stories and the critical events that led to his professional growth. steven’s major stories developed around his experiences in teaching english, which was initiated by his experience as an english learner. he realized the importance to make english classes fun and enjoyable. the second major story was related to becoming a researcher as part of advancing his career as an english teacher at a higher education institution. realizing the importance of teaching approach and methods recalling his experience in learning english, steven remembered when he was in the 4th grade of elementary school. he could not forget his blue-covered book which he got from his room teacher. the book covered some introduction to pronouns and nouns in english. as this was the first time he had an english lesson, he thought it was easy as everything was described clearly in the blue book. that was why he fell in love with english. “i remember the first time i learned english in 4th grade using a blue-covered book distributed by my class teacher (bu pur). the book provided an introduction to very simple pronouns and nouns. i really liked it because it was easy.” (co-constructed narrative from the interview with steven) his good impression about learning english continued to his junior high school. it strengthened his curiosity to explore more about english. he was amused by his english teachers, who were creative in teaching. they used songs in in the classroom to introduce various topics and to draw students’ interest in learning the language. the english lessons made fall in love with english. one of his teachers used to play english songs from famous singers. he still remembered the songs played in the classroom such as one from back street boys, bon jovi, and britney spears. at that time, learning english was fun. “meeting english teachers who are very creative, namely combining songs in teaching english, made me like them even more. even some singers or bands who sang english songs that i learned at that time are still remembered today.” (co-constructed narrative from the interview with steven) finishing his high school, he did not go straight to college. four two years he had not stayed in a permanent position as he went around to improve his english and his social skills. after two years going around without a clear career and direction, he decided to continue his studies majoring in english as he loved english and he wanted to pursue his career related to english education. he recalled that he saw great opportunities to become an english teacher: “i saw english courses everywhere. in crowded areas in my hometown, i saw english courses. various institutions offered english classes. since, i liked to teach, i saw opportunities everywhere if i became an english teacher. i realized becoming an english teacher would be great my future.” two english teachers’ narratives 55 (co-constructed narrative from the interview with steven) reflecting on his college years, he realized that his lecturers used different approaches and methods in teaching english. some of his lecturers were boring while others were interesting. he reflected on what made english classes interesting. when the classroom was full of joy and relaxed atmosphere, the students were happy and he, as a student, learned better. it helped him improve his english knowledge and skills. however, when the class was dull, tense, and serious, he was discouraged to learn and he got bored easily. he believed that the teacher was central in creating a favorable atmosphere for learning. it was his belief that fun and enjoyable class was important. therefore, he proudly claimed: “i apply fun english learning strategies in the classroom, starting with music, like when i was in junior high school, using films with different genres that teenagers generally like. at that time, to use games or, like simon says, puzzles, others.” (co-constructed narrative from the interview with steven) becoming a novice researcher after graduating from college with an english degree, he secured a position as an english teacher in a public school. he found that being a teacher at the public school did not satisfy him as he intended to become an english teacher at a university. that’s why he pursued further study for a master’s degree in english education and he secured the position as an english instructor at a university in his home town. now he was not only teaching english but he also required to do research and to publish his research in academic journals for his career advancement. the demand of becoming a lecturer was not only teaching but also researching. he found his passion in teaching writing and he saw the opportunity to integrate information technology in his writing classes. he also saw an opportunity to conduct research on his interest: writing and integrating technology. his interest in conducting research led him to the decision of enrolling in a doctoral program after he completed his master’s degree. he spent more time on research now as he was a doctoral student. explaining his interest in research and publishing, he said: “once completing a paper and send it to a journal, i spent more than six months to publish. it took me three months to revise the paper. after the first revision, there were more revisions i did as suggested by the reviewers. it was up to six revisions before finally it could be published—which made me proud because the journal was indexed by scopus. ... i felt like throwing up because of the long and laborious process. yes, but i felt very proud that the process had paid off when it was published. (co-constructed narrative from the interview with steven) since the publication of his research article, he felt more confident and he enjoyed being a teacher researcher. he felt that it was the right way to advance his career. steven’s critical events while the major stories developed around teaching approaches and being a teacherresearcher, the critical events began with the moral conflict he experienced when he was a public school teacher. the conflict had brought about changes in his professional trajectory, from an english teacher in public school and english teacher at a university. 56 two english teachers’ narratives changing students' grades this critical event occurred when steven was an english teacher in a public school. as a junior english teacher, he upheld his ideal high and he refused to change the students’ grades so that the students could have better grades in english and could pass the national examination. when the principal asked him and other english teachers, he felt betrayed and his idea of a teacher who had high moral ground was shattered. it was cheating and it was against his conscience. “after completing several exams in the semester, we, the english teachers, were asked to change students’ grades. that was against my conscience. my heart told me that i did not want to be a teacher if a teacher was treated like this.” (co-constructed narrative from the interview with steven) the critical event made him thought about his career as a public school teacher. he did not want to be an english teacher in the school any more. he resigned and decided to look for a better job, as a lecturer in a university. that was the beginning of a new journey as an english teacher and a graduate student. he attended the graduate school for her master’s degree. he found studying was very productive and could advance his knowledge and skills. at this period he fell in love with writing and researching. reflecting on completing the master’s program he recalled: “i found it challenging to meet the advisors to write the thesis and to revise it. luckily, my supervisor was very supportive and she helped me complete the thesis in 2015.” (coconstructed narrative from the interview with steven) while studying for the master's program, he acknowledged that he met many outstanding professors. he really impressed with one of the lecturers who inspired him to become wiser. he recalled that he used to be an inflexible person. he was easily to be frustrated with what happened around him as he saw them against his principles and his ideal things. he often became one sided and opinionated for whatever happened in his life. in the past, he was angry when the principal asked him and other teacher to change the students’ grades. currently, he could see the critical event from different perspectives. “now i could see that i could not blame the school and the principal for what happened. it was not entirely their mistakes. the school district and the sub-district were also responsible because they forced schools to have good achievements so that not many students failed the national exams.” (coconstructed narrative from the interview with steven) steven acknowledged that the changes were rooted in the discussion with one of his lecturer. he realized that he could not see things just black and white and there were many grey areas he could see now. he said: “from that time, when i had the discussions with my professors about education issues, religions and life, i felt i became wiser. the discussion might have changed the way i see things and it might have affected my personality—in a better way.”(coconnstructed narrative from the interview with steven) steven felt that in the past, he practiced his religion fervently and he was inflexible and intolerant toward people from other religions because he saw them as pagan. so, two english teachers’ narratives 57 he did not like to make friends with people of other religions. recalling his intolerant views with regrets he said: “what kind of person was i in the past? the doctrine of my spiritual teachers taught me not to make friends with people of different religions. so, i did not. i was afraid i would pick up bad influences. i could get infected with bad teachings and i could become evil myself.” (co-constructed narrative from the interview with steven) in the graduate program when he pursued his master’s degree he felt enlightened and he could accept different ideas and beliefs and he claimed that he became more tolerant. writing dissertation steven enrolled in the doctoral program mainly because he wanted to advance his career to the highest level of in the pecking order in higher education: becoming a full professor. he explained his decision to study for his doctoral degree as follows: “i wanted to be a full professor. a full professor required to regularly publish articles in reputable international journals. it would be easier to get funding when a professor could prove himself or herself by publishing.” (co-constructed narrative from the interview with steven) that was why steven was looking forward to writing his dissertation. the topic was related to the flipped classroom. he explained his topic of interest when he said: “so, a flipped classroom involves the combination of online and offline activities. outside the class, the students were exploring the topic. in the classroom the students discuss and work on tasks. this method worked great for my writing classes.” (coconstructed narrative from the interview with steven) the challenges he faced were that it was often difficult to meet with the advisors. one of his advisors was very busy and he had difficulties meeting him in person. he did not like meeting online via zoom. he did not provide written feedbacks on what he had written. he wanted to meet in person and have discussions. and it was frustrating as he wanted to finish his dissertation faster. formal education for self-transformation and professional growth the narratives of joan and steven were developing in a similar direction as they began their career as english teachers at higher education institutions in indonesia. the stories were progressing from formal study for advanced degrees to participations and engagement with academic communities. it was interesting that the story lines of the two teachers’ narratives involved personal and professional changes. two important points are highlighted below: the importance of formal education and the importance of professional engagement with academic communities. joan went to graduate school because she wanted to be a good example for her colleagues and her students. steven, on the other hand, began his graduate education because of his dissatisfaction of becoming a teacher in a public school. aside from the differences in their initial motivation, both teachers successfully navigated their formal education and earned the degrees they wanted for advancing their career in higher education. in the freeman’s framework (burns et al., 2015; freeman, 2009; freeman, webre, & epperson, 2019), their formal education was the core areas of career growth as teachers. 58 two english teachers’ narratives during the time in the graduate programs, both for their master’s and doctoral degrees, the two english teachers underwent changes. their perspectives about education, research, and life changed. they could see what importance for learning and for their career was. they both saw the importance of being good teacher and researcher. while joan’s narratives developed around being an example of a good teacher in a higher education institution, steven narratives were developed from dissatisfaction to changes in his worldview. indeed, the transformation could exemplify how formal education changed the persons and transformed them into better selves (elliot, 2015; hones, 1998; song, 2016) as acknowledged subjectively by the actors. steven claimed his changes as becoming wiser self as his professor influence the way he saw the world and the people from different religions. joan’s transformation was more subtle and it was more related to her self-confidence as a teacher and researcher. engaging with academic communities for advancing career as the two efl teachers enrolled in the advanced degree programs, their engagement with academic communities marked their progress in their profession. attending conferences, presenting paper and publishing articles in academic journals were very important in shaping their professional identity as well as in advancing their career in higher education institutions. they realized that engagements with academic communities could enhance their credentials as teachers and researchers. the public acknowledgements of their expertise could bring financial rewards as well as uplifting their career. both teachers wanted to be full professors and the engagements with the academic communities could serve their aspirations for higher positions. in freeman’s framework (burns et al., 2015; freeman, 2013; freeman & richards, 1993; freeman et al., 2019) the professional engagement occupies wide areas of professional growth—meaning that the engagement is an important factor for teachers to grow in their profession after they complete their formal education. without engaging with their professional communities, teachers might not grow optimally in the profession. it was the international conference that transformed joan to claim her professional identity as a researcher. similarly, it was the publication in an international journal that enhanced their professional identity of english teachers working in higher education institutions. conclusions the trajectory of english teachers’ professional growth was influenced by their education and the subsequent engagement with the professional communities. joan and steven underwent such experiences in that their transformed themselves to claim their professional identity as teacher-researcher. the narratives of the two english teachers were signified with their transformation during their study and their engagements with the academic communities. the narratives were also built around critical events that influenced their professional trajectory and growth. therefore, the revelations drawn from the narratives of the two english teachers supports freeman framework for english teachers’ professional growth. 59 two english teachers’ narratives references barkhuizen, g. 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(2020). “teaching is god’s calling”: teachers’ beliefs and professional identity at ten christian schools in indonesia. international journal of education, 13(2), 70-78. https://doi.org/ 10.17509/ije.v13i2.24794 32 running head: collaborative or cooperative learning beyond words vol.3, no.1, may 2015 widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia collaborative learning or cooperative learning? the name is not important; flexibility is george m. jacobs james cook university, singapore www.georgejacobs.net collaborative or cooperative learning? 33 abstract a great deal of theory and research, not to mention students’ and teachers’ practical experience, supports the use of group activities in education. collaborative learning and cooperative learning are two terms commonly used in discussions of how and why to use group activities. this article looks at the issue of whether the two terms collaborative learning and cooperative learning are synonymous or whether they represent different conceptualisations of how and why students should interact as part of their learning. those scholars who differentiate the two terms often see collaborative learning as more student centered and cooperative learning as a more teacher centered way to facilitate student-student interaction. the present article argues that collaborative and cooperative learning should be seen as synonymous student centric approaches, and that teachers and students, regardless of which of the two terms they use, should and will vary the ways they shape their learning environments in order to best facilitate the cognitive and affective benefits that student-student interaction offers. keywords: collaborative learning, cooperative learning, flexibility 34 collaborative or cooperative learning collaborative learning or cooperative learning? the name is not important; flexibility is since at least the 1970s, theories, research and practical developments in education have placed increased emphasis on student-student interaction as an important element in learning (e.g., barnes & todd, 1977; johnson & johnson, 1975; vygotsky, 1978). the roots of this trend in education toward greater peer interaction among students date back much earlier (e.g., dewey, 1929; lewin, 1935), even to the work of parker in the late 19th century (cited in campbell, 1965). two terms that are frequently used to describe approaches and methods for promoting studentstudent interaction are collaborative learning (bayer, 1990; britton, burgess, martin, mcleod, & rosen, 1975; bruffee, 1973, 1984, 1993; golub, 1988) and cooperative learning (baloche, 1998; cohen, 1994; gillies, 2007; johnson, johnson, & holubec, 2008; sharan, 1999; slavin, 1995). in education and many other fields, terminology can be confusing, because the same term can have different meanings, while two different terms can have the same or similar meanings. the present article focuses on the terminological questions that arise as some educators wonder if the terms cooperative learning and collaborative learning represent equivalent approaches/methods. several authors have discussed this question (e.g., brody, 1995; 2009; panitz, n.d.), and some educators do indeed differentiate the terms (center for the development of teaching and learning, n.d.; center for enhanced learning and teaching, n.d.). the main purpose of this article is to argue that: (1) the terms should be treated as synonymous, as both represent a student centric approach to learning; and (2) educators should be flexible in how they facilitate peer learning among their students. toward this second goal, the article explores some of the issues educators may have in mind when they distinguish collaborative and cooperative learning. collaborative or cooperative learning? 35 in general, those who differentiate between cooperative and collaborative learning tend to identify cooperative learning with more teacher centered ways of facilitating group activities and to identify collaborative learning with more student centered ways of facilitating group activities, despite the fact that the use of group activities connects both cooperative and collaborative learning with student centric pedagogy. table 1 provides an overview of some of the issues that surface when differentiating student centered and teacher centered approaches to the use of group activities. table 1 the student centered teacher centered continuum: issues along the continuum that impact use of group activities (please be reminded that a variety of options along the student centered/teacher centered continuum exist on each of these issues; these are not dichotomies.) issues student centered teacher centered what is the main perspective on how learning takes place knowledge construction – teachers facilitate students’ learning, as students work with groupmates to generate their own understandings knowledge transmission – students work in groups to master what teachers/course materials have taught who chooses what will be studied students can make some choices in areas such as what topics their groups study choices of topics to study are made by teachers who chooses materials students find, select or create some of the learning materials for their group activities teachers and administrators find, select or create the learning materials for the group activities what is the main type of motivation intrinsic motivation extrinsic motivation how are students assessed assessment by teachers is supplemented by peer and self assessment assessment by teachers only how many students per group and which students work together students decide how many members will be in their group and who those members will be teachers decide on group size and membership 36 collaborative or cooperative learning how group seating is arranged students decide teachers decide how well can students work together trusting students to work together well explicit teaching of collaborative skills and teacher monitoring of the use of these skills how student interaction will be structured students decide how they will interact with groupmates and other students teachers decide how students will work together, e.g., will each member take a turn to think aloud or will they first work in groups of two and then groups of four. will students care about the learning of their groupmates trusting students to want to help each other social engineering to encourage students to care about their groupmates’ success, e.g., rewarding groups based on how well each member does compared to their past performance, with all group members receiving the same reward following the table, implications of these issues are discussed. please bear in mind three points. 1. the issues in table 1 are not either-or choices. instead, student centered/teacher centered is best seen as a continuum, with the views and practices of educators lying at many different points along this continuum. 2. when examining educational practices as a whole, any approach making use of group activities already resides toward the student centric end of the continuum. 3. educators’ choice of practices along the continuum may well be affected not only by the educators’ view of how education best proceeds but also by the students they are currently teaching, including the degree to which their students’ are ready to exercise independence and the students’ motivation levels, as well as the overall contexts in which the teachers are working, e.g., the policies of the educational institution at which they are teaching. amplifications of issues along the student centered/teacher centered continuum what is the main perspective on how learning takes place knowledge transmission (faulkner, 2006), a concept linked to behaviorist psychology (skinner, 1938), sees knowledge flowing directly from teachers to students, just as if teachers were pouring knowledge into their students' heads. according to a knowledge transmission view, collaborative or cooperative learning? 37 information and skills go into learners’ heads without being filtered by what is already there. questions with right or wrong answers tend to predominate in instruction based on a knowledge transmission perspective. furthermore, in this perspective, the main role of groups lies in making sure group members master the material transmitted to them by their teachers, so as to be able to display that mastery on exams. knowledge construction (driver, asoko, leach, scott, & mortimer, 1994) is a concept from cognitive psychology (piaget, 1980). perhaps, the most popular version of the knowledge construction view is social constructivism (palincsar, 1998). the name social constructivism flows from the belief that learners construct their own networks of knowledge by collaborating with others as they connect new information to their present knowledge and interests. because each person is different, students come away from the same activity or lesson with different individual representations of the ideas studied. teachers can facilitate this construction work, but the key is what happens in each individual's mind, which, in turn, is affected by what other people (peers and teachers) are thinking, doing, and saying. a knowledge construction perspective is consistent with the use of open ended questions and projects. from this perspective, group activities provide a venue for peer interaction, which in turn provides opportunities for students to build and try out their developing knowledge. who chooses what will be studied and which materials to use. at the teacher centered end of the student centered/teacher centered continuum, teachers not only attempt to pour knowledge into students’ heads, teachers also decide what knowledge should be poured and from whence that knowledge should come. in contrast, when teachers adapt a more student centered approach, students are invited to have input on the topics they study and the materials they use to study those topics. for instance, students may be welcome to search for materials and share 38 collaborative or cooperative learning materials they find. content and materials sourced by and chosen by students may increase students’ engagement in learning. what is the main type of motivation? motivation plays a key role in learning (pintrich, 2003). teacher centered approaches to education foreground extrinsic motivation (stanlee & popham, 1963), i.e., external sources of motivation, principally teachers, attempt to promote learning by offering students rewards for pro-learning behaviors. in group activities, peers can also function as providers of extrinsic motivation. in contrast, student centered approaches place greater value on intrinsic motivation (deci, 1975), i.e., motivation from within each learner. from this perspective, group activities may build students’ intrinsic motivation by fulfilling their intrinsic needs for competence, relatedness to others, and control over their lives. as an aside, in yet another example of the changeable use of terms in education, ryan and deci, who did seminal work on extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in the 1970s and 1980s, have more recently (ryan & deci, 2000) advocated a re-examination of extrinsic motivation, proposing that in addition to indicating control by others, extrinsic motivation might also be a reflection of selfregulation (zimmerman & schunk, 2011). thus, perhaps extrinsic/intrinsic motivation is another example, similar to student centered/teacher centered, of how what might be thought to be a dichotomy is actually more of a continuum. how are students assessed? on the teacher centered end of the student/teacher centered continuum, teachers do all the assessment, as they are the ones with the most knowledge, and involving students in assessment may confuse students when peers offer incorrect feedback. such a negative view of any role for students in assessment does not promote the use of peer feedback in groups. in contrast, student centered approaches see peer and self feedback as useful learning tools and as means of enhancing students’ proclivity toward and ability at engaging in lifelong learning. collaborative or cooperative learning? 39 as with the other issues on the continuum, many middle points exist in regard to students’ role in assessment. for example, peer and self assessment can be done prior to teacher assessment, and only teacher assessment can be utilized in grades. additionally, student feedback can focus on fewer, less complex areas, e.g., on a writing task, students can offer feedback on structural aspects of an essay, such as the use of topic sentences and the use of examples, whereas teachers can give feedback on content as well. how many students per group? the number of students in each group is affected by a number of variables. two of these variables are the nature of the task the group will do and the time the group has to complete the task, with the idea being that complex tasks and short time spans suggest that larger groups may be needed. also, larger groups provide more groupmates to help with tasks and with coaching peers, and the larger the groups, the fewer groups there are for teachers to monitor. on the other hand, smaller groups, including groups of two, have advantages. for instance, groups of four divide into pairs and, as david johnson, a leading developer and researcher in cooperative learning, once said at a workshop, “it’s impossible to be left out of a pair.” thus, in smaller groups, each student may have more opportunities to interact. for instance, in a class of 40 divided into groups of eight, only five students (one per group) may be talking at any one time, whereas potentially ten students are speaking when the class forms groups of four, and 20 are speaking when students use groups of two. an advantage of foursomes divided into twosomes is that after discussing with one partner, students can share ideas in their foursome, thereby maintaining the peer interaction. teachers nearer to the teacher centered end of the student/teacher centered continuum generally devote more thought to matters of group functioning and, therefore, are more likely to 40 collaborative or cooperative learning decide the size of groups. on the other hand, teachers using a more student centered approach may allow students to decide on the size of their groups. that said, as with all the issues discussed in this paper, various middle ground positions exist. for instance, students might decide, but teachers might first lead a discussion on the pluses and minuses of various group sizes, or teachers could suggest upper limits to group size. which students work together? related to group size is group membership. four main options exist for determining which students join each other as groupmates: a. students choose their groupmates b. teachers choose the group members c. students form groups with whoever is currently sitting near them. d. groups are formed at random, e.g., by counting off to 13 in a class of 52 and then forming groups of four by a process of all students with the same number coming together to form a group, e.g., the four students whose number is nine form a group. more student centered approaches allow students to choose their groupmates, while teacher centered approaches suggest that teachers choose group members. characteristics teachers might use in selecting groups include past achievement, ethnicity, nationality, sex, social class, and personality. forming heterogeneous groups based on past achievement may promote peer tutoring, whereas mixing on sociological variables may help overcome barriers that sometimes exist between students from different backgrounds (aronson, et al., 1975). how group seating is arranged? once group size and membership have been decided, the next question is how the groups should be seated, unless students are working online outside the classroom. some issues to consider in regard to group seating include: a. can group members easily hear each other and see what each other is doing? collaborative or cooperative learning? 41 b. can all members conveniently see the teacher, the board, the projection screen, etc.? c. is there space for teachers and students to move between groups? a more student centered approach invites students to consider these issues, whereas from a more teacher centered perspective, teachers should quickly decide and instruct students to carry out their teachers’ seating decisions. how well can students work together? group activities seldom enjoy success unless students know and deploy effective group interaction skills, such as giving each other specific praise, disagreeing politely, asking for reasons, checking that others understand, and encouraging others to participate. in general, teacher centered approaches favor teacher intervention to promote these and other desired behaviors. this intervention can take such forms as explicit teaching of interaction skills, including teacher, peer, and self monitoring of students’ use of these skills during group activities. on the other hand, more student centered approaches may be more likely to trust groups of students to work out for themselves the appropriate ways to interact with each other. for example, one student centered strategy is for teachers to allow groups to fail due to inadequate use of interaction skills and to trust that eventually students will, on their own, become more skilled at peer interaction. how will student interaction be structured? another area of group functioning in which teachers often feel tempted to intervene concerns the roles students play in their groups. indeed, many teaching techniques structure group interaction. for example, in circle of speakers (jacobs, power, & loh, 2002), groups of 2-4 students take turns to speak to their groupmates, and then, teachers call a number, and students with that number share their group’s discussion with the rest of the class. or, in exchange a question (jacobs & kimura, 2013), students write questions for their partners, write answers for their own questions, exchange only their questions, not their 42 collaborative or cooperative learning answers, with their partners, answer each other’s questions, and compare answers. a more student centered approach might eschew such techniques in favor of students deciding for themselves how they will interact. in-depth peer interaction may foster more learning. kennedy (personal communication) cited the depth of student-student interaction as a distinction between cooperative learning and collaborative learning environments. using the example of a group project, in cooperative learning, according to kennedy, each group member does their part of the project task, and then, the parts are combined and handed in without interaction among the group members about their respective parts of the project. this is not cooperative learning or collaborative learning. the author of the present paper experienced this ineffective lack of interaction when teaching a section of a course on educational psychology for pre-service teachers. groups of four were presented with a problem, e.g., rewards were used to motivate a hypothetical class of primary school students to read, and although initially the rewards seemed to increase the amount of reading done, students read less when the rewards were no longer offered. in the educational psychology class, the groups’ task was to analyze the problem using four different theories of learning. unfortunately, groups seemed to go about the task by assigning each of the four group members to study, analyze, write up, and present only one of the four theories, with little interaction among the group members. in contrast, collaborative learning, according to the distinction suggested by kennedy, encourages more extensive, deeper interaction, e.g., in the earlier example, all students are involved in analyzing the problem using all four learning theories and discussing their analysis in their groups. what can teachers do to encourage this enhanced peer interaction? going back to the student centered/teacher centered continuum, more student centered paths might involve teachers collaborative or cooperative learning? 43 modeling a passion for the topic and helping students find ways to apply what they learn in their project to real life situations. from a more teacher centered perspective, tactics for promoting deeper and broader peer interaction include assessing students’ understanding of all parts of their group’s project, e.g., after a group presents, randomly asking questions to group members, rather than allowing the student who did that part of the presentation to respond to questions about that one part. similarly, cooperative learning also encourages deep interaction among students. for instance, students may be taught interaction skills, such as asking for reasons and disagreeing politely. an example of a structured cooperative learning technique that encourages deep interaction is summer (jacobs, power, & loh, 2002, adapted from hythecker, dansereau, & rocklin, 1988). the steps in summer are as follows: 1. s – set the mood: students are in groups of two and set a friendly tone via some chitchat. 2. u – understand by reading silently: the text has been divided into sections. both members read the first section silently. m – mention key ideas: one of the members recalls and summarizes the key ideas in the section without looking at the reading material. 3. m – monitor: the other member praises the partner for the summary and points out any possible errors, omissions and information overloads in the summary while looking at the provided reading material. the roles of mentioner and monitor are switched for the next section. 4. e – elaborate: both members elaborate on the ideas in the section. they need to connect ideas in the section with own experiences, apply the ideas, ask questions, disagree or agree, add more information and suggest what more could be learned. 5. r – review: steps 2-5 are repeated for each section of the text. when, the text has been finished in this manner, the two partners combine their thoughts to summarize the entire text. the next section of this paper offers further ideas on enhancing peer interaction. 44 collaborative or cooperative learning will students care about their groupmates? a principal theoretical underpinning of cooperative learning derives from social interdependence theory (deutsch, 1949; lewin, 1935), with positive interdependence being the main concept derived from that theory. positive interdependence represents a feeling among group members that their outcomes are positively correlated, i.e., what benefits the learning of one group member benefits all and what hinders the learning of one group member hinders the learning of all. those who differentiate between collaborative and cooperative learning may feel that teachers using a collaborative learning perspective should trust students to feel positively interdependent with their groupmates. however, johnson, johnson, and holubec (2008), who are associated with cooperative learning, describe nine ways that teachers can promote a feeling of positive interdependence among group members. three of these involve the use of goals, celebrations/rewards, and resources. using goals to encourage students to feel positively interdependent means that groups have clear goals that involve the learning of all group members. for instance, a goal could be that all group members are capable of solving a particular type of mathematics problem or that all group members improve on their score on the previous quiz, except for those students who had a perfect score on the earlier quiz. it is important to note that the goal involves not the group as a whole, e.g., the group working together can solve mathematics problems. instead, the goal involves the individual learning of each group member, e.g., as a result of the interaction in the group, each group member is now better at solving such problems on their own. related to group goals are celebrations and rewards. the idea here is that students may be more likely to feel that their outcomes are positively correlated because either everyone celebrates when the group achieves its goals, or no one celebrates when the goal fails to achieve its goals. collaborative or cooperative learning? 45 celebrations can be distinguished from rewards, as celebrations tend to be more internally generated, such as performing a team cheer, whereas rewards are more externally generated, such as receiving bonus points awarded by teachers or recognition by teachers. dividing resources among group members offers a third means of encouraging students to feel as though they and their groupmates sink or swim together. the jigsaw technique (aronson, 2014) provides one of the best known ways of using resources to promote positive interdependence. in jigsaw, students begin in home groups in which each home group member is given or finds unique information on a related topic, e.g., one member has or searches for information on health advantages of vegetarian diets, another on environmental advantages of such diets, a third on advantages for farmed animals, such as chickens, and the fourth group member has or finds information on how to eat a healthy vegetarian diet. students then leave their home groups and form expert groups with classmates who have or are finding information on the same sub-topic. the experts help each other understand their “piece of the jigsaw puzzle” and prepare to teach it to their home group members. next, in jigsaw, students return to their home groups where they teach their pieces to each other. finally, students do a task or take a quiz which requires information from all their pieces. conclusion this article has argued that the terms cooperative learning and collaborative learning should be treated as student centered equivalents, and that any differences should be seen as options for teachers and students to consider in promoting effective interaction in the classroom and beyond. the article discussed some of the issues that exist along the student centered/teacher centered continuum and how these issues impact group activities. whether educators use the term cooperative learning or collaborative learning, the use of group activities by whatever name stands 46 collaborative or cooperative learning in stark contrast with approaches to teaching that emphasize teacher talk. commonalities of approaches that highlight students studying in groups, regardless of where an approach lies on the student centered/teacher centered continuum, include: a. belief that students learn by doing and by discussing with others, discussions which include higher order thinking; b. attempts to provide students with more control over their own learning; c. appreciation of the need that humans feel for belonging; d. advocacy of life-long learning with and for others; e. trust that collaboration/cooperation can be a powerful force for good in the classroom and beyond. the bottom line is that whether educators call what they are attempting collaborative learning or cooperative learning, they are attempting a student centered pedagogy. another reason for treating cooperative learning and collaborative learning as equivalent terms lies in the existence of models (some would call them “techniques,” “strategies, ” or “methods”) which flow from the cooperative learning tradition but which stand near the student centered end of the student centered/teacher centered continuum. perhaps group investigation (sharan & sharan, 1992) provides a good example of such a model. in the 1970s, group investigation’s developers, yael sharan and shlomo sharan, were among the founders of the international association for the study of cooperation in education (iasce), an organization long associated with cooperative learning (iasce, 2014). group investigation was inspired by the ideas of dewey (1929). the steps in group investigation are as follows. a. teachers, in consultation with students, decide on a topic for the class to investigate and then discuss subtopics. b. students choose their own groups based on common interest in a subtopic. c. each group plans how they will investigate their subtopic, and each member does a share collaborative or cooperative learning? 47 of the investigation. d. group members discuss what they learned and prepare a report for the rest of the class. e. groups present their reports to the class. f. peers and teachers assess each group. there are several ways in which group investigation resides near the student centered end of the student centered/teacher centered continuum, e.g., including students’ voice in choosing what they will study, who will be their groupmates, how their groups will collaborate, and what grades peers’ work will receive. other models/techniques/methods/strategies found in the cooperative learning literature are designed to be implemented or could be adapted to be implemented in ways that lie near the student centered end of the continuum. some people who talk about collaborative learning, such as kenneth bruffee (in an unpublished, invited address at the 1994 iasce conference), have said that cooperative learning is for primary and secondary students, because these students lack the skills/attitudes necessary to work without a fair amount of teacher structuring. however, with these younger students research (e.g., rohrbeck, ginsburg-block, fantuzzo, & miller, 2003) suggests that they can indeed work together well, even in settings toward the student centered end of the continuum. furthermore, some experts on collaborative learning focus on younger learners (e.g., hill & hill, 1990). at the same time, bruffee may have overestimated what older students are ready for. students of all age groups, including graduate students and people in courses specifically designed for senior citizens, can benefit from learning or being reminded how to cooperate with peers. to conclude, perhaps the key to successful group interaction lies not in the label educators use for what they and their students do but in the flexibility with which teachers and students choose from the growing literature on group activities and the equally large and impressive body of undocumented teacher and student experience. this flexibility enables teachers to scaffold for their 48 collaborative or cooperative learning students (wood, bruner, & ross, 1976) about how to study in ways that promote both cognitive and affective gains, and that enable students to live lives in which collaboration or cooperation (whichever term you prefer) plays an important role in promoting their own well being and the well being of those in the wider world. collaborative or cooperative learning? 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(1991, may). collaborative learning and cooperative learning: many similarities, many options. paper presented at the center for youth research conference, honolulu. microsoft word beyond words cover-acknowledgements.docx   beyond words (indexed by google scholar)  is published twice a year in may and  november with articles around  english language education,  and applied linguistics.  there are four sections: perspectives,  current issues, research reports, and  book reviews.              beyond words   a journal on english language education & applied linguistics     vol. 4, no. 2, november 2016 online issn 2338-6339 ii  beyond words  chief editor, wuri soedjatmiko  board of editors  lixian jin, university of nottingham, ningbo, china  willy renandya, national institute of education, singapore    reviewers  andrew lian, suranaree university of technology, thailand  andrzej cirocki, anglia ruskin university, uk  anita lie, universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya, indonesia  anna siyanova, victoria university of wellington, new zealand  benedict b. dwijatmoko, universitas sanata dharma, yogyakarta, indonesia  dede oetomo, universitas surabaya, indonesia  deepti gupta, punjab university, india  eugene sadtono, universitas ma chung, malang, indonesia  feng teng, nanning university, china  f.x. mukarto, universitas sanata dharma, yogyakarta, indonesia  gumawang jati, institut teknologi bandung, indonesia  handoyo puji widodo, university of adelaide, australia  helen emery, sultan qaboos university, oman  ignatius harjanto¸universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya, indonesia  juliana widjaja, university of california, berkeley, usa  lesley harbon, university of sydney, australia  mateus yumarnamto, universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya, indonesia  patrisius istiarto djiwandono, universitas ma chung, malang, indonesia  rodney jones, city university of hongkong, hongkong  rouhullah askari bigdelli, yasouj university, iran  siti mina tamah, universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya, indonesia  veronica l. diptoadi, universitas katolik widya mandala surabaya, indonesia  wendy kasten, kent state university, usa    beyond words invites articles that have never been submitted for any other publication  elsewhere. see guidelines for authors.    volume 4 number 2 november 2016  online issn‐2338‐6339  english education department  graduate school  widya mandala catholic university surabaya  surabaya, indonesia  iii  table of contents  acknowledgements vi perspectives student centered learning–an approach to fostering democracy in schools 79-87 george jacobs & michael a. power second language writing instruction: teaching writing to english language learners 88-101 asseel kanakri a review on stuttering and social anxiety disorder in children: possible causes and therapies/treatments nadia nathania     102-111   research language learning strategies of japanese students joining “english speaking society” ryoichiro kobayashi     112-124   does “experience” bring about any significant difference in efl teacher talk? vahid rahmani doqaruni & ebrahim khodadady     corpus-based websites to promote learner autonomy in correcting writing collocation errors pham thuy dung   125-144           145-157   contrastive and error analyses in inverted order to facilitate english language teaching shivani saini     senior high school english national examination and thinking skills ummu lathifah ahmad   158-167       168-190 4  guidelines for authors  the demand of continuous academic improvement has urged scholars to do  research and share knowledge in writing. widya mandala graduate school accommodates  these academic scholarly needs by providing the journal entitled beyond words.  this twice‐a‐year, refereed, journal accepts a wide variety of both theoretical and  practical manuscripts around the following fields:  1. language education  2. applied linguistics  3. curriculum and instruction      submission guidelines  1. articles submitted to this journal follow the apa publication manual with specific  technical writing standards as follows:  a) manuscript must be typed in ms word, using times new roman, 12‐point  font.size.  b) heading and sub‐headings follow the apa five levels (see table 1).  c) a header “running head: the short form of the title” is typed on the first  page. on other pages, the header becomes “the short form of the title.”  2. the journal covers four sections: teachers’ voices, current issues, research reports, and  book reviews.  3. criteria for acceptance:  a) new insights and authenticity;  b) no plagiarism and self‐plagiarism  c) clarity, significance, and relevance.  4. submission: send your article with  a) a cover letter  mentioning the name(s) of the author(s),  title of the manuscript,  names and contact info for all authors;  b) abstract (200 words);  c) manuscript: (a) research reports (5000‐10000 words). (b) perspectives no more  than 3000 words, (c) classroom tips and book review no more than 2000 words  including tables, figures, references and acknowledgments, if any.    for the purpose of a blind review process, please do not write your name or other  identities on the manuscript.  5  table 1  five levels for of heading in apa journals    level  format      1      centered, boldface, uppercase and lowercase heading a     2    flushed left, boldface, uppercase and lowercase heading    3    indented, boldface, lowercase paragraph heading  ending with a  period. b     4    indented, boldface, italicized, lowercase paragraph  heading ending with a period.    5    indented, italicized, lowercase paragraph heading  ending with a period.  a this type of capitalization is also called a title case.  b in a lowercase paragraph heading, the first letter of the first word is uppercase and the  remaining words are lowercase.        bibliography  vandenbos, g. r. (ed.). (2012). publication of the american psychological associaton (6th.  ed.). washington, dc: american psychological association.  6  acknowledgements     we’d like to express our gratitude to the reviewers: prof. dr. patrisius istiarto djiwandono, a senior professor at ma chung university, malang, indonesia, prof. deepti gupta, ph.d, a professor at the department of english, panjab university, chandigarh, india, professor dr. veronica l. diptoadi, a professor at the department of english, faculty of teacher education, widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, indonesia, willy ardian renandya, ph.d., a senior lecturer at the ell department, national institute of education, singapore, benedict b. dwijatmoko, ph.d. a senior lecturer at the english studies, graduate school, sanata dharma university, yogyakarta, dede oetomo, ph.d., surabaya university, surabaya, indonesia, siti mina tamah, ph.d., the department of english, faculty of teacher education, widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, indonesia, mateus yumarnamto, ph.d. the department of english, faculty of teacher education, widya mandala catholic university, surabaya, indonesia, and some other anonymous reviewers. the peer reviews they contributed are very significant to maintain the quality of this online journal. the same thankful expressions also came from authors for the reviewers’ scholarly comments and feedback. and last but not least, our great appreciation goes to all authors for their writings. 54 tense usage in dissertation beyond words vol.2, no.2, november 2014 widya mandala catholic university surabaya tense usage in selected humanities and science dissertations dr geoffrey m. maroko kenyatta university, kenya maroko.geoffrey@ku.ac.ke & dr. alice kiai catholic university of eastern africa, kenya alicekiai@cuea.edu abstract graduate students are usually not sure of the appropriate tense to use in each rhetorical section of their dissertations in their disciplines. even style guides provide little information regarding tense usage in academic texts. this paper describes a study in which frequency and usage of types of tense were compared in selected dissertations from the humanities and sciences drawn from kenyan public universities. it was found that graduate research students in both humanities and sciences preferred the simple present and simple past as primary tense forms. it also emerged that authors have to alternate verb tenses even in the same rhetorical section of a dissertation to achieve particular communicative purposes. suggesting that choices for tense in dissertations are a function of the epistemology and ideology of the disciplines, the paper proposes a genre-based approach to teaching those preparing to write their dissertations. keywords: disciplinary culture, point of reference, primary tense, secondary tense, communicative purpose tense usage in dissertation 55 introduction hyland (2013) argues that specialist forms of academic literacy are the heart of everything done at the university. as such, postgraduate students and their lecturers must gain fluency in the conventions of academic writing in english to understand their disciplines, to establish their careers or to successfully develop their learning. one such convention is the writer’s ability to employ the socially appropriate types of tense in the specific rhetorical divisions of dissertations in their disciplines. scholars in the humanities and science disciplinary cultures have normative expectations regarding tense usage in dissertations produced under their supervision. hyland (2013) adds that students can only marshal support, express collegiality, and negotiate agreement by making use of linguistic features which connect their texts with their disciplines. the tense feature can be defined as the forms of the verb that may be used to indicate the time of the action or state expressed by the verb (quirk, greenbaum, leech, & svartvik, 1985). accordingly, a point of reference is a point from which the relative time location of the situation is placed. in spoken discourse, this point of reference is usually the present moment ‘now’, and the moment of speaking is usually the same as the moment of hearing. in written discourse, the time of writing and reading are not the same, and situations can be considered in relation to either the time of writing or the time of reading (comrie, 1985; jackson, 1990). other terms used interchangeably to refer to the point of reference are point of orientation and reference point. tense is also seen as a grammatical category, especially in traditional grammar, where conjugations are compared with aspect and modality (gledhill 2009). halliday and matthiessen (2004) see tense essentially in terms of experiential metafunction (verb forms contribute to timereference in the clause) and the interpersonal metafunction (verb forms signal authorial stance). 56 tense usage in dissertation verb tenses present a relationship between the present moment (now) and another moment or period in time (which may be long or short). according to traditional grammar, these moments or periods may be in the past, present or future. hence, three types of simple tenses can be distinguished: present, past and future. the simple present tense locates a situation at the same time as the present moment (instantaneous present) or over an extended period of time which includes the present moment (unrestrictive present) (leech, 1987). on the other hand, the simple past tense locates a situation prior to the present moment while the simple future tense locates a situation subsequent to the present moment. the relationship between these various time locations relative to the moment of utterance ‘now’ is illustrated in the following time continuum (jackson 1990, p. 77): the tense choice of past, present, or future relative to the time of speech is referred to as the primary tense or absolute tense (halliday1994; lock 1996). the time frame of the primary tense can be taken as the reference point for another selection of past, present, or future, resulting in secondary tenses relative to the primary one. thus, the present perfect locates a situation started prior to the present moment and continues into the present moment. according to reeves (2009), it describes actions that occurred in the past which either have been completed or form part of an uncompleted whole. it contains an implicit reference to the present, often made explicit by the addition of more information to this effect, or reflects the effects of past events on the present, and even the future, and it cannot be used together with references to specific periods in the past. tense usage in dissertation 57 this is illustrated in the following diagram: the present progressive tense places a situation in a time span which includes the present moment and stretches for a limited period into the past and future (leech, 1987, p.19) as illustrated below: as another example, when the past from the first time choice serves as a reference point for further choices, the secondary tenses include the past perfect (past-in-past), past progressive (present-in-past), and past future (future-in-past). the past perfect tense locates a situation prior to a point in the past. it is ‘a time further in the past, seen from the viewpoint of a definite point of time already in the past’ (leech 1987, p. 47). the past progressive tense on the other hand locates a situation over a limited time span including the past point of reference. lastly, the past future locates a situation subsequent to a point in the past. its common form is would followed by the base form of the main verb. see the following illustration: 58 tense usage in dissertation the point of orientation is typical of narrative texts conventionally written in the past tense and is particularly useful in the analysis of the history texts. time frame may also be expressed through modals. on the one hand, modals can express a temporal aspect. accordingly, the modal verbs will and shall can be used to form the simple future tense, and could, would, might, and should can be used to express the past time of the related present-tense forms can, will, may, and shall. on the other hand, modals can express modality, adding to a proposition ‘an attitudinal component, giving the hearer (or reader) an assessment of the possibility, likelihood, probability, etc.’ of a situation (jackson 1990, p. 99). when used to express modality, the modals are regarded as tenseless and the time frame is the unrestrictive present. in summary, there are twelve tenses according to traditional grammar. these are the simple present, simple past, simple future, present perfect, past perfect, future perfect, present progressive, past progressive, future progressive, present perfect progressive, past perfect progressive, and future perfect progressive (celce-murcia and larsen freeman 1999, p. 110). according to chen (2009) and reeves (2009), selecting an appropriate reporting verb and its tense and voice in a particular context is one of the best ways for the writer to present his work appropriately and to communicate effectively with others in the academic community. this is tense usage in dissertation 59 because tenses manage time by placing moments or periods within particular relationships or ‘time frameworks.’ it is expected that in dissertation writing, some frameworks are more commonly used than others. their frequency is likely to be variable from one rhetorical section of a dissertation to another and they may possibly vary between one discipline and another. however, a look at the dissertation writing manuals and guidelines reveals little or no information on how tenses can be employed in the rhetorical sections of dissertations drawn from the sciences and humanities’ domains. therefore, the question that emerges is: on which benchmarks should dissertation writers base their tense usage when writing dissertations in their disciplines? put in other words, on which guidelines should research supervisors base their judgments on the appropriateness of tenses in their students’ dissertations? as a response to this question, this paper analyses the types of tense that writers use in respective rhetorical sections of their dissertations and the patterns emerging in humanities and science disciplinary cultures. prior to presenting the literature, the writers should have an idea of what the problem was, and why this study is important. methods six dissertations were analysed in this study; three were drawn from the humanities field while the other three were drawn from the science disciplines. becher’s (1989) taxonomy that categorises disciplines into soft and hard respectively was used in the stratification and selection. the consideration for including the sciences and humanities is based on the argument by hyland (p, 194) that academic discourse in the sciences depends on the demonstration of absolute truth, empirical evidence or flawless logic. the humanities on the other hand are known to be based on logical presentation and discussion of knowledge. to illustrate how these contrasting aspects of 60 tense usage in dissertation knowledge construction are expressed by tense, six dissertations were selected for analysis as summarised in table 1. table 1 sample of dissertations humanities (soft disciplines) science (hard disciplines) discipline institution code # of copies discipline institution code # of copies history kenyatta university aht 1 chemistry moi university sch 1 english maseno university aen 1 botany egerton university sbt 1 sociology university of nairobi asc 1 agricultural engineering jomo kenyatta university sae 1 the sampling procedure used for the selection of the six dissertations was based on the population of all the ma dissertations produced at kenyatta, maseno and nairobi universities, and all the msc dissertations produced at moi, egerton and jomo kenyatta universities during the 2007/2008 academic year. only 2007/2008 academic year was considered in order to avoid the possible influence(s) of generational and diachronic changes in the nature of this genre. but one critical decision that was made was how to draw a sample of six dissertations from a large ‘universe’. in line with the purposes of the study, non-probability sampling, which comprises a series of non-random procedures for selecting the elements of the sample, seemed to be appropriate (ary, jacob, & rzavieh, 1996). to be more specific, a convenience sampling procedure, which includes picking the required dissertations from the total population, was used to select the six texts for this study. obviously, the success of such procedures depends on the knowledge, expertise, and sound judgement of the expert (ary et al. 1996). tense usage in dissertation 61 it should, however, be noted that the use of tense in the selected dissertation from each of the six universities may not be typical of dissertations in the particular university and/or disciplinary culture. each discipline in a university must still unique ways of using tense though the study showed that disciplines belonging to the same disciplinary culture displayed certain commonalities regarding the feature. as such, the selected humanities dissertations, for example, were not radically different from one another. according to becher (1989) and belcher (1994), such an approach simplifies what are, in fact, innumerable disciplinary differences. therefore, there was need to uncover these general tendencies. accordingly, as hyland (2005) argues, a large corpus does not necessarily represent a genre better than a small one, particularly if it is used to study high frequency items. to elicit the linguistic data for analysis, all the finite verbs were first identified and classified strictly by form with no regard to function and meaning following the forms of the english tense-aspect system, or the twelve ‘tenses’ as commonly referred to in general grammar. adapted from celce-murcia and larsen-freeman (1999, p. 110), these forms are shown in table 2. the tenses in this table are shown as combinations of tense and aspect. while tense locates a situation in time relative to a reference point, aspect deals with the internal temporal constituency of the situation (comrie, 1976, p. 5). 62 tense usage in dissertation this paper uses ‘tense’ as an overriding term to refer to tense-aspect combinations. although the ‘future tense’ is usually not considered to be a tense in english in a form-orientated account of tense, since there is no future inflection of the finite verb stems in english (celcie-murcia & larsen freeman, 1999), it formed the scope of the present study. for practical use, the future time was expressed as the simple future. this future expression was taken as the periphrastic form will or shall followed by the base form of the main verb. the categories for the count included the simple present, simple past, present perfect, past perfect, simple future, past progressive, present progressive. such categories as the present perfect progressive, past perfect progressive, future perfect, future progressive, and future perfect progressive were not included in the present study because they are generally insignificant in academic texts (celce-murcia and larsen-freeman, 1999; malcolm, 1987; reeves, 2009, swales, 1990). based on this classification, all the tense forms were manually counted and marked in the contexts in which they occurred in the selected dissertations. to achieve inter-rater reliability, a colleague also identified all the tense forms in the other set of dissertations and marked them accordingly. where discrepancies were noted, we discussed them in line with the citeria in table 2 till we arrived at a consensus. results a manual count of finite verbs yielded a total of 10,021 verbs in the study corpora. these were classified into seven categories as shown in table 3. table 3 distribution of finite verb forms in the study corpora science and humanities dissertations verb forms  of occurrences frequency (%) simple present 4247 42.4 simple past 3943 39.3 tense usage in dissertation 63 present perfect 561 5.6 past perfect 168 1.7 simple future 150 1.5 present progressive 914 9.1 past progressive 38 0.3 n = 10,021 as can be seen in table 3, the simple present tense occurred most frequently followed by the simple past. the combined total for the simple present and past tenses is 82 percent. there is an insignificant use of the present and past perfect, the future, and progressive forms with their combined total being only 18 percent. of the two progressive forms, the past progressive was extremely rare, with only 38 occurrences out of the 10,021 verbs. the use of the simple present tense implies that the time of writing the thesis coincides with the time of reading. the high incidence of the tense therefore suggests that the work presented in a thesis has significance to the contemporary situation. the researchers probably believe that content in their dissertations continues expresses general truths as supported by research results. in other words, they believe their work to be always true. the simple past tense, on the other hand, indicates that the research process culminating in the thesis is actually complete and referring to it requires such a tense. the use of the present perfect tense indicates that the events described in the theses only took place prior to the present moment and are therefore of contemporary significance (reeves, 2009) while the present progressive tense indicates that the work being reported in the dissertations has a link to the past and progresses into the future. in the next section, i look at the distribution of the tense forms per disciplinary culture. the distributions of the finite verb forms for each dissertation in its own disciplinary culture were determined beginning with science dissertations as discussed below: 64 tense usage in dissertation the corpus for the science disciplinary culture yielded 2850 finite verbs: 927 occurrences in dissertation sch, 703 in dissertation sbt, and 1221 in dissertation sae as shown in table 3. under each dissertation heading, the first column reports the number of occurrences of each finite verb form while the second column shows the frequencies of the corresponding forms. table 4 distribution of finite verb forms in science dissertations dissertation sch dissertation sbt dissertation sae  of occur freq (%)  of occur freq (%)  of occur freq (%) simp pres 420 15.79 255 8.95 568 19.93 simp past 211 7.40 299 10.49 424 14.88 pres perf 65 2.28 37 1.30 42 1.47 past perf 6 0.21 13 0.46 2 0.07 simp fut 34 1.19 14 0.49 4 0.14 pres prog 191 6.70 85 2.98 178 6.25 past prog 2 0.07 n = 2850 several trends can be observed from the distributions in table 4. first, each science dissertation had two preponderant tense forms: simple present and simple past. it can also be observed that the present progressive tense was the third most commonly used in the three science dissertations taking 15.93% of all the tense forms. table 4 also indicates that the use of the perfective forms, the simple future, and past progressive was low in all the three science dissertations. lastly, dissertations sch and sae appeared to have very high frequencies of the simple present with a combined total of 35.72%. however, they differed in that dissertation sae had a higher frequency of simple past, while sch had a higher frequency of the perfective forms, simple future, and the present progressive. turning to the three humanities dissertations, the corpora yielded 7171 finite verbs out of which 2171 occurred in dissertation aen, 2285 in dissertation asc, and 2715 in dissertation aht. table 4 presents the distribution and frequency of these forms per dissertation. under each tense usage in dissertation 65 dissertation heading, the first column reports the number of occurrences of each verb form while the second column shows the frequencies of the corresponding forms. table 5 distribution of finite verb forms in humanities dissertations dissertation aen dissertation asc dissertation aht  of occur freq (%)  of occur freq (%)  of occur freq (%) simp pres 1602 22.34 875 12.20 526 7.33 simp past 192 2.68 914 12.75 1903 26.54 pres perf 126 1.76 206 2.87 85 1.19 past perf 10 0.14 63 0.88 74 1.03 simp fut 26 0.36 36 0.50 37 0.52 pres prog 210 2.93 168 2.34 82 1.14 past prog 5 0.07 23 0.32 8 0.11 n = 7171 a number of patterns of use can be noted in table 5. first, like science dissertations, each humanities dissertation had the simple present and simple past as the predominant forms constituting 83.84% of all finite verb forms in the corpus. secondly, the present progressive was relatively high in dissertations aen and asc compared to dissertation aht with an incidence of 1.14%. table 4 also indicates that the use of perfective tense forms, simple future, and the past progressive was low in all the three disciplines with a combined density of 9.75%. this reflects similarity in the trends of these forms in science dissertations. it can also be noted that the three dissertations display some similarities in that they all had higher frequencies in simple present and past forms. however, they differ in that aen had a higher frequency of present progressive forms; asc had higher frequencies in present perfect and past progressive forms while aht had a higher frequency in past perfect and simple future tenses. 66 tense usage in dissertation discussion the analysis of tense use based on function types and the nature of content can give some insights into the distributions of tense in the disciplines. tables 3 and 4 indicate that each discipline has one predominant tense, that is, the simple present in dissertations sch, sae and table 6 correlation between content area and tense science dissertations humanities dissertations primary tense sch sbt sae aen asc aht simple present present applications present applications literary illustrations simple past past experiment historical events historical events aen, and the simple past in theses sbt, asc and aht. in each case, there appears a correlation between the content area each discipline dealt with and the primary tenses adopted as illustrated in table 6. table 5 reveals that dissertations sch and sae on the one hand and asc and aht on the other hand are rather consistent in the distributions of the simple present and past tenses respectively. this consistency reflects the homogeneity in content in those disciplines and ensures smooth expression of one’s writing (chen 2009; reeves 2009; thonney 2011). on the other hand, dissertations sbt and aen show a higher level of variability from their counterparts in respective disciplinary cultures. this could be accounted for by the fact that sbt was more concerned with reporting an experiment and focussing less on application to the contemporary situation while aen was based on a literary text which favours the simple present tense. tense usage in dissertation 67 in the following discussion, various communicative purposes are explored and the appropriate verb tenses. beginning with the abstract, a number of communicative purposes are expressed. first, the rhetorical section announces the purpose of the study (gledhill, 2009; weisberg and buker, 1990, p. 192). examples drawn from this study revealed that the simple past and simple present tenses are preferred in realising this communicative function as exemplified below: 1. the experiments aimed at investigating responses of four cowpea cultivars … (sbt) (simple past) 2. this study examines women’s political participation in kangema … (aht). (simple present) another communicative purpose expressed in the abstract section has to do with indicating the methodology used in the study. this purpose was signalled by the simple past and present perfect tenses as examples 3 – 4 indicate. 3. the study determined levels of cd, co, ni, and zn by aas in pottery clay soils and leachates from pots subjected to different conditions of ph, temperature and contact time. (sch). (simple past) 4. this has been done by examining how transitivity choices made by the author in terms of process types … (aen). (present perfect) the abstract also indicates the most important results of the study. this communicative purpose was marked by the simple past tense as examples 5-6 indicate: 5. co concentration remained constant after the first week of storage. (sch). (simple past) 68 tense usage in dissertation 6. though women engaged in independence struggles, the kenyatta government did not recognize their efforts. (aht). (simple past) the abstract also indicates important conclusions and/or recommendations of the study. the communicative purpose was marked by the simple past and present perfect as examples 7-8 indicate: 7. therefore, the risk of heavy metals contamination from the earthen pots was eminent and required precautionary measures. (sch). (simple past) 8. women’s voices in political arenas, however, have remained ignored by male patriarchs who still believe and perceive women as their property and appendages. (aht). (present perfect) as may be noted from the foregoing analysis, the verb tense chosen for the abstract should be based on the rhetorical section of the dissertation to which the sentence corresponds. in other words, the verb tenses occurring in the whole dissertation will be expected in the abstract which may be viewed as a dissertation in miniature. turning to the introduction rhetorical section of the dissertation, there were similarly a number of communicative purposes which were signalled differently by verb tenses. one purpose for this element is to provide background information to the study problem. a background to the study establishes the context, or frame of reference, to help readers understand how the research fits into a wider field of study. the present simple, present perfect, present progressive and simple past tense forms were mainly employed in this study as examples 9-12 show: 9. the luo community is a nilotic group found in the south-western part of kenya around the gulf of … (aen) (present simple) tense usage in dissertation 69 10. man has suffered from flood disasters while trying to secure livelihood near water sources (sae) (present perfect) 11. however, information is lacking on effects of cropping systems on root knot nematode population build-up … (sbt). (present progressive) 12. therefore, this study sought to identify components of an integrated management package for use in the management of the cowpea root knot diseases. (sbt). (simple past) another communicative purpose of the introduction element is to point out the research problem under investigation and/or objectives. it involves making explicit statements that announce the purpose or nature of the study. notable tense forms in the study corpora included simple present and simple past as shown in the examples below: 13. this study is a historical investigation of the forces that impact on … (aht). (simple present) 14. the study investigated whether there occurs some leaching of toxic heavy metals from the earthen pots. (sch). (simple past) another communicative purpose involves the statement of hypotheses. in this purpose, thesis writers are expected to formulate propositions about the expected outcomes of their studies. this purpose was signalled using the present perfect, simple past and simple present as expressed in examples 15 – 17: 15. economic, political and socio-cultural factors have been chiefly responsible for women’s peripheral participation in politics … (aht). (present perfect) 16. the single-buyer policy employed by the nib contributed to the unrest at the mwea irrigation scheme (asc. (simple past) 70 tense usage in dissertation 17. some indigenous plants have no nematicidal effects on root knot nematodes … (sbt). (simple present) the introduction rhetorical section also includes the scope and limitations of the study. in indicating the scope and limitations, thesis authors are expected to indicate the areas covered in their studies, any weakness(es) arising from such a scope and ways of mitigating the effect of any exclusion(s) on the outcome. the simple past and simple present were mainly employed to express this communicative purpose as shown in examples 18 – 19: 18. the study was carried out between october, 2002 and february, 2003. (sbt). (simple past) 19. this study is limited to the ideational function of language as identified by halliday … (aen). (simple present) the introduction also spells out the significance of the study. thesis writers are expected to advance a strong case for studies undertaken and indicate how the outcome will contribute to research, knowledge and practice. this purpose was signalled by such tenses as the simple past, simple present, present perfect, and simple future as indicated in the examples 20 – 21 that follow: 20. whereas there is a growing body of literature on kenyan women, still rural women have not received adequate attention from scholars…the study contributes to knowledge and literature on the political participation of women in kangema…the study will also open up new avenues for research among …(aht). (simple present, present perfect, simple future) 21. the study explored the feasibility of identifying…phosphorous and nitrogen are essential minerals in the production of…therefore finding out how their tense usage in dissertation 71 transportation to the leaves is impaired by root knot nematode would justify the need to manage the root knot disease…(sbt) (simple past, simple present) the literature review is another rhetorical section and serves three main communicative purposes according to weissberg and buker (1990, p. 41), swales (1990), and nwogu (1997). first, it gives readers background information needed to understand a study. second, it assures readers that the writer is familiar with the important research that has been carried out in his/her area. third, it establishes one’s study as one link in a chain of research developing and enlarging in his/her field. when the focus of citation is on the information, weissberg and buker (1990, p. 41), chen (2009) and nwogu (1997, p. 127) suggest, the writer should use the simple present tense. this tense is used when the information being cited is generally accepted as scientific fact. this is confirmed examples 22 and 23: this section reads well and makes it easy to relate your work to that of other researchers. i think you should adopt such a format for each sub section in the discussion. 22. lumped parameter models rarely discriminate between the many intervening processes, which occur between rainfall hitting the ground and … (weeks and hebbert, 1980) (sae). (simple present) 23. they all imply a commitment towards changing the social structure making it less oppressive to women (mill, 1995:4) (aen). (simple present) the present perfect tense is used in citations where the focus is on the research area of several authors (nwogu 1997, p. 127). weissberg and buker (1990:51) call this citation weak author prominent. however, the data in the present study indicated that the present perfect tense may be used with individual authors as well. data also showed the use of present perfect in citations involving several authors. examples from the study data include: 72 tense usage in dissertation 24. klevay and forbush (1976) have shown that high zinc-to-copper ratio in diets causes hypercholesteremia and … (sch). (present perfect) 25. lerner (1986), kabira (1998), and ruth (1998) all posit that in many patriarchal african communities’ women are not supposed to challenge men in the contest for political leadership. (aht). (simple present) the present perfect tense is used in general statements that describe the level of research activity in an area (weissberg and buker, 1990, p. 51; chen, 2009; oster, 1981, p. 77). these statements are often written without citations. the italicised finite verb forms in the texts below confirm this view: 26. several studies have found detectable learning problems in children whose blood lead levels are as low as 5 to 10 micrograms per decilitre. (sch). (present perfect) 27. at the micro level however, studies conducted on women’s political mobilisation and participation in many parts of kenya have remained few. (aht). (present perfect) author prominent citations are used to report the findings of individual studies closely related to one’s study. in these citations the simple past tense is used (weissberg and buker, 1990, p. 52; reeves, 2009; swales 1990, p. 153). examples of verb tenses italicised in the texts 27 and 28 confirm this view: 28. fery and dukes (1980) analysed the resistance in cultivars iron colossus and mississippi silver with f1 f2 f3 … (sbt) (simple past) 29. szymon (1969) observed that in most parts of the world peasants composed an essential part of the feudal structure of their societies. (asc). (simple past) tense usage in dissertation 73 the next rhetorical section is methods. this section is a report of what was done during the course of the study. one of the communicative purposes of this section is to the study was designed. for this purpose, the thesis writers are expected to describe the framework that was employed to relate the important elements of the study. to signal this purpose, the simple present, and simple past tense forms were used as texts 29 – 30 indicate: 30. filstead (1970:6) defines qualitative methodology as those research strategies … (asc). (simple present) 31. this study used the atomic absorption spectrometry method to determine six metal elements … (sch). (simple past) in the methods section, one is also expected to describe the research site. this communicative purpose requires thesis writers to present the details of the study areas including physical location, the size, and other physical characteristics. to express this purpose, the simple present was used as indicated in examples 31 – 32: 32. mwea irrigation scheme is in kirinyaga district (asc) (simple present) 33. the locality of the study is the former kangema division (aht) (simple present) another communicative purpose of the methods section is to describe the sample and sampling procedures. this rhetorical function requires thesis writers to state their sample size and indicate the procedure(s) adopted in selecting it from the general population. the dominant tense for this purpose was the past simple as the following examples indicate: 34. i elicited a total of 46 clauses from the text representing the … (aen) (past simple) 35. six divisions provided the sample of root knot nematode infected cowpea plants. (sbt). (past simple 74 tense usage in dissertation researchers are also expected to describe the data collection procedures adopted in their studies in the methods section. one should describe the data collection instruments adopted in the study and how they were used to collect the data for the study. to signal this function, the simple past tense was used as examples 35 – 36 indicate: 36. the procedure involved the extraction of data comprising clauses in which three female characters … (aen). (simple past) 37. the ministry of water resources and development provided discharge data for five gauging stations. (sae). (simple past) lastly, the methods sections presents the procedures employed to analyse data collected. to signal this function, the simple past tense was used as illustrated in examples 37-38: 38. i used descriptive statistics to analyse the data obtained through the survey method. (asc). (simple past) 39. the interfaced computer analysed the raw data using chemtech 2000 software to print out absorbance and the respective concentrations … (sch). (simple past) another important rhetorical section of the dissertation is results and discussion. according to weissberg and buker (1990, p. 138), and nwogu (1997, p. 129) the section usually consists of three main information steps: element 1: a statement that locates the figure(s) where the results can be found element 2: statements that present the most important findings element 3: statements that comment on the results. tense usage in dissertation 75 in element 1, weissberg and buker (1990, p. 148) and swales (1990, p. 160) recommend the use of the present simple tense to locate data in a figure. this was confirmed in this study as examples 39-40 can attest. 40. this trend is illustrated in table 5.2. (sch). (present simple) 41. figure 4.1 shows the 32 sub-basins. (sae). (present simple) swales (1990, p. 161), nwogu (1997, p. 130), and weissberg and buker (1990, p. 149) recommend the past tense when reporting findings (element 2). because the experiments or investigations described in the text were completed before the dissertation was written, one would expect this rhetorical section to be written in the past tense. however, data in this study indicated that apart from the simple past tense, the simple present may also be employed to report findings as examples 41 – 42 indicate: 42. there was no significant difference between the means of cultivars kvu 419 and m66 and also the means of cultivars kvu 27-1 and k.80 (table 6). (sbt). (simple past) 43. of the 46 processes, 24 are material while the remaining 22 are mental … (aen). (simple present) when commenting on the findings (element 3), it is conventional to use the present tense (weissberg and buker 1990, p. 149; nwogu 1997, p. 130). it is in element 3 that the author points out if the results were expected or not, whether the results compare or contrast with theirs, and what important conclusions may be drawn from such comparisons. in other words, this is where the authors are expected to interpret their findings. the data in the present study indicated that in addition to the prescribed simple present tense, the simple past is used as evidenced in examples 43-44. 76 tense usage in dissertation 44. it was concluded from the sensitivity analysis exercise that the water holding capacity of the soils was the most sensitive parameter … (sae). (simple past) 45. this implies that akoko was not just asking for her toy back … (aen). (simple present) weisberg and buker (1990) advise that when the comment gives a possible explanation for the results, a modal auxiliary should be used. though modals do not form the scope of the present study, the following examples confirm weissberg and buker’s advice: 46. this could be due to confinement of the root knot nematode juveniles in the pots compared to … (sbt) (modal) 47. it should be mentioned here that once a husband was accorded more respect, he was perceived as … (aht) (modal) weissberg and buker (1990) also advise that when the comment generalises from the results, the modal auxiliary may should be used. this was generally noted in the study corpus although the copular verb seems was used for the same function in some cases as exemplified in texts 47 – 48 below: 48. the lack of significant effects of plant extracts …might have been due to not having reached an injurious threshold. (sbt). (modal) 49. the unit hydrograph used to determine the excess rainfall resulting to runoff in this case seems to have been developed based on high rainfall. (sae). (present simple) the last rhetorical section of the dissertation comprises of conclusions and recommendations. in this rhetorical section, the authors are expected to summarise the main findings and the major implications of the study, point out the limitations, and offer suggestions for future research. this section begins by referring to the main purpose or hypothesis of the study (weissberg and tense usage in dissertation 77 buker, 1990, p. 162; nwogu 1997, p. 131 and swales 1990; 2004). in this study corpus, the tense that signalled this function was predominantly the simple past. however, the present perfect tense as was not noted as a signal of this function in the corpora. consider examples 49 and 50: 50. this study evaluated the performance of a gis-based usgs streamflow model for flood simulation (sae). (simple past) 51. our analysis featured material and mental processes in which three female characters are involved (aen). (simple past) next, researchers are expected to present a review of the most important findings. in this communicative purpose, writers are expected to give a summary of the most important findings whether or not they support the original hypothesis or agree with the findings of other researchers. this study revealed that the simple past and the present perfect may be used as indicated in examples 51 – 52: 52. the ph of the content solution during boiling affected the extractability and solubilities of most leached heavy metals. (sch). (simple past) 53. our analysis has revealed that the transitivity choices made by the author in terms of participants, process and voice indeed reflect gender roles … (aen). (present perfect) another communicative purpose involves a discussion of the conclusions of the study. in this function, thesis writers are required to make broader, more general statements about the importance of the study as a whole. this study revealed that the present perfect, simple past and the simple present may be used to signal this purpose as illustrated below: 78 tense usage in dissertation 54. these results have been able to show that our indigenous pottery requires some finetuning in terms of the quality of raw material as well as … (sch). (present perfect, simple present) 55. the findings showed that croton megalocarpus roots and azadirachta indica leaves had high nematicidal properties. hence pesticide companies could use the two plants to manufacture nematicides … (sbt). (simple past) 56. the nominated women also indicate that the government has probably finally recognised the significance of women … (aht). (simple present) lastly, conclusions and recommendations section indicates practical applications and proposes areas for future research. this function requires researchers to indicate how the findings of their studies may be used to address existing challenges and areas related to their studies they would propose for further investigation. the simple present tense and modal auxiliaries/tentative verbs expressing future tense were employed as exemplified below: 57. this study recommends that clays from such sites be comprehensively studied on adsorption dynamics of metals before and after baking to … (sch). (simple present) 58. an analysis of transitivity choices in relation to male characters could be undertaken to test the validity of this assertion. (aen). (future tense) it can be deduced from the analysis presented here that the primary tenses (simple present, simple past, and future) and the secondary tense (present perfect) are critical in academic discourse. it can be noted that the simple present applies when information presented is generally accepted as scientific fact (weissberg and buker 1990, p. 41; nwogu 1997, p. 127). the choice of the simple past tense forms served the function of referring back to the research activity that was done earlier. the simple past describes the situation as complete at some point tense usage in dissertation 79 in the past. it conveys a sense of remoteness; that is, the situation is ‘done and over with’ (celce-murcia & larsen-freeman, 1999, p. 114). referring to the simple past as the preterite, reeves (2009, p. 99) echoes these words when he avers, ‘the preterite describes actions completed in the past with no implicit reference to the present (time of writing), and may also be accompanied in a sentence by explicit references to specific periods in the past.’ on the other hand, the present perfect describes what is known or has been done in the field on a similar or related topic up to the present moment (oster, 1981). the tense indicates that previous research is considered as part of a growing body of knowledge, subject to debate and further development. the present perfect tense is used to indicate the continued discussion of some of the information in the sentence in which the present perfect occurs. it contains an implicit reference or link to the present, often made explicit by the addition of more information to this effect, or reflects the effects of past events on the present, and even the future (reeves, 2009). it can also be added that the present perfect communicates ‘recency’ or ‘currency’ in academic discourse. where the simple future tense is used, further research possibilities are implied, indicating that research in a particular line of knowledge is progressing step by step, in a linear time sequence. the future tense is used if directions for additional research or scholarship are brought up. it also emerges that the distribution of tense presents a complex picture. in fact, there is not a one-to-one correspondence between tense and communicative function and/or rhetorical section of a dissertation although some commonalities can be detected along communities of practice (see also wenger 2004). this observation is also made in geldhill (2009) and white (2004). for a given function or rhetorical move, researchers must be prepared to alternate mainly the 80 tense usage in dissertation primary tenses of english. it is therefore significant that transition from one verb tense to another in different rhetorical sections is couched in terms of proximity to the author’s message or communicative purpose. swales and feak (1994, p. 184) put it as follows: the difference among…tenses are subtle. in general, a move from past to present perfect and the to present indicates that the research reported is increasingly close to the writer in some way: close to the writer’s own opinion, close to the writer’s own research, or close to the current state of knowledge. arising from swales and feak’s view, gledhill (2009) argues that tense usage is a result of mental computation, complete and invariable in its reference, irrespective of context. conclusions this paper has indicated that primary tenses are high frequency items in dissertation writing. it has also emerged that type and frequency to some extent varies according to the discipline and/or rhetorical section of the dissertation. in other cases, tense usage is not a straight jacket but a feature characterised by alternations in order to achieve various rhetorical purposes. secondly, given the correspondence between a given discipline and a particular verb tense as evidenced in this study, it can be concluded that tense usage is a socially constrained feature. the influence of a community of practice in which the writing takes place is evident. patterns of use do not exist in isolation but are part of the communicative routines of academic disciplines. this means that tense usage is apparently intimately connected to the different epistemological frameworks of the disciplines and the way they understand the world. thirdly, the various types of tense discussed above are purposeful in the dissertation genre. thus, cultivating the best tense usage will entail an understanding of the communicative purposes associated with each type and the relevant propositions where it occurs. also, given the tense usage in dissertation 81 disparities even within the same disciplinary culture, tense options are not only influenced by the conventions of a disciplinary culture in which the dissertation is being written, but also are creations of the writer. writers make personal choices deviating from any available disciplinary norms to probably meet their own rhetorical purposes. this could also be a pointer to students’ lack of expertise needed to alternate verb forms in order to fulfil the normative expectation in their disciplines. lastly, tense usage is highly versatile. several levels can be established that give the tense feature its character. for instance, at the disciplinary cultural level, there are a number of common practices regarding tense usage. narrowing the focus, a dissertation produced in a particular discipline reveals peculiar tense usage characteristics. this means that to understand the verb usage in dissertations, the various levels must be included in the picture. implications of the study writing an empirically based dissertation for the first time requires a clear understanding of verb tenses which are appropriate not only for each rhetorical section but the rhetorical purposes of the text. empirical evidence from this study shows that tense usage relates to the discipline, the rhetorical section and the communicative purposes. in order to raise the consciousness of those working on their dissertations, this paper proposes a genre-based approach. according to bitchener (2009), kwan (2006) and swales (2004), the genre approach provides an effective means of addressing the issues that students encounter as they approach the task up their theses or dissertations. to begin with, the categories of tense emerging in the present analysis can be used by supervisors and their supervisees to inform themselves of the options characteristic of their disciplinary culture and/or disciplines. in other words, they will be able to understand the choices one can draw from to most effectively express their intended meanings. 82 tense usage in dissertation in a follow-up activity, the supervisees could take partial or complete authentic texts from their own disciplines and identify the categories of the feature, occurrences in each rhetorical section, and communicative purposes. through this exercise, the supervisees will be able to determine the variation, in usage, of tense. for practice, learners may rewrite propositions in an article, term paper, or section of a dissertation from another discipline so that it reflects the style in their field of expertise. this exercise will raise the consciousness of the students to the tense types appropriate to their communities of practice. the study reported in this paper also has implications for further research. in terms of corpus size, what was examined in this study represents an infinitesimal portion of the whole. for instance, dissertations from the health sciences were not included in this study. at the same time, the six dissertations examined in this study are not enough to bring out typical patterns of verb tense in the disciplines studied. however, the scheme of analysis proposed in the present study can be extended to the investigation of a larger corpus and to test the quantitative results of the present study, perhaps using computer corpus-based methods where resources permit. secondly, the present analysis focused mainly on the primary tenses (simple present, simple past, and simple future) and a few secondary tenses (notably present perfect and present continuous). further research could focus on other features associated with the verb such as aspect, modality and voice and how these apply to academic writing. tense usage in dissertation 83 references ary, d., jacob, l. c., & rzavieh, a. 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(2004). citation analysis and discourse analysis revisited. applied linguistics. 25(4): 89-116. beyond words vol.3, no.2, november 2015  the author 2015. published by widya mandala catholic university press; all rights reserved. scaffolding in business english correspondence classes at college level eric sulindra w. eric.sulindra@yahoo.com widya mandala secretarial academy surabaya surabaya, indonesia language teaching and education have been so long influenced by developmental psychology, namely constructivism. this idea enlightens the world of language teaching. constructivism has received both praises and critics. communicative approach followers claim that the principles in constructivism support their thoughts while the followers of a more traditional approach, namely, grammar translation method, claim that the constructivism is just another experiment in language teaching, just like other methods. this article is based on a classroom action research investigation of how scaffolding instruction, the operational ‘terms’ of constructivism, based on its ‘zpd’ (zone of proximal development), play roles in language teaching, specifically in business english writing. the investigation has perceived several important aspects in scaffolding instruction for teaching business english correspondence, such as the importance of modeling or giving examples, as well as corrective and immediate feedback, together with positive reinforcement, to improve the learners’ performance. it showed that modeling or giving examples, peer reviewing, together with immediate feedback, brought significant influence on the learners’ perspective, about their learning performance. keywords: constructivism, scaffolding, zpd, business english writing introduction in the realm of language teaching, there has been time when language teachers and educators were searching for the best method and approach of language teaching. ranging from grammar translation, audio lingual, to communicative approach, each method and approach has its own advent-ages and drawbacks. now, some teachers and educators have realized that actually there is no such thing as the best teaching method although the rest are still struggling to seek for the best one. teaching relies a lot on some influential factors such as learners’ background, classroom constraint, and learning objectives [for a specific context] (liu, 2009, p.6). scaffolding instruction has been widely used in many areas of english language teaching using several alternatives teaching methods inside the instruction (dare & polias in hammond, 2001). in scaffolding instruction, methods of teaching are complementary to the existing learning variables such as learning objectives, learners’ background, classrooms and time constraint. the methods of teaching, as the metaphor of scaffolding implies, are only temporary support that will help the learners to develop new understandings, new concepts, and new abilities (hammond & gibbons in hammond, 2001). they could not permanently be regarded as being fixed in their impact to the learning situation in every setting and mailto:eric.sulindra@yahoo.com scaffolding in business english writing 161 context. scaffolding has to adapt the learning situation. therefore, it has no favorite methods in its application. however, one crucial principle in scaffolding is that it works in social-cultural context and in collaborative learning atmosphere, due to its nature and the nature of knowledge which is collaboratively constructed (wood, bruner, and ross, 1976 in hammond & gibbons, 2001, p.14-15) this study aims to investigate how scaffolding instruction in teaching business english writing assists students having problems in business english writing; during their learning activity, the students did a set of instruction which eventually led them perform the skill independently. the components of scaffolding instruction which impact the most to the learning are discussed in this article. scaffolding instruction scaffolding instruction is a set of teaching instruction showing how to use particular learning media according to principles of constructing knowledge independently and collaboratively in a particular social cultural environment (e.g. a classroom) during the process of learning. as other approaches derived from constructivism and are based on vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (vygotsky, 1978), scaffolding instruction perceives learning from social and cultural context which consequently puts language learning focus on communication, cognition, and meaning (lantolf & thorne, 2006) in naeni & duvall, 2012). the instruction follows a set of principle, which is described by mckenzie (1999). he recognizes eight characteristics of scaffolding as follows: 1. scaffolding provides clear directions, step-by-step instructions to explain how to meet the expectations for the learning activity 2. scaffolding directs learners to worthy sources 3. scaffolding keeps learners on task 4. scaffolding reduces uncertainty, surprise and disappointment 5. scaffolding clarifies purpose 6. scaffolding offers assignment to clarify expectations 7. scaffolding delivers efficiency 8. scaffolding creates momentum based on these characteristics, there are four basic principles of scaffolding instruction: 1. the instruction gives direction and goals of the learning activities. 2. the instruction involves list of assignment and rubrics. 3. the instruction opens opportunities for learners to develop their independency in working on the tasks. 4. the instruction is task-specific-oriented (meaning that the instruction differs in terms of working procedure from task to task). http://www.eurodl.org/materials/contrib/2004/barcena_read.html#r6 162 beyond words no matter what the learners’ background, how much time constraint is given in the curriculum, and what the learning objectives are, these principles apply. linking back to the earlier issue regarding teaching methods, teachers who use the scaffolding instruction may employ any suitable teaching methods in applying the principles. these principles keep the activities on track to achieve the fulfillment of the principles. however, how the teacher works on each principle, what method is being used, depends heavily on the teacher’s judgment about the suitable teaching method. each teaching method has a potential to bring learner through their current level of skill or understanding. experienced teachers will know which method works the best in a particular learning environment, context, setting, and background. scaffolding instruction lay its foundation on this concept of zone of proximal development (zpd). zpd is a mental state of ability or an area of learning in which a learner has potential ability to perform a task, an assignment, a duty, by assistance of more capable peers, tutors, or a set of instruction or guidance. when a learner does a task within their current ability, it means he or she is performing a task within his or her actual development zone. on the other extreme, when a learner is given a task which is too difficult for him or her to do, even with assistance, it means he or she is in a zone beyond his or her actual development. when a learner is given a task above his or her actual development with some assistance from more capable persons and supporting environment and able to finish the task, it means the learner is within his or her zone of proximal development. this zone is a zone where a learner is potentially able to finish a task above his or her actual level with some assistance. a learner will pass this zpd to the next level, where he or she can do the task independently (vygotsky, 1978). in teaching business english writing, the learners have the prior knowledge on general english writing, english grammar, vocabulary storage, and any of learners’ background knowledge on the particular types of business english writing being taught. starting from the current ability (anywhere it is) which is different from one leaner to another, a teacher can utilize scaffolding instruction to begin assisting the learners to reach the learning objectives. the learners’ zpd is their potential ability or their potential mental area where they can develop and improve further their skill and knowledge in business english writing with the assistance of more capable learners or instructor/teacher/ lecturer, in a social and cultural interaction (their peer or their instructor). in reaching the objectives, these teaching principles are based on scaffolding principle and zpd suggested by mercer (1994) in hammond (2001): 1. providing learners with any learning support, to help them move from initial acquisition of a concept/skill toward independent performance of the concept/skill (also referred to as "guided practice.") 2. giving the task/ assignment after frequently describing and modeling a particular concept/skill. 3. increasing the number of learning items and difficulty level of testing questions for students to demonstrate increasing level of comprehension and mastery. 4. giving direct and prompt feedback (by teachers and peers), both corrective and constructive feedback. the feedback may be followed by positive reinforcement scaffolding in business english writing 163 such as praises or positive comment. at some circumstances, it is also suggested to provide rewards for achieving a particular level of learning. 5. continuing the process until students indicate sufficient comprehension and mastery of concept/skill and perform increasing independency in doing the assignment. methods classroom action research was used in the investigation; this method involves several cycles of learning activities which is then evaluated (baumfield et all, 2008). the process in each cycle is as the following (farrell, 2007): 1. planning (the learning activity) 2. acting out (the learning activity) 3. observing (the result of the learning activity) 4. reflecting and re-planning (the next cycle of learning activity) the data collection was done in september 2014 to december 2014, by the following method: interviewing the students and colleagues, analyzing weekly students learning activity log and students weekly assignment. triangulation of the three data collection methods were applied to ensure the validity of the qualitative research findings in classroom action research, as suggested by burns (1995:8) in farrell (2007), as commonly used by second language education research. the cycles of action research were three cycles. each cycle takes four meeting (around a month). practically, the first cycle began in the first week of september 2014 and the last cycle ended in the second week of december 2014. there were two classes of business correspondence subject investigated in this study, namely the class of business correspondence iia and iib. the first class contained sixteen (16) students and the second one contains fifteen (15) students. both classes are in the same academic year and having averagely the same background of previous english language exposure in the institution. every teaching learning activity in one semester (12 meetings) was recorded in a field note, in three different classes of english business correspondence. each class employed a significant amount of business english writing in different setting of business context for every unit of learning activity. there were three unit of learning activity covered during the study, as the following list: 1. composing direct request letter (covered in four (4) meetings) 2. composing acknowledgement of direct request letter (covered in four (4) meetings) 3. composing direct request and its acknowledgement in a time (covered in four (4) meetings) each unit of learning activity was equal to one cycle in the classroom action research implemented in this study. to see the progress of each class (and each cycle), three sets of assignment for each learning activity (which is, each cycle) were given. 164 beyond words in the classroom, the following list of activities in every teaching setting was applied: 1. describing the background information of a particular type of business english writing (as written in the lesson plan), giving the writing composition examples from authentic context/ real life business setting as a model for the students. (the description and the composition model are to scaffold the students’ comprehension towards a particular type of business english writing) 2. analyzing the model to find the specific features/ patterns/ special key terms or a particular type of business english writing. to scaffold this activity, the teacher may provide the students with a set of target (what to find during the activity) or a list of guiding questions as the scaffolding) 3. allow students to check their friends’ work following a given guidance previously prepared by the teacher, applying peer reviewing. the teacher provides a specific ‘rubric’ for the activity. 4. giving specific feedback and positive reinforcement to each student’s response. (feedback and positive reinforcement are other types of scaffolding). 5. when students answer incorrectly, praising the student for his/her attempt while also describing and modeling the correct response. when students answer correctly, giving positive reinforcement by specifically stating what they have done correctly. 6. when students perform improved competence, prompting students to begin writing by drafting, revising and completing the composition. 7. when the teachers are confident their students understand the features/ patterns/ special key terms of a particular type of business english writing, inviting them to actively write and develop the patterns. the above activities were applied in all the classes taught using the scaffolding instruction. data are collected from sources of data such as the learning log activity as well as the students’ work (assignment, exercises). some interviews to the students were conducted after they experienced the teaching using scaffolding instruction for several times. data analysis and findings then, the summary of the students learning activity log and interview also expressed some important features of scaffolding instruction which improved and assisted the students’ learning. furthermore, from the summary of the learning activity log and interview to the students, it is obvious that all the scaffolding involved in the instruction were giving positive influence and helping students on their assignment and learning. it is worth noted that out of the four types of scaffolding, there were two scaffoldings which impacted directly to the material aspect of the learning, namely grammar, sentence pattern, message structure, common vocabulary and expressions used as well as a template of a particular type of business letter. the two scaffoldings were modeling/giving authentic examples and peer reviewing (confirmed later by the teacher’s/instructor’s reviewing). scaffolding in business english writing 165 166 beyond words table 3. summary of the students learning activity log and interview no types of scaffolding students’ perception towards the scaffolding given lecturer’s observation 1 modeling/ giving examples all the interviewed students agreed that giving examples or providing models of a particular business letter helps them write similar type of letter. they felt that authentic model gave them a kind of template for writing a similar type of letter. students seemed to understand more when teaching involves authentic examples or model, especially regarding the common expressions, common pattern (message structure of a letter), and common vocabulary used. 2 peer reviewing all the interviewed students liked the opportunity to check their friend’s work; however, all of them felt a little doubt when checking some aspects in the assignment such as grammar and sentence patterns; they felt confidence enough to check the message structure students could be trusted to check their peers’ work up to certain points such as message structure of a letter, appropriate expressions or common vocabulary used; they still needed some help in checking grammar and sentence structure. 3 immediate and corrective lecturer/teacher’s feedback almost all interviewed students felt that teacher’s remark or feedback towards their work were beneficial for giving them the ‘official’ and trustable information. only two said that correction from the lecturers could reduce their confidence in working on the next assignment. immediate and corrective feedback seemed to give students a ‘pathway’ or ‘track’ in working on the next assignment. they served as ‘signboards’ in their road of getting to the right direction. 4 praises or positive reinforcement all interviewed students agreed that praises and positive reinforcement gave a positive mental induction and influence them to achieve higher. the lecturers felt that both the lecturer and the students were given a positive mental influence when praises or positive reinforcement given to the students. the finding about the impact of modeling is in line with a curriculum model in language teaching suggested by hammond and gibbons in hammond (2001, p. 54). they propose a scaffolding curriculum model as the following order: 1. building the field 2. modeling 3. joint construction 4. independent construction referring to this model, giving an authentic example of a type of business letter creates a context, or ‘building the field’, then give the learners a clear ‘model’ from the real world. these two activities mean creating a learning foundation for the learners then to collaborate with the instructor (joint construction) and eventually lead to an independent problem solving activity (independent construction). scaffolding in business english writing 167 more notes on the authentic examples describe that authentic examples supply. 1. context 2. common features 3. common used vocabularies 4. common patterns and expressions 5. message structure and grammatical structure 6. knowledge of template and format the above six points are the necessary components of english business writing as also needed by other form of second language writing (kim, 2012). clearly the authentic examples provided a sort of ‘self guidance checklist’ for notifying which to include and which not to include during the process of writing. learners saw the common patterns happening in the authentic examples and they began to draw conclusions, made summary, and eventually formulated the six components of english business writing by themselves. as business letter writing is one genre in english language writing skill, learning grammar and vocabulary only is less than sufficient to achieve its mastery. tabatabaei & farnia (2015), in line with jacobs (2015) argues that successful communication, including written communication, in second language, requires the knowledge and understanding of the language’s pragmatic and socio cultural norms. authentic written example of a particular writing genre serves this purpose the best, as mentioned by lin (2006). authentic written examples are also the best modeling in scaffolding instruction which introduces learners to a specific genre of writing with all its aspects and socio cultural context (hammond, 2001, p. 40). regarding peer reviewing and instructor’s reviewing, the finding is fundamentally confirmed by vygotsky (1978 as quoted by naeni & duval, 2012) arguing that learning engages with the social interaction and requires external form of assistance. peer reviewing in fact has been previously known as a powerful tool to exercise the learners’ cognitive concept on a new knowledge and apply their skills in the newly learned skill area (barnard, 2002). when the learners of business correspondence writing learn a new type or genre of business writing, they will have an opportunity to exercise what they just learned and apply the new skill that they just mastered a moment ago in their learning process. the ‘exercises’ would lead the learners to a ‘higher form of consciousness’ (vygotsky, 1978). moreover, the learner’s current level of ability will have more opportunity to reach the potential level of ability (zpd) because they are affected by what other people (peers and teachers) are thinking (jacobs, 2015). discussion after applying the scaffolding instruction, at least three important points impacting the learning activities of business english writing were discovered: scaffolding provides the necessary learning support. support such as necessary expressions relevant to the specific context, authentic examples of a particular business writing type, teacher’s and peer’s feedback to students having learning problems, these students dared to take the risks of initially learning a new type of a particular business writing skill. the availability of the learning support gave students a kind of confidence in their learning. their feeling of security increased, empowered them to explore new area of 168 beyond words knowledge and skills, which at the end, brought them to cross over their zpd. as having been mentioned on the zpd concept earlier, each learner has a potential to reach beyond their actual or seen ability. if the learner’s confidence improves, so will their ability be. however, it is important to remember that when going through this inductive reasoning process, the learners might several times end up in a set of conclusion different from what has been expected by the teacher. if this happens, the teachers should use the scaffolding instruction principle of giving constructive feedback to help the learners fulfill the expected results. scaffolding provides effective pathway. scaffolding instruction provides an effective pathway for students to step by step but thoroughly (from the knowledge/ skills they already knew and mastered to the new knowledge and skills) learn a new business english writing skill, rather than expecting students to automatically transfer what they see from what the teacher do to doing it by themselves. students need a ‘working model’ or a ‘scheme’ to give them a picture of how to create the piece of writing. scaffolding provides analytical thinking and feedback. by providing the opportunity to the student to analyze common features and patterns of a particular type of letter, giving corrective feedback, focuses on particular parts of the concept/skill, students are expected to do all the tasks more independently from time to time. the opportunity to analyze a same type of work which they were also assigned to will sharpen their analytical thinking; this sharpening analytical skill, from time to time, will give them confidence in the field and later ‘train’ them to be more independent. students improve more their confidence in understanding and mastering the concept, lessons or skills taught and are more successful during independent exercises because they more thoroughly understand the concept/skill due to the scaffolding process. conclusion and suggestion scaffolding and zpd have been quoted and used to describe the principle of assisting learners to reach their potential ability, including in language learning. many successful reports have been told, as well as some unsuccessful stories. no matter how the result of the application of scaffolding is, it has been undoubtedly acknowledged as one of the most powerful ‘tools’ in teaching many skills and knowledge in various fields. the most significant thing to do as the continuation of research in the area of scaffolding is to keep working on finding out how scaffolding may be at help in many more specific teaching context. almost none give negative reports on the effect of the approach (if it cannot be called as a ‘method’). however, still many teachers and educators who claimed to apply the scaffolding instruction do not really understand the proper mechanism of its application. with improper ways of acting it out, less effective result would be attained. there are at least three things that teachers and educators can do to improve the effectiveness of using scaffolding instruction: 1. keep practicing using scaffolding instruction in any possible teaching opportunity and context. 2. keeping evidence or record of how scaffolding has given impact in teaching. teachers can write any positive things appearing when scaffolding is used, or any doubting evidence when scaffolding is applied. a later careful research upon these evidences will bring more evaluation on how to properly use the ‘approach’. scaffolding in business english writing 169 3. keep improving and experimenting any effective alternatives in using scaffolding for teaching and learning language. references barnard, roger. (2002). can creativity be scaffolded? peer learning in a university process writing class. retrieved from www.britishcouncil.org2. on 12 july 2009 baumfield, vivienne., hall, elaine., and hall, kate. (2008) action research in the classroom. london: sage publications. dare, brian & polias, john. (2001) learning about language: scaffolding in esl classrooms. in hammond, jennifer, (ed.). scaffolding: teaching and learning in language literacy education. new south wales: primary english teaching association farrel, thomas. s.c. “action research in reflective language teaching: from research to practice.” 2007 hammond, jennifer & gibbons, pauline. (2001). what is scaffolding. in hammond, jennifer, (ed.). scaffolding: teaching and learning in language literacy education. new south wales: primary english teaching association hemphill, phyllis davis and mccormick, donald w. (2001). business communication with writing improvement exercises. new jersey, upper saddle river, prentice hall inc. http://www.reflectiveinquiry.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/action-research-chapter-farrell.pdf (retrieved on 30 june 2015: 9:16 a.m.) jacobs, george m. (2015). collaborative learning or cooperative learning? the name is not important; flexibility is. in beyond words vol.3, no.1, may 2015. widya mandala catholic university. surabaya, indonesia kim, e julia. (2012). providing a sounding board for second language writers. in features articles from tesol journal volume 3 issue 1 march 2012 (p.33-47). retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/tesj.2/2015/4/19: 00:35:24 lin, benedict. (2006). genre-based teaching and vygotskian principles in efl: the case of a university writing course. asian esl journal. september 2006 lui, angela. “white paper: teaching in the zone: an introduction to working within the zone of proximal development”. children progress, 2012 mckenzie, j. “scaffolding for success”. from now on: the educational technology journal. 1999, 9(4). naeni, jila and duvall, emily. (2012). dynamic assessment and the impact on english language learners’ reading comprehension performance. language testing in asia. volume 2 issue 2 may 2012 : www.languagetestinginasia.com (retrieved on 30june 2015 8:48 a.m.) sharpe, tina. (2001). scaffolding in action: snapshot from the classroom. in jennifer hammond (ed.) scaffolding, teaching and learning in language and literacy education. newtown, australia: primary english teaching association tabatabaei, soudabeh and farnia, maryam. (2015). learner’s english proficiency and their pragmatic competence of refusal speech acts. in beyond words vol.3, no.1, may 2015. widya mandala catholic university. surabaya, indonesia vygotsky, lev. “mind in society: the development of higher psychological process”. cambridge university press; london: england, 1978 http://www.britishcouncil.org2/ http://www.reflectiveinquiry.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/action-research-chapter-farrell.pdf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/tesj.2/2015/4/19 http://www.languagetestinginasia.com/ integrating service-learning in the indonesian efl class integrating service learning into efl class 1 beyond words vol.4. no. 1. may 2016 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia integrating service-learning into the english as a foreign language class josefa j. mardijono petra christian university surabaya, indonesia josefamardijono449@gmail.com this paper is based on an explorative action research to find out how to integrate service-learning into the written english iv class of the english department and its possible impacts. it reveals the step by step procedure in implementing the service-learning, the activities carried out, and the challenges faced. the impacts viewed from the students’ sharing, the lecturer’s observation, and particularly the students’ written reflection, indicated that participating in the service-learning brought some positive impacts on the students. service-learning is, thus, worth-considering in different contexts of efl settings. key words: service-learning, written english, efl class introduction there has been an increasing awareness on the need for the integration of soft skills or character building into the classroom practice, despite the assumption that “campus emphasizes more on teaching than education” as expressed by the indonesian former head of supreme constitution, mahfud md, that it has been incapable of implementing morality, integrity, and credibility.” (surya, march 14, 2014, p. 24). seminars, workshops, and training are executed to help develop students not only intellectually, but also mentally, spiritually and ethically. these, however, cannot be expected to yield optimal results without the attempt to lead students to experience by themselves, which is in line with experiential learning, through which students get involved in “direct encounter with the phenomena being studied rather than merely thinking about the encounter or only considering the possibility of doing something with it” (keeton and tate cited in brown, 2001). if the students are supposed to be caring, as part of the motto of petra christian university, for example, they should get in context directly with the people they want to care for, and really do something for their benefit, which in turn will benefit the participants. in this way, education attends to the development of whole human beings. one alternative to educate students as whole human beings is engaging students in community service that students are directly involved in serving others, particularly those who are in need of help that they have a chance to get along with people from different backgrounds as a group to work together to solve problems in achieving their goals. in this way students also learn to develop their interpersonal skills in getting along with their peers and in empathizing with those they serve. this kind of community service is especially fruitful when it is integrated in the syllabus design for the course work they are 2 integrating service learning into efl class taking, as service-learning integrated in the syllabus of the subject. this view has been shared by “educators around the world citing various reasons for developing and supporting programs of service-learning (berry and chrisholm, 1999, p.9). in addition, service work is considered “not only advantage the community but also its participants” (hart, matsuba and atkins in nucci and narvaez, 2008, p. 484). this paper is based on an explorative action research to find out how to integrate community service into the syllabus of written english 4 of the english department as a service-learning, and to reveal the possible impacts on the participants. it reveals the step by step pocedure, from the planning to the implimentation, the challenges, the solutions, and the evaluation viewed from my observation and the students’ sharing and written reflection, focusing on what the students have learned by participating in the service learning. service-learning is not a simple term to define. furco (2003), even “claimed that there are over 200 different definitions of servicelearning in use” (cited in hart, matsuba and atkins, p. 486 in nucci and narvaez, eds, 2008). however, it would be agreed that “service-learning involves both service to the community and learning tied to academic curriculum” (billig and waterman, eds., viii, 2008), which is in line with berry and chisholm’s (1992, p.2) explanation referring to service learning as “the practice of joining formal education with volunteer community service”. this means in teaching a subject with service-learning, community service and learning is integrated in the basic course outline. in the english department, for students who have considerable experience and mastery in learning english as a foreign language, one possible service that they can do is to provide service in learning english for the basic level. the theoretical root of service-learning can be traced to john dewey’s “progressive education” that “service can and should be introduced in the course of education as a means of instruction”, although the term service-learning was not exactly stated by dewey. (rocheleau, 2004, p. 4 in speck and hoppe, eds). he argued that “knowledge is always an attempt to respond to one’s situation in the world; it is a tool for getting around in the world” (dewey, 1957, 1960 cited in rocheleau, 2004, p. 4 in speck and hoppe, eds). dewey’s famous arguement (1963) was that education was “for, by and for experience”, which suggests that “students’ capacity to understand their world should be increased, that students learn by experience and that students should be prepared to deal with their future situations” (cited in rocheleau, 2004, p. 4 in speck and hoppe, eds). this is closely related to experiential learning, developed from “the experiential works of dewey, lewin and piaget”, that emphasizes “the central role that experience plays in the learning process” (knolb, boyatzis and mainemelis, 1999, p 2). in the same way service-learning provides the participants the experience to interact with the community while serving the people involved, which in turn, benefits them in some ways. hart, matsuba and atkins in their article on the moral and civic effects of learning to serve (in nucci and narvaez, eds., 2008, p.484) particularly put forth some empirical research findings on service-learning “related to moral and civic and behaviors” with “the integrating service learning into efl class 3 consensus” that “community service supports moral and character development”. it was further pointed out the “effectiveness of service-learning” was found in “reduction of negative behaviors”, “impacts on moral development”, and civic engagement” (hart, matsuba and atkins in nucci and narvaez, eds., 2008, pp.487-489). service-learning consists of several stages; some like billig and waterman suggest four stages: planning, action, reflection, and celebration (2008, p. viii), others follow five stages including “investigation before planning/preparation, action, reflection, (abbreviated, iparde) followed by demonstration” (fisher, online institute). whereas, the iparde process in generation on adds one more stage, evaluation stage after the demonstration stage. every stage is carried out under the guidance of the teacher, or in cooperation with the lecturer for the higher education students. investigation is needed to “explore the community by asking questions, interviewing, collecting data, and identify a need”. in the planning/preparation stage the students cooperate to “analyze the underlying problem and develop a plan for implementation”. in the action stage, the students “take action through direct service” following the planning, “using previously learned and newly acquired academic skills and knowledge”. in the meantime, the students are supposed to “reflect before, during and after the service experience” to “think deeply” and “discuss thoughts and feelings” and “consider project improvement”, to “receive feedback” and “evaluate the service learning process.” finally upon the completion of the program, demonstration is to demonstrate “skills used and learned during service experience”. this is the time for the participants to show what they have learned and also the chance for the students to see what they have contributed in the service, which can be considered a time for “celebation” (billig and waterman, 2008, p. viii) for both sides, while the evaluation stage as suggested in iparde process from generationon is to “assess student learning and the service learning as a whole to identify successes and areas for improvement” methods doing an action research or “teacher research” (root in billig and waterman, 2008, p. 155) concerning the integration of service learning into the academic syllabus involves both cyclical phases of action research– planning, action, observation, reflection (kemmis and mctaggart in burns, 2010, p.8) and six stages of service learning – investigation, planning, action, reflection, demonstration, evaluation (generation one) – as well as synchronizing the both processes. it started with the investigation stage to identify the community need possible to be the service focus, which was proceeded to the planning stage in service-learning and planning phase in action research. with the design of service agreed upon, the students implemented the action to serve, which was paralel to the action phase. the reflection stage was to evaluate the service learning process which led to some modification in the activities for improvement. meanwhile, as the 4 integrating service learning into efl class classroom lecturere and researcher, i observed the implementation of the planning, the action and demonstration stage, as well as the students’ reflection shared in the meetings. upon the completion of the service, the students were led to evaluate their whole service learning, in the evaluation stage, in their written reflection. the written reflection was analyzed, the result of which served as the input for the reflection phase of the action research for further improvement for the next phase or future research. the subjects the subjects were students of the written english 4 of the english department, who had obtained a onsiderable mastery of the english reading and writing skills. the servicelearning was offered as an optional actvity for the students to get involved in serving primary school children who usually visited two of the four community reading centers (taman bacaan masyarakat) in the vicinity of the campus. out of the fifteen students, there were five who volunteered to participate. the meetings with the group was thus held after the class meeting. procedure it started from my reflection in teaching in the english department, how to integrate service-learning in my subject of written english 4 to help build the students’ sense of caring and concern towards the community as suggested by the motto of the university as “a caring university”. this was the starting point of the six stages of service-learning, which set me off for the investigation stage and prepared for the first phase of action research: planning. the existing state of the community reading centers in the vicinity of the university caught my attention. there were four community reading centers in the vicinity of the campus with considerable facilities and reading materials; however, these reading centers had not been fully utilized as they were meant to be, which is “to cultivate reading interest in the community” as stated in the website (www.facebook.com/ pages/taman-bacaan-siwalankerto). children visiting the centers after school, as had been observed, were engaged in activities other than reading the books available there. it means that the community reading centers had not functioned properly in accordance to the purpose of their establishment. there was, thus, the need to draw attention to the reading centers and promote their function as reading centers. since service-learning was not a compulsary program, it was offerred in the first meeting of my written english 4 class as an optional enriching program, which resulted in five students, out of fifteen students, who willingly registered themselves. with this group of student voluteers, the following steps was carried out. planning. the planning included the following steps: raising the students’ social awareness, introducing service-learning, exploring what to do, finding out the target group, visiting and observing the target site, gathering information, and designing the kind of activities to serve the children. the essential step to prepare the students for a service-learning is to raise the students’ social awareness and to introduce servicelearning with its essential elements to be followed. they were led to see there were people outside the campus and outside their homes who were in need of help. as students of the english department, who had got three http://www.facebook.com/ integrating service learning into efl class 5 semesters’ training in reading and writing in english, they could help increase reading motivation and improve skills in reading. by way of questioning, they were led to see what they could share and whom they could serve. given the information that there were four community reading centers in the vicinity of the campus where they were studying, they were engaged in the discussion about the existing state of the reading centers and what they could do to help. through the discussion, it was agreed to choose two reading centers and specifically the primary school children visitors as the target for the students’ service the second step was for the students to visit the reading centers and approach the officers in charge to find out the facility and the children books available in the reading center and the activities the children usually did there. this was followed by the setting of the goals and the activities to be implemented. the goals agreed upon were to motivate reading interest and to introduce some basic english through various kinds of activities for the children: listening to story telling, learning english words, coloring pictures with english wods, games, to be given in ten meetings. the students were divided into two groups, each serving one community reading center, with the first group having three students and the second group two. with this kind of preparation, they were ready to set off for their service action. action. the meetings with the children at each center were carried out on friday, at 12:30 pm – 01:30 pm. following their plans, they carried out the activities in each meeting, starting from introduction to get to know one another, introducing names of things in english, animals in english, reading indonesian poems and indonesian folk tales. even though there were plans to follow in each meeting, the students usually met to evaluate what they had done and discuss what to do in the following meeting. for example, they added some basic understanding how to live healthily when they felt it was needed. they also had to prepare the material before each meeting, particularly they had to make sure that they gave a proper model to the children in terms of pronunciation particularly. each group had a favorable experience in their first experience; however, subsequently they had to face challenges due to the lack of responses, inactive participation, and problem students who liked to tease those who really wanted to learn. they tried to find ways to overcome the problems by varying the activities, giving incentives to attract the children to learn. students shared their experience and discussed to solve the challenges and to bring more children coming to the reading centers. the challenges gave rise to the idea to hold an indonesian folklore reading contest to attract the children’s interest in indonesian folklore and to promote the community reading centers, which had not been utilized optimally. instead of continuing with the original plan, after the fifth meeting, it was agreed to hold a folk tale reading contest. this activity involved the students acting as the committee besides tutoring the participants. they helped to organize the reading contest, one helped the registration, another one 6 integrating service learning into efl class became the host of the contest, and another was responsible in documenting the contest and designing certificates for the participants, another coordinated the children, and the fifth one teamed up with me and another lecturer as a judge. this folktale reading contest was opened to all children in the vicinity besides the visitors to the four community reading centers to draw more attention to the reading centers. it proved to work well and attracted quite a lot of children to the center to get some coaching how to read aloud. held in cooperation with one of the community reading centers, the reading contest was also supported by the archives and library of surabaya city government, providing trophies for the winners. reflection. the students kept their journal writing as a reflection on their performance in serving the children. it consisted of the weekly reflection and the overall reflection written after the completion of the whole program. they wrote about their experience in the meetings, the activities they had with the children, the favorable as well as the unfavorable experience. they enjoyed the fun activities and were pleased when they were given positive responses, and were, thus encouraged to move on. on the other hand, there were times when they had to face challenges, when the children were difficult to manage, when they showed sign of boredom, and when there were few children coming, and when they had to cancel the meeting because the reading center was not open, due to the absence of the person in charge. reflecting on these problems, they tried to find ways to vary the activities, to attract the children to come to the meeting. despite all the challenges, they also wrote what they personally had learned and gained from serving the children. demonstration/celebration. the contest as the closing was a kind of demonstration/ celebration together, where the children took part in the contest showed what they had learned in the meetings. this contest was opened not only for those who participated in the meetings held at two of the four communities found in the district of the campus, but also those visitors to the two others including those who had never visited the reading centers. there were 63 children participating in the contest. one of the reading centers became the coordinator for registration and provided the site for the contest and helped coordinating the program on the d-day. this activity, which also attracted the parents accompanying their children in the contest, was also attended by the representative from the archives and library of surabaya city government. the contest location was crowded with children and their parents. although it started late and the contest lasted more than six hours, they were patient waiting for the turn to come up stage, and for the announcement of the winners. at the end of the program, the students were tired but excited that the contest was accomplished; particularly one of the participants that they coached became the second winner. evaluation. the evaluation of the whole program of service learning was based on the students’ sharing and the written reflection in relation to the goals of the service to enhance the children’s reading interest and promote the community reading centers. the original plan to carry out ten meetings could not be integrating service learning into efl class 7 fulfilled under the circumstances that it was modified to an indonesian folktale reading contest after the fifth meeting. in general, however, the service-learning was directed to reach the goals, to enhance the children’s reading interest, promoting the community reading centers. in addition, the indonesian folktale reading contest also promoted indonesian folklore in the community. by having the chance to serve the children in the community centers, they showed their wholehearted effort in helping the children, not only related to their reading motivation and ability but also related to their health and good manners. they were taught to “keep their environment clean” and to have good manners “how to talk to old people”, and “how to share and respect others”. they learned a new lesson in building relationship with the children from different backgrounds that they might not have known before. they learned “to be patient”, “to control their emotion” in “managing the children”, to “vary their activities to stimulate the children’s interest”. they also learned that some improvements could have been done to make the reading contest run more smoothly. they needed to have “a better time management”. carrying out a reading contest needed a longer preparation. despite the challenges and limitations, they were proud to have participated in the service-learning as written in their reflection: “i don’t feel regret to teach them eventhough it cut off my free time. they are unique children, funny and smart, they want to learn and learn. i am so proud to teach them in service-learning” “i was happy because i ever became a part of them to teach and play together with those children” “i was so grateful because i have ability and passion to share what i have to others” “this service-learning should be continued and followed by the other students in petra christian university” the interaction with the children also gave them a chance to look at their own lives and be more thankful for what they had as expressed in the reflection: “i also got some knowledge to be thankful to god about my life that i have now, because so many people do not get a better life or a good life” reflection. the reflection was based on my observation of the whole process, the students’ sharing and their written reflection analyzed in relation to the objectives of integrating service-learning to promote students’ sense of caring towards the community specifically focusing on the community reading centers. these resulted in the following conclusions related to the impacts of service learning: 1. the students participating in the service-learning had the first hand experience in serving others. internally, there developed a kind of care and compassion towards the children they served by attending to their health and manners besides teaching them to read. 2. by accomplishing the service learning, the students had a sense of achiecement, which made them proud, which might enhance their self esteem. 3. by interacting with children coming from a backgroud different from 8 integrating service learning into efl class the students’, they learned to be more thankful for their own lives. 4. externally, they learned to face challenges, to overcome difficulties and to solve the problem together as a team and with their lecturer. 5. they also learned to adapt themselves with the environment as well as to cooperate with their team member and accept differences. when they felt that their original plan was not going smoothly they were willing to modify and carried out the folk-reading contest as suggested. 6. they learned to socialize with other people from different background and different age groups in the community reading centers, with the people in charge, with the parents accompanying their children and with the children who were sometimes noisy and not easy to control. 7. they managed to build a good cooperation with the people in the community reading centers that they expressed looking forward to the forth coming activity held in cooperation with them. anticipating the problems that might arise due to the low interest and attendance of the participants, the service-learning could have been better planned. some kind of interesting closing event, such as a contest by the end of the program, could have been promoted since the beginning of the meeting. these also serve as inputs to be considered for further implementation of service learning in the academic setting. conclusions and suggestions stimulated by the recent comment on the classroom practice and in line with the “caring” motto of the university, a servicelearning to enhance character building was integrated in the course work of written english 4. the process of service-learning was synchronized with the phases of action research to reveal the implementation of service-learning, and the impacts on the students. despite the shortcomings, this first-hand experience for the students to participate in a service-learning has been a rewarding experience for further development. the service-learning benefited the students participating in the program. they learned to be caring towards the children and the reading centers. they learned to handle the children to make their activity interesting to attract them, which was a good practice for those who wanted to build their career in teaching children. they learned to work in team work, to face people from different backgrounds, which made them view their own lives more positively. it also brought some positive impacts on the community reading centers, drawing attention of the children and their parents in the community. the service-learning also created a good cooperation between the english department and the community reading centers, smoothing the way to further service-learning in the community. as the reflection on the service-learning revealed, service-learning is worthconsidering in other efl settings. with better preparation, it might yield more positive impacts on the community particularly on the integrating service learning into efl class 9 student participants. it would be better if the whole class students are involved in serving the community. it is an alternative possibility to make service-learning compulsory for every student, as it was later implemented in the university. references berry, h., & chrisholm, l. a. (1999). service-learning in higher education around the world: an initial look. new york: the international partnership for service-learning billig, s. h., & warweman, a. s. (2008). studying service-learning: innovations in education research methodology. new york: rotledge. brown. (2001). teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy (2nd. ed.). new york: addison wesley longman. burns, a. (2010). doing action research in english language teaching: a guide for practicioners. new york: routledge. fisher, m. m. (n.d.). the five stages of service learning. retrieved june 17, 2014, from learning to give: http://learningtogive.net/lessons/institute /service_learning/page2.asp kolb, d. a., boyatzis, r. e., & mainemelis, c. (1999, august 31). experiential learning theory: previous research and new directions. retrieved from http://learningfromexperience.com/medi a/2010/08/experiential-learningtheory.pdf nucci, l. p., & narvaez, d. (2008). handbook of moral and character education. new york: routledge. (2004). service-learning: history, theory, and issues. in b. w. speck, & s. l. hoppe (eds.). westport, ct: praeger. stages of service-learning. (n.d.). retrieved june 17, 2014, from generationon: www.generationon.org/educators/lessons -resources/iparde 14 running head: reflection and teacher education beyond words vol.3, no.1, may 2015 widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia reflection as the homebase of teacher education andrias tri susanto susanto.andrias.tri@gmail.com graduate school widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia reflection and teacher education 15 abstract reflection is widely accepted as a process to support, or even underlie, teacher education. however, the concept holds several confusions among education experts and practitioners. this article would then attempt to explain some confusing terms by reviewing relevant literature on this issue and to provide discussions on the benefits and challenges of reflection manifested in various options of reflective practicum. keywords: reflection, teacher education, reflective practicum 16 reflection and teacher education reflection as the homebase of teacher education in theory, dewey’s seminal work is considered as the cornerstone in attempt to grapple with the term reflection (see in farrell, 2007 & 2008; hatton & smith, 1995; korthagen, 2001). reflection is introduced as the process in which “teachers become active, persistent, and carefully consider any belief in teaching” (dewey, 1904, in korthagen, 2001, p. 54). reflection is supposed to promote student-teachers to become (more) aware of and engaged in teaching. dewey (1933, in farrell, 2008a, p. 1) further suggests “three important attributes to be reflective individuals: open-mindedness, responsibility, and wholeheartedness”. in this regard, reflection supposedly gives a way to student teachers to critically analyse problems and find the solutions by questioning what has so far been completed as the basis of the investigation and what possible ways to improve the teaching performance coupled with the eagerness of the student-teachers to be open-minded, responsible and wholehearted in completing the process. reflection is conceptually a manifestation of student teacher’s efforts in solving practical teaching problems raised. schön (1987, p. 114) takes the concept further that “the ladder of reflection covers the chain of questioning, answering, advising, listening, demonstrating, observing, imitating, and criticizing while one can trigger or build on another”. this is consistent with dewey’s statement (1904, in korthagen, 2001, p. 54) that “reflection involves a con-sequence – a consecutive ordering – in such a way that each idea determines the next as the proper outcome while each outcome leans back on its predecessors”. practically, schön (1987) develops the term by introducing two types of reflection, namely reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action (p. 26), and proposes the concept of reflective practicum (p. 157) with regard to achieving professional artistry (p. 22). reflection and teacher education 17 reflection-in-action schön (1987) remarks that reflection-in-action takes place when “we can execute smooth sequences of activity, recognition, decision, and adjustment without having to think about it” (p. 26) although it closely “hinges on the experience of surprise and focuses interactively on the outcomes of action, the action itself, and the intuitive knowing implicit in the action” (p. 56). it is completed “by consciously describing the present situation in the light of a tacit reference to the other” (p. 67). additionally, dadds (1997, in field et al., 1997: 9) states that reflection-in-action may happen when “teachers try to apply their new professional knowledge to an immediate and urgent practical problem”. in other words, reflection-in-action requires the student-teachers to tacitly overcome any (un)predictable surprises based on the reflection of previous experiences. also, it can be understood that the experiences learned may be from personal, other colleagues’ and/or teacher educators’ experiences from available sources of information such as observation, literature reading, collegial sharing, or else. similarly, the concept of reflection-in-action can also be illustrated from the work of argyris and schön (1975, in harrison & lee, 2011, p. 204) of double loop learning which represents teacher’s ability to “question ways of working and underlie values of perceptions that might drive the particular action during the incident”. in other words, the main focus here is the value of perception expected to be immediately changing and developing in search of professional standard that one has. this happens dialectically; meaning that it is uniquely different in every person and based on one’s own experiences without any limitation whether the source of the experiences is personal or from others. this concept of reflection-in-action is comparable with ur’s (1991, p. 319) personal reflection which is referred to be “quite spontaneous and informal, and happens without any 18 reflection and teacher education conscious intention”. both are similar, but not the same, one another as they require studentteachers to be unconsciously and instantaneously able to overcome surprises or problems that happen in the classrooms but one significant difference is that schön’s reflection-in-action does not limit the source of experience at the personal level only while ur’s limits it at the personal level only. interestingly, the concept of reflection-in-action, double loop learning, and personal reflection are linked in a way that professional development can be achieved through spontaneously employing a mental process and applying it through learning the available experiences. however the difference fundamentally lies on the source of experiences that the student-teachers may draw upon since reflection-in-action does not limit the sources of experience while personal reflection and double loop learning employ personal experience as the only source. reflection-on-action reflection-on-action refers to the “thinking back on what we have done in attempt to discover how our knowing-in-action may contribute to an unexpected outcome” (schön, 1987, p. 26). it is “the result of the previous reflections that can make new sense of the situations of uncertainty or uniqueness” (schön, 1983, p. 62). it can be understood that reflection-on-action sources are all sorts of experiences from any sources including a collection of reflection-inactions. in essence, hatton and smith (1995, p. 34) states that the similarities between reflection in-action and on-action are that the “two forms of reflection involve demanding rational and moral processes in making reasoned judgements about preferable ways to act”. however, they are different in the time frames since “reflection-on-action can be referred to the reflection after reflection and teacher education 19 an action” (jonas-dwyer et. al., 2012, p. 64) while “reflection-in-action happens in an actionpresent circumstance” (schön, 1987, p. 28) or “during an action is taken” (argyris & schön, 1975, in harrison & lee, 2011: 204), reflection-on-action does not have to be completed outside the classroom when the class is dismissed even it may be completed both during and after the teaching as long as it is conducted after an action is completed (lange, 1990 & schön, 1983). in other words, both types of reflection are conducted through acknowledging what has been learned or experienced and making future judgements manifested in a reformed way of teaching or solving certain issues in the classroom but they are different in a way that reflection-on-action is completed after an action has been taken while reflection-in-action is completed during the action is taken. this causes overlaps as it is certainly hard to define the length of time for this matter but as long as the teachers reflect upon the completed actions it is considered as reflection-on-action while it is considered to be refection-in-action if the teachers think about what to do next through inferring from what is being completed at the moment. “reflection-on-action is expected to lead up to questioning what had been through by asking what is this? and how have i been thinking about it? back on the teachers’ own thought” (schön, 1987, p. 28). it is “a further level of reflection which brings about more fundamental change in practice or thought by reflecting on what, how, and why” (van manen, 1990, in harrison & lee, 2011, p. 204). interestingly, this is somehow similar with the notion of undermind proposed by claxton (1997, in malderez & wedell, 2007, p. 31) as “the mode of mind which operates on processing experience of all sorts such as memories, feelings, impressions including experiences of thinking in default mode”. the concept of reflection-onaction and undermind point to a single notion that professional development can be undergone through continuous learning that occurs by evaluating what has been experienced previously and 20 reflection and teacher education taking decisions on what to do and not to do in the future. all in all, these understandings initiate the practical approach of reflection called reflective practicum (schön, 1987) or reflective practice (day, 1991; farrell, 2007; 2008 & 2011; harrison & lee, 2011; otienoh, 2011) or reflective action (burton, 2009; fullan, 2007; hatton & smith, 1995). reflective practicum reflective practicum implies that “teachers must subject their own teaching beliefs and practices to critical examination by conducting practical work such as classroom observations as part of their professional development” (farrell, 2011, p. 265). it is argued that reflective practicum may deal with the activity of “designing beliefs which is learned by doing something” (schön, 1987, p. 157). reflective practicum is the body of the process coupled with reflection as the soul. schön further added that “the student-teachers need help to learn to design and be provided interventions which tend to be coaching than teaching” (ibid.). this is interesting as the statement contrasts the concept of teaching and coaching with coaching as the more suitable approach. personally, i would agree with that as conducting the teaching of reflection is hard to be completed without longitudinal continuous supervision from the teacher-educator so that the student-teachers be able to complete reflective practicum acceptably and accordingly. in regard to this, farrell (2007) explains that “reflective teaching may be completed by consciously and systematically reflecting on their teaching experiences” (p. 9). in practice, there is then a need to identify what possible activities to do if one wants to conduct a professional development process through reflection. there are various forms of reflective practicum suggested and some of them are action research (farrell, 2007 & 2008a; ur, 1991), teaching journals (farrell, 2007, 2008a) which is also called journal writing (borg, 2006 and ur, 1991), teacher development groups (farrell, 2007, 2008a) or sharing (ur, 1991), role play (malderez & bodóczky, 1999) or reflection and teacher education 21 microteaching (hatton & smith, 1995). teaching artistry reflection is employed for “promoting the art in teaching” (schön, 1987, p. 67). schön (ibid.) further remarks that “practitioners, including teachers here, need to cope with different situations requiring them to use their tacit knowledge attained from experiences in achieving professional artistry”. he adds that professional artistry could be referred to as “the kinds of competence practitioners sometimes display in unique, uncertain, and conflicted situations of practice ... featured by a high-powered, esoteric variant of the more familiar sorts of competence exhibited every day in countless acts of recognition” (p. 22). from the citation above, it is conclusive that professional artistry, or teaching artistry, is the ultimate goal of professional development. here, i would disagree with that as teaching artistry is only half of the ultimate goal since the other half is possessed by the craft of teaching as proposed by eisner (1983) and lange (1990). eisner (1983) suggests that artistry in teaching involves “the craft and art of teaching”. the former is “repertoire and is a skill enabling teachers to perform well” while the latter is “the invention of modes of teaching practices which are not plentiful and require ingenuity involving teachers’ other skills” (p. 9). similarly, lange (1990) also explains that “the craft of teaching is teachers’ specific knowledge of the subject matter, knowledge on teaching that subject matter, and knowledge in teaching in general...and the art of teaching involves the combination of knowledge and experience in the many decisions that teachers make as they interact with learners” (p. 248). however, the craft of teaching is not discussed further as it is not the focus of this article. the illustration in figure 1 summarises the concept explained by schön (1983, 1987). 22 reflection and teacher education figure 1. the illustration of reflection according to schön (1983, 1987) the value of reflection in teacher education first, dewey (1938, in roberts, 1998, p. 49) suggests that “reflection contributes to personal growth because it frees us from a single view of situation restricting us in defining problems and so the resulting solutions”. hence, it is noticeable that the conception of reflection is not only from personal reflection but also from various viewpoints thus it more essentially helps student-teachers to think how to deal with surprises and problems by reflecting from others’ experiences. secondly, roberts (1998, p. 49) adds that “its [reflection’s] development in a long-term goal of teacher education may foster teacher autonomy and self determination”. this supports an idea that reflection is one possible way towards teaching artistry although it does not necessarily lead to the craft of teaching in particular. thirdly, farrell (2007, p. 9) states that “systematic reflections support teachers to become free from making too many impulsive decisions promoting actions in a more deliberate and intentional manner”. it is then suggested reflection and teacher education 23 that reflection sharpen the student-teachers’ mental and rational state (manifested in the decisions, attitudes and behaviours) so that the decisions made be deliberately and responsibly succinct. in short, reflection is then strongly suggested to be the answer for both personal and professional development. in accordance to this, the following paragraphs represent how reflection can be beneficial for both experienced and novice language teachers. there are many examples of successful implementation of reflection in te worldwide conducted by experienced language teachers: such as those in the usa (brown, 2002; cormany et al., 2005, in tedick, 2005; freeman & johnson in tedick, 2005; spalding & wilson, 2002), in taiwan (hsu, 2008), in the netherlands (korthagen & vasalos, 2005), and in australia (swan, 1993). additionally, there are also some reported successful attempts in promoting reflection to novice teachers. farrell (2008b) investigated a singaporean teacher who “reflected on his teaching methods and on the socio-historical contexts by conducting action research and class discussions” (p. 53). the teacher became “better prepared to make a smooth transition from his teacher education programme into the real world of language classroom” (p. 54). next, feimannemser (1990) reported how apprenticeship programmes in alaska had a good impact for novice teachers. “student-teachers were able to analyse the cases from different vantage points and imagine a range of possible actions and their consequences” (p. 11). hitherto, it is understood how reflection may promote self-efficacies of thinking and learning. reflection gives a way for teachers’ previous experiences either as a teacher or student to contemplate their practices towards professional/teaching artistry. so to say, being in the same vein with wallace (1991), i strongly agree that teachers have some sort of knowledge called experiential knowledge which came from the notion of reflection in the sense that “experiential knowledge allows teachers to identify what works for the class and what does not” (pp. 12-13). 24 reflection and teacher education teachers may collect some points on the spots provided by the surprises happening in the classroom and put them into consideration in the future to avoid “impulsive decisions which may bring unexpected outcomes” (farrell, 2007, p. 9). this is by nature is in the same path of reflection under a different term. nevertheless, a dilemma occurs regarding the viewpoint which considers reflection as the one and only thing that teachers can do to achieve teaching artistry. if reflection is then put in the highest position, te should just be in the form of coaching, guiding, providing pre-service and in-service trainings which merely promote reflective practicum such as teaching journal writing, classroom observations, action research, etc. here, i would argue that reflection is limited to promoting the experiential learning and puts aside the received knowledge (see wallace, 1991) or only supports the practice-based reasons and ethical/political justifications with less support on theory-based reasons (handal & lauvås, 1987). after all, reflection only promotes the art of teaching and puts less consideration on the craft of teaching which in fact both are complementary instead of substitutionary in achieving teaching artistry (eisner, 1983; lange, 1990). hence, i would argue that reflection is fundamentally essential for te but it must not be the only focus in te as there are other essential things not covered under the umbrella of reflection. referring back to what has been said by eisner (1983) that artistry in teaching involves ‘the craft and art of teaching’, reflection can help teachers to improve the art of teaching but it will not be sufficient for achieving teaching artistry as the craft of teaching is another thing that needs building up. that is the reason why some theorists try to limit reflection so that it be conducted by practitioners only (such as feiman-nemser, 1990; moon & lopez, 1997; schön, 1983, 1987; wyatt, 2010). this is supported by other research reports from different fields of study such as those in social work education (wilson, 2013) and medical work reflection and teacher education 25 like nursing education (grant, 2007; jonas-dwyer et al., 2012; kuiper & pesut, 2004; vachon & leblanc, 2011). the challenges of reflection in teacher education borg (1997, in moons & lopez, 1997, p. 69) posits that “student teachers who come from a traditional training environment, and whose knowledge comes from ‘tips for teachers’ and ‘received knowledge’, are likely to experience frustration, disorientation and conflict when confronted with a reflective approach”. this suggests a challenge towards the teaching of reflection to novice teachers. furthermore, there are some research findings worldwide which report that even promoting reflection to experienced teachers is not always successful like that in tanzania (otienoh, 2011) due to the unclear introduction making the tasks too vague and too philosophical to conceptualise, in oman (a’dhahab, 2009 & al-jabri, 2009) due to the lack of understandings on the concept of and negative attitudes towards reflection, as well as in spain (moon & lopez, 1997) due to the reluctance towards the involvement in the process, and in malaysia (ting, 2007) due to the inadequate teaching knowledge of the student teachers. on the other hand, any report regarding the unsuccessful attempts of introducing reflection to novice teachers was not found by the time this article is written. however, there are several reasons identified from some reports suggesting why reflection is more suitable for experienced teachers than for novice ones. mustafa (2009, in al-jabri, 2009, p. 17) posits that “reflection may be less suited to novice teachers given that they have less experience to explore or draw on”. thus, the lack of experience is an important aspect to consider. supporting this, erkmen (2010, p. ii) states that “although novice teacher beliefs are dynamic, they are reluctant to reflect on their teaching since they were not always able to do what they believed would be effective”. this suggests an idea that the novice student-teachers’ reluctance is one main factor that may fail the attempt of 26 reflection and teacher education introducing reflection to them. this is relevant to what is implied in the dewey’s statement that reflection could only be suitable for teachers who are “active, persistent, and carefully consider any belief in teaching” (dewey, 1904, in korthagen, 2001, p. 54). furthermore, farrell (2008b) claims that “research in general education has indicated that the professional culture of each school can present many challenges for first-years teachers thus ... these novice teachers require support from teacher education programmes and the schools where they are placed.” (p. 53) from the citation above, it is obvious that one possible factor that may promote the failure of introducing reflection to novice teachers is, in fact, the institution where they work. in a nutshell, although reflection may be valued as “one key element in strategies to raise the quality of educational profession” (hayes, 1997, p. 1) and “the first and most important basis for professional progress on daily classroom events” (ur, 1991, p. 319), careful considerations should be provided since “reflection in teacher education deals with complex issues such as attitude, skills, and knowledge” (wyatt, 2010, p. 236) and “complex interplay of contextual diverse problems” (otienoh, 2011, p. 741). reflection quite often, if not always, challenges the student teachers’ personal state of mind mentally and emotionally if it is not introduced appropriately and accordingly. the success of planning, implementing and evaluating the concept of reflection lead to a promising land of the art of teaching which later needs to be coupled with other professional development materials that promote the craft of teaching to achieve professional/teaching artistry. reflection and teacher education 27 references a’dhahab, s. m. 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(1991). a course in language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press reflection and teacher education 31 vachon, b & leblanc, j. (2011). effectiveness of past and current critical incident analysis on reflective learning and practice change. medical education (45), 894-904. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2923.2011.04042.x wallace, m. (1991). training foreign language teachers: a reflective approach. cambridge: cambridge university press white, r. v. (1988). the elt curriculum. oxford: blackwell wilson, g. (2013). evidencing reflective practice in social work education: theoretical uncertainties and practical challenges. british journal of social work (43)1, 154-172. doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcr170 wyatt, m. (2010). one teacher’s development as a reflective practitioner. asian efl journal, (12)2, 235-261 128 discourse structure conclusion section beyond words vol. 10 no.2 november 2022 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya the discourse structure of conclusion section in indonesian and international journals tiara azzahra marpaung1, safnil arsyad2, and azwandi3 1tiaraazzhra28@gmail.com, 2safnil@unib.ac.id, and 3azwandi22@gmail.com english education postgraduate program university of bengkulu indonesia article history abstract received: 11-11-2022 reviewed: 2-12-2022 accepted: 6-12-2022 keywords: rhetorical structure; conclusion section; research article; applied linguistics doi https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i2.4298 in research articles, the conclusion section has an important role because it provides a summary of the overall study and the significance of the findings. however, authors often consider this section less important than other sections in a journal article. the purpose of this study is to investigate the differences and/or the similarities of the rhetorical structure in the conclusions section used in the national journals written by indonesian authors, non-native speakers, and international journals written by native speakers. this study used a content analysis method using yang and allison's model (2003). the data were collected from 60 journal articles from national and international journals articles in applied linguistics. the findings show that move 1 (the summary of the study results) is categorized as obligatory in both national and international journals. meanwhile, other moves (moves 2 and 3) are classified as conventional and optional because there are significant differences where the frequency is found. this study provides information about rhetorical structure in the conclusions section of research articles to increase authors’ awareness of the importance of the three moves in the conclusion section. introduction the conclusion section has an important role because in this section authors present a summary of the overall study and the significance of the findings (adel & moghadam, 2015). by reading the conclusion section readers can get an overview of the research results and other important things such as introductions, implications, and recommendations (morales, 2012). the answers of the research questions are also provided in this section. this is the reason why readers of journal articles tend to read the conclusion section than the whole section of the journal articles. in addition, borja (2014) states that without a clear conclusion section, reviewers and readers will find the articles difficult to evaluate the study and whether it merits publication in the journal. mailto:tiaraazzhra28@gmail.com mailto:safnil@unib.ac.id mailto:azwandi22@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i2.4298 discourse structure conclusion section 129 aside from the importance of the conclusion section of journal articles, in fact writing the conclusion section is difficult (lentz, 2022). according to borja (2014) a common mistake in writing the conclusion section is that writers tend to repeat the abstract, or only include experimental results. in this section, writers must provide a clear scientific justification for the study and indicate its use and extension where appropriate. in addition, the writers provide suggestions about future experiments by pointing out ongoing experiments which are related to the objectives included in the introduction. because of the importance of the conclusion section in journal articles and the problem of common mistakes that writers often had in writing this section, the framework of the rhetorical structure of the conclusion section is suggested. this rhetorical structure model is made as a guide for writing a good conclusion section in research articles. without following this model, the conclusions written by the researcher cannot represent summaries and the results of the research. there are some models of the rhetorical structure in the conclusion section proposed by experts, such as yang & allison (2003), bunton (2005), and moritz et al. (2008). even though there are many studies examining the rhetorical structure of journal articles in different sections, such as abstract by shah (2017) and arsyad, et al., (2021) and introduction by rahman et al., (2017) and arsyad, (2018); however, studies on the conclusion section is still limited (amnuai & wannaruk, 2013). this is probably because many authors assumed that this section included at the end of the discussion section (swales, 1990; posteguillo, 1999). several studies already analyzed the rhetorical structure of conclusion section focusing on discussing cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural, and the comparison of moves in international and national journal articles. studies from adel and moghadam (2015) compared the rhetorical structure of the conclusion section used by international authors and persian in applied linguistics. the results showed that although cross-disciplinary and crosslanguage revealed the important variations on move 2; however, there is no significant difference of the articles on applied psychology and linguistics. persian articles feature more variety, indicating that national authors followed their own standards for writing concluding sections. similarly, zamani and ebadi (2016) observed the conclusion section of persian and english articles published in international journals in civil engineering and applied linguistics. the results revealed that there is no significant difference between the conclusion section of civil engineering and applied linguistics in research papers. in addition, jalilifar and mehrabi (2014) studied about a cross-disciplinary and crosscultural study between english and persian research articles. they found that there was no significant difference between the discussion and the conclusions of the section of english soft and hard research articles, persian and english research articles. another comparative study between international and national journals was conducted by vukonic and bratic (2015). they investigated the rhetorical structure of conclusion sections in montenegrin national journals and international journals of linguistics. the results showed that there were important differences in the pattern of moves in the two types of journals. on the other hand, a study from amnuai and wannaruk (2013) who compared between international and thai journals found that all moves in the proposed model used by the others in both journals, although with differences in their frequency of occurrence. 130 discourse structure conclusion section in the different field, a comparative study was conducted by aslam and mehmood (2014) in natural and social sciences. they found that there were significant differences in the rhetorical structure of conclusion section of research articles in various disciplines. similarly, tabatabaei and azimi (2015) compared persian and english journals in social studies. they found that there were some differences between the two corpora. based on the previous studies mentioned above, several studies compared the rhetorical structure in the conclusion section of local journals such as thai, persian, malay, and montenegrin with international journals. however, none of the studies compared the rhetorical structure published in indonesian national journals and international journals. this is important because the research articles that published in national journals are assumed as lower in quality compared to the reputable international journals. thus, national and international authors have the possibility of using different structures or patterns for writing journal articles, especially in the conclusion section because they have different quality (amnuai & wannaruk, 2013; tabatabaei & azimi, 2015). the study is important to know what the differences of the conclusion sections published in national journals and international journals in applied linguistic are. the research questions of the study are the followings. 1. how do authors of journal articles in english language teaching published in accredited national journals organize the conclusion sections? 2. how do authors of journal articles in english language teaching published in reputable international journals organize the conclusion sections? 3. what are the similarities and/or differences of the discourse structure in the conclusion sections of elt journal articles published in national and international journals? method a quantitative content was used in this study. qualitative content analysis is one of research techniques used to analyze and draw conclusions from existing text data (kheryadi & suseno, 2017). according to shava et al. (2021) using qualitative data analysis can help the research authors participate in data collection with or without direct contact with the participants studied. the corpus of the study the data of this study were collected from 60 journal articles, divided into 30 national journal articles and 30 international journal articles. the details of the object of this study are presented in the following table: discourse structure conclusion section 131 table 1 the object of the study no. journals code sinta / quartile value / sjr average length of conclusion number of articles 1. n a tio n a l journal of english language teaching and linguistics jeltl sinta 3 3023 10 2. journal of english education and teaching jeet sinta 4 2137 10 3. wanasta: jurnal dan bahasa sastra jbs sinta 5 2385 10 4. in te rn a tio n a l journal of asia tefl jat q1 / 0.38 5242 10 5. journal of research in applied linguistics rals q2 / 0.16 5175 10 6. world journal of english language wjel q3 / 0.1 4149 10 total 60 the international journals were selected because they had quartile values q1, q2, and q3 which are reputable journals, so these journals can be used as guidelines or examples of a good conclusion section. meanwhile, the national journals were selected because they are in sinta 3, sinta 4, and sinta 5, which have had different qualities from reputable international journals. both national and international journals selected in this study are in the field of applied linguistics. from each journal, 10 research articles were taken because the number was considered sufficient to represent the entire journal. in selecting articles from each journal to be analyzed, the latest volume were taken. in addition, the research articles were based on the imrdc (introduction, methodology, results, discussion, conclusion). research instrument this study used the move theory proposed by yang and allison (2003) to analyse the conclusion section. the reason for choosing yang and allison’s model in this study is that this model is used for applied linguistics which is appropriate with the limitation of the study (amnuai & wannaruk, 2013). in addition, most of the previous studies which examine the similar scope used this theory as the reference for the rhetorical structure in the conclusion section. the rhetorical structure of the conclusion section suggested by yang and allison (2003) consists of move 1 (summary of the study), move 2 step 1 (indicating signific-ance/advantage), move 2 step 2 (indicating limitations), move 2 step 3 (evaluating methodology), move 3 step 1 (recommend-ing further study), and move 3 step 2 (drawing pedagogic implications). below are examples of the moves and steps of the conclusion section: move 1 summarizing the study: a statement or brief explanation about the important things and the overall results from the research perspective. this move consists of the summary of the study by 132 discourse structure conclusion section highlighting the findings as in the following example: in conclusion, the students experienced improvements regarding the pronunciation and the fluency of delivering english speech in front of their friends after the treatment using the ted talks videos because the finding showed that the mean of the pre-test was 73.37, while the mean of the post test was 82.40. (jeltl-10) the above extract was taken from an article conclusion titled “boosting students’ speaking skill using ted talks youtube videos: teacher talk theory” published in journal of english language teaching and linguistics, 7(2) in 2022. as can be seen in the example above, the authors give the short explanation and the summary of the research findings. move 2 step 1 indicating significances, advantages or contributions of the study as in the following example: this finding provides an understanding that the involvement of technology in teaching must be a collective awareness of both students and teachers. adjustment of learning through digital is expected to be a solution as a technology-friendly global society. (jeet-8) the above extract was taken from an article conclusion titled “general english online teaching within pandemic outbreak: between need and satisfaction” published in journal of english education and teaching, 6(2) in 2022. as can be seen in the example above, the authors state the significance of the study. move 2 step 2 expressing the limitation of the study as in the following example: this study was also limited in terms of the number of classes that participated. because only one reading-to-write course with one instructor was examined, it is difficult to generalize the findings to a larger context. (jat-3) the above extract was taken from an article conclusion titled “examining the effectiveness of learning-oriented language assessment in second language reading-to-write tasks: focusing on instructor feedback and self-assessment” published in the journal of asia tefl, 18(4) in 2021. as can be seen in the example above, the authors indicate the limitation of the study. move 2 step 3 evaluating the methodology as in the following example: the post-interviews were carried out about one month after their third test development and almost four months after their first test development. to increase the accuracy of self-reporting in introspective research methods, however, the time interval between the event reported and the self-report needs to be as short as possible. (jat-1) the above extract was taken from an article conclusion titled “contrasting views of english-medium instruction by korean professors and students: towards a negotiated language policy” published in the journal of asia tefl, 18(4) in 2021. as can be seen in the example above, the authors evaluate the methodology used in the study. move 3 step 1 recommend the future research: suggestions about what can be done to solve the problems found in the study as in the following example: besides gender, further research should be conducted to explore the elements that may influence the creation of disagreement behavior. (wjel-1) discourse structure conclusion section 133 the above extract was taken from an article conclusion titled “efl undergraduate learners’ politeness strategies in the speech act of disagreement” published in world journal of english language, 12 (8) in 2022. as can be seen in the example above, the authors give the recommendation for future study. move 3 step 2 drawing the pedagogic implication as in the following example: in summary, this study has implications for the use of the attitude system in researching the linguistic nature of engineering writing, and provides insights into professional writing style which will be beneficial for the engineering industry’s understanding of its practice, and in designing education programmes for the development of future engineers. (rals-9) the above extract was taken from an article conclusion titled “efl undergraduate learners’ politeness strategies in the speech act of disagreement” published in journal of research in applied linguistics, 12 (2) in 2021. as can be seen in the example above, the authors indicate the pedagogic implication of the study. the checklist instrument was used to analyze the research object. the sentences in the conclusion section were classified into the rhetorical framework from yang and allison (2003) based on the definition, function, keywords, and location related to each move and step. each sentence of the conclusion section was elaborated in this checklist instrument for the selected journal articles. data analysis procedure the research data were analyzed using content analysis of qualitative methods (drisko, 2013). this method was used to collect data with results obtained from selected articles published in indonesian national journals and international journals. the data obtained were classified using yang & allison’s model of the conclusion section that consists of three moves. for the frequency of move occurrences were classified into three categories. if the move appears in 100% of the corpus of the study, it is included in obligatory. if the move appears in range 60-99%, it is classified as conventional. for optional, if the move appears less than 60% of the corpus of the study (kanoksilapatham, 2005). then the moves were put into the checklist instrument table of each article which as the corpus of the study. keywords in the form of words, phrases, or terms that refer to the function of each move and step in yang and allison's model were used to simplify the process of classifying each sentence in the conclusion section. in addition, the location of the sentences was also seen to classify the data. subtitles or subheadings in the conclusion section can also be a clue for analyzing the data. meanwhile, to determine the differences and/or similarities from the conclusions of national and international journals, it was seen from the frequency of occurrence of each move used. if these two types of journals tend to use the same rhetorical structure according to yang and allison's framework in the conducting conclusion section, it shows similarities. however, it shows differences, if, for instance, journal articles written by national authors tend to use only a few moves in terms of frequency of occurrence, while journal articles written by international authors mostly use all rhetorical moves 134 discourse structure conclusion section according to the framework of yang and allison. finally, after the rhetorical structure in the conclusion sections of the selected journal articles were figured up, the results were graphed, answered the research questions, and made the conclusion. reliability cohen's kappa coefficient was used to analyze the reliability of the data in this study. airasian (1992) states the reliability is expressed as the extent to which a test can measure reliably an object. the data can be categorized as reliable if the results obtained from the object of research are consistent. this reliability test can be carried out with the co-researcher, which is the same data used to assess the reliability of different people. co-researcher reliability (inter-observer reliability) is used when the authors collect the data and define the ratings, scores, or categories to some variables. the alumnus of the english education postgraduate program of bengkulu university who previously studied about the rhetorical structure of research articles in applied linguistics journal was invited to assess the reliability of the data. the research instrument was provided to the coraters as guidance for analyzing the data. the instrument contains the rhetorical structure of yang and allison framework along with explanations and examples for each move and step. the number of journal articles given to co-raters for analysis was 20% of the total, which is 12 journal articles. these journal articles were selected randomly from each journal. hence, there were 6 journal articles from national journals and 6 journal articles from international journals. subsequently, cohen's kappa principle was used to calculate the correlation that existed between their results. then the results were classified in cohen's kappa score with the strength of agreement as mentioned by kanoksilapathan (2005). the score below 0.40 was classified as bad, 0.40-0.59 as average, 0.60-0.74 as acceptable, and the score higher than 0.75 was classified as exceptional. if there is a contrasting result, then a discussion is needed to find out the problems that arise in the process of analyzing the data so as make differences in understanding and analyzing. from the discussion, the final result of data analysis will be obtained. inter-rater reliability results the co-rater, who is the alumnus of the english education postgraduate program of bengkulu university was given 20% of 60 articles. it consists of 6 national articles and 6 international articles selected randomly. then the results were collaborated using cohen kappa agreement, as presented in table 2. based on this table, there is no difference in perception between raters 1 and 2 in analyzing the rhetorical structure of the conclusion section. the test results obtained a kappa coefficient value of 0.692 and a p-value of 0.000. discourse structure conclusion section 135 table 2 symmetric measures for conclusion section symmetric measures value asymptotic standard error approximate t approximate significance measure of agreement kappa .692 .140 5.452 .000 n of valid cases 12 results rhetorical structure of conclusion section accredited national journals the rhetorical structure of the conclusion section in the accredited national journal article is presented in the following table: table 3 rhetorical structure of conclusion section in accredited national journal move / step frequency (n = 30) percentage category move 1 summarizing the study 30 100% obligatory move 2 step 1 indicating significances, advantages or contributions of the study 12 40% optional step 2 indicating the limitation of the study 13 43,3% optional step 3 evaluating the methodology of the study 6 20% optional move 3 step 1 recommend the future research 19 63,3% conventional step 2 drawing the pedagogic implication 10 33,3% optional table 3 shows that out of the three moves, only move-1 is categorized as obligatory. below is an example of move 1 taken from the data of the study. example 1 (move 1, summarizing the study). this study concluded that commissive acts were also used in advertising media, such as the written prospectus. (p1s1 jeltl 7) example 1 above was taken from journal of english language teaching and linguistics with the title of “comparison of commissive acts between university of oxford’s and universitas indonesia’s prospectuses” in the first paragraph. in the example above, the authors provide a brief description of the study and the findings by stating this study concluded. table 3 also shows that move 2 and move 3 are categorized as optional. below are the examples. example 2 (move 3 step 1 recommend the future research). 136 discourse structure conclusion section for further researchers, it is recommended to conduct a study that more in-depth research related to staying fit needs and characteristics of respondents, materials, or indicators of success to be achieved. (p1s12 jbs 3) example 2 above was taken from jurnal bahasa dan sastra with the title “the effect of vocabulary mastering and reading habits on the ability of writing description texts” at the end of the paragraph. the phrase for further researchers, it is recommended to conduct a study is used by the authors to give some suggestions to other researchers. this sentence indicates the recommendation for further research that interested in the same field. example 3 (move 2 step 2 indicating the limitation of the study). this research has only been carried out within the scope of the targeted is still limited, which is related to the relationship between vocabulary mastery and reading habits on writing descriptive text skills. (p1s9 jbs 3) example 3 above was taken from jurnal bahasa dan sastra with the title “the effect of vocabulary mastering and reading habits on the ability of writing description texts” at the middle of the paragraph. the phrase this research has only been carried out within the scope of the targeted is still limited states that the author realizes shortcoming in the research. therefore, this example indicates the limitation of the study. table 3 reveals that the majority of the steps are also categorized as optional. below are the examples. example 4 (move 2 step 1 the significance of the study). the present study has contributed to provide a comparison of different authors in using engagement markers for their works. (p2s1 jeet 2) example 4 above was taken from journal of english education and teaching with the title “engagement markers in discussion section of research articles written by english education students and articles published in reputable english journal” in the second paragraph. to indicating the significances or the advantages of the study, the authors use the present study has contributed to provide. example 5 (move 3 step 2 drawing the pedagogic implication). this research, like many others, has pedagogical implications for both language instructors and language learners. (p3s1 jeltl 4) example 5 above was taken from journal of english language teaching and linguistics with the title “sexism in indonesia’s tenth grade efl companion textbook” in the third paragraph. the author giving the implication of the study to pedagogic field by stating this research … has pedagogical implications for. example 6 for move 2 step 3 (evaluating the methodology of the study). therefore, it is necessary to develop models of teaching materials that can serve as a model for teachers to develop their teaching materials and tailored to the needs of students and can be linked to real-life contexts of students as well. (p1s3 jeet 1) example 6 above was taken from journal of english education and teaching with the title “the social aspect of culture novels pulang for literary studies” in the first paragraph. the author states it is necessary to develop to evaluate the methodology of the study. in this move, discourse structure conclusion section 137 the author is aware of the strengths or weaknesses of the methodology used in the research. reputable international journal the following table presents the rhetorical structure of conclusion section in international journal: table 4 rhetorical structure of conclusion section in international journal move / step frequency (n = 30) percentage category move 1 summarizing the study 29 96,6% conventional move 2 step 1 indicating significances, advantages or contributions of the study 16 53,3% optional step 2 indicating the limitation of the study 28 93,3% conventional step 3 evaluating the methodology of the study 15 50% optional move 3 step 1 recommend the future research 26 86,6% conventional step 2 drawing the pedagogic implication 14 46,6% optional table 4 shows that three moves are categorized as conventional. below are the examples taken from the data of the study: example 7 (move 1 summarizing the study). the findings show that conducting action research has a constructive role in developing esp teachers’ professional identity. (p1s2 rals 1) example 7 above was taken from journal of research in applied linguistics with the title “role of action research in esp teachers’ professional identity development” in the first paragraph. the authors state the findings show to indicate and summarize the results of the study. example 8 (move 2 step 2 indicating the limitation of the study). owing to limitations of space, this article has covered only a selection of conversational aspects in which men and women differ. (p4s1 wjel 3) example 8 above was taken from world journal of english language with the title “how gender influences arab academics’ using of certainty markers” in the fourth paragraph. phrase owing to limitations of space, this article has covered only states that the authors realize shortcoming in the research. therefore, this example indicates the limitation of the study. example 9 (move 3 step 1 recommend the future research). therefore, freshmen with low previous exposure depended on l1 learning strategies more than freshmen with high previous exposure to english. future research could be carried out to further study this issue. (p1s14,15 wjel 6) example 9 above was taken from world journal of english language with the title “gender differences and language 138 discourse structure conclusion section variation: a theoretical framework” in the first paragraph. phrase future research could be carried out to further study this issue is used by authors to give some suggestions to other researchers. this sentence indicates the recommendation for further research that interested in the same field. table 4 also shows that three steps, which are step 1 of move 1, step 2 of move 2, step 1 of move 3 are conventional. while the other steps are optional. below are the examples of the optional: example 10 (move 2 step 1 indicating significances, advantages or contributions of the study). moreover, this study may have provided some additional evidence for the researchers who work on any area germane to grammar acquisition as well as the typology of explicit instruction. (p1s13 jat 4) example 10 above was taken from the journal of asia tefl with the title “explicit instruction of english articles: an appraisal of consciousness-raising instruction and processing instruction frameworks” in the first paragraph. to indicate the significances or the advantages of the study, the authors use this study may have provided some additional evidence for. this phrase used by the authors to evaluate the study. example 11 (move 2 step 3 evaluating the methodology of the study). one of the tremendous implications can be using other data collection methods than mdct and wdct such as role-play to get better results for the instruction of request, …. (p2s3 rals 2) example 11 above was taken from journal of research in applied linguistics with the title “a meta-analytic study of instructed second language pragmatics: a case of the speech act of request” in the second paragraph. the authors state can be using other data collection methods to evaluate the methodology of the study. in this move, the authors are aware of the strengths or weaknesses of the methodology used in the research. example 12 (move 3 step 2 drawing the pedagogic implication). another pedagogical implication of this study is the necessity of sustained writing practice. the results from qualitative analysis showed that students’ revisions, followed by instructor feedback, did not necessarily lead to immediate improvement in their subsequent writing. (p5s1,2 jat 3) example 12 above was taken from the journal of asia tefl with the title “examining the effectiveness of learningoriented language assessment in second language reading-to-write tasks: focusing on instructor feedback and selfassessment” in the fifth paragraph. the authors are giving the implication of the study to the pedagogic field. the authors state pedagogical implication of this study. the rhetorical differences between the national and international journal the comparison of rhetorical structures used by authors in accredited national journals and reputable international journals is shown in the following figure: discourse structure conclusion section 139 figure 1 the frequency of moves in conclusion section figure 1 shows that there are no differences between the frequency of move 1 in two groups of articles. however, for other moves, there are important differences between the frequency of articles published in accredited national journals and reputable international journals, especially in move 2. figure 2 the frequency of steps in conclusion section 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 move 1 move 2 move 3 national journal international journal 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 move 1 summarizing the study move 2 step 1 indicating significances, advantages or contributions of the study move 2 step 2 indicating limitation of the study move 2 step 3 evaluating the methodology of the study move 3 step 1 recommend the future research move 3 step 2 drawing the pedagogic implication national journal international journal 140 discourse structure conclusion section figure 2 shows that there are important frequency differences of the steps in the two group of articles. in general, the conclusion section: the international journal articles have higher frequencies of steps those published in national journals. from the overall results of the frequency of occurrence and the percentage of the rhetorical structure of the conclusion section, it can be concluded that international journals more notice and follow the framework of yang and allison (2003) for writing the conclusion section. figure 1 and figure 2 show that the moves and steps of articles published in international journals are applied more often than in national journals discussion the first objective of this study is to find out how the authors of journal articles in english language teaching published in accredited national journals organize the conclusion sections. the results show that from three moves, only move 1 (summarizing the study) is categorized as obligatory. meanwhile move 2 and move 3 are categorized as optional. it also showed that the majority of the steps are also categorized as optional. this is probably because the influence of the guidelines of each national journal that were analyzed in this study. based on the template of these three journals, which are jeltl, jeet, and jbs, it requires the authors to provide conclusions or a brief description of the research findings and prospective for further research. in addition, according to paltridge and starfield (2007) the conclusion in academic writing is the authors summarize their work. the national authors considered that the conclusion sections are merely the summary of a research conducted (amnuai & wannaruk, 2013; vukovic & bratic, 2015). it concludes that most national authors assume that the conclusion means the authors must conclude the results of the study and did not realize the important of the other moves. the second objective of the study is to find out how the authors of journal articles in english language teaching published in reputable international journals organize the conclusion sections. the findings show that all of the three moves are found conventional. however, in term of steps, only three steps are categorized as conventional, which are step 1 of move 1, step 2 of move 2, step 1 of move 3. meanwhile the other steps are optional. this is probably because most of the international authors aware that the three moves are important for the conclusion section, although not all of the steps have been implemented yet. in addition, the guidelines for writing the conclusion section in international journals are more specific. for example, in wjel, there are instructions for the authors provide a brief explanation of the findings, the reasons why the topic or issue raised is important (as stated in the introduction), comments on the findings, and other things that may depend on and arise from the findings obtained. the third objective is to determine the similarities and/or differences of the discourse structure in the conclusion section of elt journal articles written by national and international authors. the results show that in terms of moves, there is an important difference because in national journals only have one of obligatory move, while other moves are optional. however, in international journals, three moves are conventional. this is probably because the national authors assumed that the conclusion section only consists of the results of the discourse structure conclusion section 141 study. they did not realize the important of the other moves. meanwhile, the international authors are more aware of the three moves of conclusion section. in terms of steps, there is also important differences. all of the steps in national journals, except the step 1 of move 1, are optional. meanwhile in international journals, there are conventional steps although most of them are optional. the findings of this study are in line with kim et al. (2021), zamani & ebadi (2016), and vukovic & bratic (2015) who found that move 1 (summarizing the study) was the most widely used in national journals and categorized as obligatory. meanwhile, they revealed that the other moves are categorized as optional. for international journals, zamani and ebadi (2016) and amnuai and wannaruk (2013) also found that all of the three moves are conventional. in terms of steps, the findings of the study supported by amnuai and wannaruk (2013). they found that in the national journals, the majority of the steps are categorized as optional. meanwhile, in international journals there are conventional and optional steps. according to vukovic and bratic (2015) this is also probably because the conclusion section of national journals is shorter than international journals. according to table 1 of the object of the study, it can be seen that the national journals studied have fewer words in average compared to the international journals. the reputable international journals that consist of q1, q2, and q3 have an average number of words above 4000 words. meanwhile, the accredited national journals that consists of sinta 3, sinta 4, and sinta 5 only have an average number of 2000-3000 words. conclusions and suggestions this study found three major findings. first, in the accredited national journals, only move 1 (summarizing the study) is categorized as obligatory. meanwhile move 2 and move 3 are categorized as optional. the majority of the steps are also categorized as optional. second, in the reputable international journals, all of the three moves are found conventional. the steps are categorized as conventional and optional. last, there is an important difference between the conclusion section published in national and international journals. in national journals, there is only one obligatory move, while other moves are optional. however, in international journals, the three moves are conventional. based on the findings, there is limitation of this study. the sample of this study is limited. the findings revealed only based on analyzing the rhetorical structure in the conclusion section of six selected journals from the two groups of journals. the future study could include more journals from each range in the study. there are several implications for this research. from the findings of this study, it is suggested that authors who submit their articles to national journals be more aware of the importance of the three moves in the conclusion section. whereas for postgraduate students who are going to write for international journals, they should be familiar with the three moves and the several steps of the conclusion section because all moves and steps are important to address in the conclusion section of the research articles. 142 discourse structure conclusion section student’s level. for further studies, it would be interesting to see the reaction of literature course students towards the same study. the author is also experimenting with a mini version of extensive reading for regular junior high school students. if the ideal reading amount can be measured among junior high school students, er could be implemented at an earlier stage in regular junior high schools throughout japan. implementation of an er program at an earlier stage can possibly lead to even better results in students’ english language development. students in japan have a similar situation as students in taiwan based on huang’s (2015) study. this situation might also be prevalent in other countries that have a strong focus on passing high-stakes university entrance exams. changing the english curriculum of a school or country in this type of situation is less likely and is a difficult daunting task. the survey design of this study can help find the middle ground by asking the opinion of learners themselves. english language learners should have the opportunity to obtain the benefits of an er program regardless of their location or academic environment. it is the authors hope that the results of this study will be a catalyst for similar research in other schools and countries so that each school or country can tailor how they implement er in their school or country. . references adel, s. m., & moghadam, r. g. 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(2016). move analysis of the conclusion sections of research papers in persian and english. cypriot journal of educational science, 11(1), 9-20. doi: https://doi.org/10.18844/cjes.v11i1.34 4 https://doi.org/10.1016/0889-4906%2894%2990012-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/0889-4906%2894%2990012-4 https://ttlt.stb.iau.ir/article_528752.html https://ttlt.stb.iau.ir/article_528752.html https://doi.org/10.1016/s0889-4906%2802%2900026-1 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0889-4906%2802%2900026-1 https://doi.org/10.18844/cjes.v11i1.344 https://doi.org/10.18844/cjes.v11i1.344 running head: the position of english in indonesia 19 beyond words vol.2, no.2, november 2014 widya mandala catholic university surabaya english in indonesia: its position among other languages in indonesiai julia eka rini petra christian university jerini40@yahoo.com 20 the position of english in indonesia abstract indonesia is a multilingual country with various local languages and language courses on various foreign languages. among the foreign languages, english and chinese are the prominent ones. this article aims at portraying the position of english in indonesia among the languages spoken and used in indonesia, especially chinese. the discussion focuses on english in business, education, and pop culture. in the context of englishes, this article also discusses which english is popular in indonesia among indonesian learners of english. keywords: english, position, multilingual, chinese the position of english in indonesia 21 introduction with regards to many languages that live in indonesia, it is interesting to see the position of these languages, i.e. indonesian language or bahasa indonesia itself, vernacular languages, and foreign languages, such as japanese, korean, chinese, arabic, french, german, dutch and of course, english, in indonesia. korean is relatively new; japanese, french, and german are at the same position since last century. dutch is spoken by the old generation and arabic is used as far as religious activities are concerned. chinese is now booming and english is "the old timer." it seems that the two foreign languages that are interesting enough to discuss, concerning their position in indonesia, are english and chinese. before discussing the position of english among chinese, bahasa indonesia, and vernacular languages, it is interesting to see the position of bahasa indonesia among the vernacular languages. the prominent position of bahasa indonesia against the vernacular languages has been proved since the beginning of the selection of a national language. based on the census and survey conducted in 1980, 1990, 2000 (montolalu and suryadinata , 2007, p. 48), there are seven main vernacular languages, namely: javanese, sundanese, madurese, batak, minangkabau, balinese, buginese; with javanese as the greatest number in terms of speakers. no single one of these vernacular languages won over the so-called-now bahasa indonesia, even the javanese language which reached 47 per cent of speakers according to 1930 population census (p. 39). the reason given is because javanese is a complicated and hierarchical language and it is only used by the javanese (p. 39 and suryadinata, 2000, p. 45). the chosen language was the malay language which was later called bahasa indonesia for the first time at the second indonesian youth congress (2007, p. 41), which, according to 1930 census (p. 40), only had 1.6 per cent speakers. since that point of time, bahasa indonesia has been used as the official language. as myers-scotton (2006, p. 113-114) said, "… as one 22 the position of english in indonesia particular language receives official status…, almost always becoming the sole language of public administration and instruction, the role of other languages is arrested." according to budianta (2007, p. 42), it "has become the most important identity for the indonesians of various ethnic groups…. at least within the years to come, bahasa indonesia will remain the most popular site for indonesian writers to express their visions and creativity. the flourishing of indonesian language newspapers and magazines is a strong basis for that direction." now that bahasa indonesia is used in all official, administrative, government, business, and also education, against the vernacular languages, bahasa indonesia does and will still hold the prominent position. this fact leads to the discussion of english against bahasa indonesia and chinese. since chinese is relatively new compared to english, the following discussion will be about english and bahasa indonesia. since independence, indonesians "have been preoccupied with the search and maintenance of national identity" (dardjowidjojo, 2003, p. 44). "the question is how to keep a balance between nationalism, on the one hand, and the use of a foreign language, namely, english, on the other." dardjowidjojo (p. 57) emphasizes that english "has never been considered an official language coexisting with the national language… english is now officially called ' the first foreign language of the country.' " the reason for adopting english as the first foreign language is because science and technology are the world culture and the means to acquire and keep up with the development of science and technology in indonesia is english (dardjowidjojo, p. 44). since chinese is now booming, it is interesting, therefore, to see whether english will be just one of the foreign languages besides chinese or stays as the prominent foreign language; if it does, which english—among englishes and varieties—indonesian learners should learn and how far english influences bahasa indonesia. crystal (2003, p. 123) lists several possibilities that can affect the position of english in a country, namely: political, economic, technological, and the position of english in indonesia 23 cultural power. among these four, the latter two are far more important (2003, p. 86): the media—the press, radio, advertising, especially television (2003, p. 91), cinema, popular music, and education. the discussion concerning the competing chinese and english will be based on the four points mentioned above with the emphasis on the latter two. this discussion will be put under the following subheadings: business, education, and pop culture. business as the first foreign language, english is learnt because of instrumental reasons. job vacancies require english as one of the requirements. english is regarded important because by mastering english, people can have higher salary and have better opportunities. english is also used in advertisements to give the impression that the products can give a higher prestige. however, a number of reasons are worth paying attention to the fact that chinese can be a competitor to english. first, as crystal (2003, p. 10) says, "it may take a military powerful nation to establish a language, but it takes an economically powerful one to maintain and expand it." china is prepared in both military and economic area. in terms of politics and economy, china should be counted as the emerging super power besides the us (pattiradjawane, 2001, p. 164) as it can be seen in the following quotation. dalam berbagai isu dan aktifitas politik dan ekonomi, mulai dari washington sampai moskwa, maupun dari tokyo ke new delhi, semuanya menunjukkan sebuah cina yang berbenah diri tidak lagi menjadi sebuah kekuatan yang selama ini dikategorikan sebagai setengah-setengah (middle power), tetapi benar-benar sebuah cina yang memproyeksikan diri menjadi sebuah kekuatan adidaya (super power) dalam kurun waktu yang lebih cepat dari perkiraan para pengamat selama ini. 24 the position of english in indonesia in various political issues and activities, from washington to moscow, or from tokyo to new delhi, all of them show an improving china, becoming not as what has been so far categorized as a middle power, but a real china that projects itself to be a super power at a time faster than what has been predicted so far by observers. pattiradjawane (p. 165) continues with supplying the budget allocated by china to enlarge the military power, which is as much as us$70 billion. he explains further that even the us and japan are seen as the potential competitors and that chinese army tests its power, preparing itself to face any potential open conflict. it seems that china is really aware that being a super power cannot be far from enlarging the military power. in terms of economy, china is the emerging economic superpower (kirkpatrick, 2007, p. 183). china has become the world seventh largest economy and third largest trade nation (yin, 2006). according to pattiradjawane (2001, p. 167), china enters both bilateral and multilateral cooperation with countries in asia. it becomes the main trade partner for the us, japan, european and south east asian countries; if purchasing power parity (comparison of national economy) is used, the economy of china is almost as big as the us and bigger than that of japan (p. 168). in the trade between the us and china, the value reaches as much as us$70 billion, with more profit on chinese because us' import from china is five times bigger than its export to china (p. 168). in short, china's economy is growing. furthermore, the growth in trade with other countries also occurs in its trade with indonesia. since the normalization of the diplomatic relationship between china and indonesia, china has become indonesia's fourth largest trade partner; the two-way trade volume in 1990 was only us$1 billion, but in 2004 it increased to us$13.48 billion and at the end of 2005 it reached up to us$16 billion (yin, 2006). the position of english in indonesia 25 the chinese in indonesia form the majority among the foreign groups—chinese, arabs, and indians (suryadinata, 2000, p. 39), are "economically strong, form the commercial middle class of indonesia and are part of the economic elite" (p. 60). with the change of policy towards china and the chinese since abdurrahman wahid administration, chinese language has the opportunity to rise gradually to an important position, despite its suppression during soeharto's. second, according to phillipson (1999, p. 147), chinese is seen as one the alternative lingua francas, besides hindi and arabic, that becomes "a threat to english." if it is seen as a threat in the world, and the fact that it is one of the five official languages of the un, then it is no doubt that chinese language should be counted as a competitor to english in indonesia. according to suryadinata (2000, p. 62-63), during the rule of soeharto, there was only one chinese newspaper run by the military in jakarta—yindunixiya ribao (harian indonesia) and now there are at least three dailies, yindunixiya shangbao, heping ribao, and longyang ribao. in indonesia the importance of chinese language in business and the fact that it is one of the requirements in a lot of job vacancy, besides english, increases its chance to be a more important foreign language in indonesia than before and, therefore, a competitor to english. if chinese is seen as a threat in the world because it is one of the alternative lingua francas, besides hindi and arabic, that becomes "a threat to english" and the fact that it is one of the five official languages of the un, then it is no doubt that chinese language should be counted as a competitor to english in indonesia. education besides english, chinese has entered school curriculum and chinese courses are flourishing. regarding the ability of speaking chinese, the majority of chinese children, even among the totoks (the chinese who still hold fast to their tradition), have gradually lost active command of the chinese language, because "since 1965 coup all ethnic chinese children, 26 the position of english in indonesia regardless of their nationality, have had to go to indonesian national schools (2000, p. 62). now that learning chinese is not prohibited by the government, chinese courses are everywhere as budianta (2007, has p. 69) says "chinese language courses in indonesia are now flourishing as people realize the configuration of economic powers from the west to china." the chinese do not really have problems financially to send their children to learn chinese in chinese courses as well as to learn english in english courses. moreover, besides english, chinese is also one of the subjects learnt at schools, at least private schools. english courses can be found in many places in indonesia, in big cities, small towns and even villages. people are willing to pay a lot of money so that they can join the course and can speak english. english has given them a new identity. as dardjowidjojo (2003, p. 57) said, english in indonesia "has never been considered an official language coexisting with the national language," and english is "the first foreign language." as many varieties of english are the hot issue now, this part of the article tries to discuss the learning of english from the learners' point of view. which english among englishes? with regards to the role of english in the world, crystal (2003) predicts that there is a great probability that english will have a secured position, although people will try to be reoriented in terms of which english they are going to use, the british, the us or their own variety of english. there will be some sort of 'competition' between the inner circle varieties and the outer or the expanding circle varieties of english. however, probably this kind of competition does not occur in indonesia. linguists, or perhaps some teachers of english, know and discuss englishes, but common people are not aware that there is such an issue as englishes. for common people english is english, although they know that americans speak english, singaporeans speak english, and australians also speak english and that each of them speak a little bit different from one another. in indonesia the issue among common the position of english in indonesia 27 people in general is not really which variety of english they speak, but rather one speaks english or not. the question of which english they learn depends on the exposure they get. people will imitate the kind of english they hear the most often. the most often heard and the cheapest source of english in indonesia is television and radio. these two media reach every part of indonesia. since american films and songs are abundant in television and radio programs, it is this english that people try to imitate. had british films and british songs been more abundant than american ones, people would have learnt british than american. formerly british english was more popular in the sense that what was considered good english was british english. now it is different. the cultural domination has made people look at the us more than to england. concerning the conflict of mutual intelligibility and the need for identity concerning varieties of english, as it is stated in crystal (2003, p. 178), in indonesia there is no conflict between mutual intelligibility—trying to sound like native speakers—and the need of identity—preserving the indonesian accent. first, people are probably more proud of being able to sound more like a native speaker than like an indonesian. sounding like a native speaker increase their prestige and the ability to speak english gives them the new identity. those who speak english belong to a different group than those who do not. this is the identity they want to show. in indonesia mutual intelligibility and the need for identity go hand-in-hand; the difference in the need for identity is not on showing indonesian accent, but on showing the ability to speak english. second, there is still no community of english speakers in indonesia. a lot of people speak english in indonesia, but english stays as a foreign language. english is the issue of urban dwellers, in big cities or capital cities only in java. in smaller cities, english does not really play an important role. as cited by kirkpatrick (2007, p. 31), english in indonesia is 28 the position of english in indonesia like the first phase, out of the three phases kachru has suggested, through which non-native institutionalized varieties of english seem to pass. the first phase is characterized by 'non-recognition' of the local variety. at this stage the speakers of the local variety are prejudiced against it and believe that some imported native speaker in variety is superior and should be the model for language learning in schools. they themselves will strive to speak the imported, exonormative variety and sound like native speakers, while looking down upon those who speak only the local variety. for common people sounding like a native speaker is better as they have the opinion that foreigners can teach english better than indonesian teachers. what they call an ability to speak english is being able to communicate with other people using english language; which variety that they use is not a big issue for them. they regard the variety they hear most often as the model. third, the motivation of learning english is instrumental (phillipson, 1993, p. 162; dardjowidjojo, 2003, p. 50). young learners join english courses because their parents realize that english is very important nowadays. if they do not have the intention to study abroad, then they study english partly because they want to have a good score at school and that their parents make them realize that english is important later in life. if they have the intention to study abroad, then their goal in indonesia is passing the test required to enter universities, either toefl or ielts. which english people learn also depends on who has the biggest promotion. "the first english teaching projects that americans were involved in were in countries like indonesia" (p. 162). besides, the promotion is done in many ways as quoted by phillipson (p. 150) from lord fulton "… about countries which are unable or unwilling to buy foreign books (brazil, chile, indonesia, turkey, israel, and pakistan) and which receive large the position of english in indonesia 29 quantities of american books." books used by learners means exposure to certain variety of english; american books means exposure to american english and language learning is closely related to exposure to the language learned. english learning in formal education the learning of english at schools and universities cannot be said successful. the first foreign language status makes english mandatory for all types of secondary education, however, english is put on a lower level priority" (dardjowidjojo, 2003, p. 57). dardjowidjojo (p. 57) continues to explain that english is offered only four times a week; each time 45 minutes. in universities english may not be offered at all or once a week for two credits only. dardjowidjojo (p.58) continues to explain that the teaching methodologies were kept on changing with the up to date methodologies, but success is not earned yet. although we seem to be always up to date as far as teaching methodologies are concerned, the same complaint has never disappeared: we have not been able to produce good english users…. casual observation on indonesian subtitles for english movies or sitcoms gives us a good clue as to how much the translators master this language…. many graduate students, even in language, have to struggle in order to understand the textbooks they are using. (dardjowidjojo, 2003, p. 58-59) the learning of english at schools and universities will not be much different from what has been going on these years. the changing of curriculum from 1984 to 1994 etc. did not really bring much difference in the real practice of teaching and learning, because both teachers and students are busy with one goal, namely passing the exam, now the national exam. although now the schools themselves hold the conversation exam for the students, the national exam is what the teachers are worried about. what is stated in the curriculum is sometimes different from what is carried out in the classrooms. 30 the position of english in indonesia learners at schools and universities probably will not get the maximum result from school because of various reasons as detected by dardjowidjojo (2003), from the size of the class to the teachers' ability and salary. however, the choice of learning materials should be well considered. it is better to use books published by credible publishers, because at least learners are exposed to the right english in spite of the so many problems concerning methods, size of class, hours of learning, teachers' qualification, and learners' motivation. the choice of what books to use is easier to control than the other problems, although it brings its own problems, such as who will decide, whether or not the person who makes decisions really understand the matter etc. if the aim of teaching of english in schools and universities in indonesian is to make indonesian students competitive internationally, then the books used should also refer to the english used in formal international occasions. it is this variety of english that learners should learn and that should be taught in the classrooms because it is this variety of english that creates mutual intelligibility and used by other nations in international occasions or the standard english. honey (1997, p. 1) explains it as follows "by standard english i mean the language in which this book is written, which is essentially the same form of english used in books and newspapers all over the world." if the variety taught is different from the one used by most nations in the world, it is unlikely that indonesian students can compete in international occasions. people are now aware that english in formal education actually gives the chance to compete internationally. in india, according to wang (2007, p. xiv), private colleges advertise by using the sentence "we teach in english." "to actually forsake the public system that teaches in your own language for the private one that teaches in english is an increasingly common phenomenon." in indonesia the same phenomenon occurs. schools include the use of english and the existence of english laboratory in their fliers and people choose schools the position of english in indonesia 31 applying bilingual education where english is used as an introductory language. in india the fees of the private colleges are "low compared to elsewhere" (ibid.), in indonesia schools with bilingual education are expensive. actually there is already the market; in indonesia people are ready to pay more money provided that english is used in schools. in conclusion, the variety of english that should be learnt by students in formal education is the one used by people in formal occasion. the other varieties are learnt from media and popular culture. english learning outside formal education the internet encourages people, especially the youth, to learn english. nowadays internet supplies what people need, from information, education to entertainment. it is not new that now people can play on-line game in the internet and they can earn money also from it. in order to play the game, they have to know english. this is a strong motivation to make them to learn english: besides, "the opportunities are unlimited even at the level of the individual: anyone with access to the medium can now present a personal diary-type statement to the world, of unlimited length, in the form of a blog…"(crystal, 2006, p. 404). however, the english learnt in the internet is not the formal one, because the kind of language used is different according to crystal (ibid. p. 402): "indeed, the extent of the difference is so great that it amounts to the arrival of a new medium, often called computermediated communication, which blends properties of traditional written and spoken language." based on this quotation, it can be assumed that the variety of english used in the internet can be any variety. this gives the chance for people to learn different varieties of english learnt at formal education. the chance to read and write in english is now greater than before and anyone that has access to the internet can make use of it. another media, actually the cheapest, that can be used as a source to learn english is television. if films in indonesian television channels are not dubbed, but well subtitled, television can be used as a media for english learning. television actually provides exposure 32 the position of english in indonesia to english because a lot of films on tv are american films. listening to the english dialogs and also reading the subtitle means listening to english utterances and understand the meaning of the utterances; this is a process in acquiring a language. in films, utterances heard by viewers are uttered in a context, namely the story in the film. therefore, films give examples to use utterances in a situation. unfortunately, quite a number of films are dubbed, and the translation in the subtitle often has errors, even serious errors. for example, 'give me a hand' is literally translated as berikan tanganmu rather than bantu aku (help me). in short, the learning of english in indonesia, especially for the youth, will be like what crystal (2006, p. 400) describes concerning the learning of english in japan. young children cannot avoid being exposed to english in such domains as advertising, television, the internet, and pop music, and inevitably develop a considerable passive knowledge of (some domains of) english. there is an increased awareness of english vocabulary through the assimilation of loanwords into japanese. and the popularity of english motivates a degree of spontaneous active (albeit often non-standard) use, both in speech and writing, as when children (or adults) imitate discourse exchanges they have encountered in english-language films or make use of idiomatic expressions they have seen in internet interactions. with the development of technology, the chance of learning english outside formal education increases. it is up to the people whether they want to use it or not. pop culture in terms of broadcasting and tv programs, nowadays there are news programs that are in chinese and english, such as metro tv. in terms of cinemas, actors and actresses, those of americans and of hong kong, are not strange to indonesian people. hong kong martial arts films are on indonesian tv channels and cinemas. hong kong actors like jacky the position of english in indonesia 33 chan and jet li and actresses like gong li and michelle yeoh are in hollywood films. however, in terms of popular music, the west still wins. english songs are more familiar to indonesian ears than chinese songs. the development of technology means the birth of new concepts and new words. from the history of english language in the renaissance period, it is known that the increased activity in almost every field and the translation of great works from latin and greek literature brought many new words into english. english was undoubtedly inadequate, as compared to the classical languages, to express the thought which those languages embodied and which in england was now becoming part of a rapidly expanding civilization. the translations that appeared in such numbers convinced people of the truth of this fact. the very act of translation brings home to the translators the limitations of their medium and tempts them to borrow from other languages the terms whose lack they feel in their own. for writers to whom latin was almost a second mother tongue the temptation to transfer and naturalize in english important latin radicals was particularly great. this was so, too, with french and italian. in this way many foreign words were introduced into english. (baugh and cable, 1997, p. 210-211) since the development in technology is associated with the west, and the technology is new to indonesia, it means that indonesian language does not have the words needed to convey the concept. then new english words will enter indonesian vocabulary. although lots of english vocabulary enters indonesian vocabulary, the language is still indonesian, just like french permeated english vocabulary, but the language is still english (baugh and cable, p. 179). 34 the position of english in indonesia another area that will be influenced by english is songs and films. one film that can be mentioned is eiffel, i'm in love. although the dialogue in the film is in bahasa indonesia, the title is in english. besides film, one indonesian sinetron (soap opera) where meriam belina is one the actresses in the film, uses fillers like "you know" and mixes english words in her indonesian sentences. another one is one episode in alisa. the character who is a new rich person always uses code mixing, mixing english words within her indonesian sentences. in another sinetron a character who is a villager, a girl friend of kabayan (a character in sundanese folklore) also does similar code mixing, because she wants to have the image of a modern upper class girl. english is portrayed as something that gives a new identity, modernity, and is associated with upper class society. not only films, but songs are also influenced. if malay words can sneak into an english song like the one below in malaysian context, if i die tonight, what would i do on my last day i know i'd wake early in the morn' for crack of dawn's last pray then probably go for breakfast like i used to do fried kuey teow fam and roti canai at ruja's with my boo' (pennycook 2007:3) then english words have also sneaked into indonesian popular songs, for example these two songs. one is "cari pacar lagi" (looking for a new girlfriend) by st12 group band in the song. cintaku, cintaku padamu tak besar seperti dulu (i don’t really love you that much now) temuku begitu, menilai cintaku, begitu rendah di matamu (in my opinion, you don't appreciate my love for you) sayangku, sayangku padamu (my love for you) tak indah seperti dulu (is not as beautiful as before) the position of english in indonesia 35 maumu begini maumu begitu (you always want things differently) tak pernah engkau hargai aku (you never appreciate me) ooh i am sorry, ku tak kan love you lagi (i am sorry i will not love you anymore) kupeluk, memeluk dirimu tak hangat seperti dulu (my hug is not as warm as before) kujadi selingkuh karna kau selingkuh (i have another girl, because you have another man) biar sama-sama kita selingkuh (both of us have another person) ooh i am sorry, ku tak kan love you lagi (i am sorry i do not love you anymore) biar kuputuskan saja (we broke up) kutak mau batinku tersiksa (i don't want my heart hurt) jangan kau selalu merasa (don't always feel you are the only one) wanita bukan dirimu saja (you are not the only woman) lebih baik kuputuskan saja (it's enough) cari pacar lagi (i look for a new girl) the mixing is longer in the following song by cinta laura. oh baby kau bikin pusing tujuh keliling (you give me a headache) buat aku mabuk kepayang (you make me in love) gayamu cool dan seksi (you are cool and sexy) mentok aku kepada kamu (only you) jadi semakin aku cinta (i love you more) kau sihir aku yang sedang kosong (you enchant me who has no boyfriend) di saat aku butuh cinta (when i need love) mantra-mantra dahsyatmu (your words of love) 36 the position of english in indonesia menarik aku yang sendiri (attract me who is single) memang lagi putus cinta (i broke up) katakan kau sungguh-sungguh (tell me that you are serious) hanya ada ku di dalam hatimu (only you in my heart) katakan-katakan kau cinta aku (tell me that you love me) untuk selamanya kau jadi milikku (forever you are mine) i don't wanna lose you yes i wanna hold you i don't wanna make you make you sad and make you cry oh baby baby baby (baby baby) oh baby baby baby (hu wuoo uoo uoo) oh baby baby baby (my baby) oh baby baby baby (baby oh yeeah) in this song the code mixing is longer, not only words, but the whole stanza is in english. these two songs are not the only ones that have codemixing. conclusion compared to english, chinese language is not fortunate enough in two points, namely language attitude and the intrinsic factors of the language. language attitude or attitudes, according to myers-scotton (2006, p. 120), are "subjective evaluations of both language varieties and their speakers, whether the attitudes are held by individuals or by the position of english in indonesia 37 groups." the fact that conflicts between the indigenous and chinese in south east asia occurs most often in indonesia (lestariana w., 2006) show that this group of people is not really liked by the majority and this influences the majority's evaluations to the language. the economic, military, and cultural factors that can boost its position as a new fast emerging foreign language can be much slowed down by this attitude. besides, the intrinsic factors of the chinese language are also another factor that makes it unable to compete with english. if the reason given in choosing malay as the national language, and not javanese, is because javanese is a complicated and hierarchical language (2007, p. 39 and suryadinata, 2000, p. 45), then the writing system—the chinese characters—and the fact that it is a tonal language will not make chinese as popular as english in indonesia. the chinese in indonesia is only three per cent of the population (suryadinata 2000, p. 39), and probably only this small number of people who ignore the difficulties of learning chinese, compared to more than ninety per cent who have the opinions that english is easier than chinese. in indonesia it is unlikely that chinese will be as popular as english, and that means english will be the only foreign language as usual. although chinese will be learnt by more people than before, it cannot compete with english in indonesia. english will still be a more important foreign language than chinese in indonesia. however, english will stay as a foreign language and will not be able to win over bahasa indonesia, although it has permeated into films, songs, names of real estate housing, names of shops, cafes, restaurants, etc. and gives a new identity to indonesians who are able to speak english. the english that indonesian people would learn and speak is the one they hear the most. however, the english that indonesian learners need to learn in schools and in universities is the standard variety, the one used in books and formal occasions, so that indonesian students are able to compete internationally; other varieties will be learnt through the media and the internet. 38 the position of english in indonesia references baker, c. (1992). attitudes and language. clevedon: multilingual matters ltd. baugh, a. c. and cable, t. (1993). a history of the english language. london: routledge. budianta, m. (2007). diverse voices: indonesian literature and nation-building. in lee h. g. and suryadinata, l. (eds.), language, nation and development in southeast asia (pp . 51-73). singapore: institute of southeast asian studies. crystal, d. (2006). into the twenty-first century. in mugglestone, l. (ed.), the oxford history of english. oxford: oxford university press. crystal, d. (2003). english as a global language. cambridge: cambridge university press. dardjowidjojo, s. (2003). the role of english in indonesia: a dilemma. in sukamto, k.e. (ed.), rampai bahasa, pendidikan dan budaya: kumpulan esai soenjono dardjowidjojo (pp. 41-50). jakarta: yayasan obor indonesia. dardjowidjojo, s. (2003). the socio-political aspects of english in indonesia: a dilemma. in sukamto, k.e. (ed.), rampai bahasa, pendidikan dan budaya: kumpulan esai soenjono dardjowidjojo (pp. 51-62). jakarta: yayasan obor indonesia. honey, j. (1997). language is power. london: faber and faber. jenkins, j. (2003). world englishes. london: routledge. kirkpatrick, a. (2007). world englishes: implications for international communication and english language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press. montolalu, l. r. and suryadinata, l. (2007). national language and nation building: the case of bahasa indonesia. in lee h. g. and suryadinata, l. (eds.), language, nation and development in southeast asia (pp. 39-50). singapore: institute of southeast asian studies. myers-scotton, c. (2006). multiple voices: an introduction to bilingualism. malden: blackwell. the position of english in indonesia 39 pattiradjawane, r. l. (2001). cina sebagai kekuatan adidaya: suara asia di dunia. in indonesia 2001 kehilangan pamor (pp. 163-170). jakarta: penerbit buku kompas. pennycook, a. (2007). global englishes and transcultural flows. london: routledge. phillipson, r. (1993). linguistic imperialism. oxford: oxford university press. suryadinata, l. (2000). nation-building and nation-destroying: the challenge of globalization in indonesia. in suryadinata, l. (ed.), nationalism and globalization: east and west (pp. 38-70). singapore: institute of southeast asian studies. lestariana w., g. (2006, march). soft power dan manajemen konflik masalah tionghoa indonesia. paper presented at seminar nasional sinologi at lembaga kebudayaan. malang, indonesia: muhammadiyah university. yin, h. (2006, march). the relationship between china and indonesia. paper presented at seminar nasional sinologi at lembaga kebudayaan. malang, indonesia: muhammadiyah university. songs are from http://kumpulan-lirik-lagu-indonesia.blogspot.com/2008/08/lirik-lagu-ohbaby-cinta-laura.html retrieved january 15, 2009 i part of the article has been presented at the international conference of center for chinese-indonesian studies (ccis) "chinese-indonesians: their lives and identities" at candi hotel, semarang, indonesia on 14-16 november 2013 english tsunami in indonesian 37 beyond words vol. 1, no. 1, november 2013 widya mandala catholic university surabaya english tsunami in indonesian e. sadtono universitas ma chung, malang, indonesia sadtono@gmail.com 38 english tsunami in indonesian abstract english has successfully overwhelmed indonesian like tsunami as an imperialistic language. the meaning of imperialism here, however, differs from the conventional meaning as it is invited imperialism, not coerced imperialism. the influence of english in indonesian is discussed in terms of modernization, globalization, economy, and history. the linguistic tsunami effects are overwhelming, staggering, and unstoppable. the data for this article were collected from various sources, and it was found that the number of english words (pure and modified) is indeed confounding. virtually english words have penetrated all walks of life. unfortunately, there is no way we can prevent english influence on indonesian, it is simply inevitable and we cannot do anything about it. seen from linguistic purism, we have lost the battle in fighting off english influence; but seen from the eye of a descriptive linguist, it is an unpreventable historical phenomenon. it is a linguistic dynamism in which language is altered and enriched by a continuous input from other languages, the most influential language being the major donor of loanwords of the receiving language. if it is considered a problem, the solution is to change our attitude to realize that any living language continues undergoing modifications and we should be willing to accommodate them. it is the dialectics of world history. keywords: loanword, linguistic imperialism, linguistic influence, historical phenomenon. english tsunami in indonesian 39 introduction for all intents and purposes, english loanwords are found in all sizable advertisements in indonesian newspapers. by english loanword is here meant any english word, original or adapted, that is used in indonesian. this paper discusses english loanwords in indonesian and their ramifications. linguistic imperialism linguistic imperialism or language imperialism is defined as a concept that “involves the transfer of a dominant language to other people. the transfer is essentially a demonstration of power -traditionally, military power but also, in the modern world, economic power – and aspects of the dominant culture are usually transferred along with the language.” (linguistic imperialism.wikipedia).phillipson (1992) defines english linguistic imperialism as ‘the dominance of asserted and retained by the establishment and continuous reconstitution of structural and cultural inequalities between english and other languages (paraphrased by wikipedia). my definition of english imperialism is the continuous use of english, adopted, adapted, realized and retained by indonesian society without any coercion. english as a global lingua franca ‘fortunately,’ english is now a global lingua franca meaning that it belongs to ‘everybody’ so it is inappropriate to accuse english speaking countries of committing the crime of linguistic imperialism. the fact that english as a language carries economic power is indisputable, resulting in the undermining of other languages, including indonesian, as it is impossible today to implement economic policy without using english. 40 english tsunami in indonesian usually the term ‘imperialism’ implies coercion and imposition by a superior power on an inferior power, for example the dutch imposed dutch on indonesians during the dutch colonial period before ww ii, and the japanese imposed japanese during the japanese occupation of indonesia during ww ii. in this discussion, it is not coerced imperialism, but invited imperialism. english ‘imperialism’ in indonesia is virtually invited by indonesian government and people. if english is hypothetically defined as ‘imperialist’, by imposing the subject ‘english’ on school curriculum, the government in fact invites imperialism; and sending their children to english-asa-medium-of-instruction schools, private english courses, etc. parents unconsciously send an invitation to english to ‘imperialize’ their children also. one of the major reasons for borrowing english words is globalization: the pressure of globalization demands that we use english for global communication, so knowing english is virtually a sine qua non. in other words we have to invite english, but then it is out of control and unknowingly becomes insidiously imperialistic. it is undeniable that english is very important as a tool to conduct business, master skills, acquire knowledge in different fields, and keep up with the latest developments in virtually any field and world affairs. in addition, it is also a crucial instrument to communicate with people worldwide. however, there is the downside of learning english, that is to be snobbish and to show off that one is educated and belongs to middle-class or upper-class family; for example quite a number of wedding invitations are bilingual, english and indonesian, even knowing that no foreigners would appear. english tsunami in indonesian 41 another downside is the loss of indonesian as mother tongue. it has happened in surabaya where some children who go to school using english as the medium of instruction are unable to use indonesian. it is plainly going overboard. the ’culprits’ of english imperialism the ‘culprits’ of english imperialism are economy, modernization and globalization, time saving or laziness, the media, indonesian psyche, and lack of self-confidence. economy. ‘the stomach cannot wait’ is the essential of economy. the simple saying reverberates into very complicated things, including language. language popularity, survival and death depend on economy. if a language does not bring economic benefits, the language will first become an endangered species, and sooner or later it will die. quite a number of indigenous languages have died because their speakers did not benefit economically from their existence. they will switch to another language that gives them more economic benefits, it is a world wide phenomenon. in indonesia, speakers of vernaculars benefit more from indonesian than from their own mother tongue. to some extent, a certain number of influential educated indonesian speakers get additional benefit more from english than from indonesian, thus the perpetuation of english influence. modernization and globalization. modernization and globalization needs one means of communication, and by an accident of history, english happens to become the world’s tool for communication (lingua franca). history tells us that ‘global’ or dominant language changes, for example latin was a dominant language during the middle age in many countries in europe, and russian was a dominant language in many countries in eastern europe due to its military power until the ussr disintegrated. different factors contribute to the dominance of language, but they are mainly economic power, military power, and religion. 42 english tsunami in indonesian time saving or laziness. people prefer using english to indonesian because to some extent english loanwords are more economical thus saving time. indeed there are english words or phrases when translated into indonesian become cumbersome, such as the acronym of kkn (‘korupsi’ coruption, ‘kolusi’ collution, and ‘nepotisme’ nepotism); the acronym would be lengthy when translated into indonesian. other examples from the world of fashion: ‘statement necklace,’ ‘high waisted pants,’ ‘high waisted trousers,’ and ‘fitted tailoring,’ – these would be quite lengthy if translated into indonesian. the media. the media are the ‘main culprit’ of english imperialism, jokingly they are the tools of imperialism. it is true that the pen is mightier than the sword and in this case the pen is mightier than any court injunction to protect linguistic purism. the following is a discussion on how the media inadvertently spread the english loanwords. the media are the major players in spreading english loanwords, the minor players are scientists and professors who write and teach, sprinkling english words in their writing and lectures, as well as business people when they talk shop. the advertisements in the media also play a major role in spreading english words. most probably all indonesian advertisements have english words in them, never mind the grammar. for example a new hotel in malang, solaris hotel, put the words ‘booked now’ instead of ‘book now.’ women’s magazines or women’s sections in a newspaper or general magazines are ‘notorious’ for using english words and phrases in their articles as they are so many of them (see appendices below). it is now difficult to distinguish by its cover whether a magazine is in indonesian or english as most of them bear english titles. there are roughly two kinds of media: national and regional. the national media have first rate reporters who know english well so their quotation of english words is more or less accurate. the regional media, on the other hand, employ reporters whose english proficiency english tsunami in indonesian 43 may be less than the national media reporters. for example, the word ‘gentle’ (should be ‘gentleman’) was used for a parlementarian who retired from the parliament (jawapos, april 13, 2011). the following day, describing the same person, the daily used ‘bersikap kesatria’ which is the correct translation of ‘gentleman.’ the second reporter or the editor may know english better than the first one. the national media reporters often interview central government authorities whose english is excellent. due to the demand of their job, these authorities’ mental diet is in english, they read daily news and the latest developments in their respective fields in english; in addition, they have to entertain foreign visitors practically daily using english. as such it is only understandable that when they speak, they can’t help sprinkling their speech with english words. not because they want to show off their english proficiency, but simply because due to their mental diet what they have in mind is mostly english words. in other words, the tip of their tongues is virtually full of english words. they may know the indonesian equivalents, but these equivalents are buried deep in their mind or brain, which may take some time to retrieve. this is particularly true when they talk about their respective fields in which indonesian has no equivalents yet, for example if the secretary general of the department of communication and information is explaining about the latest development in communication, he would employ a great deal of english technical terms which have no indonesian equivalents yet. the national media reporters would usually be able to follow the interview and write down english words correctly. due to their deadline to submit their reports to their media, they would not have much time to find the indonesian equivalents of the english words the interviewees uttered. so the english words creep into the indonesian media surreptitiously. the public or the readers would simply swallow what is written unquestioningly. and unconsciously they will 44 english tsunami in indonesian absorb the english words well, thus is the first step of the process of english borrowing. later on these borrowed words would change in terms of their form, pronunciation, lexical and grammatical meaning. for example a change in form: ‘eksekutor’ < english (further abbreviated to e) ‘executor,’ a change in pronunciation: ‘log in’ /login/ > /lojin/. a change in lexical meaning: ‘nuance’ –‘nuansa’; ‘nuance’ – ‘a very slight difference’, ‘nuansa’ in indonesian means ‘sphere, ambience.’ ‘hostess’ becomes ‘hostes’ [hostès] – which has a negative connotation. a change in grammatical meaning: ‘oil additive’ – ‘oliaditif’ – the structure is unchanged. such a case can be problematic if it has to be translated into english as it can change the meaning. another example is the new grammatical construction ‘honda motor’. there is then this problem: ‘honda motor’ vs. ‘motor honda’; ‘honda motor’ is a shop selling honda motorbike spareparts – a new indonesian construction, whereas ‘motor honda’ is a honda motorcycle. this can create a problem in translation. (see elsewhere for further discussion). the regional and local media reporters are generally speaking less proficient in english than the national media reporters. many of the regional and local government authorities are also less proficient in english than the central government authorities. when the regional and local media reporters interview regional and local government authorities, the authorities may use english correctly or incorrectly; and the reporters would cite them. when it comes to english words, the reporters would jot them down (or record them), and the result of the interview would be written in the printed media. it is questionable whether the authority being interviewed uses and pronounces the english words correctly and whether the reporters know the english words and whether they can spell them correctly. once the english words are printed in a newspaper, readers would learn them rightly or wrongly, they simply take the english words in toto, and most of the readers would take it for granted that they are correct. the reporters themselves may english tsunami in indonesian 45 not have time to check the spelling in the dictionary as they are pressed for time to meet the deadline. this is one of the reasons the loanwords are sometimes misspelled. chart of the spread of loanwords in indonesian through the media 46 english tsunami in indonesian the indonesian psyche snobbery snobbery is ‘behavior or attitudes which show that you think you are better than other people, because you belong to a higher social class or know much more than they do’ (longman dictionary of contemporary english, 2003: 1566). quite a few indonesians unconsciously ‘suffer’ from this kind of snobbery because they think that if they can sprinkle their language with english words, people would think that these snobs belong to the middle or upper-middle class. for example the word ‘kewirausahaan’ for ‘entrepreneurship’, ‘kepemimpinan’ for ‘leadership’, we have already the indonesian word, but why indonesians prefer using ‘entrepreneurship’ to ‘kewirausahaan,’ or ‘leadership’ to ‘kepemimpinan’ remains a mystery to me, probably it is ‘luxury borrowing.’ another example is wedding invitations, quite a few of them also use english even if they know that they are not going to invite foreigners. i can’t help ascribing such an attitude simply to snobbery. lack of self-confidence lacking self-confidence may be due to national or collective trait which the indonesian society has inherited from predecessors who suffered from subjugation and colonialism for a very long time (350 years of dutch colonialism is more than enough to form a nation’s psyche). such mental inheritance cannot be taken too lightly, it is there but people may not perceive it and it is difficult to eradicate. the results of such mentality are among others inferiority complex, preference for foreign products, the generalizing stereotypes that westerners by and large are more superior than their own countrymen, and the ability to speak a foreign (western) language uplifts one’s social status. this held true during the dutch colonialism whereby indonesians who english tsunami in indonesian 47 could speak dutch felt superior to other indonesians who could not. fortunately, the younger generation now does not seem to have the inferiority complex of being indonesians anymore. however, it is also the younger generation that insists that english words be used in any business announcement, brochures, pamphlets, banners, etc. it seems that they do not feel satisfied if they do not use english on those materials. generally speaking, indonesians prefer things made outside indonesia, especially germany, the uk, japan, and korea. one of the reasons is that products made in those countries are really superior to indonesian-made products. brief history of english in indonesia english has been taught in indonesia since pre-world war ii during the dutch colonial time, but exactly when it was initially taught is anybody’s guess (sadtono, 2007). it was taught beginning from junior high school (mulo – dutch) through senior high school (ams – dutch). indonesian was proclaimed as the national language on 28 october 1928, the youth oath day, but its development was minimal. during ww ii, that is during the japanese occupation for about three and half years (1942 – 1945), english and dutch were banned. the japanese occupation army instituted indonesian as the medium of instruction and japanese was intensively taught. despite their occupation, indonesia should be thankful to the japanese for reinforcing indonesian as the national language. when indonesia gained her independence on august 17, 1945 indonesian was already on a firm footing and from then on it has bloomed to become a full fledged language as it is today. it has been so successful that in fact it is one of the major obstacles to the success of the teaching of english in indonesia as nowadays virtually anything can be found in indonesian. in other words, indonesian can satisfy the primary and secondary needs of indonesians, and students now can 48 english tsunami in indonesian graduate with bachelor’s and some master’s degrees without knowing english. the average score of doctoral candidates on ‘toefl’ test at airlangga university is 415 which is far below the requirement (eliyana, 2013, personal communication). the success of indonesian is actually a mixed blessing, on one hand indonesians now can learn almost anything using just indonesian, on the other hand indonesian has been ‘suffering’ from the never-ending onslaught of english. foreign language borrowings into indonesian indonesian is actually no stranger to loanwords or borrowing from other languages (loanwords. wikipedia) such as arabic, chinese (mostly hokkien), sanskrit, persian, spanish, portuguese, dutch, english, javanese and other indigenous languages in indonesia. only recently did english inundate indonesian with english words. the loanwords have influenced and enriched indonesian through different channels such as trade, religion, colonialism, education, and deliberate adoption. sanskrit words are abundant in indonesian due to early hindu and buddhist influence mostly through javanese. indian traders, especially tamil, contributed sanskrit words as well (list of loanwords in indonesian. wikipedia), for example ‘asmara’ (‘smara’) – love; ‘bahasa’ (‘bhasa’) – language, ‘bahaya’ (‘bhaya’) – danger; ‘aksara’ (aksara) – letters, alphabet. since ancient times, chinese and indonesians have conducted a great deal of trade, and inevitably chinese words, mainly hokkien, are borrowed into indonesian. in addition, a big number of chinese migrated from china to indonesia and as a result they also contributed chinese words to indonesian, e.g. ‘bakmie’ (‘bamien’) – noodles, ‘bakso’ (‘ba so’) – meat balls, ‘lumpia’ (‘lunpia’) – spring rolls. a sizeable number of arabic words are also found in indonesian and this is mainly attributable to trade and islam. the majority of graduates from moslem schools (pesantren) still english tsunami in indonesian 49 pronounce arabic loanwords using arabic pronunciation. examples of arabic loanwords: ‘alam’ – nature, ‘asli’ (‘asl’) – genuine, ‘badan’ (‘baddan’) – body. persian traders also visited indonesia and consequently there are few persian words borrowed into indonesian, for example ‘anggur’ (‘angur’ – grapes), ‘bandar’ – port, ‘gandum’ – wheat, ‘pasar’ – market, ‘sihir’ – black magic power, and ‘nakhoda’ – captain of a ship. brief portuguesecolonialization in the 16th century and trade also contributed some loanwords such as ‘almari’ (‘armario’) – wardrobe, ‘armada’‘armada, fleet,’ ‘bendera’ (‘bandeira’) –flag. vernaculars in indonesian: maluku ‘beta’ – i; batak ‘molek’ – beautiful; nias ‘anda’ you; sundanese ‘anjangsana’ – visit; minangkabau ‘abang’ – brother, ‘ranah’ – area, ‘gadis’ – virgin girl; javanese ‘kesurupan’ – in trance, ‘luhur’ – noble, etc. javanese, having the largest number of population, has numerous words borrowed into indonesian. indonesian society as recipient of loanwords indonesian society can be roughly divided into upper-class, middle-class, and lower class. indonesian society is also dynamic going hand in hand with the economy of the country and it seems that the middle class is growing somewhat fast as the economy is improving. in terms of language use, the discussion in this paper is directed towards the middle class and the upper class who know english. knowing english is here assumed to be the ability to read and understand english to a large extent; otherwise they would not be able to understand the contents of major media publication using indonesian mixed with english lexicon. 50 english tsunami in indonesian theoretical background of borrowing scholars have long discussed loanwords or borrowing as word borrowing is part and parcel of language (grzega, 2003: 22-42). grzega expounded loanwords in the following discussion. they divide borrowing into two categories “necessity borrowing” and “luxury borrowing,” and the motives frequently quoted are “need to designate new (imported) things” and “prestige.” to designate a new electronic gadget is an example of necessity borrowing, e.g. ‘laptop,’ ‘notebook,’ etc. using an english word instead of its indonesian equivalent is a luxury borrowing, e.g. ‘leadership’ instead of ‘kepemimpinan.’ the other motives are as follows: need to differentiate. there are special nuances of expression, including stylistic variation. i would personally add that writers want to vary their language because they are bored with using the same indonesian words all the time. need to play with words. it is probably not applicable to indonesians using english unless it is intended to make jokes, for example ‘dewi ayu tidak suka es’literally ‘dewi ayu doesn’t like ice.’ actually it is a mnemonic device for remembering a grammatical rule ‘’they’, ‘we’,’i’, ‘you’ shouldn’t use ‘s’ with present tense verbs). homonymic clashes. they are clashes between two words which have the same pronunciation but different spellings, for example ’mail’ and ‘male.’ this may not be applicable to english loanwords borrowed into indonesian. loss of affectiveness. some words, or seen from a juxtaposed viewpoint, have emotionality of a specific concept. in indonesia, people would mostly borrow words from their own mother tongue, that is indigenous languages in indonesia, for affectiveness of words, rather than english. english tsunami in indonesian 51 feeling of insufficiently. it differentiated conceptual fields. for example, the necessity to differentiate ‘software’ (‘perangkat lunak’) from ‘hardware’ (‘perangkat keras’) or rise of a specific conceptual field, for example‘outsourcing.’ attraction of a borrowing. due to an already borrowed word (analogy) ,for example, the english morpheme ‘-ity’ becomes ‘-tas’ in indonesian: ‘legality’‘legalitas,’ ‘faculty’ – ‘fakultas,’ and so by analogy the suffix ‘-itas’ is extrapolated and applied to other english words which do not have the suffix ‘-ity’ such as ‘rutinitas’ < e. *routinity, etc.(see discussion on this elsewhere). political or cultural power.dutch colonialized indonesia for around 350 years. dutch then was taught as the dutch domination was very powerful, resulting in numerous dutch loanwords in indonesian. bilingual character of a society.indonesian society is a bilingual society. therefore, borrowing words from another language is common. negative evaluation. the aim of appearing derogatory or positive evaluation and need for a euphemistic expression, e.g. ‘ml’ – ‘making love,’ ‘mr.p’ –‘penis,’ ‘miss v’ –‘vagina’ are already used in indonesian as euphemisms. laziness of the translator. often, translators are either lazy or lack of lexicographical means for example, ‘diskon’ (‘discount’) is shorter (two syllables are more economical) than ‘potongan harga’ (five syllables); an example of lack of lexicographical means ‘nepotisme’ < e. ‘nepotism’ – no single equivalent in indonesian, so it is adopted fully. mere oversight or temporary lack of remembering indigenous names. this happens to highly educated people whose daily mental diet is english materials (see elsewhere when reporters interview authorities whose indonesian is interspersed with english words) 52 english tsunami in indonesian low frequency of indigenous words.words that are hardly used and their instability within a region, e.g. ‘mouse’ (computer) is much more frequently used in indonesian than the term ‘tetikus.’ loanword classification the following is the classification of loanwords based on betz’s nomenclature and enlarged by duckworth as quoted in loanword (loanword. wikipedia) into importation, partial substitution and substitution. importation foreign word. this type of imported words are not integrated. they remain pure in their original spelling, e.g. ‘radio,’ ‘jeep,’ ‘tv,’ ‘mouse,’ ‘monitor,’ etc. electronic gadgets mostly belong to this category. loanword. when the foreign words are integrated, and the spelling is adapted to the indonesian system of orthography they are called loan words. for example, ‘komputer,’ ‘bolpoin,’(‘ball point’), ‘sopir’(‘chauffeur’), etc. partial substitution. they are “composite words, in which one part is borrowed, another one substituted” (wikipedia) .for example, ‘anti-peluru’ – ‘bullet-proof’ –‘anti’ is an english loanword and ‘peluru’ is indonesian. substitution substitution refers to meaning shifts in loanwords and loan coinage. meaning shifts in loanwords. the word, ‘gentle’ is used to mean ‘gentleman’ (a man who is polite and behaves well towards other people (cambridge adavanced learner's dictionary, english tsunami in indonesian 53 2005, p. 530) ‘travel’ means an intercity door to door service car originally belonging to a travel agent. loan coinage. this kind of substitution is divided into loan translation, loan rendering, and loan creation: loan translation. it is also called calquing (see wikipedia). it is “the translation of the elements of the foreign word” (loanword. wikipedia). in other words the idea is borrowed, but the words are indonesian, for example ‘skyscraper’ is translated into ‘pencakar langit’ (‘sky’ – ‘langit’; ‘scraper’-‘pencakar’; ‘darah biru’ – ‘blue blood’ – (this is in turn from spanish ‘sangreazul’), and ‘cuci otak’ – ‘brain wash.’ loan rendering. it is “the translation of part of the elements of the foreign word” (loanword, wikipedia); for example ‘pompanisasi’ – ‘pompa’ – ‘pump’ + suffix ‘-isasi’ from ‘isatie’ dutch or ‘-ization’ – english, meaning to use pump to get water to water rice-fields. the suffix ‘-isasi’ is a prolific suffix borrowed from dutch as it saves a number of indonesian words to express a concept. loan creation. it is “a coinage independent of the foreign word, but created out of the desire to replace a foreign word” (wikipedia); for example ‘pramugari’ is used to replace ‘stewardess.’ however, the word ‘pramuniaga’ is now replaced by the english word spg for ‘sales promotion girl’ or simply ‘sales.’ loan meaning. it is an “indigenous word to which the meaning of the foreign word is transferred” (loanword. wikipedia), for example ‘tetikus’ for ‘computer mouse,’ but this word ‘tetikus’ fails to be popular and people still use ‘mouse,’ probably because it is shorter and it is already integrated into indonesian. the same fate falls on the words ‘sangkil’ and ‘mangkus’ for 54 english tsunami in indonesian ‘effective’ and ‘efficient,’ the words ‘efektif’ and ‘efisien’ are popularly used in society whereas ‘sangkil’ and ‘mangkus’ are virtually unknown. english influence phonological and orthographical confusion. here are some causes of confusion: different phonological systems.english is a stressed-time system and indonesian is a syllable-stressed system. an utterance in english normally has one major stress, be it a word or a phrase. in indonesian every syllable is stressed, the penultimate syllable is ordinarily stressed more.stress is phonemic in english, but not phonemic in indonesian. stress in english is dynamic, it can change its place depending on context.strong pressure from the indonesian syllable patterns, for example indonesian cvcv pattern, resulting in an english word being wrongly stressed. different underlying principles of writing systems.english orthography is not phonemic.indonesian is more or less phonemic, thus the spelling is more predictable borrowing is a process of adoption and adaptation. all of these factors ascribe to confusion in pronouncing and spelling english loanwords.confusionoccurs in pronunciation and spelling. o spelled and pronounced the same as english: ‘monitor’ o spelled and pronounced almost the same ‘discount’ – ‘diskon’;‘radio’ – [ra:dio]. o spelled the same but pronounced differently [lᴐjin] for ‘login,’ [dᴐnlo:t] – ‘download,’ [aplo:t] –‘upload’, [kipet] – ‘keypad.’ these pronunciations attribute to the indonesian phonology where final voiced consonants [-g] [-b] and [-d] do not exist; and [ᴐ] and [o:] are allomorphs of the same phoneme. [lᴐjin] for ‘log in’ is an english tsunami in indonesian 55 example of analogy as the word ‘gin’ is pronounced [jin], so in the mind of most indonesians ‘login’ ‘should’ be pronounced [lᴐjin]. o spelled differently but pronounced almost the same, e.g. ‘bolpoin’ for ‘ballpoint.’ o totally adapted to indonesian phonological and orthographical system so that it is difficult to trace the original word, for example ‘sekokbreker’ – ‘shockbreaker,’ ‘beking’ – ‘backing’ o strong pressure from indonesian major syllable pattern cvcv, for example, ‘helem’ – -‘helm,‘ ‘setasiun’ – ‘station’ (originally from dutch), ‘setar bak’ –‘starbuck.’ o pronounced as spelled, for example ‘blunder’ is pronounced [blu:nder] in indonesian. o unconsciously combining dutch and english, e.g. ‘fotogenic’‘foto’ (dutch‘photo’ – english; ‘-genic’ – english suffix) o misunderstanding: indonesians may misunderstand and think that borrowed words are originally english, when in fact they are of dutch origin. as a result they want to keep the ‘original english,’ for example ‘under steel’ for dutch ‘onderstel,’ a technical term referring to car repair, which is actually not found in english. as a consequence of these developments, indonesians who do not know english would today find it difficult to understand general reading materials such as newspapers and magazines as the number of english loanwords is mind-boggling. grammatical construction generally speaking, indonesians who know english but are not familiar with parts of speech would get confused when they have to use english, so it is common to see an english noun used as a verb, e.g. ‘mempromosikanmobil’ *to promotion a car – promotion (noun) 56 english tsunami in indonesian mem+promosi+ kan) . english nouns are usually used to create new indonesian verbs, the process is as follows: o creating indonesian verbs using loanwords:  prefix+noun [verb+ing] loanword+suffix o for example ‘meloading‘ it is a hybrid word: ‘me-‘ verbal prefix in indonesian, meaning ‘to,’ plus ‘load+ing’, thus we have ‘me-load-ing’. another example is “album singlenyasudah di-launching” (jawapos, 19 april 2011) – “his single album has been launched,” thus ‘dilaunching’ is a hybrid also (‘di + launch + ing): ‘di-‘ is a passive marker in indonesian, ‘launch+ing’ is an english gerund. indonesians do not seem to care (or do not understand) the grammatical characteristics of the –ing form, thus the confusing combination.  prefix+noun [-tion ending]+suffix o english nouns are commonly affixed to create new verbs in indonesian, for example ‘mengakomodasikan’ –*to accommodation ‘to accommodate’ (‘meng+akomodasi [accommodation]+ kan), ‘mengeksekusi’(‘meng-eksekusi [‘execution’]) –‘to execute.’ o suffix change, from dutch suffix ‘-ir’ (originally ‘-eer) to ‘-isasikan’, e.g. ‘dikonfrontir’ –(‘to be confronted’) – ‘dikonfrontasikan’ *to be confrontation,’ ‘memanipulir’(‘to manipulate’) – ‘memanipulasi(kan)’-*to manipulation (see above) o suffix ‘-isasi’ is originally derived from dutch ‘-isatie’ (e. ‘-ization.’) , for example ‘pompanisasi’ < e.*pumpization – ‘to use pump to draw water to water ricefields,’ ‘hilirisasi’ – ‘to multiply downstream manufacturing.’ english tsunami in indonesian 57 o the order of english noun phrase (adjective+noun) is the reverse of indonesian noun phrase (noun+adjective), indonesians frequently make mistakes in this case, for example ‘garden flower’ and ‘flower garden’ can be confusing to indonesians. vocabulary some of the reasons for using english loanwords: (a) the need for new vocabulary items for newly invented things due to the advancement of science and technology. the terms available for these items are mainly in english. (b) because the production of new articles, especially electronic gadgets, is so fast that indonesians (linguists, especially terminologists) cannot keep up with them, so they cannot create new terms in indonesian. indonesian itself would have no words for new items and the easiest way-out is to adopt and adapt english words. (c) a great deal of the mental diet (reading materials) of authorities and decision makers in the government and non-government institutions is english, so it is only understandable that when media reporters interview them, they use quite a few english words because the words that are on the tip of the tongue of the authorities are mainly english. (d) reporters who interview them would have no time to check them (or do not bother checking them?) in the dictionary as they have to meet the deadline, so they just reproduce the english words used by the interviewee, rightly or wrongly. (e) impatience or laziness to find indonesian equivalents. (f) some people use english words to show off to improve their status symbol. (g) neologism: there are three types of neologism in relation to loanwords: (a) extrapolated neologism, (b) abbreviated loanword neologism, and (c) abbreviated combined indonesian and loanword neologism. 58 english tsunami in indonesian a. extrapolated neologism: creating neologisms (new words) by drawing analogy from the existing word pattern using loanwords. as mentioned above, the english suffix of ‘-ity’ is changed into ‘-itas’ in indonesian, for example ‘creativity’ – ‘kreatifitas,’ ‘quality’ – ‘kualitas,’ etc. based on this pattern, indonesians draw analogy to create new words along the same lines, that is loanword plus the suffix ‘-itas.’ however, english has no such words, for example ‘rutinitas’ < e.*routinity, ‘sportifitas’ <e.*sportivity. b. abbreviated loanword neologism: the new words consist of partial loanwords, for example ‘ponsel’ <‘telpon seluler’ < e. ‘cellular telephone’ ‘hape’ < ‘hp’ (indonesian pronunciation [hapé]) < ‘handphone.’ c. indonesian and loanwords are combined to formnew abbreviations: the new words consist of partial indonesian and partial loanwards, for example ‘warnet’ <indonesian ‘warung internet’< e.’internet stall’, ‘wartel’ < imdonesian ‘warung telpon’ < e.‘telephone stall’ the components of these neologisms are indonesian (‘warung’ – ‘stall, kiosk’) and english loanwords (‘internet,’ ‘telpon’). the ‘rule’ in developing abbreviations is ‘no rule’ – as long as the new abbreviation sounds pleasant to the ear, it is usually accepted by society at large. further developments in vocabulary are as follows:  even if a word has several meanings, a loanword usually refers to only one meaning, that is the most frequent meaning.  not understanding the grammar of english words and parts of speech makes the patterns of loanwords confusing, for example noun (e) is used as a verb in indonesian. english tsunami in indonesian 59  shifts of meaning can occur, for example ‘nuansa’ < e. ‘nuance’, but in indonesian it means ‘ambience’ or ‘atmosphere.’ another example is‘dicari marketing’ (wanted: marketers): first, the misconception of the word ‘marketing,’ quite a few indonesians are ignorant of the parts of speech in english, such as the difference between noun and verb, adjective and adverb, etc. small wonder therefore that they make mistakes by confusing those parts of speech. instead of ‘marketers’, they just use the word ‘marketing’, especially since most probably they have hardly ever heard of the word ‘marketers.’ in addition, due to habits, now the meaning of ‘marketing’ shifts from the process to the doer, that is the person doing the marketing. the same holds true for the word ‘sales,’ which now shifts its meaning to become the person doing the marketing, instead of the process. another example of meaning shift is ‘travel’ – a door to door transportation service using a car to take people from one city to another.  clipping: to cut a noun phrase into one lexical item, for example ‘remote control’ becomes ‘remote,’ ‘matic’ – for ‘automatic motorcycle.’ future indonesian in relation to english the future indonesian may have the following characteristics: (a) using as much as twenty five percent of english loanwords, (b) the loanwords are adoptions and adaptations of english words, and (c) adaptations occur in all components of language (pronunciation, spelling, grammar [including more active sentences], vocabulary, loan translation, and shifts of meaning). in the immediate future, there will be an avalanche of english words in indonesian that the loanwords need to be accommodated in a separate dictionary such as the case in japan. there are 60 english tsunami in indonesian so many english words in japanese (‘gairago’) that it requires the making of a separate dictionary. in the far future, indonesian may be so much inundated with english words that it can hardly be called indonesian anymore, probably the best name would be bahasa indonesia hibrida (hybrid indonesian), a mixture of indonesian and english. another looming language ready to swallow indonesian is chinese as chinese will be a gigantic economic power, defeating the us and many other established countries. in terms of the tense system, chinese is similar to indonesian, thus grammatically it would be relatively ‘easy’ for indonesian in terms of the tense system. the only drawback of chinese is the tones and the writing system that may obstruct its advances as a global language. hybrid language: indonesian english or english indonesian? the following are some samples to show how many english loanwords are used in short texts: (a) advertisement “aha! gadget baru internetan tanpa buffering. aha link portable hotspot untuk 5 gadget wifi berbeda. gadget wifi-mu langsung connect ke internet super cepat up to 3.1 mbps. free unlimited download ribuan lagu dengan akses cepat up to 3.1 mbps di modem serba bisa.” (jawapos, 1 february 2011) (42 words: indonesian 14 [5.88%], loanwords 25 [10.5%]) (b) kombinasi menarik “tidak perlu membeli setelan mahal setelah mendapat panggilan (job application, es). daripada suit yang berkesan super formal, penampilan rileks membuat anda tampak lebih percaya diri. pilih bawahan klasik, seperti rok pensil atau high waisted pants, lalu padukan dengan cardigan atau blazer.bahkan printed blouse pun okeasalditambahkanaksesori yang english tsunami in indonesian 61 pas, seperti statement necklace atau belt.” (jawapos, 17 april 2011). (57 words: indonesian 24 words [13.68%], 19 loanwords [10.83%]) the borrowed words are: ‘kombinasi’ (‘kombinatie’ – dutch; ‘combination’ eng.); ‘setelan’ (dutch ‘stel’ – set); ‘suit’; ‘superformal’; ‘rileks’ – ‘relax’; ‘klasik’ (dutch)-(‘classic’eng.); ‘rok’ (‘jurk’-dutch); ‘pensil’ (‘pencil’); ‘high waisted pants’ ; ‘kardigan’ (‘cardigan’); ‘blazer’ ; ‘printed blouse’ ; ‘oke’ (‘ok’-‘okay’); ‘aksesori’ – ‘accessory’; ‘pas’ (dutch); ‘statement necklace’; ‘belt.’ (see more samples in the appendices) can we protect indonesian from the onslaught of english words? sadly, the answer is definitely no. actually, there are already rules prescribed by the national language center (‘pusatbahasa’) regarding loanwords, but people may not be aware of them or they simply could not care less. the power of english is too overwhelming and too powerful to prevent like tsunami. any efforts to police the language with whatever method would simply fail. what we can do is to change our attitude and to be more open-minded, that is we have to be willing to accept change, because language is dynamic, it is always changing all the time. to appease our nationalistic emotion, we have to be willing to accept the fact that “no modern language is pure.” the japanese who are well-known for their staunch attitude against foreign culture also capitulate in terms of foreign language influence. we also have to learn from the french trying to prevent the influence of english by law, they also fail. even indonesian is not exactly a pure language (see above) and english itself contains a great deal of borrowed words from languages of the world, including indonesian such as ‘batik,’ ‘kampong,’ ‘kris’, ‘orangutan,’ and ‘nasigoreng.’ we cannot afford to be narrow-minded anymore in the era of globalization. 62 english tsunami in indonesian conclusion in summary, linguistic imperialism here refers the inevitable influx of english words in indonesian. the imperialism, however, is not coerced, but invited due to a number of reasons such as economic necessity, catching up with the latest development of science and technology, time pressure, and snobbery. the avalanche of english words is so powerful and overwhelming that it is unpreventable and inevitable. indonesian of the immediate future will probably consist of 25% english words and 75% indonesian, but the percentage of english words will be ever increasing and the percentage of indonesian will be decreasing in the long run. indonesian will not vanish or become endangered, but it will survive having a different form. indonesians will continue attempting to find indonesian equivalents of english words, but the success rate may be minimal. any attempt to control the ‘purity’ of indonesian will never succeed. one of the best solutions is to have an attitude of broad-mindedness to accept the fact that there is no such thing as pure language and that language is dynamic and forever changing. the implication of the phenomenon of english hegemony in indonesian is that indonesians, willingly or not, have to learn english as indonesian will consist of a lot more english loanwords. nowadays those who graduate only from the elementary school never learning english would find it difficult to read and understand the sample texts in the appendices below. honestly, indonesian is in fact a language imperialist also. actually indonesian has been extremely successful, but at the expense of indigenous languages. quite a few indonesian indigenous languages have died or are dying or losing the battle against indonesian because indonesian brings more economic benefits than their own indigenous language. for example, less and less young javanese understand and let alone can use the high javanese speech level english tsunami in indonesian 63 (krama inggil) as they are more exposed to indonesian in the four skills than to javanese. in addition, javanese does not bring so much economic benefit as indonesian. to conclude, the slogan “pakailah bahasa indonesia yang baik dan benar” (“use the correct and appropriate indonesian”) cannot stand ‘linguistic imperialism’ anymore. ‘linguistic imperialism’ is here to stay. 64 english tsunami in indonesian references calque.(2011, march). retrieved from wikipeda, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/calque. cambridge adavanced learner's dictionary. (2005). 2nd, 530. singapore: cambridge university press. digicom. edisi 101. may 2009 grzega, j. 2003. onomasiology online 4: 22-42 jawapos, 1 february 2011 -----------, 12 april 2011 -----------, 13 april, 2011 -----------, 17 april 2011 -----------, 19 april 2011 -----------, 22 april, 2011 -----------, 24 april 2011 linguistic imperialism. retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/linguistic_imperialism list of loanwords in indonesian. retrieved from http: //en.wikipedia.org.wiki /list_of_loan_words_in_indonesian loanword. retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/loanword longman dictionary of contemporary english. 2003: 1566 phillipson, r. 1992. linguistic imperialism. oxford: oxford university press sadtono, e. 2007. a concise history of teaching english as a foreign language in indonesia in choi, h. y &spolsky, b. 2007. english education in asia. seoul, south korea: asia tefl english tsunami in indonesian 65 appendices based on the following brief quotations, the number of loanwords has become ‘alarming.’ the following are some sample texts in indonesian just to show us how many english loanwords are found in them. notice that the writers do not only use english loanwords, but also sentences, so it is already code-switching from indonesian to english. these could signify the trend of indonesian in the future. dheaananda, artis “little girl in a shopping arena! dhea tampil seperti gadis remaja yang sedang jatuh cinta. gaya baby-doll dress dengan detail sunray pleats atau lipit menyebar dari satu titik. permainan potongan dua warna membuat detail busana itu terlihat unik. mom’s bag, ring, dan hair styling menjadi komposisi yang menarik. secara keseluruhan penampilan dhea keren, tapi not the trend yet.” (62 words: indonesian 37 [22.94%], english loanwords 25 [15.5%]) embrannawawi jawapos, 17 april 2011 naysilla mirdad, bintang sinetron “congrats ya atas setahun butiknya. kamu memang cocok jadi pemilik butik. blus warna peach dengan indonesian necklace yang sedang ngetren membuat kamu terlihat manis. apalagi dipadu dengan jegging jeans legging) biru tua. itu cocok sekali. wow, saya senang sekali dengan pilihan leather belt with gold buckle yang membuat nay terlihat sophisticated. semoga sukses, yaa.” (56 words: indonesian 36 [20.16%], englishloanwards 20 [11.2%]) ivo ananda jawapos, 17 april 2011 66 english tsunami in indonesian aksesori menawan “aksesori memegang peranan penting dalam melengkapi total look anda. yang paling penting dari perhiasan, baik asli maupun imitasi, jangan sampai terlihat murahan. cirinya, warnanya soft dan tidak mencolok. coba untaian batu yang berbeda atau sekalian model yang tidak match untuk tampilan yang sophisticated, tapi modern.” (27 words: indonesian 19 [5.13%], english loanwords 9 [2.43%]) fashion, jawapos, 17 april 2011 redefinisi smart phone “... di balik kemampuannya yang mampu mengintegrasikan fungsi informasi dan komunikasi secara mobile, para vendor ponsel dan pabrikan software serta komponen terkait telah melakukan berbagai inovasi agar ponsel besutan mereka benar-benar smart dan diminati pasar. mereka tidak saja meningkatkan kemampuan presesor (sic. should be ‘prosesor’.es) agar dapat mengeksekusi aplikasi-aplikasi berat secara smooth, tetapi mendongkrak kapasitas memori hingga 8 mb lebih. dengan demikian ratusan data dan program bisa selalu anda bawa dan gunakan kapanpun dan dimanapun.” (81 words: indonesian 54 [43.74], english loanwords 27 [21.87%]) digicom.edisi 101. mei 2009 scoopy on the street pro motoraraya “touring motor matic honda kian marak dilakukan. sebab, komunitas dan penggunanya semakin banyak. untuk mengakomodasi keinginan customer tersebut, pt mpn malang sebagai main dealer honda memberikan kebijakan di tiap dealer honda harus menggelar touring untuk matic.” (43 words: indonesian 26 [11.18%], english loanwords 17 words [7.31%]) jawapos, 22 april 2011 english tsunami in indonesian 67 andien, penyanyi “potongan dress yang classy and elegant bikin andien terlihat lebih poise (sic. should be ‘poised’) dan dewasa. tapi i hate the shoes! basic heels hitam bakal terlihat oke dengan dress itu. tapi, instead, dia pilih flat shoes merah yang modelnya kasual abis. sepatunya terlalu kasual, no elegance. lain kali, sepatunya dipakai untuk pergi ke mal saja, ya! good choice of dress. bad shoes.” (60 words: indonesian 32 [19.2%] words, loanwords 28 [16.8%] words). lisa purnomo fashion, jawapos, 24 april 2011 masculinity in rainbow boys: beyond words vol.3, no.2, november 2015  the author 2015. published by widya mandala catholic university press; all rights reserved. female graduate students on masculinity: “his girly characteristics worried me and my husband” mateus yumarnamto yumarnamto@gmail.com widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia this paper explores the masculinity discourses appearing in an internet discussion forum in a graduate class. the discussion forum itself is a part of a course related to contemporary issues, media, and identity in literature for children and young adults. in the forum the students are required to respond to the weekly readings, especially the ones related to children and young adult literature. this study is aimed at understanding how masculinity discourses are presented by the members of the forum. there are two main thematic discourses found in the discussion forum. the first one is the dominant discourses of masculinity in which boys should be boys by showing their macho sides. the second one is the subordinate discourse of masculinity—the feminine sides of men. beyond the texts and academic discussions, these findings show that the hegemonic masculinity persists and unconsciously has influenced many members of the forum. keywords: masculinity, children literature, readers’ response, discussion forum introduction welcome to the guys read virtual vault of good books. this is the place to come if you’re looking for something to get a guy reading. we’ve collected recommendations from teachers, librarians, booksellers, publishers, parents, and guys themselves. these are the books that guys have said they like. we’ve gathered and grouped them to make them easier to find. so check out the categories below or type something—a title, an author, or a subject you’re interested in—over there on the left. (http://www.guysread.com/books/) i am intrigued by the introduction given in the web page of guysread (http://www.guysread.com/books). in the quotation above, the underlying assumptions about boys are those of the mainstream in which boys and girls have a different spectrum of interests and in which boys will not read books for girls. this is a kind of manifesto that enhances the stereotyping of boys—the dominant discourse of masculinity in which boys are expected to be brave, active, athletic, dominant, and aggressive. the quotation also suggests that today’s classroom readings in the u.s. and many other countries, including indonesia, are highly effeminate. consequently, the books that serve boys’ interests are underrepresented. that is why the website suggests what books are of boys’ interests. however, the reading list they suggest for boys might fail those who are not in the mainstream. there are boys who are not athletic, who do not like sports, who do not fit into the mainstream views of being boys. in addition, this web site can be a part of the publishing companies’ effort to market their books and dictate their interests, as suggested by sekeres (2009). mailto:yumarnamto@gmail.com http://www.guysread.com/books/ female graduate students on masculinity 171 the view of masculinity presented in the website has drawn my attention and it has made me think about masculinity. at the time of this research i was enrolling in a graduate class, in which i was the only man in the classroom. interestingly, i found in the syllabus a very interesting topic: discussing masculinity. in discussing masculinity, all members of the class should read the assigned reading: yoo’s a fistful fist of feather, a short story found in guys read: funny business, edited by john sciezka (2010) and “us boys like to read football and boy stuff": reading masculinities, performing boyhood, written by dutro (2002). in yoo’s a fistful fist of feather, sam is described as a kind of effeminate boy with no interests in many boys’ activities. realizing this situation, his father wants to make him a real man by asking him to take care of the thanksgiving turkey. this turkey, travis, turns out to be his competitor in winning his father’s attention. sam sees the turkey as threatening his life. challenged by a survival struggle, he makes a scheme to trap the turkey so that he can win his parents’ attention. indeed, in the short story sam proves that he is a real man. finally, he is the one who carves and eats the turkey in the thanksgiving dinner. another reading for the class in the week was an article written by dutro (2002). the article is a research report that views masculinity as socially constructed and gender roles as constructed in performative social acts. the article explores how masculinity is enacted and performed in a school context. indeed, the masculinity enacted here could reflect the hegemonic nature of masculinity. those who have more power tend to have more freedom in enacting different types of masculine identities. based on those two readings, the members of the class had to start discussion threads in an online forum. the discussion threads are my main interest that i explore in this paper. the main question that leads my exploration to understand masculine identities is ‘how are discourses of masculinity presented by the female members of the class constructed?’ this main question leads me to the following specific questions: 1. what types of masculinity discourses are represented in the forum by female graduate students? 2. how do the female graduate students perceive the idea of masculinity? by exploring the answers of those questions in the discussion threads, i hope that the findings could shed light on how female graduate students in my class perceive masculinity. this exploration, then, hopefully can be a reflective tool on how we enacted our gender perspective in the field of education either as teachers or as researchers. literature review being the only man in a graduate classroom discussing young adult literature, i was drawn by the idea to understand more about masculinity. in exploring the discourse of masculinity in the threaded discussion, i reviewed readers’ response theory and the theory of masculinity. in doing so, i would like to see the threaded discussion as readers’ responses. at a different level, the masculinity theory can tie all the knots of the emergence themes of the masculinity discourses found in the discussion forum. 172 beyond words readers’ response theory in outlining the readers’ response theory, i would like to discuss the work of sipe (1999) and an article written by galda and beach (2001). many readers’ response theories are usually based on rosenblatt’s transactional theory (sipe, 1999). in her theory, the basic tenet is that “reading is a transaction, a two-way process involving a reader and a text at a particular time under particular circumstances” (rosenblatt, 1982, p. 268). based on this basic tenet of reading as transactional in nature, i discuss two articles: (1) sipe (1999) and (2) golda and beach (2001), both of which are similar in many ways, especially in seeing readers’ response as not only a response to a text, but also a response to text, authors, contexts, and the readers themselves. readers’ response theory can be understood as responses to the author, the text, and the context. sipe (1999) views the roles of author, text and context in a more historical perspective in literature studies. first, reading literature used to be understood as understanding the author’s messages or meanings. however, contemporary theories of reading consider that once readers lay an eye on a literary work, there is no author anymore. quoting barthes (1977), sipe (1999) is in the same wagon proclaiming “the death of the author” (p. 120). in this assertion, literary meanings could be understood from the readers’ experience, not the author’s intended messages. however, related to readers’ responses, one often finds students questioning the author. sipe (1999) also claims that he has documented numerous questioning related to authors and illustrators—in the case of picture books. typical questions such as “i wonder why the author ends the story this way” or “i wonder why the illustrators chose to use this color for the endpages,” (p. 121) exemplify how readers ask question related to the author. these questions—though they could not be answered in just reading the books without communicating with the author—are very useful for the readers to construct their own experiences in reading the texts. therefore, in many ways, reading experiences can also be influenced by the authors’ stances on societal norms and ideologies. citing sutherland (1985), sipe (1999) suggests three stances of the authors: “the politics of assent, the politics of advocacy, or the politics of attack” (p. 121). the first one reflects the authors’ position in agreeing with the existing norms and politics while the second and the third stances reflect the position of the authors as promoters or as critics of “particular social practices.” (p. 121) second, focusing on texts, sipe (1999) discusses different responses of students when they read different versions of texts. beside the literary structure and components inherent in the texts, such as plot, genre, and characterization, a text can be experienced differently by readers. in this context he suggests two different types of texts: readerly texts and writerly texts. “a readerly text is one that a reader may consume almost passively and in which information is transmitted, whereas a writerly text is produced actively by readers who must put the text together for themselves.” (p. 122) third, when sipe (1999) discusses readers, he discusses readers’ stances—an individual style responses. readers’ responses can be understood in a continuum from getting the facts (the efferent stance) to “immersing oneself in the story (the aesthetic stance). in understanding readers’ stances, he also contrasts them with the authors’ stances. thus, female graduate students on masculinity 173 “readers may accept a text, actively embrace it, or vehemently resist it for one reason or another” (p. 123). the purpose of sipe’s article (1999) is reviewing readers’ response theories and brings the contemporary views into consideration when researchers conduct research on readers’ responses. this discussion, in many ways, is similar to what is done by galda and beach (2001) when they propose that readers’ response to literature is a cultural activity. according to galda and beach (2001) the development of readers’ response theory begins with the study of texts. following the study of texts, readers’ response theory explores the readers as the central point in understanding the response. further development brings the readers’ response theory into exploration of contexts. in their words, they say that “studies have focused on (a) text, or how various texts affect response; (b) readers, or how experiences and attitudes situated in readers affect response; and (c) the context in which response is generated.” (p. 64) when researchers focus on texts, they explore “primarily of content and literary analyses, including attention to the author in terms of authenticity or stance.” (p. 64). in this way, the readers’ response theory could respond on the characterization, plots, and the literary structure. in addition, research on texts can also involve in responding to the author’s stances. readers, then, could challenge and question the stances. in discussing the aspect of research on text, gelda and beach (2001) collapse the author and the text as unity—which does not clarify the whole idea they suggest. the distinction of author’s meanings and the text will be useful as suggested by sipe (1999). focusing on the progress in research on readers, they also make a remark, which is in line with sipe (1999). “research on readers has evolved in much the same fashion as research on text. early research looked at expectations, attitudes and practices of readers with little or no regard of how they were developed through participation in communities of practice.” (p. 65) readers’ expectations include the expectations related to the characters and their actions. in the past decade, however, the studies on readers and texts are drawn on the sociocultural perspectives in which “texts, readers, and contexts, each inseparable from the other, are also inseparable from the larger contexts in which they are enacted.” (p. 66) in short, golda and beach (2001) suggest that the development of research on readers’ response reflects the importance of three factors: (1) texts, (2) readers, and (3) contexts. incorporating all the three factors, they promote the idea of blurring the boundaries of the three dimensions in readers’ response theory by exploring the socio-cultural perspectives of the three aspects. gender and masculinity the study of masculinity is in line with the study of femininity in that the two fields develop as a response to changing gender roles. in this line of development, the two opposite gender roles are often best understood as relational. the roles of men and women, then, can be traced on the basis of biological sex, which interprets different sexes as having different social roles. in most cases, the interpretations are in line with the traditional gender stereotypes in which women are considered domestic creatures and men active and aggressive ones. this biological basis in the early gender studies is clearly stated by marshal (2004) when he says that “liberal feminisms theorize gender through the lens of sex-role 174 beyond words theory, a paradigm rooted in humanistic discourses in which social roles are allocated to men and to women on the basis of biological sex.” (p. 256) the recent studies of gender and masculinity, however, are signified by the poststructuralists’ and postmodernists’ points of view that put the emphasis on imbalanced power relations and that problematize traditional norms, which are based on the humanist perspectives (marshal, 2004). in this postmodernist framework, a more radical perspective sees that gender relations are oppressive and that men and women’s relations need to be radically changed. a more moderate view, however, also emerges in the development of gender roles. it presents the changes in a more asymmetrical way as suggested by diekman and murnen (2004). “the roles of women have changed more than the roles of men.” (p. 274) thus, the definition of masculinity can be seen from biological perspectives and from sociocultural perspectives. the biological perspectives bring the humanists’ views of gender roles where there are different domains and interests for each sex. on the other hand, the sociocultural perspectives views gender as socially constructed and enacted in social performances such as reflected in dutro’s study (2002). masculinity in children literature a classic study on gender in children literature was conducted by hillman (1974). she analyzed 120 books that represent two periods of time from 1930s to 1970s. the purpose of her meta-analysis was to understand the gender roles represented in literary works in the periods. she found that the occupation for males were much broader than that for females. another interesting finding is that “males were shown to be physically aggressive and competent in both periods and females retained the characteristics of affiliation/dependence and sadness” (p. 84). therefore, the literary works in those two periods show the prevalent stereotype for both male and female characters. however, hillman (1974) also notes the changes in gender roles in more recent literature books. children and young adult books at that time were more varied and female characters were well represented. consequently, children and young adults could easily access “more females in their books, slightly more occupational diversity for females, and a greater variety of behaviors and emotions expressed by males and females.” (p. 86) from the study, finally hillman (1974) concludes that “there seems to have been a movement toward a broadening of sex role standards over the three decades” (p. 86) in which females have undergone significant changes in their roles as women and those changes are reflected in their broader occupations and their behavior profiles—which crossed the boundary of males’ territories. a more recent study conducted by diekman and murnen (2004) support hillman’s conclusion related to the gender role changes. the changes in women’s roles have been pervasive and much more extensive compared to men’s roles. they show that the changes in gender role between men and women are generally asymmetric. “the roles of women have changed more than the roles of men.” (p. 274) while the classic studies of gender in literature usually focus on representations and characteristics, contemporary studies on gender in children literature cover various topics, from gender representations (marshal, 2004) to gender advocacies and emancipations (diekman & murnen, 2004). many studies are rooted in the idea of feminism in which they female graduate students on masculinity 175 explore the feminists’ point view in the discourse of girls and female bodies such as in the article written by cherland (2008), who explores the female characters in harry potter. in understanding the female characters, she contrasts the humanist views with the postmodernist ones. related to the conception of masculinity, grant (2004) explores masculinity in the 19th and 20th centuries. the historical accounts on this topic are very interesting and enlightening in that they could shed light on the emergence of different conceptions of masculinity. she is especially interested in the conceptions of the sissy boy—which is not only a psychological challenge, but also a social challenge for those who are stigmatized as sissy. … the "sissy," a term that had emerged out of the boy culture of mid-nineteenth century america, increasingly became not only an epithet hurled by school yard bullies but a clinical term suggestive of psychological pathology and sexual inversion. while effeminate or unmanly boys were not artifacts of the twentieth century, the meaning attached to them shifted in conjunction with the politics of masculinity and transformations in child rearing, gender socialization, and the new sciences of human development. (p. 829) comparing 19th century sissies with those of the 20th century, grant (2004) highlights the different pressures those sissies suffer. the 19th century sissies are generally rebuked and bullied by their peers but the 20th century sissies are clinically and socially stigmatized. in her own words she explains that “nineteenth-century sissies were castigated by their peers, but twentieth-century sissies bore a clinical as well as a social stigma.” (p. 829) therefore, masculinity discourse is stereotypically identical with male standard normalcy that has not changed for decades. the socialization shown in children literature and at schools engages boys to be normal boys who are active, sporty, dominant, and aggressive. in this way, “the code of boyhood became increasingly central to establishing the normalcy of boys' personalities and behaviors.” (p. 829) hegemonic masculinity dutro (2002) takes the hegemonic masculinity theory to see the masculine identity performed at school. selecting black male students for her study, she explores the performative identities in terms of the power relations among the boys. quoting bourdieu (1977), she suggests that “it was clear that certain boys – those performing the dominant hegemonic masculinity – held more “social capital” (p. 471) reviewing the development and criticisms of the hegemonic masculinity theory, connell and messerschmidt (2005) argue that the theory is still relevant and important in understanding sociocultural phenomena of gender. in their paper, the authors first explore the origin of the theory and make a historical timeline of its emergence. second, they present the development of the concept and its underlying philosophy. third, the applications of the concept in various fields are drawn to show how the concept has influenced a wide range of recent research in social studies and education. finally, the authors review the criticisms against the concepts since 1980 and suggest what should be retained from the concept and what should be discarded to lay out a path for developing future research related to gender studies and masculinity. 176 beyond words the hegemonic masculinity theory is derived from diverse concepts of masculinities which are linked by the nature of power relations. the term hegemonic itself shows the imbalanced nature of power relations between men and women and men and other men. “hegemonic masculinity was understood as the pattern of practice (i.e., things done, not just a set of role expectations or an identity) that allowed men's dominance over women to continue.” (p. 832). in short, the concepts of hegemonic masculinity can be subsumed in terms of patriarchy—in which men dominate women and other men. this hegemonic masculinity, then, “is not assumed to be normal” (p. 833). only a minority of men can enact this hegemonic role. it is different from other types of subordinated masculinities. in this way, it dominates and colors the whole masculinity discourses. the application of the concepts of hegemonic masculinity is highly productive in educational research and other social studies. in classroom research, this concept has been used to understand the bullying phenomenon, and in wider social contexts it has been used to understand crimes and other forms of male violence. other fields that have applied this concept are sports, media representations and literature. five major critics are reviewed by the authors: (1) the underlying concepts of masculinity, which is criticized by positivists and postmodernists, (2) the ambiguity and overlap of the concepts, (3) the problem of reification, (4) masculine subject theory—which is based on the unsatisfactory theory of the subjects, and (5) the pattern of gender relations. from those critics, the authors argue that there are two features of the concepts which are essential and important to be retained: (1) the plurality of masculinities and (2) the hierarchy of masculinity. these two concepts have been proved useful and enlightening in previous research and studies. in this case, the hegemonic masculinity “presumes the subordination of nonhegemonic masculinities.” (p. 846) on the other hand, there are also two concepts related to hegemonic masculinity that should be rejected: (1) the model of the social relations surrounding hegemonic masculinities—which is often characterized as too simple and inaccurately describes the complex gender relations and (2) the notion of masculinity as an assemblage of traits—which is a static description of masculinity from the psychological perspective. theoretical framework in exploring the discourses of masculinity i would like to employ two levels of analysis in this study. first, i would like to see the data from readers’ response perspectives, and second, from the competing discourses as suggested by gee (2001). in terms of readers’ responses, i would like to employ the framework suggested by sipe (1999) and golda and beach (2001). in this way, the responses will be seen as readers’ stances. the responses could reflect the readers’ views on the authors, the texts, and the contexts. from the discourse perspective, i would like to explore and understand the discourses of masculinity presented in the discussion forum. in understanding the discourses, gee’s idea (2001) of competing discourses frames the analysis and the discussion. the theory put the emphasis that there are dominant discourses and subordinate discourses of masculinity. both types of discourses assume the imbalanced power relations and structural hierarchy in the society related to gender role enactments. in addition to the discourse perspective, the hegemonic masculinity theory that has been developed especially by connell and female graduate students on masculinity 177 messerschmidt (2005) will also be a part of the framework to shed light on the masculinity discourses presented in the forum. methods this study is a qualitative study aimed at exploring the discourse of masculinity found in the threaded discussion forum in a graduate students’ class. the threaded discussions taken as the primary data were one week’s threaded discussion responding to two assigned readings. the assigned reading texts were a short story written by yoo, “the fistful fist of feather” and an academic article discussing masculinity written by dutro (2002), “‘us boys like to read football and boy stuff’: reading masculinities, performing boyhood.” the guiding question for this study is how discourses of masculinity are constructed by female students in the graduate classroom internet forum. the forum itself was part of the classroom meeting held in spring semester 2011. the classroom was a three credit course exploring children and young adult literature and the new media. the three-credit course had one classroom meeting every tuesday. before the classroom meetings, the students were required to post their responses on the readings assigned for the weeks in the classroom online forum. since it was a part of a course, it was a closed forum, in which only the members of the class could post and give comments on their peers’ responses. to keep the privacy of the members of the forum, names appearing in this paper are pseudonyms. data collection procedure for this study, the data were gathered in the form of written postings of the members of the class. since i was also a member and i was the only male in the class, i excluded my own postings for the analysis. all in all, the data came from the written postings of eight female graduate students. the postings were copied and pasted in word documents for coding and further analysis. data analysis procedure since there were two different types of reading assigned for the week, the first step for data analysis was coding and classifying all the responses based on the two assigned readings. responses could address (1) yoo’s short story, (2) dutro’s article, or (3) both readings. distinguishing these types of responses was very useful for further analysis of masculinity discourse. the second step was identifying the emerging themes related to masculinity. these were then coded and classified into two big categories, the dominant themes and the subordinate themes. upon completing the coding, the emerging themes for each category were classified further for interpretations and conceptualizations of masculinity. in this way, masculinity discourses among the female students could be reconstructed and analyzed from the perspective of competing discourses and from the point of view of the hegemonic masculinity theory. analysis and discussion as suggested by the discourse theory (gee, 2001) and of the theory of hegemonic masculinity (connell and messerschmidt, 2005), there are multiple discourses of masculinity circulated and negotiated in society. first, the acceptable and expected masculinity identities are the enactments and performances which are considered normal. out of the normalcy 178 beyond words standards, the enactments and performances can be considered deviant and stigmatized. second, the hegemonic masculinity also assumes the hierarchy of the discourses. in this framework, the enactments of masculine identities are also influenced by the power held by those who enact the identity performances. while being sissy is usually stigmatized and a child who performs that way might be bullied, a popular singer who performs in a similar way might be well accepted and hailed. from the data analysis, there are two major themes of masculinity found in the threaded discussion. the first theme presented and discussed in this section is the dominant discourse of masculine identity and the reactions of the forum discussion participants on this kind of discourses. second, the subordinate discourses of masculinity—the less dominant discourse that emerges in the discussion forum. dominant discourse: “this is going to make him a man” in yoo’s short story, “the fistful fist of feather,” sam’s father expects his son to be manlier and by letting him to take care of travis, the thanksgiving turkey, he expects sam to become a real man. this expectation clearly represents the society’s norms and the dominant discourse of masculinity. being masculine means courageous, active, and possibly aggressive. in responding to the story, in general the members of the forum perceive the dominant masculinity discourse as unfavorable. however, this dominant discourse is also very difficult for them to reject because even in their daily life and experience, such as in school and in the family, the expectation for boys to become manly is the norm. one student, helena, responds to the story by sharing her experience as a teacher. as an elementary school teacher, she is surprised that an act of bullying is considered an act of masculinity that could teach other boys (the sissy ones) to be tougher. yoo's story about his "brother" travis is not so different from what many boys experience. during discussions with my first graders while reading oliver button is a sissy and the sissy duckling, my students shared many stories about parents saying these very things to them. one little boy insisted that the bullies in the book weren't doing anything wrong because they were helping to "make him tough" and shared that his dad had said that to him. (helena) personal experience as a mother also supports the existence of dominant masculine discourses, which are pervasive and very difficult to resist. another student, judith, expresses her experience as a mother and how difficult it is not to follow the mainstream masculinity discourses when she has to raise her son. while reading this short story, i was very sad because the characters reflected my family. the way sam’s dad and mom teach is very similar with me and my husband. sam is very similar with my son who is very soft and amicable, and who prefers playing with dolls and music instruments to playing sports, especially team sports needing intense competition like basketball or soccer. his girly characteristics worried me and my husband a lot, so we tried to change his girly quality in various ways. however, the trials tended to bring about negative results. for example, when he was 6 years old, we wanted to teach him how to survive or to win through competition, which, we thought, was necessary to be a strong man. to achieve the aim, we put him in a basketball club. because he was not interested in basketball, very tough sports having many tussles for a ball, and requiring good skills to get deeply involved in playing a game, he hardly learned the basketball skills, resulting in female graduate students on masculinity 179 no one in his team passed a ball to him during games. in the middle of a game, he was usually playing with a boy in an opposite team who had similar personality like my son, with no concerns about the victory of the game or other players in his team. after 3 months of his enrollment in the team, one night, he cried and said he didn’t want to go to the basketball club anymore because he felt every kid in the team ostracized him from the group. the real problem of this terrible experience is that he thought the feeling of an outcast was because the team members hated him, not because he was not good at basketball, which negatively affected his self-esteem. now, i cannot even tell him to join a team sports due to his awful memory. (judith) society’s pressure to conform to masculinity norms is experienced by most of the forum members and they express this pressure in their responses. the pressure is in the form of expectations of being in their own gender roles. linda, who is of korean descent, acknowledges how society often imposes expectations to conform to certain gender roles. i heard that the expectation of man and woman is different. for women, she wants to be rescued by prince charming (a man with competence) in somewhere deep in mind. for men, he needs to rescue a woman who is in a trouble and make her comfortable. maybe 20 years ago!! but next moment, i tried to look (at) myself, (at) my mind objectively. do i? don’t i want to admit that? the answer is ‘i don’t know.’ i was raised and trained (in a) confucian family and (in) korean society. even though i have hated that environment and social norms, i had to preserve those social norms not to lose my parent’s face and sometimes myself. (linda) what happens when the expectations are not met? the deviant behaviors and identities might bring about identity crisis in both males and females. in crossing the gender boundary as dictated by the dominant discourse, the consequences might be asymmetrical, just like the asymmetrically changed roles in the last century as suggested by hillman (1974) and diekman and murnen (2004). the expanding female roles are more acceptable than the changes in male roles. in the forum, this idea is clearly expressed by lori. when woman are more masculine, that typically means they are tougher, stronger, and more powerful. however, when men are viewed more feminine, they are seen as being weaker and more fragile. (lori) while many members of the forum share their own experiences related to the dominant discourse of masculinity, rani interprets yoo’s short story by connecting it with dutro’s article (2002), in which she highlights the act of hegemonic masculinity conducted by travis, the thanksgiving turkey. this interpretation is very interesting in that the masculine identities enacted by travis could suppress and at the same time challenge sam. having [been] accepted more and more by mom and dad as a member of family (featured in the family photo and spent more time inside the house), travis becomes a threat to sam. travis performs ‘the dominant hegemonic masculinity’ as the second son who satisfies demand for a manly son; and this makes sam play a subordinated role. (rani) from the responses above, it is clear that the dominant discourses of masculinity are perceived as not favorable by all the forum members. however, their perceptions are expressed in various ways. in general they agree that the society is still dominated by the traditional discourses of masculinity, which are oppressive but in many ways unavoidable. the power of the discourse is proliferated through discourses in the family domain, school 180 beyond words domain, and in a wider domain of society. borrowing dutro (2002) and connell and messerschmidt (2005), the dominant discourse of masculinity is hegemonic and hierarchically structured. it is hegemonic in that it involves power in its enactments. it is hierarchical in that performances of masculinity are influenced by the contexts and power relations. in the hierarchical structure, certain people and persons could have the power to act and cross the borders of their own identity without any problem of being bashed or being ridiculed. in the school domain, the dominant discourses are enacted like what has been experienced by helena: the student considers bullying as an act of helping the sissy boy to be stronger and tougher. quoting yoo in “the fistful fist of feather,” “this is going to make him a man.” (p. 135) other discourses of masculinity: “if he wants hello kitty socks, then we'll let him wear hello kitty socks” according to dutro (2002) and connell & messerschmidt (2005), masculinity is multiple. beside the dominant discourses, there are subordinate discourses of masculinity which are circulated and enacted in society. while the mainstream discourses related to masculinity might dictate how we treat and raise boys and girls, such as the color of their clothes and the games they are supposed to play, the subordinate discourses might be enacted in a very different way. while many of the forum members acknowledge that their behavior and their ways to raise their children are basically following the mainstream discourses of gender roles, one student clearly shows her rejection to the dominant culture. in her response she writes: we have never discouraged him from loving and doing whatever he wanted to love or do. if he wants hello kitty socks, then we'll let him [wear] hello kitty socks. who are we to tell him what he "can" and "can't" do just so that he falls in line with the social norms? (christy) this perspective, which is different from the mainstream, could represent the subordinate discourse that is actually performed in our daily life. in the case of sam, his father and travis, the dominant discourse and the subordinate discourse compete with each other in such interplay. at the beginning, sam performs the subordinate masculine identity while his father and the turkey perform the dominant masculine identity. at the end of the story, however, sam seems to perform the expected performance, while his father goes on the opposite pole of masculine identity. the complexity and the interplay between discourses of masculinity could bring about questions and a reflection about the nature of gender and gender roles. one of the participants, amanda, even problematizes the duality of gender. upon pondering on sam, his father, and travis the turkey, she thinks that a third gender identity might be needed considering the complexity and interplay of gender identity performances. are there third spaces where gender identification and characteristics can exist without being attributed to one side or another? for example, sam’s dad feels that creativity is not masculine, an idea that is well-supported in the media as creative males are considered feminine and often to be homosexual – in short, non-mainstream male. is there a way to trouble this, where the characteristic of “creativity” can exist outside of a gender dichotomy? in bringing a philosophical question down to a more practical level, what might that look like in a 5th grade classroom? (amanda) female graduate students on masculinity 181 reflecting upon the short story, another student, diana, responds to the story by raising the question of the nature of masculinity and femininity. indeed, often the gendered term is understood in relational position. aggressiveness, for example, might not only qualify for masculine identity. even women can be aggressive when they face a threat or when they protect their children. this is a kind of motherly aggressiveness. think about mothers (human and animal) and how protective they get over their children. women will do whatever it takes to protect their children, even if that means killing some one or some thing. women can be just as aggressive as males, if not even more. ever seen a cat fight between two girls? (diana) these subordinate voices in the discussion of masculinity indeed show the multiple discourses of masculinity. the subordinate discourses found in the forum, interestingly, are related to family. in one case, the discourses of masculinity highlight how children should be raised such as what is expressed by christy: “if he wants hello kitty socks, then we'll let him [wear] hello kitty socks.” this view is off the mainstream view of how to raise boys and girls in the family. another voice is that a mother may act aggressively in defending her family and her children such as what is suggested by diana. the family perspective in seeing and understanding masculinity is pervasive in the responses from the members of the forum. do these family perspective voices appear on the surface because the voices are from women? indeed, the members of the forum are women and many of them are mothers or aspiring mothers. probably this influences how they see and understand masculinity. conclusion discourses of masculinity appearing in the discussion forum show how the complexities of the idea of masculinity are perceived by the members of the forums from various aspects. indeed, the dominant discourses which are pervasive in our daily life still persist. even responding to the short story and to dutro’s article (2002) could make them aware how they have just embraced what the dominant discourses of masculinity dictate. this kind of response is reflected in judith’s response. referring to her son, judith says, “his girly characteristics worried me and my husband …” this response echoes in many parts of responses found in the forum. beside responses that reflect the dominant discourse, there are also responses that could reflect other masculinity discourses circulating in society. the rejection of the dominating discourses could also be seen in the responses. this subordinate discourse suggests another way of raising boys and girls in the family. raising boys and girls should not necessarily follow the mainstream. there are other ways, which is also legitimate from a different perspective. thus, christy’s assertion that “if he [her son] wants hello kitty socks, then we'll let him [wear] hello kitty socks” is off the mainstream idea of raising a boy. these subordinate discourses survive under the more dominant discourses—creating subordinate discourses of masculinity. therefore, masculinity is enacted and negotiated in multiple discourses. what is interestingly found in the discussion forum is that the responses reflect the female graduate students’ perspectives on masculinity. the emphasis on the femaleness of the members qualifies for further question: how is masculinity perceived by female graduate students? the answer of this question cannot be straightforward. from the responses, it is 182 beyond words clear that there are multiple perspectives. however, being female is definitely significant in perceiving the idea of masculinity. the students have acquired the discourses of being female in society because they have been immersed and engaged in such discourses, as suggested by gee (2001). in consequence, their perspectives are rich with the discussions related to family and child rearing. this shows how the hegemonic masculinity discourses affect the members of the discussion forum. from the findings, it is important for graduate students who want to be teachers or researchers to be aware of their own perspectives on gender roles and identities. this awareness can be useful for them to be more critical with the imbalanced power related to gender relations. in this way, they could enact their agency for equality and empowerment. references , m. (2008). harry’s girls: harry potter and the discourse of gender. journal of adolescent & adult literacy 52 (4), 273-282. connell, r. w. and messerschmidt, j. w. (2005). hegemonic masculinity: rethinking the concept. gender and society, vol. 19, no. 6, 829-859. diekman, a. b. and murnen, s. k. (2004). learning to be little women and little men: the inequitable gender equality of nonsexist children’s literature. sex roles, vol. 50, nos. 5/6, march 2004, 374-385. dutro, e. (2002). us boys like to read football and boy stuff: reading masculinities, performing boyhood. journal of literacy research, 34: 4, 465 500. galda, l. and beach, r. (2001). theory into practice: response to literature as a cultural activity. reading research quarterly, vol. 36, no. 1, 64-73 gee, j. p. (2001). literacy, discourse, and linguistics: introduction and what is literacy? in cushman et al. (eds.) literacy: a critical sourcebook (pp. 525-544). new york: bedford/st. martin. grant, j. (2004). a "real boy" and not a sissy: gender, childhood, and masculinity, 18901940. journal of social history, vol. 37, no. 4, 829-851. hillman, j. s. (1974). an analysis of male and female roles in two periods of children's literature. the journal of educational research, vol. 68, no. 2, 84-88. marshall, e. (2004). stripping for the wolf: rethinking representations of gender in children's literature. reading research quarterly, vol. 39, no. 3 (jul. sep., 2004), 256-270. rosenblatt, l. (1982). the literary transaction: vvocation and response. theory and practice, 21, 268-277. sekeres, d. c. (2009). the market child and branded fiction: a synergism of children’s literature, consumer culture, and new literacies. reading research quarterly 44(4), 399–414. sipe, l. r. (1999). children's response to literature: author, text, reader, context. theory into practice vol. 38. no.3, 120-129. female graduate students on masculinity 183 young, j.p. (2004). cultural models and discourses of masculinity: being a boy in literacy classroom. rogers, rebecca. an introduction to critical discourse analysis in education. pp. 147—171. london: lawrence erlbaum associates. internet source welcome to guys read. retrieved march 25, 2011 from http://www.guysread.com/ short story cited yoo, d. (2010). the fistful fist of feather. in scieszka, jon (ed.) guys read: funny stories (pp. 127-163). ny: walden pond press. http://www.guysread.com/ 68 implementation of course syllabus the implementation of the academic writing course syllabus grace s. bastian gesilv_bast@yahoo.com aug student service surabaya, indonesia abstract curriculum change required to meet the stakeholders’ needs, whether it occurs in regular bases or in responding towards some dissatisfaction of students’ learning outcomes. this study was triggered by the second reason. to be more specific, it focused on how the syllabus was implemented in terms of teaching materials, classroom exercises, home assignments, and final projects. document analyses were conducted and were validated using instrument triangulation. a semi structured interview was given to 18 first semester graduate students of 2013-2014 academic year. the findings were intended as a contribution and feedback towards the teaching-learning process of academic writing course at the english education department, graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya. from the analyses, it showed that the course syllabus was implemented in accordance with the learning objectives. however, there were some items evaluated in the students’ result which had not met the objectives as written in the syllabus. the gap was ultimately noted as the consequence that students were not accustomed to use the academic writing manual, and they were short of academic writing practice. hence, some suggestions were proposed to give them more sustainable tasks to use the format, read and analyze more journal articles, as the model of writing. the result of this study was supposed to give contribution not only to the improvement of the institution’s curriculum, but also to wider pedagogical content knowledge, mainly on english as foreign language (efl) teaching. keywords: implementation, syllabus, academic writing introduction to fulfill the changing needs of both students and society, reviews and revisions of curricula are held on a regular basis. this process could be either as a part of a normal cycle organized by educational authorities or as a responsive action toward “triggering events” such as poor students’ performances. the results provide substantial information about the institution to make change and improvements on its curriculum and also to be useful for broader academic community. typically, the related studies on reviewing and revising curricula are done by comparing the intended curriculum and what actually takes place in the classrooms and schools. therefore, the procedure involved the official documents such as curriculum frameworks, syllabi (subjectspecific curricula), and other written documents used in teaching and learning activities. (tibbitts, 2015). each evaluation of the course syllabus’ implementation could contribute to the whole review of an institution’s curriculum. thus, the present study captured an image of the course syllabus implementation aiming at the integral course and institution development. the research of course syllabus implementation basically investigated on how the written syllabus was carried out in the real teaching and learning activities. in the sylbeyond words vol.4. no. 1. may 2016 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia mailto:gesilv_bast@yahoo.com implementation of course syllabus 69 labus, learning objectives act as a main goal to achieve. teaching materials and activities are designed and used to help students meet the expected learning objectives. and the final assessment is an ultimate reflection of students’ achievement to the learning objectives. all of the stated information in the syllabus is generally acknowledged as a contract or a permanent record between teacher and students during the course (parkes & harris, 2002). in other words, a study of syllabus implementation generally aims at crosschecking whether what was promised in the syllabus was well executed during the course. the role of students is essential in evaluating the syllabus implementation. the students can be a living proof of how well a course syllabus is being implemented. to indicate the success of a course syllabus implementation, the students should be able to understand and benefit the teaching materials in ease. the tasks and activities should be designed to help students practicing what had been taught. and the assessment should be done to prove whether the learning objectives have been achieved by the targeted students or not. moreover, students can be a source of how the course syllabus will be improved. el-sakran (2014) suggested that students’ feedback was the evidence of students’ actual need to build course contents. his investigations towards the details of participants’ backgrounds and aspirations, course objectives, course contents, the students’ perceptions of the whole course, the textbook used, the assigned tasks and activities, and the staging and administration of the course earned some pedagogical implications for respective esp teachers and course designers. he found out that all the participants in an esp course in the united arab emirates, he studied, perceived the overall course contents as interesting, relevant, and eye opening. the course textbook was quite appropriate to the course since it met the course objectives and enriched students’ knowledge of esp. the language used in the book was clear and easy to understand. the book provided clear and reader-friendly explanations. and the assignment sequence was designed based on a scaffolding approach. however, based on students’ perceptions, they demanded more examples of the studies. despite of those findings, this study had not delved into students’ final projects. the present study investigated the implementation of the academic writing course syllabus in widya mandala graduate school. the course was taught by a team of two, and it was investigating the 2nd part of the semester. it was held in the first semester started from october 2, 2013 to november 20, 2013, with three hours per meeting from 6 pm until 9 pm. the participants of this study were 18 students of the academic writing course batch 19, excluding the researcher. most of them were not full-time students. they teach in the morning. the syllabus aimed at preparing the students writing their research thesis proposal. as a result, the main parts taken into consideration were format, introduction, and literature review. it was stated in the learning objectives that: firstly, in the format of a paper students were able to (a) write a running head, (b) make a suitable short title, (c) formulate a good title, and (d) write in a proper level of heading. the second point was about the content of the introduction, where students were supposed to able to (a) state a clear research problem, (b) show the importance of the study, (c) state a clear purpose of the study, (d) cite the sources of the previous implementation of course syllabus 70 research to support the arguments, (e) write transitional devices between paragraphs, and (f) write a brief summary of the research design. thirdly, in literature review of essays, students were able to (a) identify the research variables used and the relationship between them, (b) cite sources to support the arguments, not a list of definition, (c) discuss and comment summaries of previous research/theoretical background, (d) write transitional devices between paragraphs. in fact, the results of students’ final projects showed that the students scored very low especially in formatting the level of heading, writing the introduction and literature review section. consequently, seven students batch 19 joining that academic writing course got minimum score band they were given an opportunity to learn more and revise their paper. only one student got a and another one got a-. other six students got b+. the other four students got b. the result of that preliminary research showed that the students still did not accomplish the final project as what had been taught in the teaching materials. therefore, a deep analysis on the syllabus implementation was conducted accordingly. hence, the present study was an evaluative study aiming at investigating the implementation of the academic writing course syllabus in terms of teaching materials, classroom exercises, home assignments, and also final project. the document reviews were conducted to analyze the content of the collected data. to describe a deep analysis on that implementation of academic writing course syllabus, the graduate students’ perspectives were elicited through semi-structure interviews. methods participants the participants in this research were eighteen students of the english education department batch 19, graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya. they took academic writing course in the first semester. and all of them hardly got experience in academic writing before taking that course. data analysis the data of this study were (1) the content of the teaching materials, (2) the instruction and students’ results from classroom exercises, home assignments, and final projects, and then (3) the students’ responses toward interviews. at first, the researcher analyzed the teaching materials, classroom exercises, home assignments, and final projects in accordance with the learning objectives. document analyses of teaching materials focused on evaluating the content and the teaching aids. and, document analyses of students’ classroom exercises, students’ home assignments, and students’ final projects emphasized on evaluating the instruction and the students’ results. to triangulate the results of the document analyses, the researcher elicited students’ perception on the implementation of academic writing course syllabus by conducting interviews. the interview questions encompassed (1) what teaching materials were remembered (by students), (2) how their feelings were, (3) how they solved problems dealing with teaching materials, classroom exercises, home assignments, and final projects. the interview results were transcribed and analyzed carefully to find common difficulties and strategies to solve them. implementation of course syllabus 71 based on the result of document analyses and interview, the consistent patterns and the possible gap in the implementation of the academic writing course syllabus were highlighted. those findings were cross-checked by pedagogical theories and previous studies. moreover, those findings were discussed and linked to the existing problems (see, the background of the study). findings the teaching materials the document analyses showed that the chosen content of the teaching materials covered almost all the learning objectives in format, introduction, and literature review section, except the explanation on how-toidentify the research variables used and the relationship between them (learning objective point 3.a). there were several supplementary materials to be read at home, such as materials on page numbering, writing abstract, building academic words, and developing rationale. all of those additional materials were given to support the students’ independent learning process after the class. the teaching materials were clearly presented with some real examples to deepen students’ understanding on the concepts. the examples--especially on introduction and literature review--were directly quoted and cited from reliable journal articles. students then could use the examples as a model in their writing. however, there were some learning objectives still needed vivid examples, such as how-to-formulate the short title (learning objective point 1.b), how-to-state the research problems (learning objective point 2.a), how-to-show the importance of the study (learning objective point 2.b), and how-to-write a brief summary of the research design (learning objective point 2.f). further, the document analyses showed that the teaching aids supported the content of the teaching materials. the course book publication manual of the american psychological association, 6th edition was a source of teaching materials on introduction section. the book becoming an academic writer was quoted as supplementary materials such as building academic words, developing rationale, and writing summary of research design. the downloaded journals were used as examples in introduction section and literature review section. beside the publication manual, the reference menu of ms word was also presented and in-class practiced to help students do the referencing section. the result of students’ interview showed that all students gave positive responses in getting downloaded journals and practicing through ms word, except participants were reluctant to the course books, i.e., the apa publication manual 6th edition. they preferred having the real model of the content from the journals and practicing the format directly through ms word. the document analyses and interview result also showed that there were classroom exercises on writing running head, short title, title, and level of headings after the explanation of the teaching materials. there were more exercises on how-to-write level of headings based on apa 6th edition format. the result of the classroom exercises showed that students could accomplish as what had been explained in the teaching materials. however, there were some mistakes noted. for example, students often neglected the details of mechanics and grammar, such as font style, font size, punctuations, and word formation. it turned out to the fact that all participants actually did not realize implementation of course syllabus 72 their mistakes as stated in the interview that they got no problems in doing the exercises. on the other hand, the home assignments emphasized more on writing the content of manuscript, such as introduction and literature review. there were more assignments on how-to-write introduction. based on the result of the home assignments, students could not accomplish as what had been taught in the teaching materials. for example, several students were not able to (1) state the research problem clearly (2) show the importance of the study in terms of authenticity, new insight, and relevance, and (3) write a brief summary of the research design in introduction part. furthermore, students could not (1) identify variables used and the relationships between them (2) cite sources to support their arguments, and (3) discuss and comment summaries of previous research/ theoretical background in literature review section. however, students could write a clear purpose of the study as what had been explained in the teaching materials. and that result was confirmed by the result of interview. when doing home assignments, all participants found difficulties in meeting the learning objectives, except in writing the purpose of the study. the participants stated it was easy to write the purpose of the study since the materials clearly explained with the examples. and the participants could simply write the purpose of the study as the answer of their research questions. however, to meet other learning objectives, the participants realized that they needed more writing experience to state a clear research problem in introduction and needed critical thinking to discuss and comment summaries of previous research/ theoretical background in literature review. moreover, the participants also felt hard to write a brief summary of the research design in introduction; and to identify research variables used and show the relationships between them in literature review since those were not explained explicitly in the teaching materials. and there were no vivid examples supporting the explanations of the teaching materials on howto-write the importance of the study. consequently, the participants faced difficulties in accomplishing the home assignments. they tried to solve it by reading the book and research journals a lot, but they still could not tackle the problems. in fact, the students’ final projects also showed that there were no improvements on some item evaluated such as (1) stating the research problem clearly (2) showing the importance of the study in terms of authenticity, new insight, and relevance, and (3) writing a brief summary of the research design in introduction part. furthermore, students still could not (1) identify variables used and the relationships between them and (2) discuss and comment summaries of previous research/ theoretical background in literature review section. the well accomplished part of the final project was in the format section. even though, students still struggled in writing the level of headings. they did not show the consistency in writing the subheadings based on standardized format. and the worst was there was no subheadings at all, especially for the literature review. they just wrote down several blocks of paragraphs without categorizing it under certain subheadings. however, they did not realize it as shown by the result of interview. implementation of course syllabus 73 discussions based on the findings in the document analyses and interviews, the academic writing course syllabus was implemented in accordance with the learning objectives.it could be seen from the teaching materials, classroom exercises, home assignments, and final projects given to the students. the content of the teaching materials supported by the appropriate teaching aids covered the learning objectives. the classroom exercises and the home assignments were given right after the explanation of the teaching materials. the classroom exercises emphasized on practicing standardized format, while the home assignments emphasized on writing the content of manuscript. according to the students’ result, students were more able to do the technical task such as setting format than to do the writing task such as writing the content of the manuscript. the highest accomplishments were in writing the format of running head, short title, and title. on the other hand, the poorest score of students was in writing the literature review section. despite the satisfying fulfillment in the format section, it was noted that some students still has troubles in writing the format of the levels of headings. the document analyses showed that students often neglected the detail of mechanics such as font style, font size, and punctuation. and based on interview result, all participants did not realized their mistakes. they stated that they got no problems on those exercises since they got sufficient concepts and practices about writing format. they did not write the format correctly, not because they did not know how to write it, but they did not know how essential to write it. their unconsciousness to use the systematic format could be strongly caused by their previous or inadequate writing experience. possibly, students might not have the sense of ‘getting accustomed to’ in using a rigid writing format. consequently, they were not aware of its importance to write properly such as using standardized font style, font size, and correct punctuations. further, the results of students’ final projects also showed that there were some items evaluated without improvements from classroom exercises, home assignments, until final projects such as (1) stating the research problem clearly (2) showing the importance of the study in terms of authenticity, new insight, and relevance, and (3) writing a brief summary of the research design in introduction part. based on the interview result, most participants stated that they felt difficult to organize the ideas. consequently, they read more other research journals related to the topic. these attempts showed positive impacts, afterwards. from that fact, it could be concluded that students actually needed reading exposure more. krashen (1989) stated that reading exposure could improve grammatical development and writing style. moreover, it could also ignite students’ critical thinking especially in their writing. then the sense of writing would be built by the time. that sense enables students to show their ideas in the appropriate words and organize their ideas in coherent paragraphing. in addition, the document analyses showed that students still could not (1) identify variables used and the relationships between them and (2) discuss and comment summaries of previous research/ theoretical background in literature review section. based on the interview result, participants got less examples and its explanation in the literature review section. and they stated implementation of course syllabus 74 that some given journal examples were not read thoroughly since the topic was uninteresting or unrelated to their topic. it showed that students needed more authentic examples from research journals. the examples should be used to give students real good writing models. that is very useful in the first stage of productbased writing. initially, “familiarization writing” makes learners aware of certain features of a text” (badger & white, 2002). then, the process will continue to the controlled writing, guided writing, and free writing which allows students to use the writing skill as a part of a genuine activity. it should be emphasized that students should experience in analyzing the writing model to get deeper understandings on the writing structure, not the content. students should be directed to collect texts, work with texts by analyzing wider context of use and meaning, analyzing organization and structure of the text, and analyzing its lexico-grammatical choices (friedrich, 2008). as a result, students will not reject it due to uninteresting topic or unrelated topic, but they would accept it due to the useful writing outline. conclusions and suggestions the academic writing course syllabus was implemented in accordance with the learning objectives, in terms of the teaching materials, classroom exercises, home assignments, and final projects given to the students. however, the students’ result in exercises, assignments, and final projects showed that some items evaluated were still not accomplished as what had been taught in the teaching materials. and it was triggered by the fact that students had lack of the sense of ‘accustomed to’ in learning the format of writing. and they also had lack of the sense of ideas for writing, such as introduction and literature review. thus, to acquire both senses, it was suggested that students immersed in sustainable tasks demanding standardized format and reading exposure not only in the academic writing course, but also in other courses. furthermore, the teaching materials should also be supported with the authentic models of good writings. students should be required to read and analyze the model so that they get familiar to writing in terms of using the standardized format, and also developing ideas. those issues should also be supported by the role of both the lecturer and the students. the intervention of the lecturer is still essential in preparing the teaching materials before the class and in carrying them out during the class. the lecturer should provide sufficient examples, feedback, and support in order to help student accomplish the expected learning objectives. and the students’ preparation before the class is also required so that they had adequate background knowledge which was ready to be enriched during the class. hence, the implementation of the academic writing course syllabus was described on how the teaching materials, classroom exercises, and final paper were actualized in accordance with the learning objectives. and also, it was specifically perceived on how the teaching materials, classroom exercises, and home assignments were interrelated one to another. suggestions for the teaching learning process goes both to the lecturer as the facilitator and students. implementation of course syllabus 75 besides concepts, exercises and home assignments, authentic hands-on materials are very much needed. active interactions must also come from students. classroom experience only is limited. in the case of academic writing, it is also suggested that the format be compulsory in writing essays and assignments of other courses. this ex post facto study did not observe the learning and teaching process. it is suggested that a further research be done also to both the lecturer and the students teaching and learning activities as a main aspect of learning. references badger, r., & white, g. (2002). a process genre approach to teaching writing. elt journal, 2, 54. el-sakran, t. m. (2014). matesol students’ reflections and perceptions of an esp course in the united arab emirates. journal of teaching and teacher education, ii(1), 13-26. friedrich, p. (ed.). (2008). teaching academic writing. east sussex: continuum. krashen, s. d. (1989). language acquisition and language education. new york: prentice hall international. parkes, j., & harris, m. b. (2002). the purposes of a syllabus. college teaching, 50(2), 55-61. tibbitts, f. (2015). curriculum development and review for democratic citizenship and human rights education. paris: unesco publishing. running head: english proficiency and pragmatics 53 beyond words vol.3, no.1, may 2015 widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia learner’s english proficiency and their pragmatic competence of refusal speech acts soudabeh tabatabaei (corresponding author) university of mysore, mysore, india soudabeh_tabatabaei@yahoo.com maryam farnia payame noor university, iran mfarniair@gmail.com 54 english proficiency and pragmatics abstract the present study is an attempt to investigate the relationship between language proficiency and pragmatic comprehension of the refusal speech act among iranian efl learners. to this end, the oxford placement test (opt), as a proficiency test, was given to participants and they were divided into high and low level groups based on their proficiency scores. then, a multiple-choice discourse completion task (mdct) was given to both groups to elicit their pragmatic knowledge. the findings indicated that there was no significant difference between high and low groups in pragmatic comprehension. in other words, language proficiency was not the determining factor in the degree of pragmatic comprehension. moreover, the results indicated that there was no correlation between learners’ language proficiency and pragmatic knowledge. therefore, in order to have pragmatically competent efl learners, they should be taught pragmatic functions and language norms of the target language in the language classrooms. keywords: pragmatic comprehension, speech acts, refusal speech act, mdct. english proficiency and pragmatics 55 learner’s english proficiency and their pragmatic competence of refusal speech acts during the last few decades, a major change has occurred in second or foreign language teaching from focusing on language forms to focusing on both language forms and language functions. these changes have led to underscore the importance of communicative activities rather than emphasizing only on grammatical rules and resulted in the emergence of communicative language teaching which is based on the theory that the main aim of language use is communication. its main goal is to develop learners’ communicative competence (hymes 1971). communicative competence emphasizes that teaching and learning a language are not only teaching and learning its grammatical points, but also, teaching and learning how to use language appropriately for communicative purposes in real-life situations. in fact, pragmatic competence is one of the major components in a number of models of communicative competence (canale 1983, bachman 1990, and bachman & palmer 1996). in the literature, various definitions have been offered of pragmatics. what all those definitions have in common is that it involves social and contextual norms underlying languages and refers to those norms of interaction that are shared within a speech community in order to establish and maintain successful communication among language users (uso-juan & martinezflor, 2008). in specific situations, language learners should know what to say to whom, when, why and how to say it appropriately (saville-troike, 1982; thomas, 1983).they also need a good command of communicative competence. in fact, the act of learning a second language (l2) is a difficult and demanding process. most language learners assume that they will become competent language learners by learning grammar and vocabulary of the target language. nevertheless, successful communication in a target language needs not only grammatical and 56 english proficiency and pragmatics vocabulary knowledge but also pragmatic knowledge about socio-cultural norms of that language. in efl classrooms, teachers mostly focus on linguistic competence (the grammar and vocabulary) and they do not pay enough attention to the pragmatic competence (the ability to use language appropriately according to given situations); something which is often disregarded despite its importance. therefore, efl learners may produce grammatically correct but socially inappropriate utterances according to the norms of the target language and they may lack pragmatic knowledge in communication with english native speakers due to lack of opportunities to speak english outside the classroom. most people believe that more proficient learners have better pragmatic knowledge than less proficient learners. although only a limited number of researches have been conducted in this area, some studies (e.g. garcia, 2004, jianda, 2007, xu, case, wang, 2009) have shown that advanced learners are more proficient in performing a speech act in a specific situation. however, some other researches (e.g.arghamiri & sadighi, 2013, farashaiyan & hua, 2011, jie, 2005) have shown there is no relationship between language proficiency and pragmatic knowledge of language learners and even learners with a high level of language proficiency do not perform speech acts appropriately in a target language. the inappropriate use of language by proficient learners may show that it is difficult for nonnative speakers to acquire appropriate ways to communicate language functions in a target language and may show the necessity of teaching pragmatics in efl classrooms. this study is an attempt to explore the effect of language proficiency on pragmatic knowledge of iranian efl learners on mdct to see whether more proficient language learners perform better than less proficient learners on pragmatic knowledge. english proficiency and pragmatics 57 review of literature pragmatic competence pragmatic competence, being one of the important building blocks of communicative competence, contains “grammatical and lexical systems” along with “social and contextual factors” underlying the english language and these elements are “shared by members of a given speech community in order to establish and maintain successful communication” (uso-juan & martinez-flor, 2008, p. 349). in other words, “most people within a linguistic community have similar basic experience of the world and share a lot of non-linguistic knowledge” (yule, 1996, p. 5), which enables them to “employ different linguistic formulae in an appropriate way when interacting in a particular social and cultural context”( uso-juan & martinez-flor, 2008, p. 349). crystal (1985, p.240) defines pragmatics as “the study of language from the point of view of users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction and the effects their use of language has on other participants in the act of communication.” in relation to this, chomsky (1980) defined pragmatic competence as the “knowledge of conditions and manner of appropriate use of the language, in conformity with various purposes” (p.224). this seems to be in opposition to grammatical competence, which he defined as “the knowledge of form and meaning” (p.224). pragmatic competence generally deals with the knowledge of the socio-cultural rules that govern language use. one of the most important aspects of pragmatics is speech acts. over the past twenty five years, linguists have investigated the realization strategies of speech acts in different languages and cultures. the concept of the speech act was first introduced by austin (1962) and then it was developed by searle (1975). according to this concept, saying something involves doing something. searle (1990) asserts that 58 english proficiency and pragmatics speaking a language includes performing speech acts. for example, when a speaker says “i am sorry”, he is not only uttering an english phrase but is also performing an action, that of apologizing. by performing a speech act, the speaker produces certain actions such as requesting, apologizing and complaining, refusing, thanking. refusal speech act refusals are defined as ‘responding speech acts through which the speaker denies to engage [sic.] in an activity proposed by the interlocutor’ (chen, ye & zhang 1995, p. 121). refusals are offensive acts that threaten the hearer’s face and generally are produced as a response to an initiating act like a request, a suggestion, an invitation or an offer rather than being uttered as an initiating turn on the part of the speaker (gass & houck 1999).to data, different classifications of refusal strategies have been suggested in the literature (e.g. rubin, 1983, beebe, takahashi & uliss-weltz, 1990; turnbull, 2001) among which the most significant one was proposed by beebe et al. (1990). the basis of their classification was the notion of the semantic formula, which the researchers defined as a word, a phrase, or a sentence used to perform refusals (bardovi-harlig & hartford, 1993b; cohen, 1996). in their taxonomy, semantic formulas were divided into two categories: direct and indirect refusals. in addition to these, there were adjuncts to refusals or expressions that co-occur with refusals but cannot stand alone to perform a refusal. in direct refusal, the refuser rejects a request, an offer, an invitation or a suggestion either by performative utterances such as “i decline” or non-performative utterances like “i can’t” or “no”. in indirect refusals, however, the refuser rejects indirectly a request, an offer, an invitation or a suggestion to soften the facethreatening act and negative effect on the hearer. this is performed through the use of some strategies such as reason, wish statement, regret, alternative, set condition for future acceptance english proficiency and pragmatics 59 and so on. adjuncts cannot be used alone to perform a refusal act. as felix-brasdefer (2004) mentions, they may function as a pre-refusal appearing just before semantic formulas or as a post-refusal appearing after semantic formulas. hassani, mardani, and dastjerdi (2011) have mentioned that the refusal sequence involves three phases: 1. pre-refusal strategies: preparing the addressee for an upcoming refusal; 2. main refusal (head act): bearing the main refusal; 3. post-refusal strategies: functioning as emphasizer, mitigator or concluder of the main refusal. for example, a refusal sequence of someone to his friend’s invitation to a birthday party would be: i’d like to (pre-refusal), but i can’t (main refusal). i have a final exam tomorrow (postrefusal). interlanguage pragmatics and refusal speech act generally speaking, pragmatics within a second language acquisition is usually called as interlanguage pragmatics. kasper and blum-kulka (1993, p.3) defined the term interlanguage pragmatics as “the study of nonnative speakers’ use and acquisition of linguistic action pattern in a second language”. bardovi-harlig (1998) mentioned that the following factors have a direct influence on the acquisition of pragmatic competence of l2 learners, i.e. input, instruction, level of proficiency, length of stay in the l2 culture and the l1 culture. there are still contradictory views regarding the effect of language proficiency on pragmatic knowledge of language learners. many studies have been conducted to determine the effectiveness of language proficiency on pragmatic development of learners in different languages. while some studies support the positive effect of language proficiency on pragmatic competence of language learners (e.g. garcia, 2004, jianda, 2007, xu, case, wang, 2009), some indicate that there is no relationship 60 english proficiency and pragmatics between language proficiency and pragmatic knowledge (e.g. arghamiri & sadighi, 2013, farashaiyan & hua, 2011, jie, 2005). garcia (2004) compared the performance of advanced and beginning language learners on a listening comprehension task and focused on linguistic and pragmatic processing. the results showed that advanced learners outperformed beginners in linguistic and pragmatic comprehension, comprehension of speech acts and the comprehension of implicatures. however, pearson correlation showed that there was a low correlation between linguistic and pragmatic subparts, and between speech act and conversational implicatures subparts supporting construct differences between linguistic and pragmatic comprehension, and between the comprehension of speech acts and the comprehension of implicatures. in another study, jie (2005) investigated the performance of chinese university efl learners in production and comprehension of refusal and request speech acts. to this end, 66 university students at two levels of language proficiency (high and low) participated in the study. data were collected through wdct, mdct and retrospective interview. the results of the study showed that language proficiency had little effect on the performance of the two groups and there was no significant difference between two groups in their overall use of politeness strategies in both wdct and mdct. moreover, the findings indicated that contextual variables did not affect the strategy choice by the two groups. further, xu, case, and wang (2009) conducted a research to find out the effect of length of residence in the target language community and language proficiency on l2 pragmatic knowledge with regard to l2 grammatical competence. 126 international students in the us at two different levels of language proficiency participated in the study. data were collected through a questionnaire consisting of 20 scenarios measuring their pragmatic and grammatical english proficiency and pragmatics 61 knowledge. the results indicated that both length of residence in the target language community and overall language proficiency influenced pragmatic knowledge of l2 learners considerably with overall language proficiency indicating a stronger influence. findings indicated that there was a strong and positive correlation between grammatical competence and pragmatic competence of l2 learners. farashiyan and hua (2011) conducted a study investigating the relationship between gender, pragmatic knowledge and language proficiency of iranian efl learners. to this end, 120 university students participated in the study and were divided into three levels of elementary, intermediate and advanced levels based on their scores on proficiency test. then, a mdct was given to them to evaluate their pragmatic knowledge. the results of the study indicated that there was no significant relationship between pragmatic knowledge and language proficiency of learners. moreover, the findings showed that female participants outperformed males on pragmatic and proficiency tests. in a study by mirzaei and esmaeili (2013), the effect of explicit instruction on iranian efl learners' interlanguage pragmatic development was examined. to conduct this research, a sample comprised of 210 iranian non-native efl learners and 60 english native speakers participated in the study. 90 out of 210 non-native speakers participated in pre-test and post-test phase of the study and were divided into two main groups: an experimental group receiving explicit instruction and a control group. the instruments employed in the study were mdct, written discourse completion test (wdct) and scoring-scale improvement. the researchers administered mdct to measure learners’ comprehension ability in experimental group before instruction. they concluded that high and low efl learners performed almost similarly before explicit metapragmatic instruction in recognition test of mdct in the sense that language 62 english proficiency and pragmatics proficiency did not affect learners’ pragmatic knowledge. the results also indicated that explicit instruction improved the development of pragmatically appropriate use of language. barron (2003) collected data from study abroad learners before they leave their home country and start their study abroad sojourn. he investigated the pragmatic development of 33 irish learners of german over a 14-months period. she collected the first data in ireland and the next two in germany, one in the middle of the l2 learners’ sojourn and one towards the end of their stay in germany. she collected the data through dct and compared learners’ performance with native speaker groups. she concluded that although the study abroad context can improve l2 learners’ use of certain pragmatic features in some contexts (e.g. use of upgraders in initial refusals with foreigners), but a 10-month stay in the l2 country may not be enough for all l2 learners to constantly produce pragmatic features like native speakers in all contexts (e.g. use of upgraders with friends). in 2004, felix-brasdefer investigated the effect of different lengths of sojourn in the target environment on learners’ pragmatic knowledge after the learners have returned to their home country. 24 advanced learners of spanish participated in this study. they were divided into four different groups on the basis of their length of stay in the target environment (group 1: 1–1.5 months; group 2: 3–5 months; group 3: 9–13 months; group 4: 18–30 months). he concluded that although the learners who lived in the l2 context for 9 months or more produced refusals that are generally similar to those produced by spanish native speaker in a variety of aspects, the learners still deviated in some aspects of their pragmatic choice from spanish native speakers (e.g. the content and form of two indirect apology strategies). english proficiency and pragmatics 63 purpose of the study over the last few decades, research on interlanguage pragmatics (ilp) has shown a salient development in the realm of l2 pragmatics. to date, a few longitudinal and crosssectional studies have investigated the development of language learners’ pragmatic knowledge. these studies showed that the development of pragmatic competence is very complex and differs greatly from individual to individual depending on learner-related factors such as motivation, language proficiency, learning context, and length of residence in the target community (kasper & schmidt, 1996). this cross-sectional study explores how iranian efl learners at two levels of language proficiency perform the refusal speech act in different situations. through making comparison between high and low proficient language learners, this study aims to find out whether there is any significant difference between these two groups in recognition of the refusal speech act. in other words, this study aims to find out whether more proficient language learners perform better than less proficient ones in pragmatic tests of multiple-choice discourse completion task (mdct). research questions the present study investigates the performance of iranian efl learners in pragmatic recognition of the refusal speech act. the study aims to answer the following questions: 1. is there any significant difference between high and low efl learners in recognition of refusal speech act?” 2. is there any correlation between language proficiency and performance of iranian efl learners in recognition of refusal speech acts? 64 english proficiency and pragmatics methods participants a total number of 95 iranian students with different majors, such as law, commerce, physics, computer sciences and psychology, studying at university of mysore participated in this study in the 2013-2014 academic years. the length of their stay in india varied from 3 to 9 months. a standardized proficiency test, oxford placement test (opt), was given to iranian efl learners in order to measure their general language ability. after scoring the test, a number of outliers whose proficiency scores were too high or too low were identified and removed from the study. based on learners’ scores on the proficiency test, 30 were considered as high proficiency group and 30 as low proficiency group. in other words, those who scored one standard deviation above the mean were considered as high group, those scored one standard deviation below the mean as low group and those whose scores fell between were excluded from the study. the participants consist of 42 female and 18 male learners. they included 26 ma and 34 phd students with different majors.their ages ranged between 23 to 40 years. they received small remuneration for their participation. the english native speakers were university students (17 females and 13 males) selected through stratified random sampling. thirty english native speakers and 30 iranian efl learners were participated in the phase of mdct construction. materials and instruments three types of tests were employed in this study (a language proficiency test, a written discourse completion task (wdct) and an mdct). first, the proficiency test (opt) was administered to iranian language learners to determine their proficiency levels. the main instrument employed for the purpose of the present study is the mdct as a pragmatic english proficiency and pragmatics 65 comprehension test which involved 12 items to elicit refusals. in this test, participants were asked to read the description of a situation requiring a refusal and choose the most appropriate response for each item among four options (one correct answer and three distracters). the specified time for performing the test was 20 minutes. procedures: the following steps were performed to develop mdct: first, a pilot written discourse completion task (wdct) involving 12 situations adapted from a study by lingli and wannaruk (2010) was administered to 30 english native speakers and 30 iranian efl learners (those received wdct were not the main participants of the study). the questionnaire involved four types of initiating acts, i.e., refusal to an invitation, a suggestion, anoffer and a request differing in the social power between the interlocutors (high, equal, low). participants were asked to write what they would say in each situation. then, the data collected from the pilot wdct was considered in developing the mdct. following birjandi and rezaei’s (2010) suggestion on developing the mdct, the most frequent responses provided by the english native speakers were considered as the accurate as well as appropriate option for the pragmatic recognition test and the inaccurate responses given by iranian efl learners to each item in the wdct were considered as the other alternatives for each item. inaccuracy of iranian responses was identified by two english native teachers as the raters who were aware of the purpose of the research. it is worthy to mention that the steps followed in developing the mdct are similar to birjandi and rezaei’s (2010) study of assessing the pragmatic knowledge of iranian efl learners in relation to the speech acts of request and apology. unlike their study in which the questionnaire was developed by the researchers, the questionnaire of the present study was adopted from lingli and wannaruk (2010). 66 english proficiency and pragmatics the developed mdct (see appendix a) was given to two english native speakers and two iranian english teachers to check the inappropriateness and inaccurateness of the distracters. their suggestions were taken into account in developing the final version of the mdct and necessary amendments were applied in the test construction. in order to identify the appropriateness of the mdct, it was administered to ten english native speakers to ensure that there is an agreement in the selection of keys and distracters by all english native speakers. to evaluate the reliability of this mdct test, cronbach's alpha was used. the reliability index was .77, which is a high reliability. among several ways of evaluating validity of a test, content validity was considered in test construction. in fact, it refers to the degree to which a test is a representative sample of the content of what the test was supposed to measure (brown, 1996). to check the content validity of the test, it was given to two experts in pragmatics field to verify the validity of the contents and there was a consensus among them about the content validity of the test. results this section presents the results of data analysis related to each research question. the analysis of the data was carried out through statistical procedures of t-test and pearson correlation analysis. rq1: “is there any significant difference between high and low efl learners in recognition of refusal speech act?” to answer the first research question regarding the difference between high and low efl learners in recognition of the refusal speech act, the learners’ performance on mdct was compared in two groups. the descriptive statistics and the results of data analysis are presented in the following table. english proficiency and pragmatics 67 table 1. descriptive statistics for performance of efl learners on refusal test group n mean std. deviation high low 30 34.33 7.15 30 33.83 9.34 as table 1 shows the mean score of refusal test in high efl learners was 34.33 whereas, the mean of low efl learners was to 33.83. the results indicate that participants in the high group performed better than their low counterparts. the t-test was run out to see whether there was a significant difference in performance of these two groups with regard to refusal test (table 2). table 2: independent samples t-test between high and low efl learners on refusal test leven’s test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig.(2-tailed) refusal test equal variances assumed 1.60 .21 .23 58 .81 equal variances not assumed .23 54.13 .81 according to the statistic of an independent sample t-test (see table 2), the calculated sig. (.81) was more than alpha level of .05. therefore, there was no significant difference between high efl learners and low efl learners on refusal test (t=.23, p= .81>.05). in other words, learners with higher language proficiency did not perform better than lower proficiency group on refusal mdct as a recognition test. 68 english proficiency and pragmatics rq2: “is there any correlation between language proficiency and performance of iranian efl learners on recognition of refusal speech act?” to answer this research question, the correlational analysis was employed to examine the relationship between proficiency test and refusal test in mdct format. first, the relationship between the language proficiency and refusal tests at two different levels of high and low is examined separately. then, the relationship between learners’ performance on language proficiency test and refusal test of entire learners in general is investigated (without dividing them into different levels). the interpretation of correlation strength is based on guilford’s rule of the thumb (1956); there is a weak correlation between variables when correlation coefficient (r) is between .20 to.40, a moderate correlation when correlation coefficient is between .40 to .70, a strong correlation when the correlation coefficient is between .70 to .90 and a very strong correlation when the value is above.90. table 3 shows the correlation between two tests for high efl learners. the findings show that there was no correlation between the proficiency test and refusal test (r= .18, n=30, p>.05). table 3: correlation between language proficiency test and refusal test for high efl learners proficiency test refusal test proficiency test pearson correlation 1 .18 sig. (2-tailed) .32 n 30 30 refusal test pearson correlation .18 1 sig. (2-tailed) .32 n 30 30 english proficiency and pragmatics 69 regarding the correlation between two tests for low efl learners, results (table 4) shows that there was no correlation between proficiency test and refusal test (r= -.09, n=30, p>.05). table 4: correlation between language proficiency test and refusal test for low efl learners proficiency test refusal test proficiency test pearson correlation 1 -.09 sig. (2-tailed) .62 n 30 30 refusal test pearson correlation -.09 1 sig. (2-tailed) .62 n 30 30 to see whether there is a correlation between language proficiency and refusal test of entire sample in general, another pearson correlation was conducted. results (see table 5) show that there was no correlation between efl learners’ performance on the proficiency test and refusal test (r= .03, n=30, p>.05). table 5: correlations between language proficiency and refusal tests for the whole sample proficiency test refusal test proficiency test proficiency test 1 .03 pearson correlation .78 sig. (2-tailed) 60 60 refusal test n .03 1 pearson correlation .78 sig. (2-tailed) 60 60 the results indicated that there was no relationship between learners’ scores on the language proficiency test and refusal tests of mdct. in other words, by knowing the learner’s score in one test we cannot predict his score on another test. therefore, the proficiency test and pragmatic test may have measured different constructs which are fundamentally distinct. 70 english proficiency and pragmatics discussion this study investigated l2 recognition of refusal speech act by iranian efl learners at high and low levels of language proficiency. the results indicated that there was no significant difference between high and low level groups’ performance in refusal mdct. in other words, learners with higher language proficiency did not perform better than lower proficiency group on refusal mdct as a recognition test. moreover, the results showed that there was no correlation between performance of learners on language proficiency test and refusal test. the results of this study are in line with farashiyan and hua’s(2011) study which compared performance of iranian efl learners at different proficiency levels on pragmatic test. they used mdct to draw a comparison between learners of three groups (elementary, intermediate and advanced). the results indicated that there was no significant difference between these three groups in terms of their pragmatic competence. the finding of this study is also more or less congruent with the findings of mirzaei and esmaeili (2013) which examined the effectiveness of metapragmatic instruction on iranian efl learners. they administered mdct to measure learners’ comprehension ability in pragmatic test before instruction. they concluded that high and low efl learners performed almost similar before explicit metapragmatic instruction in recognition test (mdct) in the sense that language proficiency did not affect learners’ pragmatic knowledge. the findings also lend support to the study by jie (2005) which used mdct to measure receptive knowledge of chinese learners at high and low levels of language proficiency. the researcher concluded that high and low groups did not show any significant differences in their overall use of politeness strategies on mdct. the result of this study is against jianda’s (2007) study in which high proficiency group performed better than low proficiency group on mdct. english proficiency and pragmatics 71 the findings lend support to arghamiri and sadighi’s (2013) study which demonstrated there was no correlation between the learners’ proficiency level and their pragmatic comprehension. in another study by rattanaprasert and aksornjarung (2011), the findings showed that the learners who gained high score in vocabulary and grammar test did not perform well in the pragmatic test, and vice versa. these results indicated there is a negative relationship between the grammar and vocabulary knowledge and the pragmatic knowledge of the learners. the results contradict with kratza’s (2007) findings in which positive correlation was detected between language performance scores and pragmatic performance scores. conclusion bearing in mind that learners of this study have lived in india, that english is their second language, between 3 to 9 months but they did not approximate to native norms indicate that mere living in the second language context does not guarantee learners to perform well in l2 speech acts. a possible explanation might be that the learners have not been taught how to perform l2 pragmatic functions in their educational system in iran or they are influenced by the indian culture. the fact that learners with higher proficiency level did not perform significantly better than those with lower proficiency level, even with living in the second language context, with more opportunities to interact in english either by english native speakers or indians, indicates that another important factor, i.e. metapragmatic awareness might influence pragmatic acquisition of learners. the result of this study supports eslami-rasekh’s (2004) findings that even advanced learners are deficient in pragmatic knowledge before receiving instruction. as she claims some sort of metapragmatic instruction in the form of deductive, inductive, implicit, or explicit is necessary for pragmatic awareness of language learners. 72 english proficiency and pragmatics all in all, the insignificant differences between the performances of high and low proficiency learners on mdct indicate that even high proficient learners lack pragmatic knowledge. therefore, to help the learners become a proficient communicator in an l2, language teachers should make the learners aware of existing differences in speech act production and comprehension in persian and english. in fact, building up pragmatic competence of language learners has a paramount importance in their ability to become a proficient language communicator in a target language. on this account, material developers and syllabus designers should design more communicative activities for language learners especially in the efl context in which learners have scare opportunities to interact english outside the classroom. syllabus designers should consider that the learners need to know how to produce and interpret speech acts in different discourse situations in the target language and should incorporate language functions that learners are likely to encounter in their textbooks. moreover, syllabus designers and material developers should design curricula such that they cover the importance of contextual factors in interaction in the sense that they familiarize learners to know how to perform appropriately in different contexts according to contextual factors such as social status, social relation and gender of interlocutor. learners should be aware of the ways the native speakers realize a certain function in order to enhance their communicative abilities. this could be done by eliciting pragmatic behaviors from l1 and comparing them with those from l2 to raise learners’ awareness. so, future research is needed to investigate the pragmatic aspects of the refusal speech act between english and iranian native speakers. moreover, other research tools such as dct and role plays should be performed to compare the performance of learners with different language proficiency levels. english proficiency and pragmatics 73 references arghamiri, a., &sadighi, f (2013).the impact of metalinguistic knowledge and proficiency level on pragmatic competence of iranian efl learners. international journal of language learning and applied linguistics world, 4(1), 181-192. bachman, l. 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(1989). communicative competence, language proficiency, and beyond. applied linguistics, 10(2), 138-156. turnbull, w. (2001). an appraisal of pragmatic elicitation techniques for the social psychological study of talk: the case of request refusals. pragmatics,11(1). thomas, j. (1983). cross-cultural pragmatic failure. usó juan, e., &martínezflor, a. (2008).teaching intercultural communicative competence through the four skills. revista alicantina de estudios ingleses, 21, 157-170. xu, w., case, r. e., & wang, y. (2009).pragmatic and grammatical competence, length of residence, and overall l2 proficiency. system, 37(2), 205-216. english proficiency and pragmatics 77 appendix a: sample questionnaire 1. you are in your professor’s office talking about your final paper which is due in two weeks. your professor indicates that he has a guest speaker coming to his next class and invites you to attend that lecture but you cannot. your professor: by the way, i have a guest speaker in my next class who will be discussing issues which are relevant to your paper. would you like to attend? you refuse by saying: a) sorry, not this time. b) no, i want to go to the doctor with my mother. c) i’d like to but i’m a little busy. i’m sorry sir. d) i’m really busy. i can’t come. 2. a friend invites you to dinner, but you really can’t stand this friend’s husband/wife. friend: how about coming over for dinner sunday night? we’re having a small dinner party.you refuse by saying: a) oh, i’d love to but i already have other plans. may be another time. b) i’ll try but i can’t guarantee anything. c) will your husband be there? if your husband is there, i’m not coming. d) no thanks, not after last time. associative cognitive creed 27 associative cognitive creed for successful grammar learning andrias tri susanto susanto.andrias.tri@gmail.com melbourne, australia abstract this article reports a qualitative study which investigated techniques employed by successful efl learners in learning english grammar. the subjects were eight efl learners from six different asian countries: china, indonesia, japan, south korea, thailand and vietnam. data collection was completed by interviewing every subject individually. the findings then emphasized that the grammar learning processes described were closely linked to the framework of associative cognitive creed. also were there some contributing factors integrated in a salient combination that highly influential to the overall process. interestingly, there was a profound finding that each subject emphasized on different aspects. keywords: associative cognitive creed, successful efl learners, grammar learning introduction english as a foreign language (efl) in asian countries provides abundantly intriguing issues to discuss. the learners, who have been successful in completing the process are then expected or acknowledged to be proficient in using english for various communication purposes. in this sense, investigations on possible techniques that the successful learners used during the learning process would provide us with promising outcomes beneficial for future english language teaching. in regard to grammar learning, rob batstone (1994) proposed a set of theory comprising noticing, re-noticing, structuring, restructuring and proceduralizing. this, in its turn, marked a new era in understanding grammar learning in particular. meanwhile, in a rather much broader scope, associative cognitive creed (henceforth creed) is a new foundation in second language acquisition (sla) discussions. contained in a chapter written by nick c. ellis in van patten & j. williams (2006), the creed was designed to be fit into second or foreign language learning processes. implications of this framework have hitherto been examined further such as those in ellis & wulff (2015), o’donnell, et al. (2015), ellis & ogden (2015), ellis, et al. (2014), gettys & lech (2013) and pütz & sicola (2010). in order to understand the terms english grammar learning and associative cognitive creed it is important to take a closer look of each concept. mailto:susanto.andrias.tri@gmail.com 28 associative cognitive creed english grammar learning theoretically, grammar is learnt through a scheme consisting of five consecutive steps: noticing, re-noticing, structuring, restructuring and proceduralizing (batstone, 1994). the scheme mainly suggests learners to notice, structure and proceduralize language chunks obtained from available learning materials with pinned phases of renoticing and restructuring to get reliable language chunks collection of grammar points (linguistic knowledge). in detail, noticing is the first stage in which the learners are aware of certain facts considered to be meaningful grammar points distinctly marked by the learners’ relying on words or phrases (park, 2013; thornbury, 2005; skehan, 1998; batstone, 1994 and schmidt, 1990). in other words, learners begin to be aware of what they are learning since the beginning of the learning process so that they are ready to notice linguistic elements of input, useful for their learning by converting them into intake to be put into their schemata. the second phase is structuring. it is the “understanding and implementing the noticed words, phrases and/or utterances into syntactic bureaucracy–a complex of forms without any self-evident purpose” (batstone, 1994, p.40). syntactic bureaucracies are provisional hypotheses on sentence structures which are constructively and erratically built. it is conceptually similar to (if not the same as) the concept of associating (ellis, 2006). in associating, the learners associate linguistic chunks into a grammatically acceptable structure as the result of their previous learning experiences. the learners then persistently recast their provisional hypotheses of grammar through unlimited series of noticing, re-noticing– noticing which happens continuously–and incorporating the target language (l2) in which every revised hypothesis will be an improvement on its predecessor. this whole phase is called restructuring. it is to be underlined that this phase is reliant on plentiful opportunities of renoticing during the learners’ self-learning discovery in attaining their own (personal) grammar. these phases lead us to the pinnacle phase of the process called proceduralizing. starting from noticing to structuring, the phases employ knowledge about the language as there has been no tangible evidence achievement of the learning since the phases take place inside the learners’ mind. there is then this knowledge of actually using the language called the proceduralization stage. as a whole, the learners refer to their linguistic knowledge about grammar inside their state of mind and proceduralize the knowledge that is available to them as the result of the grammar learning. this proceduralization stage refers to the stage in which “the ability to access [and apply] knowledge efficiently, under the considerable pressure of real-time communication” is developed (batstone, 1994, p.42). this covers the ability of both handling elaborate knowledge about the language and using it. the process is then implemented and developed through tangible practices of productive skills: namely writing and speaking. this stage also remarks one complete cycle process of grammar learning from what is unknown to be known and applied accordingly. associative cognitive creed 29 associative cognitive creed when an english speaker encounters a sentence in indonesian like “saya pergi ke pasar besok pagi”, he would likely focus on every word by translating each into english: the word “saya” in indonesian is translated into the word “i” in english, the word “pergi” into “go”, the word “ke” into “to”, and so on. after translating verbatim, he can then get the meaning of the full sentence. at this point, the process of understanding the sentence is then completed. furthermore, in order to learn how to produce a sentence in a foreign language like indonesian, the following framework initiated by n. ellis (2006) is proposed. after firstly identifying the noun “i”, which is identified as the subject of the sentence, the learner needs to put another word following the subject. the word after the subject can possibly be a verb from what the learner knows from his mother tongue (l1) that the simplest form of a sentence consists of a subject and verb with the subject to precede the verb. he can then randomly choose the word “suka” in indonesian which is a verb: meaning ‘like’ in english. through this step, the learner is said to be under the first two principles of associative cognitive creed, construction-based and rational language processing. this implies that the learner employs a form-meaning mapping and predicting what is next from the previous language learning experiences; mapping by focusing on word-by-word and each of their meanings and predicting the subsequent words with reference to what has already been known. next, as the learner realises “saya” is an example of a subject he could now write the word “saya” to start his sentence. he may be confident to do it as shown by the available examples. this is the third principle of the creed, exemplar-based. the learner would be able to use the words as what the examples have shown him. the more often the learner finds the word ‘saya’ in indonesian sentences, the more likely that he understands that the word refers to the first person singular or the speaker himself (instead of directly translating the word “i”). for example, the learner has the following set of examples: indonesian saya pergi ke pasar saya suka makan sate sepeda saya bagus sekali there are two occurrences of the word “saya” at the beginning of the sentences as the subject it the list above. however, in the third example there is the word ‘sepeda’ before the word “saya”. in this phase, the learner’s initial hypothesis about the word “saya” is then challenged. this is because the learner is looking at a different example with what he has previously encountered. having previous knowledge that the word “saya” means “i” in english and the first word of the sentence is almost always a noun as the subject of the sentence and translating the word “sepeda” into “bicycle” in english, the learner may come with a construction “bicycle” + “i” to be the subject of the sentence then he would refer back to his previous knowledge in english and conclude that the intended subject means “bicycle + i” – “bicycle + my” “my bicycle” in response. the conversion of the word “i” into “my” occurs since the learner knows that in his native language if there is a person and a thing being put together consecutively in a sentence, this means that it be probable that the person owns the thing: possessive pronoun. this shows how regularities emerge and induce learners’ grammar structuring. in this case, the learner 30 associative cognitive creed experiences logical arguments between him and the materials. these are then indicated by the fourth and fifth principle of creed: emergent and dialectical. methods a pilot study was firstly conducted on 22 may 2013 with a successful efl learner which was not the participant of this study. from this pilot study, some acknowledgements of strengths and weaknesses of the interview were identified. the strengths were that (1) all of the questions were clear to him as he said that he could understand all the questions well, (2) my ways of probing and prompting to ask him to elaborate some answers were good in a sense that they could help him elaborate the answers in a morefocused way and (3) the situation of the interview informal yet attentive so that he felt no pressure during the interview. however, there was one weakness identified. it was that my voice was sometimes too low making him hard to hear some questions clearly that was why he asked me to repeat several questions accordingly. data collection was then completed by interviewing the participants on one-on-one and face-to-face basis taking approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour for each interview in different time slots and places at which the candidates preferred. overall, it took a month from 23 may to 23 july 2013 to complete the data collection. it took a while to complete it as there were difficulties in finding appropriate slots of time for the interviews agreed by the candidates and me as the interviewer. in essence, there were several steps in conducting the interviews. firstly, i asked the participants to carefully read and sign a letter of consent showing that they agreed to be the participants of the study. i also told them that the interviews would be recorded and later be transcribed for the sake of data analysis. then, i ensured them that the data source would be put into pseudonym. i also remarked that i would show them results of the transcriptions and analyses so that they could clarify or revise their answers, if any. secondly, starting the interviews, i asked one general question about their experiences in learning written eg both at their previous educational institutions and home. the subsequent questions were then developed based on the responses given. in order that the interviews be in line with the investigations, i kept the interviews to be ontrack by always referring back to the sub research questions of this study when the responses began to move away from the focus of the questions with careful considerations. thirdly, i picked some relevant points and asked the participants to elaborate further or provide examples on the relevant points that i was not sure of through probing and prompting techniques. after getting through the questions and ensuring the participants that there was nothing else that they would add regarding their previous experiences in learning eg, i ended the interviews and thanked the participants. associative cognitive creed 31 findings the questions covered in the interview were largely designed to identify the ways successful english learners learned eg (1) in their previous schools, (2) independently, and (3) what kinds of practices that they consider to be effective for their grammar learning. the results of the interview are then compared and contrasted in order to have a united learning concept and to have a deep understanding about each learning process of each participant. successful efl learners and their previous schools from the responses in general, all the participants remarked that they used to learn the principles of written eg from the explanations given by their teacher then they used to do the practices following the explanations as well as correct their mistakes made after being given some feedback by the teacher. this kind of general teaching learning scenario was mostly repeated when they encountered new eg topics. in particular, there were some differences noted from the participants’ learning experiences. first, 5 out of the 8 participants said that they used to learn from the explanations given and do the practices assigned by the teacher with little or no opportunity of producing their own sentences using the eg taught through writing a paragraph for example. this being so, they learned eg through the ppp (presentpractice-produce) teaching method with less or no opportunity on the production stage. second, 2 other participants remarked that they learn eg at schools through drilling practices. drilling practices are the practices initiated by exemplifying short grammatical points or sentences and asking the students to repeat and recast some examples of sentences in a series of rapid-fire exercises (johnson, 2008). for instance, the english teacher writes down “i go to school” on the blackboard then asks the learners to produce different sentences by changing a part or two of the sentence. if the teacher says ‘he!’ then the learners should say “he goes to school”. if the teacher says ‘yesterday’ then the learners should say “i went to school yesterday”. interestingly, in completing these drilling practices, one participant emphasized that his teacher assigned him to memorize a 300word-essay every week. the drilling practices meant here was that he was asked to change a part or two of the essay through adjusting with the topic of the given tasks. it can be said that this kind of practice is a kind of expanded drilling practice in a broader sense than drilling practice using sentences. third, there was one participant remarked that he learned eg through some literature reading by his teacher. once, after his teacher explained some grammar rules deductively about past tenses for example, the teacher asked him to read aloud a short story titled ‘winnie the pooh” in front of the class. the teacher then discussed the eg points that could be drawn from the text. in this sense, he learned eg principles inductively. deductive teaching is conducted through writing down and/or explaining grammar points explicitly and teaching the students how to use them. on the other hand, inductive teaching is completed using discourses of various literature genres then the teacher and the students draw the grammar rules used upon the discourses. in addition to it, the participant explained that 32 associative cognitive creed his teacher then gave practices such as gapfillings, multiple choices and error analyses. surprisingly, the 8 participants inclusively explained that the practices that given were those similar to the practices available in grammar in use by murphy (2004) or understanding and using english grammar by azar (2000). the creed induced from the activities mentioned comprise the construction-based, rational language processing, exemplarbased and emergent. the last element of the creed seemed to be very limited in the teaching techniques employed by the efl teachers of the participants. the following table describes how each technique matches with the creed. table 1 summarizes the comparison drawn from the explanations given by the participants. successful efl learners and eg independent learning all of the participants confirmed that independent learning comprises complex types of practices. in regard to this, there were practices that one participant considered to be useful while another found them to be less useful. nonetheless, there were some joint principles in the ways the participants learned eg independently. first, without any attempt to direct the participants’ answers on the interviews, i found out that all the participants learnt eg through reading examples of proper discourses with different degrees of emphasis on various kinds of discourse. they tried to copy, imitate, reproduce, pick-up or extract the ideas, words, phrases, sentence structures and expressions like chunks that were ‘interesting’ to them. second, they further defined ‘interesting chunks’ as the ones which were not common to them or the ones which sounded academically complex, sophisticated or native-like. four participants remarked that they practiced eg through reading good examples of answers of a writing test such as those in ielts, business english certificate (bec) from cambridge, and toefl ibt while the other four participants integrated the other skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) to learn eg. they all picked up or copied the phrases, sentences or sentence structures written or spoken to be used later in their own pieces of ielts writing test or academic writing for university assignments. interestingly, two participants remarked that associative cognitive creed 33 they practice eg independently through listening to english native speaking radio and tv channels such as bbc then wrote down what they heard from the audio as a dictation activity. meanwhile, the other two participants learned eg through listening to english songs, watching english films, reading english literature and speaking to english native speakers to practice their eg. the latter group emphasized on practicing activities that may improve their language skills in attempt to learn english in general and eg in particular. they said they attempted to extract the eg points from the activities and proceduralized them through speaking. third, four participants addressed the importance of having someone to provide feedback on their writing. they found that it was essential to have feedback as they could be helped to point out and fix their eg mistakes. lastly, all of the participants had various eg practices to produce grammatically well-structured sentences. in this case, one participant pointed out that learning eg fits a saying that “rome was not built in one day”. next, in respect to the concept of creed, the learners preferred to have independent eg practices that promote all the elements of creed starting from construction-based, rational language processing, exemplar-based, emergent, and dialectical. it is described by as many as four participants that they preferred activities that enable them to produce their own writing and obtain constructive feedback from either their peers or english tutor. the following table then summarizes how the participants preferred to learn eg independently and how the activities match with the concept of the creed. table 2 then summarizes the classifications of the responses. 34 associative cognitive creed successful efl learners’ practices reflecting from the previous two research sub-questions, it was revealed that all the participants improved their eg competence through conducting eg practices. in attempt to investigate further about the specific kinds of practices that they regarded as the most effective ones, this research sub-question was then asked. seven out of the eight participants remarked that there were practices thought to be the most effective for their learning while one participant argued that there was no single practice that was more effective than others for his learning. having different emphasis on the details of the practices that worked best for them, the seven participants remarked that there was one single united principle; it was the kind of practices that enabled them to memorize and copy linguistic chunks such as words, phrases and sentence structures. in focus, one participant remarked that reading literature from different genres and memorizing or copying a piece of writing tied into essaywriting activity was one useful practice that he considered to be the most effective. meanwhile another participant stated that writing a list of colloquial vocabularies or phrases and passing the list in front of his eyes every day was his best practice. next, another participant stated that analyzing good and bad points of previous writing exam papers, producing his own piece of writing and being given some feedback from his writing was the most useful set of practices. this set was restated by the other four participants with one participant assuming that peer-feedback was more preferable to him while the other participants preferred teachers’ feedback to peer-feedback. moreover, with varying degrees of emphasis, all of the 8 participants remarked that learning by exposing themselves with language-skill-based activities covering listening, speaking, reading and writing could boost their eg learning achievement. in regard to this, a participant remarked that by having that kind of learning environment he could think in english, making him easier to proceduralize his eg knowledge. nevertheless, the participant who remarked that there was no such kind of the most effective practice explained that he relied heavily on his memory. he memorized all grammar rules by heart and he assumed that only by doing different kinds of practices could his memory of eg rules be enhanced. he further remarked that being emotionally prepared was one essential factor in doing this. regarding the concept of creed that were reflected in the activities, table 3 below explains how the practices are complied with the theoretical framework of associative cognitive creed. associative cognitive creed 35 discussions since the interviews were developed based on the participants’ responses, there was an eclectic mix of ideas emerged. in this section, i shall synthesize the findings from each interview and provide some direct citations of the responses to be discussed further using the scope of associative cognitive creed theoretical framework. p1 (south korean): “i think there was an important factor that affected my writing. it was my l1 writing skill. i worked as an educational journal editor in my school district and edited lots of educational reports and leaflets there. my first language writing is good because i am good at cohesion and coherence in my first language…” highly correlated with the concept of eg learning proposed by batstone (1994), p1 constructs his eg learning through noticing and re-noticing english grammatical structures and rationally process the learning intake to be structured and restructured based on the emergent writing samples (both in l1 and l2) through produce his own unique pieces of writing or, in other words, dialectical. next, p2 explains how he understands learning as a process that needs both intensive and extensive efforts. p2 (vietnamese): “learning is like a life. if you want to be successful in something, you should do it intensively and then you should want to do it, i mean emotionally prepared and then you need to get the appropriate method to do the right thing. i become successful because i want to be successful and i practice appropriately…” he emphasizes that in learning eg there is an inextricable need of motivation and appropriate methods which are set to achieve certain learning goals. he emphasized on two elements of creed: construction-based and exemplar-based learning. by selecting carefully appropriate methods including reading materials as 36 associative cognitive creed examples, the learners construct his eg learning through selecting chunks and the construction process intended is not completed in one go but rather in a trial and error mode. meanwhile, p3 posits that having abundant sources of learning may help efl learners to learn eg. p3 (chinese): “tell anyone learning english grammar or those who want to be successful in english that you have to read and listen a lot because i believe that observing native speakers or any learning source is good for you to collect some data. successful english learners are the ones who have confidence to use english. you should have interest or enthusiasm in learning or using english and applying it when you meet english teachers or foreigners.” through repeating the process of noticing, re-noticing, structuring, and restructuring again and again will an efl learner be successful. in regard to the creed, his suggestion of having abundant learning materials to enhance eg learning represents the overarching concept of construction-based, rational, exemplarbased, emergent and dialectical. through having various sources of learning, the learner can initially construct, and provide rational structure of english grammar points that can be restructured and later proceduralized. in particular, the emerging grammatical points from available reading sources may be examples for the learner to proceduralize the grammar points learned. by then, the writing product will be different from one another (dialectical). meanwhile, for another participant, the phase of noticing eg in christian bible (english version) provides him with a new outlook for his eg learning. he gets more interested in english in general and eg in particular as the way messages presented in the bible are beautiful. p4 (chinese): “i realized that before that [reading christian bible in english version] i only thought that english was merely about translating from l1 to english and using some tenses. you know that this particular writing is written from someone from this country. but in bible, when i first learned english through bible, it was very different from the pieces of writing i read…since then i realized english beauty. the language used in bible is simple but it represents deep meanings behind. ya, it’s like magic. when you use simple words to represent very big meanings, i never thought that english can be used in that way. then i realized that english is not about translation.” p4 remarks that his interest in english became increased as he noticed a new way of delivering message in a magical way. again, this represents the whole concept of creed. enchanted by the beauty of english words in christian bible, the participant learns to construct messages in a way that his writing may be similar to that in the bible in essence that “the words are simple but represent very big meanings” as he puts it. through a rational learning process, he then begins to learn eg points from reading the bible. the words and structural patterns learned from the bible emerge erratically and he notices them as learning intake useful for his learning. the emerged verses on the bible are used as available examples which can be considered as learning sources. eventually, he can construct grammatically correct sentences as he intends to have as the result of his learning from the bible. in general, this is indeed dialectical considering the fact that associative cognitive creed 37 it is not a common thing to use bible as a learning source while in particular he selects expressions that are stated in the verses that interest him. conclusions & suggestions all in all, stemming from the theory of grammar learning process suggested by batstone (1994) seems to be very simple but moving from each stage to another is indeed not as simple as it seems. learning happens rather erratically among the phase of noticing, re-noticing, structuring, restructuring and proceduralizing. we might repeat the process in an irregular way emphasizing on re-noticing and restruc-turing until we could proceduralize appropriately and acceptably. the eight participants have been through the english learning process in general and eg learning process in particular for a certain period of time. this is, of course, not a trivial process. lots of things happen during the learning process: demotivating experiences, stress, fatigue and disappointment on learning results, limited learning sources and so on. referring back to the main question of this study: “how could eg be learned by efl learners in order that they can be successful?” could be answered through various perspectives and some ways to answer them are through answering the research sub-questions hitherto: 1. what were the teaching techniques used by the teachers of the successful efl learners in this study when they were studying english grammar (eg) in their previous schools? 2. what were the learning techniques used by the successful efl learners themselves to learn eg? 3. what practices did they consider to be highly effective for their eg learning? this study thus suggests that, in attempt to have further understanding on eg learning, it is essential to have more thorough investigations about the degrees of influences of several factors such as motivation, feedback, language transfer and intensive as well as extensive listening and reading activities since these factors have been indicated to be influential through the findings of this study both discretely and cooperatively one another. i encourage future researchers to conduct correlation analyses among these factors into eg learning achievement. more importantly, this study concluded that the theoretical framework of associative cognitive creed proposed by ellis (2006) has successfully identified the learning guidance of the eight successful efl learners. 38 associative cognitive creed references azar, b. (2000). understanding and using english–workbook. new york: pearson longman batstone, r. (1994). grammar. oxford: oxford university press coyle, d. (2013). listening to learners: an investigation into ‘successful learning’ across clil contexts. international journal of bilingual education and bilingualism 16(3). pp. 244-266 ehrman, m. (2008). personality and good language learners. in c. griffiths (ed.), lessons from good language learners. pp. 61–72. cambridge: cambridge university press ellis, n. & wulff, s. (2015). second language acquisition. in dabrowska, e. & divjak, d. (eds.) handbook of cognitive linguistics (pp. 409-431). degruyter mouton ellis, n. & ogden, d. c. (2015). language cognition: comments on the ‘the ubiquity of frequency effects in first language’. journal of child language 42, pp. 182-186 ellis, n., o’donnell, m., & römer, u. (2014). usage-based language learning. in brian macwhinney and william o’grady (eds.) the handbook of language emergence. pp. 163-180. wiley-blackwell ellis, n. (2006). sla: the associative-cognitive creed. in b. van patten & j. williams (eds.), theories in second language acquisition: an introductory. cambridge: cambridge university press gettys, s. & lech, i. (2013). cognitive perspective in sla: pedagogical implications for enhancing oral proficiency in foreign languages. journal of the national council of less commonly taught languages. pp. 51-69 johnson, k. (2008). an introduction to foreign language learning and teaching (2nd ed.). new york: pearson murphy, r. (2004). english grammar in use (3 rd ed.): a self-study reference and practice book for intermediate students of english. cambridge: cambridge university press o’donnell, m. b., römer, u. & ellis, n. (2015). the development of formulaic language in first and second language writing: investigating effects of frequency, association, and native norm. in sebastian hoffmann, bettina fischer-starcke and andrea sann (eds.) current issues in phraseology (pp. 83-108). amsterdam: john benjamins park, e. s. (2013). learner-generated noticing behavior by novice learners: tracing the effects of learners’ l1 on their emerging l2. applied linguistics 34(1). pp. 74–98 pütz, m. & sicola, l. (2010). cognitive processing in second language acquisition. philadelphia: john benjamins thornbury, s. (2005a). uncovering grammar. london: macmillan education schmidt, r. w. (1990). the role of consciousness in second language learning. applied linguistics 11(2). pp. 129–158 university of cambridge. 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(1998). a cognitive approach to learning language. oxford: oxford university press http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/students/gradadmissions/prospec/studying/qualifdir/courses/language/langs.html http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/students/gradadmissions/prospec/studying/qualifdir/courses/language/langs.html http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/students/gradadmissions/prospec/studying/qualifdir/courses/language/langs.html http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/application-process/pages/international-applicants.aspx http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/application-process/pages/international-applicants.aspx http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/application-process/pages/international-applicants.aspx http://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/postgraduate_courses/apply/internat_students.html http://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/postgraduate_courses/apply/internat_students.html integrating technology in efl classrooms 17 beyond words vol.4. no. 1. may 2016 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia integrating technology in indonesian efl classrooms: why not? yustinus calvin gai mali calvin.yustinus@yahoo.com satya wacana christian university salatiga, indonesia the minister of education and culture republic of indonesia, through its substantial policies, has gradually encouraged teachers in indonesia to integrate the use of technology into their teaching practices. responding to the policies, this paper aims to introduce hot potatoes, blog, and edmodo, as some alternative educational technology that the teachers can utilize to support their teaching practices, particularly in their english as a foreign language (efl) classrooms. the paper addresses technological potentials of the technology for teaching and learning, such as for accessing information about the language, providing exposure to english, publishing learner work, interacting with other learners, managing, and organizing learning. the paper also explains possible challenges in utilizing the technology specifically in efl teaching contexts. the discussions are supported with my reflective experience in utilizing the technology, related research findings, and literature. this paper provides insights into alternative educational technology that the teachers can use. additionally, the paper can encourage the teachers to begin utilizing the technology to support their teaching practices and help students achieve learning objectives in their efl classrooms. keywords: technology, hot potatoes, blog, edmodo, technological potentials, efl teachers introduction the integration of computer and technology in language teaching and learning has been acknowledged pervasively. for instance, there is a rapid growth in using educational technology with various applications of distance education, internet access and educational games (ross, morrison, & lowther, 2010) and in integrating various technological applications into teaching and learning (mogbel & rao, 2013). even, computer assisted language learning (call), concerning the use of computers, software, and online learning materials for teaching and learning a second language (chapelle & jamieson, 2008), has become a standard and an expected part of a curriculum (kessler, 2006). in indonesia, minister of education and culture republic of indonesia, through its substantial policy stipulated in indonesian qualification framework (kementerian pendidikan nasional republik indonesia, 2012), appears to issue integrating technology into teachers’ teaching practices. in brief, the framework technically consists of nine qualification levels, in which each level has specific descriptions to perform. with regard to the framework, indonesian teachers who possess their bachelor or master degree are in the level six to eight, whose specific descriptions would seem to encourage them to utilize technology in their teaching. another national policy, peraturan menteri pendidikan dan kebudayaan republik indonesia nomor 65 tahun 2013 tentang standard proses pendidikan dasar dan menengah, chapter1, article 13 (nuh,2013), also encourages the teachers to utilize 18 technology in indonesian efl classrooms technology to enhance efficiency and effectiveness of students’ learning. in a sense, the national policies (kementerian pendidikan nasional republik indonesia, 2012; nuh,2013) endorse that teachers in indonesia cannot always depend on the use of a whiteboard in their classroom to support their teaching and learning process (mali, 2015a). i positively translate the policies as an active encouragement for the teachers to begin utilizing educational technology to support their teaching practices. it is because the technology can be a highly engaging tool that can provide a source of real language, enhance students’ learning motivation (stanley, 2013), make a classroom more appealing to students (park & son, 2009), and improve students’ language learning (cahyani & cahyono, 2012). with these theoretical points in minds, i aim to introduce [1] hot potatoes, [2] blog, and [3] edmodo as alternative educational technology specifically for english as a foreign language (efl) teachers in indonesia and support the discussions with my reflective experience (gebhard, 1999) in utilizing the technology, related research findings, and literature. i outline their technological potential for teaching and learning, such as for accessing information about the language, providing exposure to english, publishing learner work, interacting with teachers and other learners, managing, and organizing learning (stanley, 2013). then, i explain possible challenges in utilizing the technology particularly in efl teaching contexts. the practical discussion in this paper will be an interest of efl teachers in indonesia who teach university students, look for alternative educational technology to support their teaching practices, and wish to explore ideas about how their students can benefit from the technology. hot potatoes, blog and edmodo hot potatoes. i discuss the 6 th version of hot potatoes (see figure 1). it is free downloaded software designed by half-baked software, inc and is available at http://hotpot.uvic.ca. the software is equipped with five basic programs namely jquiz, jcloze, jcross, jmix, and jmatch (arneil, holmes, street, 2004) that enable the teachers to create interactive web-based exercises (winke & macgregor, 2001) including multiplechoice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ ordering and gap-fill exercises. as an example, i have utilized jquiz program in the software to create a multiple-choice listening exercise of describing places. the exercise provides my students with a slow-speed recording entitled visiting a museum, free downloaded from www.eslpod.com. in the exercise, students should choose a right answer to every question according to the recording they hear. figure 2 illustrates the listening exercise. to create similar exercises, the teachers can also free-download other recordings from some websites that i specifically suggest:  www.eslfast.com;  learningenglish.voanews.com/;  www.breakingnewsenglish.com;  www.famouspeoplelessons.com/. after creating the listening exercise, i can mention some benefits of using the software. first, hot potatoes is an offline and free downloaded software. the teachers do not need to pay for a subscription and have an internet connection if they want to use it. second, in the case of creating listening exercises, the software enables the http://hotpot.uvic.ca/ http://www.eslpod.com/ http://www.eslfast.com/ file:///d:/data/beyond%20words%20journal/manuscript-may2016-%20310813/manuscript%20may%202016/ready%20to%20go/learningenglish.voanews.com/ http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/ http://www.famouspeoplelessons.com/ technology in indonesian efl classrooms 19 teachers to upload any mp3-formatrecordings. third, the software can be integrated with some web applications, such as the world wide web, “a system for accessing and viewing information on the internet” (li & hart, 2002, p.374). this integration will enable a listening exercise that the teachers have created to be accessed publicly. last, the software can help the teachers to check answers given by their students fast, so they no longer need to read their students’ work one by one, check whether their answers are correct, and put any signs for their correct or wrong answers. blog. a blog, abbreviation of weblog (crystal, 2006) and internet innovation (tseng, 2008), refers to “a web application that allows its user to enter, display, and edit posts at any time” (crystal, p.240), and looks like a personal website and a public diary that everybody can read (harmer, 2007). to create a blog site, the teachers should initially have a gmail account and register to one of free-access and commonly known blog sites, www.blogger.com, in which they can set a name for their blog-site address, for example, cheerenglishlearning. blogspot.com. after finishing the registration process and successfully creating their site, the teachers can start to access their blog and to post any information outside their classroom. everyone who knows the blog address and has the internet connection can read and leave comments on the post. campbell (2003) details three types of blogs for use in classrooms: tutor blog, learner blog, and classroom blog. in particular, i have been utilizing the tutor blog and maximizing its technological components, such as blog entry, reader comment, and link sharing to support my teaching in some classes at english language education program, masyarakat university indonesia (ed-du). i affirm the benefits of tutor blog (campbell) because i can provide my students with links (using link sharing) for their self-study (see calvin, 2014a), remind them (using blog entry) about assignments they have to complete (see calvin, 2016a), encourage their online verbal exchange by asking them to give comments (using reader comment) to their friends’ postings (see calvin, 2016b). besides, i can use the tutor blog as an online gallery space for a review of my students’ works (duffy & bruns, 2006) as, in my creative writing class at ed-du; people can see their poster (see calvin, 2014b) and leave some comments to them. significantly, “because other people can see their blog, students are more careful about looking up words they need and checking grammar and spelling” (abu bakar & ismail, 2009, p.49, as cited in walker & white, 2013, p.76). publishing students’ work online can also promote a positive effect on the quality of written work that learners have made (stanley, 2013) and provide an opportunity for the students to obtain more diverse feedback on their work (purcell, buchanan, & friedrich, 2013). literature also notes other advantages of using blog in teaching and learning, such as enabling teachers to encourage reactions and ideas to their students by leaving some comments to their blogs (duffy & bruns, 2006), and facilitating communication among its users “without inhibitions and preconceptions that accompany most faceto-face interactions” (ward, 2004, p.4). the blog also provides students with “real learning opportunities to improve their written english as they can be asked to read their classmates’ blogs and respond to them” (fellner & apple, 2006, p.17). it also provides them with a space to write things http://www.blogger.com/ 20 technology in indonesian efl classrooms they wish to express so that they can determine their personal texts and, in an interesting way, combine them with conversations (yang, 2009). some also believe that blogging provides a semblance of authenticity and interactivity regarded by students and teachers who need to communicate one another either inside or outside the classrooms” (ubaidullah, mahadi, & ching, 2013, p.20). edmodo edmodo is a virtual learning environment (light & polin, 2010) and “a pedagogical and collaborative communication system” (wallace, 2014, p.294), in which “students can learn outside their classroom (harmer, 2007). edmodo is also a social media service specifically designed for education that allows teachers to create social media activities for their students in a private and protected learning environment (walker & white, 2013). to create an edmodo account, the teachers should initially visit www.edmodo.com (see figure 3) and register themselves as teachers. besides the tutor blog, i also have utilized edmodo to facilitate my teaching in some classes at ed-du. one of the classes is academic writing class (see figure 4). in 2015, i conducted a study to explore perspectives of twenty-one students at eddu about advantages of using edmodo and about how it facilitates the students to achieve learning objectives in their classroom (mali, 2015a). in essence, my study continues the positive trend of using edmodo in teaching and learning. it reveals that edmodo facilitates the students to communicate with their teacher and classmates discussing any problems dealing with their writing class. this finding confirms that edmodo provides teachers and students a simple way to connect one another (balasubramanian, jaykurman, & fukey, 2014). the study also indicates that edmodo promotes learning efficiency to the students, for they can easily access their classroom learning materials, information, teacher’s, and classmates’ feedback easily wherever they are. this particular finding endorses the fact that edmodo helps students to review lessons, submit their work, obtain feedback from their teacher easily (kongchan, 2012), and access any learning sources as well as to receive the feedback from the teacher (balasubramanian, et al.). the students also benefit a learning efficiency in a way that edmodo saves their time and reduces their learning costs because they can download their learning materials and upload their assignments electronically. furthermore, my study notes that edmodo can help the teachers to monitor submissions of their students’ assignments. more specifically, they can set a deadline for their students to submit an assignment. if a student submits it late, edmodo will automatically notify the teachers (see figure 5), which seems likely that they can always expect their students to make a serious effort by submitting all assignments on time (mali, 2015a). by joining edmodo, the teachers can also join subject communities (see figure 6) in which they can discuss academic related issues and obtain significant information about learning resources from members of the communities. http://www.edmodo.com/ technology in indonesian efl classrooms 21 possible challenges in utilizing the technology i concern with the fact that teachers and students need to have access to a computer and good internet connection to run the technology. this fact can be an obvious challenge, for lacking an access to a good internet connection and computer facilities remains a well-noted issue at many schools in some parts of indonesia (mali, 2015a,b; tempo, 2015a,b; redaksi1, 2015; kaltim post group, 2015). to deal with this situation, requesting a related network administration team of a school or university to provide a free high-speed internet wi-fi within its area (thien, phan, loi, tho, suhonen, & sutinen, 2013) can be a possible solution. importantly, “if sufficient computer facilities assisted by technical support are available at schools, teachers would be inspired to use call actively in their classrooms” (park & son, 2009, p.23). furthermore, indonesian government must be committed to ensuring the availability and easy access to the internet connection, supporting hardware, and software in all schools in indonesia, so teachers in the country can start to utilize technology as a response to the national policies and to the advancement of techno technology in teaching and learning. another challenge is also related to how efl teachers view the use of technology in their teaching practices. some of them still have doubts if they possess technological skills to integrate technology in their future efl classrooms (javad & leila, 2015) and if they should “use online teaching such as e-mail, chat, or blog, in their teaching activities” (cahyani & cahyono, 2012, p.141). in that case, i agree that the teachers need technological training to utilize technology into their efl teaching practices (cahyani & cahyono; javad & leila) and introduce them with “types of computer technology that can support their immediate needs” (gilakjani, 2012, p.73). then, the teachers should feel sure whether to use online or offline technology because i believe that they can always utilize both to support their teaching. chaney, chaney, eddy (2010) make an important note that it is not a matter of on infusing a course of study with the latest and the most sophisticated educational technology but is more on utilizing technology that suits unique needs and interests of teachers and students. conclusion the paper has discussed hot potatoes, blog, and edmodo as alternative educational technology that shows some technological potential that the teachers can maximize to support their teaching practices in their efl classrooms. i would like to state that the technology discussed in this paper is a friendly-user in which the teachers can operate it easily. the discussions in the paper should not be translated in isolation as the teachers can always do further explorations to the technology. then, i suggest the teachers to monitor online interactions done by their students, particularly in their blog and edmodo, and ensure that they interact positively to facilitate their learning. it is also necessary that the teachers still have a classroom meeting because their students perhaps need to clarify particular things they have accessed electronically. even though the use of computers in a classroom cannot ensure a better quality of education (park & son, 2009) and technology cannot replace traditional 22 technology in indonesian efl classrooms teaching approaches in a classroom, i endorse that today’s educational system cannot develop without access to computers and the internet (javad & leila, 2015). therefore, this paper eventually hopes to be a starting point to encourage the teachers in indonesia and enhance their confidence to begin utilizing educational technology to support their teaching practices and help students achieve learning objectives in their efl classrooms. references arneil, s., holmes, m., street, h. 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(2008). the use of blogs in english classes for medicine-related majors. chang gung journal of humanities and social sciences, 1(1), 167-187. ubaidullah, n.h., mahadi, n., & ching, l.h. (2013). exploring the educational benefits of blogs to help non-malay pupils in malay language learning. world of computer science and information technology journal, 3(1), 20-25. walker, a., & white, g. (2013). technology enhanced language learning: connecting theory and practice. oxford: oxford university press. wallace, a. (2014). social learning platforms and the flipped classroom. international journal of information and education technology, 4(4), 293-296. ward, j.m. (2004). blog assisted language learning (ball): push button publishing for the pupils. tefl web journal, 3(1), 116. winke, p., & macgregor, d. (2001). review of hot potatoes. language learning & technology. 5(2), 28-33. yang, s.h. (2009). using blogs to enhance critical reflection community of practice. educational technology & society, 12(2), 11-21. figures figure 1 the 6 th version of hot potatoes http://nasional.tempo.co/read/news/2015/04/07/079655948/belum-tersedia-komputer-bengkulu-batal-laksanakan-un-online http://nasional.tempo.co/read/news/2015/04/07/079655948/belum-tersedia-komputer-bengkulu-batal-laksanakan-un-online http://nasional.tempo.co/read/news/2015/04/07/079655948/belum-tersedia-komputer-bengkulu-batal-laksanakan-un-online https://nasional.tempo.co/read/news/2015/04/06/058655520/sma-di-sumatera-barat-tak-ada-yang-gelar-un-online https://nasional.tempo.co/read/news/2015/04/06/058655520/sma-di-sumatera-barat-tak-ada-yang-gelar-un-online https://nasional.tempo.co/read/news/2015/04/06/058655520/sma-di-sumatera-barat-tak-ada-yang-gelar-un-online http://www.ietec-conference.com/ietec13/conferenceproceedings2013/papers/monday/mp2/mp2.3_submission_102.pdf http://www.ietec-conference.com/ietec13/conferenceproceedings2013/papers/monday/mp2/mp2.3_submission_102.pdf http://www.ietec-conference.com/ietec13/conferenceproceedings2013/papers/monday/mp2/mp2.3_submission_102.pdf http://www.ietec-conference.com/ietec13/conferenceproceedings2013/papers/monday/mp2/mp2.3_submission_102.pdf technology in indonesian efl classrooms 25 figure 2 a sample of listening exercise using jquiz program figure 3 edmodo home page figure 4 my virtual class in edmodo 26 technology in indonesian efl classrooms figure 5 the edmodo’s late submission notification figure 6 the subject communities in edmodo running head: a computer-based 21st century prototype 121 beyond words vol.2, no.2, november 2014 widya mandala catholic university surabaya developing reading comprehension skills in another language: a computer-based 21st century prototype pannathon sangarun suranaree university of technology, thailand sangarun2003@yahoo.com 122 a computer-based 21st century prototype abstract this paper describes a prototype computer-based reading comprehension program. it begins with a short description, at a general level, of theoretical issues relating to the learning of comprehension skills in a foreign/second language learning. these issues cover such areas as personal meaning-making on the basis of individual differences and the need for individualized intervention to maximize the comprehension process. modern technology facilitates this process and enables simultaneous support of large numbers of students. specifically, from a learning perspective, the program focuses on students’ personal understandings while, from a reading perspective, the construction of meaning is based on an interactive model where both high-level (global, inferential) structures are elicited/studied as well as low-level structures (e.g. vocabulary, grammar). these principles are strengthened with research findings from studies in awareness and language processing based on eye-movement analysis. as part of its reading comprehensions focus, the system also has a strong commitment to the development of critical thinking skills, recognized as one of the most important 21st century skills. the program is then described in detail, including its ability to store students’ responses and to be administered through standard learning management systems. finally, an outline of planned future developments and enhancements is presented. keywords: call, tell, reading comprehension, language learning, language teaching a computer-based 21st century prototype 123 introduction it has been widely agreed for a long time that the development of comprehension skills is of critical importance in foreign/second language (l2) learning (e.g. faerch & kasper, 1986). it is also recognized that people necessarily understand differently as a result of individual differences emerging from their diverse backgrounds ranging from unclassifiable life experiences to internal schemata to sociocultural practices and cultural discourses (eskey, 2005, p. 570). it is further understood, increasingly, that the existence of individual differences signifies that, for optimal outcomes, students need to be supported “differently”, i.e. in ways which take account of these differences (dörnyei, 2005, ellis, 2008, p.5). in this context, a “onesize-fits-all” approach to the learning/teaching of comprehension skills is, necessarily, insufficient. these considerations, taken together, also mean that it becomes effectively impossible for a teacher or course designer to manage all the (unknown) variables involved in developing the comprehension skills of large numbers of people. for reasons of efficiency in managing the complexity of the situation, it seems more effective to transfer the responsibility of the task of growing comprehension skills to those who are closest to the problem and who, under the right circumstances, are best able to deal with it: the students. hence, the need to develop autonomous solutions to the problem of growing l2 comprehension skills or, in benson’s terms, to enable people to “tak[e] more control over their lives” (benson, 2006, p. 1). while these comments apply to all comprehension skills, this paper will focus on issues of reading comprehension. in parallel with this conclusion, society is developing a new “autonomous” learning paradigm characterized by the spontaneous desire of ordinary people to solve personal problems for themselves and to take charge of their educational needs through the benefits of modern 124 a computer-based 21st century prototype technology, echoing benson’s sentiments (benson, 2006). this attitude manifests itself in current do-it-yourself (diy) or self-managed mindsets for solving problems as and when they occur (lian & pineda, 2014). the presence of these developments can be observed through at least two example phenomena: (a) the more than 12 billion (12,081,000,000) hits on the google search engine in the united states alone during the month of august 2014 (comscore, 2014) (people have countless questions to ask for the countless problems they wish to solve autonomously) and (b) the very large enrollments (often 40,000+ students in one course) (jordan, 2014) in massive open online courses (moocs) together with their very high dropout rates (in the region of 90%) (jordan, 2014), leading the observer to believe that people are enthusiastic about learning but are not interested in course completion, obtaining formal qualifications or learning beyond a certain level. in the mooc context, they seem to be “amateurs” of learning in the original sense of the word. the above context makes the issue of foreign/second language learning in the 21st century particularly interesting, but it becomes even more so for people living in asia with the rollout of the asean economic community (aec) in 2015 (association of south-east asian nations, 2009, p. 80, p. 81 and p. 125) and the use of english as the common working language. this development creates the unusual situation where english will be used by an entire community of nations where english is actually the mother tongue of none. it is, however, an official/national language for four member nations (brunei darussalam, the philippines and singapore, with malaysia having a large number of speakers), thus creating an imbalance in the distribution of english language skills and a resultant potential imbalance in professional and personal opportunities. measures need to be taken to redress this imbalance and programs for english and other languages will have to be developed. a computer-based 21st century prototype 125 as from 2015, mobility among the member nations of asean will grow. in principle, all migrant workers will be expected to know english at some level (though in the beginning many will most likely not). further, as stated, it will be necessary to maintain and develop local languages and cultures. english, in its new status of english as a lingua franca (elf), will almost certainly become largely separated from its original enveloping cultures so as to serve the purposes of all cultures. local/national languages, on the other hand, will be required for life beyond the workplace (at least until, and if, english ever propagates emotionally sufficiently to enable it to occupy a position similar to that of current local/national languages). whatever happens, the likely outcome in the short to medium term will be a dramatic growth in the demand for english and related language services in both formal and informal contexts, the latter being driven largely by necessity and its unpredicted and unpredictable, “justin-time”, requirements. this will place pressure on all language professionals (not to mention the countless amateurs teaching english) to enhance their offerings and provide systems responsive to the individual needs of the large diy generation that will create these unpredicted and unpredictable needs. the rest of this paper describes a modest attempt to contribute to this improvement. specifically, it deals with the development of the reading skill in a foreign/second language through a computer-based, autonomous (self-managed), approach and will use english as a prototypical example though the structure described can apply to all languages. it should also be noted that while feedback is provided in english, it could just as easily be provided in the students’ native language (e.g. thai). 126 a computer-based 21st century prototype brief theoretical considerations while the basic orientation of this article is of a practical nature, focusing on a description of software and interactions with students, the fundamental assumptions governing the development of this software will provide a context. the prototype described here assumes that, from a learner’s perspective, (a) meaning is constructed and not found. it is the product of each person’s background knowledge (in the broadest possible sense – not just linguistically); (b) the creation of meanings depends on recognition (as it depends on knowledge and patterns already embedded in a person’s background knowledge). as we cannot predict on the basis of nothing, prediction also depends on background knowledge. thus, both recognition and prediction necessarily depend our background knowledge; (c) internal generation of meaning is constructed on recognition/prediction but can be richer than understandings already embedded in the learner’s background knowledge. these new understandings can, in turn, modify learners’ background knowledge. this can include attempts to understand newly-identified/perceived external signals (godfroid & schmidtke, 2013, p. 183) (an intellectual position not far removed from krashen’s input hypothesis (krashen, 1985) where the new is built upon the old) and (d) difficulties and learning needs will emerge from the l2 learner’s attempts to perform tasks rather than by a teachers’ arbitrary decisions about what is difficult or easy. these assumptions are broadly based in constructivist views of knowledge creation and learning which all revolve around the “centrality of the learners’ activities in creating meaning” (biggs, 1996, p.347). against this background, the task of learning will be to change learners’ background knowledge by enabling them to make sense of symbols and phenomena (including those of language) which had hitherto made no sense to them (i.e. had been excluded, by life, from their a computer-based 21st century prototype 127 field of relevance and were therefore unperceived, invisible and operationally unknown). this change will be achieved through a process of awareness-raising and noticing (e.g. mackey, 2006, schmidt, 2012) supported by self-awareness and critical thinking reflections. critical thinking has been identified as one of the most valuable skills for the 21st century and has a high priority in education, specifically, language education (theisen et al., 2011). it will be a main focus of the program. from a learning theory perspective, and as a logical consequence of the above, the starting point for all learning processes will, as far as possible, be students’ personal understandings as expressed either through their spontaneous productions or in response to questions or other interactions. from a reading theory perspective, the construction of meaning from written text is based on an interactive model (e.g. eskey 2005, grabe & stoller, 2013, p. 12). the system assumes that comprehending a written text is an activity that constructs meaning through the influence of both high-level units such as gist or complex/inferred ideas and low-level units such as words and grammar. these two layers constantly inform one another and use information or clues from each other to reinforce, reject or modify meanings constructed by the reader. these then are the guiding principles for the reading software to be described here. these principles will be strengthened with techniques and procedures for supporting successful meaning-making. but why choose a computer-based approach? in light of the above, it is clear that, at least potentially, there will be a broad range of different meanings generated by learners faced with the difficulties of understanding written language. from both a learning and even an ethical perspective, these differences need to be addressed at a personal level. technology, because of its ability to manipulate information and 128 a computer-based 21st century prototype connect machines and people, can enable each and every student to have the freedom to engage and test his/her personal meaning-making mechanisms in private and receive individualized feedback (either provided by the system or actually constructed by the students themselves from their interactions with the system). in this way, students actively engaging with the program will have, in principle, the majority if not all of their own questions answered and will be able to make personal progress rather than wasting time coping with the questions and uncertainties of others (as in a standard classroom). this is something which is impossible in traditional settings. description of the software preliminary remarks the software described below is a prototype written using the articulate storyline authoring system (http://articulate.com). this system provides many, though not all, of the facilities needed by advanced technology-enhanced language-learning software together with the ability to generate its own lesson variables and the potential to interface with other systems.1 phase 1. the program begins with a traditional disclosure of the title of the reading passage.2 its purpose is to begin creating a context for the reading and to mobilize prior knowledge. in the context of this reading program, prior knowledge is not taken to mean words, expressions or phrases relevant to the topic or subject matter, nor does it provide advance organizers or other forms of preparation such as vocabulary lists or phrases likely to be found in the passage. it is broader in scope and designed to mobilize and expose the memories and, quite explicitly, the feelings of students relating to the subject of the reading in an attempt to activate and expose their current background knowledge or personal understandings for subsequent 1 the author has no connection whatsoever with articulate except as a user of articulate storyline 2 the reading passage used here was retrieved from the internet (http://icehotel.co.uk). it is used as an illustration of a possible text for study. furthermore, interactions provided here are purely illustrative and do not necessarily represent genuine student interactions. a computer-based 21st century prototype confrontation with their understandings of the reading text as they the title is only the beginning of these understandings are then exchanges designed to alter students’ we then have here the students’ responses are collected next phase of the program they can century prototype confrontation with their understandings of the reading text as they engage with the title is only the beginning of the process of bringing out students’ personal understanding hen compared and contrasted with those of others in a series of students’ background knowledge. here the students’ responses are collected. while these responses will be used in the they can, if desired, also be stored separately in a data storage system 129 engage with it. disclosure of students’ personal understandings. others in a series of will be used in the separately in a data storage system 130 a computer-based 21st century prototype so as to produce a growing corpus of responses representing the understandings of, beliefs about and reactions to the subject of the passage. in due course, after large numbers of examples, this information could form a rich source of research materials to investigate for cross-cultural and cross-linguistic understandings (national, social, linguistic, etc.) that will help reveal the ways in which students from various communities process the same text or, to put it another way, how different sociolinguistic groups react to the same textual stimulus. importantly, in this particular case, though, students’ responses can be recycled automatically into the rest of the reading comprehension program, feeding into the first frame of the next screen and acting as highly diversified but authentic points of comparison between present and past users of the program. in other words, the reading program does not depend for its effectiveness on pre-determined content and responses but on its interactions with users thus creating a rich, dynamic and evolving environment where meanings are refined largely by the learners themselves on the basis of the comparisons they themselves make between the texts they generate and those of previous students. this is part of the originality of the program. the next screen will illustrate. the responses offer interesting points of comparison. some of the words, even phrases, produced by the current user are found in the list produced by previous users but some are not. the same is true of ideas and feelings which, in this case, reflect similar preoccupations and a computer-based 21st century prototype the accuracy of these preoccupations and expectations will be tested later program but, at this stage, form a solid student they are generated by the learner and not imposed. comparisons themselves will begin refining the expectations they themselves have expectations by others to create a plausible and intellectual context for further study while the work done so far background knowledge, it also certainty by focusing more on the text about to be studied and potential to recognize some aspects of the text confidence in relation to the processing of text and may also organizers which, simultaneously, will confirm or deny some of their stated assumptions about the nature and content of the text signaled by the title. in so doing, this procedure will narrow the students’ field of inference and permit them to make more precise attempts at comprehension. this procedure does not provide “correct” century prototype expectations (the students were thai and, in general, thais do not like the cold). accuracy of these preoccupations and expectations will be tested later form a solid student-based set of inferences on which to build. they are generated by the learner and not imposed. comparisons made by the students themselves will begin refining the expectations they themselves have created expectations by others to create a plausible student-generated, personally-relevant, further study. while the work done so far has revolved around the mobilization of personal , it also lacks certainty. the next section will try to restore focusing more on the text about to be studied and providing students some aspects of the text. this recognition may give them some in relation to the processing of text and may also partially act zers which, simultaneously, will confirm or deny some of their stated (even unstated) and of the text signaled by the title. in so doing, this procedure field of inference and permit them to ke more precise attempts at procedure “correct” 131 expectations (the students were thai and, in general, thais do not like the accuracy of these preoccupations and expectations will be tested later in the nces on which to build. by the students created against relevant, linguistic revolved around the mobilization of personal to restore some students with the give them some act as advance (even unstated) 132 answers or make judgments about the students’ knowledge. it just signals what is actually in the text. the following slide shows in the bubble). phase 2. phase 1 is followed by a challenging scanning students focus on holistic rather than detailed meaning reading. they are given the timed task (90 s reading text. this procedure is similar to exercises (e.g. hamp-lyons, 1985 knowledge has been challenged elements of language and generating inferences about the text use of the time limit tries to ensure that a computer-based 21st century prototype answers or make judgments about the students’ knowledge. it just signals what is actually in shows what happens when a hotword is clicked (note the thai word is followed by a challenging scanning exercise designed to make focus on holistic rather than detailed meanings and to experiment with non are given the timed task (90 seconds at this stage) of making quick similar to the skimming and scanning often suggested lyons, 1985) but, in this case, it occurs only after their challenged, giving them a chance to recognize and process predicted elements of language and generating inferences about the text on the basis of this recognition to ensure that students focus on the construction of century prototype answers or make judgments about the students’ knowledge. it just signals what is actually in (note the thai word designed to make and to experiment with non-linear quick sense of the the skimming and scanning often suggested in reading but, in this case, it occurs only after their background , giving them a chance to recognize and process predicted on the basis of this recognition. focus on the construction of holistic a computer-based 21st century prototype understandings rather than on detail. synthetic construct which requires the mobilization of multiple comprehension res first instructions are displayed century prototype understandings rather than on detail. holistic understanding is a high-level construct which requires the mobilization of multiple comprehension res 133 level inferential and construct which requires the mobilization of multiple comprehension resources. 134 and then the text appears having now read the entire make sense of it, the program tries to reading text. this is achieved by asking students to write a summary of what they thought text was all about. the purpose of this section is not to test students’ understandings and come up with correct answers but to give students the opportunity basis of what they know or what they think they know. a computer-based 21st century prototype the text appears entire text for the first time and having had a first opportunity to the program tries to elicit from students a list of coherent statements about this is achieved by asking students to write a summary of what they thought the purpose of this section is not to test students’ understandings and come up with correct answers but to give students the opportunity to express their understandings on the basis of what they know or what they think they know. certainty will come later. century prototype a first opportunity to statements about the this is achieved by asking students to write a summary of what they thought the the purpose of this section is not to test students’ understandings and come up to express their understandings on the certainty will come later. a computer-based 21st century prototype students then compare their summaries again, this comparison confront enable them to construct their own personal meanings about the text while thinking critically about them. students also learn to read by century prototype summaries with those of others. comparison confronts students’ understandings with those of others so as to enable them to construct their own personal meanings about the text while thinking critically students also learn to read by processing these summaries. 135 students’ understandings with those of others so as to enable them to construct their own personal meanings about the text while thinking critically 136 reading is essentially, though not readers start at the beginning of the text and move forward. while fixate words or phrases, they also even scan ahead or glance at other parts of the text the program will exploit this feature to help develop do so by providing student with the opportunity to uncertainties by requesting them to make (also a product of background knowledge of the reading text itself. phase 3. the prediction section is introduced by the following instructions. 3 while it is true that students have already been exposed to the entire text in the scanning section, it is assumed that the time constraints and subsequent study have held memorization to a negligibl a computer-based 21st century prototype reading is essentially, though not entirely, a linear, progressive activity eaders start at the beginning of the text and move forward. while they progress in saccades, and also make regressions (rayner & castelhano, 2007) or glance at other parts of the text. in general, though, movement is forward. the program will exploit this feature to help develop students’ reading skills.3 the program do so by providing student with the opportunity to refine their understandings and them to make linguistic and discursive predictions in the next section background knowledge as mentioned earlier), thus engaging in the prediction section is introduced by the following instructions. while it is true that students have already been exposed to the entire text in the scanning section, it is assumed that the time constraints and subsequent study have held memorization to a negligibl century prototype activity. in general, they progress in saccades, and (rayner & castelhano, 2007) and, perhaps, movement is forward. the program will understandings and reduce their in the next section ), thus engaging in a closer study the prediction section is introduced by the following instructions. while it is true that students have already been exposed to the entire text in the scanning section, it is assumed that the time constraints and subsequent study have held memorization to a negligible level. a computer-based 21st century prototype the following slides will illustrate the kinds of int here the student is required to make a discursive decision based on the coherence between the text written so far and factors incorrect decision, the computer program will established earlier. for example, if the student would respond with: “that’s the passage, the name of the hotel the story”. while this is a traditional multiple program stops here until the student prediction is important, justifying the pre activate and strengthen the students’ critical correctly, but do not provide a reason, the program reacts as follows. century prototype the following slides will illustrate the kinds of interactions involved. here the student is required to make a discursive decision based on the coherence between the text written so far and factors known so far, e.g. the title. if the student make incorrect decision, the computer program will draw his/her attention to what has already , if the students choose the highlighted item above, the program possible… but it does not match the title of the name of the hotel, or the likely reason for writing hile this is a traditional multiple-choice quiz, it has an additional feature. until the students provides a reason for their choice. while making the prediction is important, justifying the prediction is even more important and strengthen the students’ critical thinking skills. if students answer the question, even correctly, but do not provide a reason, the program reacts as follows. 137 here the student is required to make a discursive decision based on the coherence if the student makes an has already been the highlighted item above, the program … but it does not match the title of likely reason for writing it has an additional feature. the . while making the important and is designed to if students answer the question, even 138 prediction questions therefore students are reacting to textual clues skills and abilities, reducing their levels. a computer-based 21st century prototype prediction questions therefore serve four purposes: identifying how well (or natively) clues are revealed progressively, developing their their uncertainty and improving their ability to predict at all ki century prototype purposes: identifying how well (or natively) their critical thinking their ability to predict at all kinds of a computer-based 21st century prototype in our example, the student then fills in the justification box as follows. the reason given does not need to be a “correct” student’s understandings at the time students themselves according to t in the above case, when the student clicks on the submit button, he/she receives a congratulatory message and a short exp hotel really special”. however, it does not end there. those of other students in order to century prototype example, the student then fills in the justification box as follows. given does not need to be a “correct” reason but it does have to at the time. these understandings will be refined or modified according to their developing insights into the possible meanings of the text. case, when the student clicks on the submit button, he/she receives a congratulatory message and a short explanation: “excellent! this is what makes the it does not end there. students are then asked to compare their reasons with in order to further refine their understandings. 139 but it does have to express the will be refined or modified by the the possible meanings of the text. case, when the student clicks on the submit button, he/she receives a excellent! this is what makes the compare their reasons with 140 other predictions could include, for instance, the icehotel in swedish lapland remains famous the world over as the original, and simply the best, hotel made purely from ice and snow. located in jukkasjarvi, 200km north of the arctic circle, the icehotel remains... in the current context what kind of  a conjugated verb?  an article (e.g. a, the, one) or an adjective, or an adverb?  a conjunction (e.g. and, but) ideally, the predictions activate many different kinds of them to construct new ones), including understandings of text structure (e.g. q: what do you expect to read next? a: an explanation of what makes the hotel special? a description of other hotels? etc.). however, if they wished to do so a computer-based 21st century prototype , for instance, grammatical predictions such as: the icehotel in swedish lapland remains famous the world over as the original, and simply the best, hotel made purely from ice and snow. located in jukkasjarvi, 200km north of the arctic circle, the icehotel in the current context what kind of word do you expect next? a conjugated verb? an article (e.g. a, the, one) or an adjective, or an adverb? a conjunction (e.g. and, but) s required by the lesson-writer would be broad and varied to activate many different kinds of ideas and connections in students’ backgrounds them to construct new ones), including understandings of text structure (e.g. q: what do you expect to read next? a: an explanation of what makes the hotel special? a description of other wished to do so, lesson-writers could adjust the predictions in century prototype the icehotel in swedish lapland remains famous the world over as the original, and simply the best, hotel made purely from ice and snow. located in jukkasjarvi, 200km north of the arctic circle, the icehotel word do you expect next? an article (e.g. a, the, one) or an adjective, or an adverb? would be broad and varied to backgrounds (or to enable them to construct new ones), including understandings of text structure (e.g. q: what do you expect to read next? a: an explanation of what makes the hotel special? a description of other adjust the predictions in a computer-based 21st century prototype 141 order to focus on specific content, e.g. grammar, though this would run counter to the spirit of the current structure which is to produce a rich, multi-level meaning-making experience. phase 4. it is broadly accepted that proficient readers tend to read in chunks (or thought groups), and that these appear to be the basic unit for processing written text. native speakers tend to recognize and work with chunks or lexical bundles while foreign language learners do not (valsecchi, saage, white, & gegenfurtner, 2008). foreign language learners need to become familiar with the structure and collocations of chunks so as to recognize them and learn to process text efficiently and also develop their spoken or written language. the program will now try to sensitize learners to the organization of chunks in the text. it will do so through a process of computer-controlled presentation of the chunks. this will help students develop a sense of the length, order, content and complexity of chunks. in the current version of the program, chunks are displayed sequentially at the rhythm of approximately one chunk for every 2 seconds. this translates to a rate of approximately 95 words per minute (wpm) to 100 wpm and seems adequate for the purpose that it was designed for (timing research still needs to be performed). students are able to replay this presentation as often as they wish. this exercise is particularly useful in that it gives students enough time to focus on the structure of chunks, to connect them to one another and to integrate them into their background knowledge. (no example is provided as it simply looks like a screen with text on it. the interaction cannot be demonstrated adequately on paper). 142 phase 5. up to this point, students were program, essentially by creating their own interpretations and summaries of the written materials as a way of generating now turn more toward the text itself and its potential understandings by a competent native speaker. by the time students reach times both with and without assistance. global elements of the text as well as their potential strengths and weaknesses. now be given a chance to check points and points of detail. the first activity consists while it looks like a quiz, it is actually an awareness than a quiz.4 4 again, the example given here is illustrative only. it would normally be more complex. a computer-based 21st century prototype up to this point, students were basically in control of interactions by creating their own interpretations and summaries of the written way of generating holistic and highly personal understandings. turn more toward the text itself and its potential understandings by a competent native reach this phase, they have processed the reading text several times both with and without assistance. they will have a reasonable understanding of the global elements of the text as well as their potential strengths and weaknesses. check their understandings against those of an experienced speaker text the lesson and to modify them if necessary. importantly, the focus remains on the text. the first point of study will be the identification of main ideas/major points and points of detail. the first activity consists of a simple drag and drop exercise but, while it looks like a quiz, it is actually an awareness-raising and verification exercise rather again, the example given here is illustrative only. it would normally be more complex. century prototype interactions with the by creating their own interpretations and summaries of the written erstandings. the focus will turn more toward the text itself and its potential understandings by a competent native this phase, they have processed the reading text several they will have a reasonable understanding of the global elements of the text as well as their potential strengths and weaknesses. students will against those of an experienced native speaker reader of t (embodied by the lesson-writer) and to modify them if necessary. importantly, the focus remains on the student, not the text. the first point of study will be the identification of main ideas/major of a simple drag and drop exercise but, raising and verification exercise rather again, the example given here is illustrative only. it would normally be more complex. a computer-based 21st century prototype students drag the statements to the correct area. if they try to drag a statement to the wrong area, the statement simply bounces back to its original position. if a statement is dragged to the correct area, it is accepted as seen below. students cannot make a mistake. the idea here is not to test students but to encourage them to think about why a by the lesson-writer as a main idea or as a supporting detail. century prototype students drag the statements to the correct area. if they try to drag a statement to the area, the statement simply bounces back to its original position. if a statement is dragged to the correct area, it is accepted as seen below. students cannot make a mistake. the idea here is not to test students but to encourage them to think about why a statement has been categorized writer as a main idea or as a supporting detail. 143 students drag the statements to the correct area. if they try to drag a statement to the area, the statement simply bounces back to its original position. if a statement is dragged to the correct area, it is accepted as seen below. students cannot make a mistake. the idea here is statement has been categorized 144 this kind of interaction statements were classified by the lesson necessary, to think, or re-think, about phase 6. phases 1 – 5 focused classification of main ideas and supporting in phase 5. here the entire text is awareness-raising exercises. two fairly delicate inferencing. a computer-based 21st century prototype importantly, students are free to get help or read explanations. example, they can read the entire passage at any time or they can double click the next to each statement. in the latter case, help will be displayed as in the next screen. his kind of interaction will enable students to quickly be able to understand by the lesson-writer, to judge the correctness of their decisions and, if about the reasons for their choices (a form of critical thinking) 5 focused primarily on gist or global elements of the text and the supporting details. phase 6 continues the focus on the text here the entire text is carefully examined from start to finish through two examples follow. the first is discursive in nature century prototype importantly, students are free to get help or read explanations. for example, they can read the entire passage at any time or they can doubleclick the orange button next to each statement. in the latter case, help will be displayed as in the next screen. understand how the judge the correctness of their decisions and, if form of critical thinking). on gist or global elements of the text and the phase 6 continues the focus on the text begun through the use of the first is discursive in nature and requires a computer-based 21st century prototype whether the student answers correctly or incorrectly, they are provided with explanation of why their choice was right or wrong. this workings of the text by comparing their reasoning with that of the lesson feedback for a correct response. century prototype whether the student answers correctly or incorrectly, they are provided with explanation of why their choice was right or wrong. this will refine their understanding by comparing their reasoning with that of the lesson-writer 145 whether the student answers correctly or incorrectly, they are provided with a possible refine their understandings of the writer. here is the 146 the second example is about vocabulary specific text (only the answer slide is shown here). a computer-based 21st century prototype about vocabulary: specifically, the meaning of the word “remain he answer slide is shown here). century prototype the meaning of the word “remains” in this a computer-based 21st century prototype this kind of questioning and feedback continues until the entire text is blanketed start to finish. it provides rich detailed content for introduces students to new and interesting information. in specific instances, learners such as multimodal corpora, concordances strengthened in later versions of the program phase 7. here we switch back to the information studied. phase 7 consists of accelerated reading practice comprehension depends heavily practice in rapidly recognizing the they will need to do in real-life reading. in phase 4, but students are now given century prototype this kind of questioning and feedback continues until the entire text is blanketed rich detailed content for most if not all aspects of the text and students to new and interesting information. learners can get extra help by connecting to various online tools concordances, dictionaries or thesauruses. this connectivity versions of the program. here we switch back to the text as a whole so as to integrate all the detailed consists of accelerated reading practice. as stated heavily on recognition. this phase of the program will give students the elements which they have studied in depth: the kind of thing life reading. this activity is essentially the same as the one described are now given a choice of higher speeds at which 147 this kind of questioning and feedback continues until the entire text is blanketed from aspects of the text and by connecting to various online tools connectivity will be text as a whole so as to integrate all the detailed . as stated previously, in this phase of the program will give students studied in depth: the kind of thing the one described at which the material is 148 presented. this is not unlike using pacers in a speed however its purpose is not to force people to read at a certain opportunity to recognize chunks rapidly, i.e. a rapid processing experience otherwise have. the fact that the displayed text remains in plac the pressure on the student enables regressions to happen and lays down the groundwork for the next practice session. phase 8. phase 8 concludes text as a whole. the first part provides students summary that they made during phase 2 of the program. not only does it enable them to change their minds but, more importantly, it enables them their own thinking and understandings screen below illustrates. 5 exercise is given here as an example of a pacer, not as a description of the process actually used in this program. a computer-based 21st century prototype this is not unlike using pacers in a speed-reading approach (e.g. http://eyercize.com its purpose is not to force people to read at a certain pace but, rather, to recognize chunks rapidly, i.e. a rapid processing experience which they would not otherwise have. the fact that the displayed text remains in place rather than disappearing reduces enables regressions to happen and lays down the groundwork for the concludes the program. it consists of two parts both focusing on the the first part provides students with the opportunity to review and revise the summary that they made during phase 2 of the program. not only does it enable them to change their minds but, more importantly, it enables them to notice how much change understandings as a result of participating in the program’s activities e is given here as an example of a pacer, not as a description of the process actually used in this century prototype http://eyercize.com)5 but, rather, to give students an which they would not e rather than disappearing reduces enables regressions to happen and lays down the groundwork for the both focusing on the to review and revise the summary that they made during phase 2 of the program. not only does it enable them to change change has occurred in as a result of participating in the program’s activities. the e is given here as an example of a pacer, not as a description of the process actually used in this a computer-based 21st century prototype the second part of phase 8 a multiple choice quiz. it requires students to pass at a level of 80% or more. (see timer in top right hand corner of the screen) and students have 10 minutes to complete it. this is not a memory exercise as students have access to the reading passag times, and it is the only part of the reading program which numerically assesses students for the purposes of grading. it is graded primarily to give students a sense of achievement and motivation (some students work only for grades on passing this section, students century prototype of phase 8 consists of a simple review of the reading text requires students to pass at a level of 80% or more. the quiz is timed (see timer in top right hand corner of the screen) and students have 10 minutes to complete it. this is not a memory exercise as students have access to the reading passage in its entir is the only part of the reading program which numerically assesses students for the it is graded primarily to give students a sense of achievement and motivation (some students work only for grades – this will encourage them). students receive a congratulatory message as below 149 consists of a simple review of the reading text in the form of the quiz is timed (see timer in top right hand corner of the screen) and students have 10 minutes to complete it. e in its entirety at all is the only part of the reading program which numerically assesses students for the it is graded primarily to give students a sense of achievement and 150 the program then terminates. ancillary features, planned enhancements and future developments the program described here much larger networked system although it can both online and offline though for security/privacy and convenience reasons an online environment based on a learning manageme is more convenient. if the lms solution is selected, then it is possible to keep track of progress, track completion status and maintain time. this is currently achieved through the system. structurally, the program consists of modified according to the teaching/learning objectives general as possible in order to maximize its impact structure and, potentially, presented in different ways (though clearly the p a computer-based 21st century prototype enhancements and future developments described here is still in its early stages and is designed to be part of a system although it can also be used as a stand-alone system both online and offline though for security/privacy and convenience reasons an online environment based on a learning management system (lms), like the popular moodle system, . if the lms solution is selected, then it is possible to keep track of progress, status and maintain quiz scores for both students and teachers achieved through the use of scorm modules generated , the program consists of a series of templates which, if desired, modified according to the teaching/learning objectives although its spirit is to be as open and as in order to maximize its impact. in particular, the system is modular in presented in any order by the lesson-writer or accessed though clearly the prediction sections cannot really appear century prototype and is designed to be part of a alone system. it can be run both online and offline though for security/privacy and convenience reasons an online popular moodle system, . if the lms solution is selected, then it is possible to keep track of progress, and teachers to examine over generated by the authoring , if desired, can be be as open and as . in particular, the system is modular in accessed by the student cannot really appear late in the a computer-based 21st century prototype 151 program). further, the program can be integrated either into a highly directive hierarchical structure or into a non-hierarchical free-access structure. finally, the program can easily be connected to other lessons or tools with only minor pre-planning, and connections and additional support could be provided on an ad hoc or organic, needs-based, approach. connections of particular interest could be to linguistic corpora to provide new contexts for words, multimodal culture and language corpora for illustrating language in different contexts and maximizing brain representations of words and concepts (macedonia & klimesch, 2014, p.83), text-to-speech (tts) engines to read aloud portions of text selected by students (e.g. oddcast, 2014) and connections to general or specialized social networks to get live feedback on problems experienced, as well as the more traditional resources of online dictionaries, thesauruses and grammar books. the program will now be tested in the field for its effectiveness as a reading support system. further, because of its ability to record students’ writings, it is planned to use the system as a research tool to identify the ways in which students from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds make sense of written text. especially in asean contexts, these research corpora may help the development and tailoring of systems for facilitating intercultural contacts between the different groups involved. conclusion this paper began by raising a common issue faced by foreign language students: how to develop their foreign language comprehension skills, specifically reading comprehension, in light of the huge diversity in their personal background knowledge and the necessity to take account of this diversity so as to optimize learning. in the face of this diversity and the impossibility of meeting all individual needs simultaneously in the traditional classroom, an 152 a computer-based 21st century prototype autonomous computer-based prototype solution was proposed. that solution revolved around the construction of personal understandings on the one hand and an interactive model of reading where both high-level (global, inferential) structures are elicited/studied as well as low-level structures (vocabulary, grammar). in particular, the system relies heavily on the development of critical thinking skills through a process of repeated comparison between students’ understandings and those of others. thus the system is consistent with modern theoretical approaches to the construction of knowledge and the development of reading skills and uses technology to perform tasks which could otherwise not be performed. in turn, from a technical perspective, the system is adaptable to a range of delivery platforms and learning environments and enables further development to occur with relative ease. while, for each text studied, the activities described take longer to complete than a standard reading comprehension class, the system simultaneously provides, to a large number of students, a depth and intensity of personalized/individualized learning opportunities which would be impossible using traditional approaches. a computer-based 21st century prototype 153 references articulate storyline (2014). articulate e-learning system, community, blogs. retrieved from http://articulate.com. association of south-east asian nations (2009). roadmap for an 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(2012). attention, awareness, and individual differences in language learning. in & i. w. w. m. chan, k. n. chin, s. bhatt (ed.), perspectives on individual characteristics and foreign language education (pp. 27–50). boston, ma: mouton de gruyter. theisen, t. et al. (2011). 21st century skills world languages map. actfl & the partnership for 21st century skills. washington, dc,. retrieved from a computer-based 21st century prototype 155 https://www.actfl.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/21stcenturyskillsmap/p21_worldlanguagesma p.pdf valsecchi, m., saage, s., white, b. j., & gegenfurtner, k. r. (2008). advantage in reading lexical bundles is reduced in non-native speakers. journal of eye movement research, 6(5:2), 1–15. retrieved from http://www.brianjwhite.ca/valsecchietal-final.pdf english morphology to non-native speakers 1 beyond words vol. 11 no.1 may 2023 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya english derivational morphology: challenges and teaching considerations for non-native speakers brenda vargas-vega brenda.vargas@uaq.mx faculty of languages autonomous university of queretaro mexico & irasema mora-pablo imora@ugto.mx language department university of guanajuato mexico article history received: 25-11-2022 reviewed: 30-6-2023 accepted: keywords: english as a foreign language, derivational morphology, suffixes, teaching. doi abstract this paper has a twofold purpose: to raise awareness on the complexity of the acquisition of english derivational morphology, and to suggest ways to approach its teaching in the language classroom. understanding morphology is important because of its impact on other areas of language; however, some authors posit that its explicit instruction is limited in schools. based on a thorough but comprehensible description of english morphology, we present eight aspects that may be challenging for english language learners followed by pedagogical strategies to address them. this way, we hope to offer linguistic insights that can aid the teaching of english as a foreign language and close the gap between linguistic research and the classroom setting. introduction derivational morphology is a word formation process in which the addition of affixes creates new lexemes (e.g., generousgenerosity). the main word formation processes in english are compounding, conversion and derivation (lieber, 2005). compounding occurs when two stems are put together to form a lexeme (e.g., bus driver). conversion, also known as zero-derivation and functional shift, refers to the syntactic and semantic change of a word that does not undergo a morphological change. through this process, nouns frequently become verbs (e.g., googleto google), verbs become nouns (e.g., to catcha catch) and less frequently, adjectives become verbs (e.g., coolto cool). in derivation, the creation of 2 nglish morphology to non-native speakers new lexemes results from the addition of a derivational affix. for example, amaze (v) + the suffix -ment results in amazement (n). this paper focuses on suffixation, which is a central part of derivational morphology. in the last decade, researchers have shown growing interest towards the study of derivational morphology because it has been suggested that it can aid other areas of language. studies of english as a second language have found benefits on word recognition, word reading, reading comprehension, and even writing skills resulting from the knowledge of derivational morphology (curinga, 2013; diependaele et al., 2011; khodadoust et al., 2013; kieffer & lesaux, 2008, 2012; leontjev et al., 2016; ramírez et al., 2010, 2013). despite the importance of the matter, it seems that teaching morphology has not been fully incorporated in the curriculum. in what follows, we will present some evidence. although several researchers recommend the explicit instruction of english derivational morphology (amirjalili & jabbari, 2018; khodadoust et al., 2013; schmitt and zimmerman, 2002; varatharajoo et al., 2015), some other studies reveal that derivational morphology is not seriously considered when it comes to teaching. tahaineh (2012) argues that word formation mechanisms are seen as a by-product of other types of learning and that it plays a secondary role compared, for instance, to grammar. he insists on the importance of teaching vocabulary in ways that promote learners’ true understanding of the linguistic system and explicitly teaches them word formation mechanisms since, without such instruction, students are forced to memorize word forms which appear to be unrelated. he bases his arguments on a detailed analysis of a textbook of english as a second language in jordan, where he found almost no activities related to word-formation processes and therefore he urges textbook designers to pay attention to this aspect. the lack of morphological instruction has also been identified by itmeizeh (2018), badawi (2019) and anwar & rosa (2020). itmeizeh (2018) studied palestinian 10th graders’ morphological analysis and found low results even after the experimental group had gone through morphological treatment. the author states that english is taught in palestine with special emphasis on listening and speaking in the first grades and gradually focuses on reading and writing in higher grades (never on morphology). badawi’s (2019) study took place in egypt where, he states, english instruction is totally dominated by communicative language teaching. he believes that this approach has been misunderstood, making teachers and material developers believe that they should leave aside any focus on language form. after visiting 51 efl classrooms in 17 secondary schools, he observed that “neither the objectives nor the content of the three assigned efl secondary school textbooks are concerned with morphology instruction” (p.167). likewise, anwar & rosa (2020) assert that “it is rare to find english teachers at junior high schools in indonesia who teach morphology explicitly in the classroom” (p.29). these classroom practices seem to contradict some research findings that highlight the benefits of understanding morphology for bilingual people. based on the idea that students bring skills from their first language to the learning of a second language, lam et al. (2019) investigated a type of morphological awareness specific to bilinguals: cross-language suffix correspondences; this is, english morphology to non-native speakers 3 “awareness that suffixes can carry the same meaning and changes in grammatical class in two languages despite differences in appearance or sound in the two languages” (p. 30). this is not the same as cognate awareness, which commonly focuses on base forms like fantastic/fantástico in english and spanish, respectively, but can also apply to suffixes alone (like english –ous and spanish –oso in dangerous/peligroso). cross-language suffix correspondences, unlike cognate awareness, refers to a semantic and grammatical overlap where word forms do not share orthography or phonology, as in the pairs of english-spanish words happiness/felicidad and loneliness/soledad. lam et al. (2019) found that cross-linguistic suffix correspondence brought more benefits in reading comprehension than cognate awareness for english speakers learning french as a second language. their study raises two important issues, one is that teachers should not treat bilingual students as monolinguals; in other words, teachers could and should take advantage of students’ metalinguistic awareness in their two (or more) languages. furthermore, if cross-language suffix correspondence is more beneficial than cognate awareness for reading comprehension in a second language, then we have at least one well founded reason to teach derivational morphology on its own right, and not as a by-product of vocabulary learning, grammar instruction or reading exposure. we have presented some efforts that researchers have made to explore the importance of derivational morphology for second language learners, and what we find is a discrepancy between their findings and the classroom situation. in other words, although morphological knowledge is known to have a positive impact on other areas of language, its explicit instruction seems to be limited. we wish to close this gap by providing some teaching strategies based on concrete aspects of morphological knowledge. our objectives are 1) to raise awareness on the complexity of the acquisition of english derivational morphology, and 2) to suggest ways to approach its teaching in the second language classroom. our methodology consisted of describing eight potential problematic areas for students’ l2 morphological acquisition and treat those problems as teaching challenges in order to give pedagogical suggestions. the problems include: the processes involved in derivation, suffixes that can be both inflectional and derivational, pseudo-affixation, plurifunctional suffixes, meaning overlap, doublets, affix ordering and the difference between academic and non-academic language. the relevance of the study is its attempt to link theory to practice in the field of second language acquisition by offering linguistic insights that can aid the teaching of english as a foreign language. we now turn to the description of eight problems of derivational morphology and then delve into some possible suggestions about how to deal with them in the classroom. the suggestions can apply to learners of different levels of proficiency and some recommendations can be taken not only for classroom practice, but also for testing purposes. 4 nglish morphology to non-native speakers challenges of english derivational morphology problem 1: the three processes involved in derivation are not always visible it is claimed that derivation includes three simultaneous processes: a morphological one (the addition of a morpheme), a syntactic one (the change of a grammatical category) and a semantic one (the creation of a new meaning). hurford et al. (2007) demonstrate this with a couple of examples (see table 1, examples 1 and 2). table 1 the three processes involved in derivation (source: hurford et al. (2007) morphological process syntactic process semantic process (1) teach-teacher add suffix -er change verb to noun produce a word denoting an agent (2) red-redness add suffix -ness change adjective to noun produce a word denoting a property however, these three processes are not always visible. although derivational morphology, in contrast to inflectional morphology, generally changes the grammatical category of the word, sometimes the result of adding a suffix is a derived word with the same grammatical category (see 3), where we can see the addition of the suffix –hood, but the derived word is also a noun. similarly, we can find examples of derivation which do not involve a morphological process as in cook (n) or (v), whose syntactic and semantic processes can only be distinguished in context (see 4a and b). (3) child (n) → childhood (n). (4a) the cook was granted a prize (n). (4b) i don’t like to cook (v). in a classroom situation, we could deal with cases like (3) by explaining the syntactic process of the suffixes (for example, that the suffix -hood makes nouns) and give and elicit some examples from students (e.g., neighborhood, brotherhood). cases like (4) can be managed by indicating the possible syntactic combinations of the grammatical categories. for example, nouns can be preceded by determiners such as a house, the cats, three cooks, while verbs in infinitive are preceded by the particle to or by a noun phrase or an auxiliary verb, when conjugated. compare three cooks (n) vs my mom cooks well (v) / my mom is cooking. some of the words that do not suffer a morphological change present an additional problem related to stress shift. the word report in (5a) and (5b) below serves as an example. generally, when these words work as nouns, the stress goes on the first syllable, and when they work as verbs, it is the second syllable that is stressed (re-cord vs re-cord)1. a quick explanation of stress to students may also give them clues to identify grammatical categories. 1 more examples of this type of words are: increase, decrease, import, export, protest, insult, etc. english morphology to non-native speakers 5 in addition, teachers can explain the difference between nouns and verbs by giving pairs of sentences and creating whquestions with the help of students. (5a) the report was prepared by the director. (who prepared the report?) (5b) they report that soil pollution has threatened local farmers. (what did they report?) problem 2: is this a derivational or an inflectional morpheme? there are some morphemes that can be either derivational or inflectional. for example, if you add the suffix -er to an adjective, you create a comparative form, so the suffix is inflectional (see 6); but if you add it to a verb, you create a noun, thus it is working as a derivational morpheme (see 7). (6) cheap → cheaper (inflectional morpheme) (7) paint → painter (derivational morpheme) bauer & nation (1993), who propose a scale of difficulty for learning english morphemes, suggest that inflectional morphemes are acquired earlier than derivational morphemes. nonetheless, they point out that some can be considered either, depending on the context they appear in, as in (8a) and (8b)2: (8a) he is shooting clay-pigeons. (inflectional morpheme, progressive form). (8b) clay-pigeon shooting is an expensive pastime (derivational morpheme denoting an activity). english teachers and second language researchers should be aware of the flexibility of the suffixes since students’ acquisition may indeed follow this kind of broad order. author 1 et al. (in revision) report that beginners tend to 2 examples taken from bauer & nation (1993). use more inflectional morphemes than advanced students and that sometimes their answers are correct even if the sentential context is restricted (see 9a and 9b). (9a) a more bearable life requires good attitude. (9b) a more bearing life requires good attitude. the first option in (9) is, without a doubt, a derivational morpheme since the suffix -able creates adjectives, while the second option has an inflectional form (-ing) that in this context works well to form an adjective. thus, the suffix –ing can work as an inflectional morpheme by giving a progressive aspect (see 8a above and 10a below); as a derivational morpheme by naming an activity and working as a noun (see 8b above and 10b below) and even denoting a “type of”, thus working as an adjective (see 10c below). however, the addition of -ing as a derivational morpheme can have ambiguous readings as in (10d)3, where one interpretation refers to the act of smoking grass (verb), and another interpretation is the state of the grass (adjective). (10a) she is smoking. (the verb is inflected with the suffix -ing). (10b) smoking is bad for your health. (-ing works as a nominalizer and thus, considered a derivational morpheme). (10c) some smoking pipes are not expensive. (smoking pipes are a type of pipes, so the suffix -ing is adjectival and is thus considered a derivational morpheme). (10d) smoking grass is dangerous. (ambiguous case). teachers can make inferences as to the process of acquisition of their students based on their answers. if a student answers 3 example taken from hurford et al. (2007). 6 nglish morphology to non-native speakers something like 9a, that may mean that he/she has a greater level of english proficiency than the student that answers something like 9b. in this case, the teacher knows that he/she has to work harder with the latter. one way to do this is to present the derived form to the student and make him/her aware of the function of the derivational morpheme. for example, by explaining that the suffix -able can attach to verbs to form adjectives (e.g., observable, respectable, unthinkable). problem 3: pseudo-affixes and the three aspects of derivational knowledge there are words whose endings resemble the form of some suffixes although they are not real suffixes, but part of the base of the word. this phenomenon can be problematic for language learners, as diependaele et al. (2011) suggest. these researchers found a pattern of facilitation from transparent suffixes such as viewer-view to opaque suffixes or pseudo-suffixes such as corner-corn. this finding goes in line with tyler & nagy’s (1989) assertion that derivational knowledge includes three aspects: relational, syntactic, and distributional, and is developed accordingly. in the first type of knowledge, leaners have to decide if two words are related as in argue-argument as opposed to off-offer. the second aspect, called the syntactic knowledge, consists of knowing that derivational suffixes mark the grammatical category of english words; for example, being aware that the suffix -ize creates verbs like in victimvictimize. finally, the third aspect is about knowing the restrictions of the addition of a suffix to certain roots. for example, the nominalizer -ness can be added to adjectives and nouns but not to verbs (e.g., quietness, childness vs *playness). the problem of pseudo-suffixes has also been addressed by schreuder & baayen (1995), who point out that some of the factors that must be considered in the development of morphological acquisition are: conceptual complexity, semantic and phonological transparency, the complexity of the operations of word formation, pseudo-affixation and affixal homophony. other non-morphological factors that the authors invite us to consider are word frequency and the morphological richness of languages, since they can create differences in acquisition, too. a pseudo-suffix is explained by ram (2013) as something that is not a suffix, but a combination that looks like a suffix, like -er in corner. a more general term would be pseudoaffixation, as schreuder & baayen (1995) use it, because it can also occur with prefixes, as they exemplify with the words reach and react. while the word reach has no prefix, the word react includes the prefix re-. these authors warn us about word frequency because a high frequency word may be easier to acquire than a low frequency word, even if it is derived (for example, the word punishment in english is more frequent than the word punish4). also, the morphological richness of the first language may affect the acquisition of the second language. for example, it may be easier for a russian speaker to understand inflection in spanish than for an english speaker, since russian and spanish have a rich inflectional system, but english does not. teachers can take advantage of research that has been done regarding the different aspects 4 punishment has 2191 ocurrences in the british national corpus, while punish has 461 (january 30th, 2021) of derivational knowledge. for example, carlisle (2000) developed a way to test the english morphology to non-native speakers 7 relational and the syntactic knowledge of english native speakers that can be used with nonnative speakers and be further modified to evaluate their distributional knowledge. in her proposal, the relational knowledge is a judgement test, thus focusing on comprehension (see 14a and 14b); while the evaluation of the syntactic knowledge is divided in two parts: derivation and decomposition (see 15 and 16, respectively) and evaluates production. in doing so, the last two tasks also trigger semantic knowledge. both in derivation and decomposition, the students are asked to complete sentences by modifying a given word. author 1 et al. (2019) adapted carlisle’s derivation task and were able to successfully evaluate spanish speakers’ distributional knowledge of some english suffixes. (14a) happy – happiness (related) (14b) cat – category (not related) (15). farm. my uncle is a … [farmer] (16). driver. children are too young to... [drive] the type of exercises shown in 14 to 16 can be used in the language classroom as practice, and not only as evaluation tools. morphological exercises can be modified to prompt students’ comprehension and at a later stage, production, which tends to be poorer than the receptive area. for example, a decontextualized exercise aiming to develop the relational knowledge of students could be a morphological segmentation task of isolated words (e.g., cleverness → clever -ness; unreliability → un rely -able ity). this type of exercise makes students realize that the addition of some suffixes modifies the root orthographically and/or phonologically. in the case of unreliability, there is a stress shift between rely and reliability, plus orthographic changes: switching y to -i in rely and modifying -able to -abil to fit with -ity; so this exercise can also benefit students’ spelling or pronunciation subskills. it is important to make clear that the segmentation should be morphological and not in syllables. if teachers prefer to work with contextualized material, they can use short texts and have students underline all the derived words (identification). if students are able to identify the grammatical category of the derived words and guess meaning from context, they are showing their syntactic and semantic knowledge (comprehension), which can be evaluated through comprehension questions. if students can use the derived words, they have moved to the productive area. this can be accomplished by eliciting synonymous phrases (see 17). (17) karla didn’t see the point of making an effort to convince her parents. karla’s efforts to convince her parents seemed pointless to her. one same exercise can be adapted to trigger receptive and productive knowledge. teachers can prepare multiple choice exercises where students choose the correct derived form to complete the sentences (see example 22 below). if they wish to move to the productive area, this same kind of sentences would be presented in a fill in the blanks format (see 15 above). if teachers want to work only on the syntactic area, the exercise can look like example 20 below, but with real words. a less controlled production in communicative activities can be achieved by connecting morphology to other areas of language. for example, after a listening activity, teachers can lead an oral exercise that forces students to rephrase ideas and use derived words. by doing so, teachers can check listening comprehension and promote the development of morphology and grammar at the same time. the listening activities are regularly included in the 8 nglish morphology to non-native speakers textbooks, so the teacher would only be adding the morphological part (see dialogue and follow-up in 18, as an example). (18) [an extract of a dialogue between a boss and one of his employees] boss: i’m sorry, but you will not be promoted this year. employee: may i ask why? teacher’s question: what were the boss and the employee talking about? student’s expected response: about the employee’s promotion. free production can be attained by asking students to write a short text with a minimum number of derived words to make it look more academic. it is also possible that more advanced students start adding known suffixes to new roots both in spoken and written speech. sometimes, students that have encountered words like homeless, pointless, and childless are able to produce words like motherless, meaningless or effortless. problem 4: plurifunctional morphemes some morphemes have more than one grammatical category, and therefore, create different meanings. for example, the suffix -al can form adjectives from nouns (see 19a), nouns from verbs (see 19b), and adjectives from adjectives (see 19c). (19a) music (n) → musical (adj) (19b) arrive (v)→ arrival (n) (19c) periodic (adj) → periodical (adj) when this happens, generally one grammatical category is more productive than the rest. in the case of the suffix -al, it has been claimed that the function of denominal adjectivizer (example 19a) is the most productive. this can have a positive impact on acquisition since the most productive function of a morpheme is thought to be the first one to be acquired by second language learners. however, teachers cannot be certain that the derivational suffix -al has been acquired because students are able to recognize it or produce it in a word such as musical, since the high frequency of this word and/or the frequency of its root (music) may have an effect on its recognition. as a matter of fact, some researchers claim that certain derived words are recognized as a whole and not understood in a compositional manner because of their high frequency (clahsen et al., 2010; karlsson, 2015; schreuder & baayen 1995; silva & clahsen, 2008). others alert us on the fact that knowing one derivative form of a word family does not mean knowing them all, although it may facilitate the receptive knowledge of other members. in schmitt and zimmerman’s words: “teachers cannot assume that learners will absorb the derivative forms of a word family automatically from exposure”. (2002, p. 162). the recommendation here is to try to separate vocabulary knowledge from morphological knowledge. one way to do this is by testing students’ derivational knowledge in low and high frequency words. if the students only get good results in high frequency words, this means that they are not decomposing the words, and therefore, may not know the morphemes involved in them. another way to evaluate morphological knowledge is by using non-words. the inconvenience of it is that it only evaluates the syntactic knowledge of the suffix, leaving aside its distributional knowledge (discussed in problem 3) and the possibility of doublets (discussed in problem 6). in addition, it focuses only on receptive knowledge. mochizuki & aizawa (2000) used this technique in a decontextualized multiplechoice format with the grammatical categories noun, verb, adjective and adverb as options (see 20), while in lardiere’s study (2006) the options were words to complete a sentence (see english morphology to non-native speakers 9 21). this last author also included real words in her study (see 22), which would be our recommendation for teachers who want to evaluate the syntactic knowledge of the suffixes because we believe that working with non-words is not equivalent to working with real words. (205) rombortable quifable slomitable n. v. a.ad. (21) the committee is too ____________ to deal with that project. a. vorincible b. vorintism c. vorintiousness d. vorincify (22) i tried to ____________ his motives for doing that. a. analysis b. analytical c. analyse d. analytically one way to teach smoothly the several functions of suffixes is to work first with those that have some correspondence with students’ l1. the creation of bilingual dictionaries can trigger students’ knowledge and comprehension in both their l1 and l2 by means of comparison. if students detect a pattern between suffixes in different languages either through cognates or cross-linguistic suffix correspondences, the teacher can elicit other forms that fit into that pattern, and the class can start its dictionary. for example, students notice that responsibility matches with responsabilidad in spanish and search additional pairs such as sincerity/sinceridad, authority/autoridad, mentality/mentalidad. or they notice that the english suffix -al is cognate with spanish. it is then the teacher’s job to make students realize that the cognate status holds only when -al forms adjectives from nouns as in natural and cultural, in which the roots of the words are also cognates. when this suffix creates adjectives form 5 the options in mochizaki & aizawa’s study were originally given in japanese. in addition, they included another type of items to evaluate prefixes. this was likewise done with the use of non-words, but their intention adjectives, the suffix will be different in spanish but consistent (rethorical/retórico; hysterical/histérico; allegorical/alegórico). once students recognize this, it is likely that they rapidly increase their receptive vocabulary because the roots of the words are cognates, and now students know that -al is forming adjectives. finally, the nominalizing function of -al does not correspond so strongly to spanish words neither in roots nor in a single suffix (arrival/llegada; proposal/propuesta; removal/eliminación; approval/ aprovación), so this will be probably the last function spanish speakers acquire. if the entries of the dictionary are made by suffix, and not by word, students can add the functions of a morpheme as they discover them, so they can develop their morphological knowledge gradually and meaningfully. problem 5: one meaning generated by different morphemes an additional problem occurs when we find different morphemes with the same syntactic process that create the same semantic value. an example of this, cited in lowie (1998), is the case of the suffixes -ation, -ment, -al and ø, which are all deverbal nominalizers that create the meaning of “abstract result of an action” as in (23 a-d). (23a) expect → expectation (23b) resent → resentment (23c) approve → approval (23d) regret (v) → regret (n) our recommendation would be to consider again the first language of the students because that may partially explain their choices. for example, english and spanish have the cognate suffixes -ation/-ación and was to test the semantic knowledge of the prefix. a sample item is: antislimad / antikiofic / antirachy with the options (a) human, (b) of antenna, (c) opposed, (d) ancient. 10 nglish morphology to non-native speakers ment/-miento (e.g.,proclamtion/proclamación; resentment/resentimiento). this may affect the order of acquisition of morphemes and teachers can expect the use of the cognate morphemes over the non-cognate. as a matter of fact, an overuse of this type of morphemes can occur as in using approvation instead of approval. in this case, the teacher can infer that the student has already acquired the syntactic knowledge of the morpheme and is only struggling with the distributional one. amirjalili & jabbari (2018) tested the distributional knowledge as in example (24)6 (24) [in each set determine which word does not exist in english] a. childable b. equality c. characterize d. measureless [in the above test “childable” is an incorrect word since -able cannot attach to nouns]. teachers can complement this type of exercise in a group discussion where he/she asks for the correct form of the incorrect words. example: “so how do we call someone who behaves like a child?” (childish), and further explain that the suffixes -ish, and -able create adjectives, but -ish can be added to nouns (e.g., devilish, stylish, womanish) while -able is commonly added to verbs (e.g., printable, drinkable, laughable). problem 6: the doublets zacarías (2010) studies the spanish suffixes -ción and -miento that add to the same root, create the same grammatical category and, in some cases, generate the same meaning. he calls rivalry when both derivations are possible for the same grammatical category as aburrición and aburrimiento (both forms 6 example taken from amirjalili & jabbari (2018) 7 zacarías argues that población means “human settlement” or “a group of inhabitants” while poblamiento refers to the activity of inhabiting. meaning boredom) and argues that there is opposability when the meaning of the derived forms is different as in población and poblamiento7. this same phenomenon has been discovered in english. for example, bauer et al. (2013) point out that it is common to find doublets with -ness and -ity (e.g., purity/pureness; exclusivity/ exclusiveness). from a second language acquisition perspective, author 1 et al. (2019) found that english learners have the tendency to add the english suffix -ation to roots that can take another nominalizer like -al or -y (e.g., dismission vs dismissal; advocation vs advocacy). they argue that this preference is due to the greater productivity of the suffix -ation, the greater word frequency of the derived form, and the influence of the participants’ mother tongue, which in their study was spanish and thus has the suffix -ación. they also found cases of opposability like treatment vs treaty where, although both suffixes create a noun, the meaning of the derived form is quite different. finally, they account for the creation of novel forms like adjournation instead of adjournment. the suggestion here is to correct beginner or intermediate students only when there is a difference in meaning that obstructs communication (cases of opposability) and leave the deep explanations of subtle differences of meaning to advanced students (cases of rivalry). this is because we believe that morphological knowledge is more optimally linked to vocabulary size than vocabulary depth8. for advanced students, a meaningful and collaborative way to work with doublets is the creation of english-english dictionaries using 8 vocabulary size is defined as the number of words known, while vocabulary depth refers to how well those words are known (schmitt, 2014). english morphology to non-native speakers 11 peer feedback as a tool to increase morphological awareness. if after a fill in the blanks derivational exercise, the teacher sees that students’ answers for an item varies between treatment and treaty, but the correct answer is only treatment (a case of opposability), he/she can ask students to look up the meanings in a dictionary and write them down with a sample sentence for each word. this would force students to check the meaning of the word against the context which, as mentioned in oz (2014), is a step to promote morphological awareness as a cognitive strategy. if the pair of words are a case of rivalry, students may also find examples and have a group discussion to discover use or meaning differences between words. in this case, the teacher can explain that different users may use different forms; for example, some people prefer to use bravery over braveness. these variations may be a matter of generational or dialectal preferences, sematic change (pejoration or amelioration), or caused by the etymological background of words, as mentioned in kaunisto (2009). problem 7: derived words with more than one affix some derived words do not contain only one affix but can be formed by a prefix plus a suffix (e.g., un-respons-ive), or a combination of suffixes. in the latter case, the order of the suffixes in not arbitrary. this is, while responsive-ness is accepted, *response-ness-ive is not. there is a large body of research in this area, especially theoretical, in which researchers have tried to categorize the suffixes to predict/explain their ordering (e.g., aronoff & fuhrhop, 2002; hay & plag, 2004; manova & aronoff, 2010). the empirical work shows poorer performance of english language 9 examples form friedline (2011) learners on derived words that imply affix ordering than those with a single suffix (friedline, 2011). friedline’s (2011) ideas may be useful for developing the acquisition of multi-suffixed words, since one of his objectives was to see the role of instruction on suffix knowledge and suffix ordering, focusing on the following combinations: able+ity (e.g., reliability); ful+ness (e.g., hopefulness); tion+al (e.g., additional). the participants in friedline’s study were pre-tested and post-tested after 5 sessions of morphological training. some of the exercises included in the pretest and post-test were a fill in the blanks exercise that required the addition of one or more suffixes to a given word (see 25 and 26) and a grammatical judgement task (see 27)9. (25) brief: the speech‘s briefness was refreshing. (26) tough: the athlete‘s thoughfulness came from his intense training. (27) truthfulness (correct) vs *forcenessful (incorrect) he had two kinds of training that he called input and output training. input training included multiple choice exercises after a listening and a reading task, while output training did not include a listening task, and the activities after the reading task required more production from students. examples of the output training are shown in 28 and 29: (25) [after reading a short story] (26) people believe that choice is a (base: sense) sensat __ __ n __ __ science fiction movie. (27) [sentence writing] politicians / lack / accountable / when /use / government money. (make changes to the 12 nglish morphology to non-native speakers words provided in order to make them fit in the sentence and use accountable as a noun.) as we can see with the examples shown so far, morphological exercises can vary from a multiple choice to a fill in the blanks format or even to sentence transformation, and this can be done with multi suffixed words as well. it is also worth noticing that they can be done after practicing some other skills. we think that group games can further help practice word formation and affix ordering by, say, having students play dominoes with roots and affixes. games have the advantage of making learners practice the language without the worries of formal learning. problem 8: differences between academic and non-academic language we have seen that derivational suffixes tend to (but do not always) change the grammatical category of the words to which they attach. however, we have not pointed out that derivational affixes add to content words, and when these are nouns, they are regularly common nouns. it is strange to see derivational affixes added to function words such as conjunctions, articles or prepositions, which are considered a closed set of words, since there is a fixed number of items. for example, it would be perfectly normal to see or hear the noun intensity formed by the adjective intense + the suffix -ity, but not *inity as the combination of preposition in + the suffix -ity. van goethem (2017) points out that occasionally words belonging to the closed set can be used in nominal slots as in (30) and that some category changes are nothing similar to what we can encounter in a textbook (see 31). other peculiarities are shown in bochnak & csipak’s (2014) work. although these authors carried out a 10 examples 30, 31 and 32b belong to van goethem (2017), while examples 32c and 32d are taken from semantic analysis not discussed in this paper, their examples show how the derivational suffix -ish changes its status from a bound to a free morpheme (see examples 32a-d and the explanation below the examples)10 (28) all the ifs, maybes, and wherefores of survivor scramble-time politics. (29) (https://www.yahoo.com/, april 2016) (30) ted: she said it’d take three days. it’s been five days. should i be worried? lily: oh, just play it cool. don’t ted out about it. ted: did you just use my name as a verb? barney: oh, yeah, we do that behind your back. ted-out: to overthink. also see ted-up. ted-up: to overthink something with disastrous results. sample sentence: billy tedded up when… ted: ok, i get it. don’t worry, i’m not gonna ted anything up or out. i’ll just give it a few more days. (how i met your mother, season 1, episode 7, 2005, quoted in mattiello 2013: 246) (32a) he was driven by his childish enthusiasm. (32b) he said a fantastically donald trump-ish thing (32c) let’s meet at starbucks at 3-ish (32d) mac: you’ve got a plan, right? veronica: …ish in example 32a, -ish adds to nouns or adjectives, which is probably the most common use of this suffix and the most likely to be taught at schools. when the suffix adds to nouns, it creates adjectives that give the sense of “belonging to” (e.g., spanish), “relating to”, “typical of” or “like” (e.g., childish, girlish, bochnak & csipak (2014). 32a is a made-up example by the authors of this paper. english morphology to non-native speakers 13 babyish); “inclined to” (e.g., bookish); or “approximately” (e.g., fiftyish). when -ish adds to other adjectives, it also gives the meaning of approximation (e.g., yellowish, brownish). all these uses would be the typical ones, exemplified in 32a. however, example 32b shows that suffixation with -ish is not restricted to common nouns, but also applies to proper names; 32c shows that the suffix can add to temporal expressions; and 32d shows that the suffix is evolving from bound to free morpheme. we doubt that uses such as 32 b-d are taught to second language learners despite being used by native speakers. this leaves teachers the task to complement their teaching materials with more natural instances of spoken language of both native and nonnative speakers. recapitulation and teaching considerations this paper had a twofold purpose: to raise awareness on the complexity of the acquisition of english derivational morphology, and to suggest ways to approach its teaching in the language classroom. throughout the text, we accounted for eight aspects of english derivational morphology that may be problematic for non-native speakers of english. all of them have been dealt with in linguistic research, but scarcely taken to the classroom atmosphere. after each aspect, we provided the reader with some suggested activities that can be done as classroom practice or testing material. the implementation of such activities in class takes only a few minutes but can be greatly beneficial for students as it forces them to think and talk about language. likewise, their application in testing may push students to develop metalinguistic awareness, and thus improve their language proficiency11. the teaching recommendations that we presented in the paper go in line with the thoughts of tahaineh (2012), itmeizeh (2018), badawi’s (2019) and anwar & rosa (2020), who claim that morphological explicit instruction is desirable, if not necessary, in the classroom setting. 11 amirjalili & jabbari (2018), kieffer & lesaux (2007, 2010) and schmitt & zimmerman (2002) offer with regard to teaching considerations, we would like to highlight the following aspects: 1) students' progress will be enhanced if they enjoy the activities they are performing (agbayani, 2021). for this reason, we suggested activities in which teachers invite students to create their own materials (such as the dictionaries proposed in problems 4 and 6) and enjoy their learning through games (proposed in problem 7 when dealing with derived words with more than one affix). bilingual dictionaries, as we mentioned, can be useful to identify the cross-language suffix correspondence proposed by lam et al. (2019), while englishenglish dictionaries with 2) contextualized examples of derived words can be used as a device to work with doublets to promote morphological awareness, as stated by oz (2014). in our view, teaching morphology is conceptually similar to teaching grammar: in essence, we want students to develop the ability to identify and relate how different affixes function, so they can assimilate the rules and focus on using the language. a problem-solving approach to teaching and learning can be of great use in the language classroom, as it additional tools that can be adopted by teachers to build morphological understanding. 14 nglish morphology to non-native speakers promotes learning as a process of self-discovery and meaningfulness. 3) in line with karimi (2012) and oz (2014), we believe that teaching morphology can aid students’ self-confidence as students might feel more at ease in learning the l2 if they are able to break down the word to a more understandable form. an aspect related to this point concerns the feelings of the students and the teachers, which should not be set aside. teachers must attempt to create a safe environment where students can receive feedback without feeling they are being put on the spot and where teachers feel comfortable to provide corrective feedback (cf). author 2 et al. (2017) found scarcity of cf in spite of its benefits to second language learners. they argue that this may be because of the conflicting beliefs that teachers and students have about it. teachers should not be afraid of giving feedback. instead, they should make sure to create learning environments where students welcome feedback and thus take advantage from it. 4) teachers should also attempt real communication step by step, and they should always consider factors such as the students’ age, learning experiences and proficiency level to design the most adequate and appealing activities. again, we agree with agbayani (2021), who states that students are more likely to comprehend a word if they are interested in what they are doing, so she emphasizes the importance of providing students with activities that attract their attention. we also highlight the value of context for learning and testing meaningfully since “morphemes have semantic, phonological and syntactic properties that clearly express the role of a particular word in its linguistic context” (karimi, 2012, p. 452). 5) in addition, teachers need to observe what students do in the classroom in order to guide their learning. for example, in problem 1 (derivation is not always visible), we showed how a quick explanation of word stress can help students improve their pronunciation and develop their grammatical knowledge with little effort, while in problem 2 (derivational or inflectional morpheme), we emphasized that teachers must be attentive towards the knowledge students show through their answers. given that a single task is insufficient to identify what the learner knows or does not know -just as the production of a correct word form does not mean that the learner knows the complete family of words (schmitt and zimmerman, 2022)-, teachers must be ready to ask relevant questions and/or provide the necessary assistance to help the learner advance. for this, the teacher needs to be a good observer, which will also be useful when dealing with word frequency (mentioned in problem 4: plurifunctional morphemes) if the teacher is interested in developing morphological knowledge and not only assessing students’ vocabulary. the advantage of developing morphological awareness is that it can help students increase their vocabulary without having to memorize long lists of related words, as tahaineh (2012) claims. making in our students the habit of mentally decompose words may help them figure out the meaning of new words when they encounter them. 6) from the introduction and then in problems 3 (pseudo-affixes) and 5 (one meaning generated by different morphemes), we mentioned the importance of considering the students’ mother tongue, as lam et al. (2019) and author 1 et al. (2019) suggest. this can occur, of course, only when the teacher is working with a group of students that shares the same first language. the relevance of the first language emerges because it allows students to english morphology to non-native speakers 15 use their l1 metalinguistic knowledge and make comparisons between the l1 and the l2. 7) the pedagogical suggestions to problem 3 (pseudo-affixes) show the variety of ways in which a teacher can work with morphology: form identification/comprehension to controlled or free production, with a wide range of exercises such as multiple choice, fill in the blanks, open questions, sentence transformation and writing assignments that allow teachers to connect morphological knowledge to other linguistic or communicative aspects of the target language. it is important, though, to select the correct type of exercises because some of them, although being apparently morphological, risk testing vocabulary knowledge instead, as the example (24) taken from amirjalili & jabbari (2018) which supposedly tested the distributional knowledge of morphology. 8) problems 7 (derived words with more than one affix) and 8 (differences between academic and non-academic language) make us think about language from a descriptivist view in contrast to a prescriptivist one because they discuss the way in which people really use language (not just in academic settings) and the innovative forms that may emerge. regarding problem 7, we can point out that in addition to the ‘regular’ derived words, we can encounter compound nouns as bases to which both prefixes and suffixes can be added, like the word un-sportsman-like. this word is frequently used when narrating sports events, but words like this are probably never taught formally to students. problem 8 highlights the need to present students with written material that shows a variety of registers in language use because through this, students will be exposed to differences between oral and written english, academic and everyday english, as well as native and nonnative english. this will additionally help reduce the stigma of taking the second language learners’ creative forms as mistakes, when the native speakers also produce them and are taken as acceptable. authors like author 1 et al. (2019), karlsson (2015) and schmitt y zimmerman (2002) have reported the creation of invented english words by nonnative speakers, and schmitt y zimmerman (2002) claim that even proficient speakers produce them based on a partial knowledge of derivational morphology. 9) in conclusion, we invite teachers to explicitly teach morphology, regardless of the strategies they decide to adopt, and to take into consideration the learners’ first language and previous knowledge. our recommendation, in line with many of the authors mentioned in this text, would be to teach morphology in a meaningful, gradual and systematic way. we hope that this thorough revision links linguistic research to language teaching. references author 1 et al. (2019) author 1 et al. (in revision) author 2 et al. (2017) agbayani, r. w. 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(2010). esquemas rivales en la formación de palabras en español. onomázein: revista de lingüística, filología y traducción de la pontificia universidad católica de chile, (22), 59-82 about:blank about:blank lexical complexity of decision making writing 39 lexical complexity of decision-making writing tasks: form-focused guided strategic planning fatemeh mahdavirad fmahdavirad@yahoo.com yazd university, yazd, iran abstract the present study is an attempt to investigate the effect of form-focused guided strategic planning on lexical complexity of learners’ performance in writing tasks. the twenty intermediate level participants of the study performed an unplanned and then a planned decision-making task. in the planned task condition, the participants were provided with form-focused guided strategic planning which contained detailed instructions about how to plan, by being instructed to focus on form. the guidance included an explanation of the necessary structural and lexical patterns employed to express the learners’ views while developing a comparison-and-contrast paragraph in each task. the results of the statistical analysis indicated that the participants produced a written product with a greater lexical complexity in their performance of the task in the form-focused strategic planning condition. the findings emphasize the importance of guided strategic planning as a task condition in syllabus design for task-based language teaching and the necessity of incorporating this task feature for accomplishing lexical complexity in decision-making writing tasks. keywords: decision-making task, lexical complexity, form-focused guided strategic planning introduction the recent years have seen a growing interest in task-based language teaching (ellis, 2003; willis & willis, 2007). identifying possible sources of task complexity and the way such factors contribute to changes in task response characteristics is a prerequisite for making principal decisions about grading and sequencing of tasks in tblt. the issue of task types and variation in learners’ performance is of main concern of language teachers and syllabus designers (for a review of research, see ellis, 2003; robinson, 2001b; and skehan, 1998). variety of design factors (e.g., planning, reasoning demand, number of elements, feedback, contextual support, and topic familiarity) and how they influence the language produced by learners regarding accuracy, complexity, and fluency have been the main focus of studies of many researchers (e.g., ellis, 2009; foster & skehan, 1999; housen & vedder, 2009; wigglesworth & storch, 2009). on the other hand, planning is an important task feature. research to date indicates that pretask planning has a positive effect on language production especially as far as speaking tasks are concerned (ellis, 2005). however, more research is needed before we can decide how planning affects learners’ performance in performing writing tasks of different types. furthermore, the previous studies mostly investigate online vs. strategic planning. in the present work, a particular type of strategic planning, namely form-focused guided strategic planning was examined. moreover, decision-making task, a particular type of writing task which is commonly used in efl writing courses, was investigated. 40 lexical complexity of decision making writing literature review planning in task-based language teaching sla researchers have made predictions about how task conditions, such as strategic planning can influence learners’ attention in different ways and how this impacts on task performance in terms of three main task response characteristics, i.e., accuracy, complexity, and fluency. two of the most influential claims come from skehan’s (1998) limited capacity hypothesis and robinson’s (2003) cognition hypothesis. skehan (1998) argues that learners have limited attentional resources which have adverse effects on fluency, accuracy and complexity when task demands are high, for example when there is no planning time. “the assumption is that more demanding tasks consume more attentional resources simply for task transaction, with the result that less attention is available for focus on form” (p. 97). skehan (1998) argues that complex tasks will result in learners’ attending more towards meaning and the communicative aim of the task and less attention will be focused on language. consequently, attention capacity limits forces the learner to prioritize one aspect of speech over another when performing complex tasks. as a result, tasks can result in gains in accuracy or complexity but not both. taking skehan’s (1998) assumption that learners have limited attentional resources, samuda and bygate (2008) argue that it is possible to ‘free-up’ attentional resources by providing strategic planning “which reduces the processing load of subsequent on-line performance: speakers may have mentally organized the content; and/or worked on the formulation of aspects of the communication” (p. 39). in other words, strategic planning provides time for learners to attend to conceptualization (message content) and/or formulation (grammar encoding) which is then stored in memory and later produced during task performance as more fluent, complex and/or accurate l2 speech. robinson (2011) on the other hand, argues against limited attentional capacity processing and a trade-off between accuracy and complexity. he believes that learners can access multiple resources of attention and that both aspects of language can be improved by having learners perform more cognitively demanding tasks. for example, increasing the amount of reasoning a task requires promotes greater effort at controlling production and more vigilant monitoring of output. this increased complexity leads to greater accuracy and complexity of l2 production when compared to performance on simpler task versions that require little or no reasoning (p. 12). according to robinson (2011), a complex task which may involve learners explaining the reasons behind other people’s actions will increase the attention learners pay to their speech and their efforts at producing complex syntax, for example, cognitive state verbs he thinks that…she believes that, compared to simple tasks that require no reasoning. in terms of l2 production, “complex task demands lead to greater effort at conceptualization and elicit the morphologically richer and structurally more complex syntactic mode” (robinson, 2011, p. 14). complex tasks, for example those that involve reasoning without planning time will generate more elaborate communicative concepts at conceptualization which, in turn, results in more complex and accurate l2 speech, at the cost of fluency. if however, planning time was permitted, positive effects on all lexical complexity of decision making writing 41 three aspects of accuracy, complexity, and fluency would result. we can see then that skehan’s (1998) and robinson’s (2003) theories provide contrasting views regarding the effects of strategic planning on oral task performance in terms of accuracy and complexity. planning studies to date have given weight to both models. thus, in order to determine which of these two competing theories is more convincing, more research, particularly those investigate the written modality, is needed. online planning vs. strategic planning ellis (2005) suggests that even the language that seems to be effortless and naturally occurring involves planning and that ‘‘planning is essentially a problem solving activity’’; it involves deciding what linguistic devices need to be selected in order to affect the audience in the desired way (ellis, 2005). in this regard, crookes (1989) argues that planning is a manipulable condition of task-based performance and process. there are a number of different types of planning and these are discussed and operationalized by ellis (2005). ellis (2005) makes a distinction between two major types of planning, namely, online planning and strategic planning. while online planning is related to an examination of the planning which takes place during the task performance; strategic planning deals with the planning time prior to task performance (yuan & ellis, 2003). the impacts of online and strategic planning are somewhat different. according to ellis (1987), online planning tends to increase accuracy but decrease fluency. the effect of strategic planning on accuracy, complexity, and fluency is more complicated and, depending on the measures taken and the design of the study, mixed results have been obtained. for example, skehan and foster (1997) argue that learners who benefit from a planning time before task performance achieve greater accuracy in unstructured rather than structured tasks, while they show greater fluency in structured rather than unstructured tasks. other studies by foster (1996), foster and skehan (1996), menhert (1998), sangarun (2001), skehan and foster (1997), and yuan and ellis (2003) suggest a positive effect on fluency and complexity, but a negative impact on accuracy. guided strategic planning vs. unguided strategic planning sla researchers have investigated the way strategic planning can be manipulated in order to improve different aspects of l2 speech. one way is through guided planning which involves focusing learners’ attention as they prepare for a task, for example, attending to specific aspects of grammar or vocabulary (ellis, 2009). this type of instruction could be referred to as tasksupported language teaching as it favors pre-linguistic instruction. guided planning could also focus on meaning by attending to the storyline or content of a task. finally, it could involve attention to both language and meaning/content. unguided planning, on the other hand, allows learners time to plan independently without any teacher-led assistance towards language or content. thus, learners are free to use their own linguistic resources to prepare for a task. concerning the effectiveness of guided vs. unguided planning for promoting fluency, accuracy and complexity the research to date indicates that strategic planning is a worthwhile pedagogic tool for developing learners l2 oral skills as it produces clear gains in fluency and complexity, and on occasion accuracy (for a review of literature, see ellis, 2005, and ellis, 2009).the majority of the results lend 42 lexical complexity of decision making writing weight to skehan’s (1998) limited capacity hypothesis which claims that planning results in gains in fluency and complexity or fluency and accuracy and that a trade-off exists between accuracy and complexity. thus, although fluency, accuracy and complexity have been defined as distinct aspects of l2 speech, this does not mean they do not interact with each other. furthermore, we must also take into account housen, kuiken and vedder (2012)'s warning that discrepancies in the findings could also be due to a lack of clarity and consistency with the measures used in previous studies. moreover, the majority of the empirical studies have examined unguided pre-task planning (crookes, 1989; ellis & yuan, 2004; foster, 1996; foster & skehan, 1996; foster & skehan, 1999; hulstijn & hulstijn, 1984; kawauchi, 2005; menhert, 1998; ojima, 2006; ortega, 1999; sangarun, 2001, 2005; skehan & foster, 1997; tuan & neomy, 2007; wigglesworth, 1997; yuan & ellis, 2003). regarding the guided type of planning, on the other hand, mahdavirad (2015) investigated form-focused guided strategic planning and found that if the guidance of strategic planning contains explanations of the structural and lexical patterns necessary for performing a picture-prompted oral narrative task, it has a positive effect on accuracy, complexity, and fluency of learners' task response. the review of research on guided vs. unguided strategic planning implies that less attention has been paid to the effects of different types of guided strategic planning particularly as far as the writing tasks are concerned. thus, concentrating on the written modality of language production, and adopting more manageable measures for scoring the lexical complexity of learners’ performance, the present study focused on the way form-focused guided pre-planning affects decision-making tasks, i.e., a pedagogic writing task type which is cognitively demanding in that learners are initially loaded cognitively by making rational decisions for the cases they are provided with, and then, in their output, they have to support their decisions by offering some plausible reasons they have discovered from the prompts given (skehan & foster, 1997; foster & skehan, 1996). methods research question the present study addressed the following research question: what is the effect of form-focused guided strategic planning on the lexical complexity of efl learners’ performance in decision-making writing tasks? it was hypothesized that there is a significant difference between the written performances of the participants in the planned vs. unplanned task conditions in terms of lexical complexity. participants the study was conducted in an iranian efl context. the participants in the study were 20 female, upper-intermediate efl learners studying english in a language institute. the native language of the learners was persian. the participants’ ages ranged between 18-25, and the average equaled 19. the syllabus employed in the language course was a task-based one based on top notch book series. the participants of the study participated in the study as part of the course assessment in their respective course. lexical complexity of decision making writing 43 procedure prior to the experiment, the participants of the study were informed that their writings in the study would be considered as part of their course grades. in the experiment session, every individual participant of the study was required to perform two decision-making tasks. the writing tasks employed were performed in two conditions, namely, unplanned and planned. first, the unplanned task was administered. the participants were given 20 minutes for task performance to write a 150-200 word paragraph. the topic of the first task was ‘the iranian parents’ preference of private vs. public school for their children’. then, the planned task was given. the topic suggested for the second task was ‘the iranian students’ preference of state vs. non-state university’. the two topics were somehow parallel in that both were focused on two similar common challenging issues among iranian families and students. the participants were required to follow a comparison-and-contrast pattern for expressing their views on these two topics. for the performance of planned task, the participants were allotted with a five minute planning time before writing. in the pre-planning time given for the planned task, the participants were told to think about the topic to get ready for writing. they were also provided with detailed instruction about how to use the structural and lexical patterns employed for developing a comparison-and-contrast paragraph, i.e., the pattern which was required to be used in performing the decision-making tasks of the study. no explanation was given regarding the content. the participants were allowed to take down notes on what they were planning during the planning time. the notes were collected before the performance of the planned task. every individual participant's writing on the two tasks was collected for further analysis with regard to the research question of the study. results testing instrument in order to examine the way the independent variable of the study, i.e., formfocused strategic planning, affected the dependent variable, i.e., the lexical complexity of the task response of the participants in the writing tasks under investigation, the data were scored for further analysis. for scoring the lexical density of the written performance of every individual participant in the two writing tasks of the study, following robinson (1995), the number of lexical words was divided by the total number of words employed in the text. then the result was multiplied by 100. thus, every individual participant’s score for the lexical density of task response for each task was obtained. regarding the research question of the study, the raw scores of the participants were used for further statistical analysis. data analysis the data analysis results for the lexical density of written discourse produced by the participants in performing the decisionmaking tasks of the study are displayed in table 1 that showed form-focused strategic planning had a positive effect on task response characteristics of the participants. in order to test the significance of difference, the results were compared using matched t-test. table 2 presents the results of matched t-test for the lexical density of the learners’ written production in the 44 lexical complexity of decision making writing unplanned vs. planned decision-making tasks. from table 2, it can be observed that the observed t-value is greater than the critical t-value for the lexical complexity of task response in unplanned vs. planned task (t-observed > t-critical, at .05 level of significance). therefore, the difference between the two performances of the participants was significant. discussion and conclusions the study addressed the effect of formfocused guided strategic planning on the lexical complexity of learners’ performance in decision-making writing tasks. dependent variable measured was ‘lexical complexity’ (operated as the ratio of lexical word to the total number of words, multiplied by 100). the independent variable was ‘form-focused guided strategic planning’. it was found that there was a significant difference between the lexical complexity of the participants’ writings in the planned vs. unplanned task performance conditions. the results of the present study supports the results of other studies in the literature which investigated other types of planning (e.g., sangarun, 2005) and suggests that when learners are provided with form-focused strategic planning, they can plan how to say their intended meaning. regarding complexity, the findings highlight the beneficial effect of planning, too. previous research reporting the gain in complexity as a result of planning includes crookes (1989); ellis and yuan (2004); foster and skehan (1999); gilabert (2005); kawauchi (2005), ojima (2006); ortega (1999); skehan and foster (1997); tavakoli and skehan (2005); and wigglesworth (1997). the findings are also similar to the results of the study by mahdavirad (2015) that indicated a significant difference between the accuracy, complexity and fluency of the oral narrative task performances of the learners in formfocused guided strategic planning vs. non form-focused guided strategic planning conditions. these results indicate that by providing learners with form-focused guided pre-planning, they are given a chance to focus on both form and content and thus produce more complexity. the results may have implications for syllabus design and materials preparation, too. as robinson (2003) argues, the major problem in task-based language teaching is lexical complexity of decision making writing 45 determining criteria for grading and sequencing tasks; therefore, data based empirical research is required to identify the criteria affecting task difficulty. thus, the findings of the present study can be used as an empirical basis for selecting, grading, and sequencing writing tasks. another implication of this study for teaching practice is the facilitative role of preplanning time period for enhancing complexity in writing tasks. instead of forcing the learners to produce language by online processing of the output, they can be encouraged to concentrate on the task prompt, activate their memory system, organize the content, plan how to express their intended meaning, take notes, gain confidence, and finally perform the task more actively. as in all classroom studies, the sample size was not large, and therefore, as always, further research is advisable to make stronger generalizations. moreover, task types other than decision-making used in this study can also be used for data collection. replication studies employing measures different from the ones used in this study are suggested. references crookes, g. 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(1998). a cognitive approach to language learning. oxford: oxford university press. beyond words vol.3, no.2, november 2015  the author 2015. published by widya mandala catholic university press; all rights reserved. genre-based pedagogy: a case of an iranian esp business management course hadis toufani asl h.toufani@yahoo.com university of tehran kish international campus iran genre-based instruction has been latterly a very common method used in language courses. in spite of the various research conducted on academic genres, there are still very few studies which examine the learners’ perceptions of genre-based pedagogy, particularly in courses like english for specific purposes (esp). therefore, the present study aimed at considering the sophomore business management learners’ perspective on genre instruction in their esp course, at the university of tehran. the focuses of the present study were the focal genres of textbook and teaching method in terms of the content feature. the data was collected by means of both quantitative and qualitative instruments which were subject to both statistical analysis and constant comparative method of qualitative analysis. results of the study revealed that the practice of genres were relevant to some of the learners’ subsequent academic and non-academic performance. furthermore, the results regarding the questionnaire section indicated that a number of learners could apply the genre features and they were conscious of them. by and large, it was concluded that the explicit instruction together with the provision of more english-mediated content courses, for practices outside of the classroom, can have a higher impact on esp programs. keywords: esp, genre-based pedagogy, content, textbook, teaching method, activities, learners’ perception introduction english for specific purposes (esp) and english for academic purposes (eap) which appeared in the 1960s, have experienced a rapid development and expansion since then. on account of the drift in language learners' needs over the course of time, most countries around the world have established teaching esp, and its subfield eap. for those scholars who are involved in doing research in the area of esp and are concerned with esp’s increasing amount of research and theory, there are ever-changing and growing array of goals and the commonly known are as follows: english for academic purposes (eap), english for occupational purposes (eop), and the most specific task-oriented esp such as english for sociocultural purposes (master, 1997). these permutations, at large, make the description of esp quite difficult. esp was firstly defined mailto:h.toufani@yahoo.com 194 beyond words as a concept including the needs analysis of learners’ purposes and was approached as pantheoretical (belcher, 2006. hereupon, as regard the consistently changing learning needs and purposes that esp targets, it is getting more difficult to define esp as a single concept and identify its precise framework. there are, however, some basic tenets of esp that are described by celani (2008, p. 418): 1. considering learners’ reasons for learning and their learning necessities 2. building basic capabilities and abilities for defined purposes; 3. using previous knowledge, or what the learners bring with them to the learning situation, i.e. what learners have, do and can do in the learning process; 4. allowing learners a voice; making language use meaningful; enabling students to see reasons for learning; 5. helping students develop sound individual strategies for learning; changing unhealthy study habits; breaking the old tradition of memorization and repetition of teachertransmitted knowledge. these specificities signify the esp perspective which is the learning for a purpose and learning based on a frame; and it needs to be stated that such a fact clarifies the reasons for learning to both the teachers and the learners. this complex nature of esp turns to be even more sophisticated owing to the growing body of materials, methodologies, technologies and theories surrounding it besides an increasing range of means to meet them in a worldwide level (robertson, 1995). those who are immersed in the field of esp would agree on the point that esp embodies some outstanding features. content-based teaching methods, materials, and genre-based instructions are among these aspects that have long been determined as necessary issues concerning the application of specific-purpose instructions. however, the ways that these features are described and realized in the pedagogical practice have continuously been a controversial issue. the present study is, therefore, oriented towards examining the effects of esp genre-based pedagogy in terms of teaching methods and materials (textbook), on the learners’ perception in terms of the fulfillment of their needs. genre-based pedagogy the concept of genre has been used in the exact identification of the languages of different contexts of use with a precise description of esp course objectives. as a result, there have been attempts to integrate genre in language curricula and syllabus development specifically in esp and eap (swales, 1990). the value of genre as a teaching tool has long been recognized, although, there are very few studies that examine the impact of genre-based pedagogy on learners’ language development. the scarcity of this evaluation has perhaps been a reason why genre-based instruction still remains a controversial issue (fredman, 1994). the majority of the researchers have pinpointed the positive effects associated with genre-based teaching for non-native speakers (henry & roseberry, 1998; hyon, 2001; kay & dudley-evans, 1998; mustafa, 1995) and only some of them have been conducted to uncover the restrictions concerning genre-based teaching. hyon (2001 a), for example, reported that those learners who genre-based pedagogy for esp 195 were exposed to a genre-based pedagogy could focus on the rhetorical structure of texts more in comparison with the time that they were not under such a treatment; genre-based pedagogy additionally enhanced second language learners' reading confidence and reading speed. hyon, however, noted that this course was narrowed down so that its ultimate goal was to increase learners’ vocabulary knowledge together with having learners' content comprehension amplified. in another study, hyon (2001b) examined the long-term effects of an eap reading course on eight non-native speakers of english. it needs to be mentioned that the eap course adopted a genre-based approach. results of this study showed that the genres applied in the class were related to the learners’ subsequent reading needs. additionally, some of the learners could successfully remember those genre features which were practiced throughout the course. kay and dudley-evans (1998), on the other hand, ascertained mixed results on the teachers’ perspectives about the use of genres in writing tasks. they ran a multicultural workshop consisted of 48 teachers who were supposed to cooperate in sharing their command of genre field. it was concluded that some teachers recognized the positive effects of the use of genre-based pedagogy in bringing about a higher degree of learners’ discovery of the text organization. other teachers in the foregoing study, however, were of the opposite view, contending the discouraging nature of a teaching method strictly informed by genre-based pedagogy. yasuda (2011) applied the systemic functional linguistic approach (sfl) in examining the way low level language learners develop genre awareness, linguistic knowledge, and writing capabilities in a genre-based writing course. 70 japanese learners were taught regarding the concept that how different genres are formed by several linguistic resources. the final results of the quantitative and qualitative analyses of yasuda's research revealed that learners turned to be more aware of the genres after the writing course which they did over a period of fifteen weeks. in another recent study, chen and su (2012) measured the summary writing performance of the taiwanese foreign language learners in a genre-based approach. the data included the learners’ summaries in the pre-test and post-test which were evaluated according to the content organization, vocabulary, and language use. the findings of this study indicated the advantages associated with the use of genre-based pedagogy in enhancing learners’ summary writing. moreover, the results attested a better performance of the learners in the content and organizational components as against their performance in the vocabulary and language use. in spite of these positive effects accompanied by the use of genres in language classes, there are some limitations cited by the scholars (e.g., freedman, 1993, 1994). freedman believed that explicit genre teaching can be dispensable or even they might have perilous influence on the learners' performance when the teachers are not aware of the texts. in esp and other fields, further studies are required to clarify the effects of a genre-based approach on learners and the efficiency of different approaches for particular group of learners. henry and roseberry (1998) argued that the benefits and drawbacks of the genre approaches in esp and eap have been theory-based. hereby, it is more convenient to do empirical evaluation and research and come to the genuine advantages and disadvantages of genre-based approaches in esp and eap. 196 beyond words hence, due to the above mentioned lack, this paper provides new insights into the effects of genre-based instructions on "iranian" university students who have passed the esp course at the university of tehran. the present study aimed to address the following research questions: 1. what are the learners’ perceptions of esp in "iran" in terms of genre-based pedagogy? 2. does esp in "iran" contribute to learners’ knowledge of genre? methods participants this study was comprised of 20 "iranian" learners (females = 11, males = 9). in fact, the course the course consisted 36 learners; yet only 20 of them agreed to participate in this research and completely filled out the questionnaire. learners were all undergraduate students who were pursuing a bachelor degree in business management at the university of tehran. consequently, the common characteristic of all the participants was that english language played a major role in knowledge construction in their field. all of the participants were advanced learners, with farsi or other languages as their mother tongue. the focus of the study was on learners’ approaches to genre-based pedagogy rather than on language acquisition, thus the learners’ l1 background was mainly irrelevant. the participants' age ranged from 20 to 25 years old. instrument questionnaire. the main instrument that the participants were supplied with in the present study was the perception questionnaire which was adopted from tsou and chen (2014). this questionnaire surveyed the learners’ point of view with regard to the probable effects of teaching activities and materials on the success of the esp course. in the present study, the genres of textbook and teaching activities were selected for analysis and the questionnaire was fundamentally concerned with these two aforementioned genres. in other words, the questionnaire measured the participants’ perspectives about the success of the esp program in terms of the textbook and teaching method genres based on the content feature. this was a 5 point likert scale questionnaire (5 = strongly agree; 1 = strongly disagree). the questionnaire focused on the learners’ improvement of all language skills after the program since the teaching method attended to all language skills. the questionnaire can be found in the appendix. interview. for the qualitative part of the study, a semi-structured interview was conducted to investigate the learners’ knowledge of genre after the course. the interview part included 5 questions as follows: 1. do you remember anything about your esp course? 2. does the knowledge you obtained from the esp course assist you with performing similar tasks for the other classes or any other further research? 3. in what ways have you employed the learned points in your esp course? 4. have you ever applied anything you had learned from your esp textbook or classroom tasks to your nonacademic tasks? 5. have you ever applied your learning from the esp course to your accomplishment of other academic tasks? genre-based pedagogy for esp 197 procedure the data was collected from a sixteen week esp course. the course was held in the spring semester 2014 at the university of tehran which lasted for 16 weeks. each weekly session was held for 1 hour and 30 minutes. two genres of textbook and teaching activities were selected as the cornerstone of the course. these two genres were discussed according to the content feature. the content in this course referred to the topical focuses of the genre which are significant components of genre knowledge (berkenkotter & huckin, 1995). the content of the activities was defined as interesting or significant recent occurrences. the textbook, on the other hand, was more attentive to large current topics which were not necessarily related to a recent event. the textbook focused on the presentation of the facts vis avis a specific topic in a patterned way. nevertheless, the teaching activities included a range of different tasks related to the future needs of the students. the input materials for this class included reading texts and other activities related to their academic specialties. in the class, the listening and speaking language skills were practiced through presentations, classroom discussions, and task performance. furthermore, corpus activity was used in almost each single session across the teaching process. the corpus tasks were applied in order to help the learners get familiar with obtaining and making use of information from different corpus websites. inside the class, esp teachers exhibited the stages and assigned homework for students to do at home. these activities were assumed to be as close as possible to the learners’ needs and they were supposed to reflect the authenticity factor in their selection. regarding the first section of the process of collecting the data, the questionnaire was emailed to the participants in july 2014, participants were supposed to fill in the questionnaire and email it back to the researcher. on the whole, it took the participants 10 minutes to complete the questionnaire. afterwards, the data were imported to the spss software (version 21) for the statistical analyses. for the qualitative section of the data collection, as mentioned previously, an interview was done. this was a direct and straightforward approach in eliciting learners’ memories of the course content and its influences upon their subsequent language use, both in academic and nonacademic contexts. learners were asked what, if anything, they could recall about their esp class, how they could employ their learning from the course to their academic and non-academic language use, and what types of language skills still were required to be enhanced. it needs to be stated that the qualitative section of the data collection coincided with the quantitative one which both occurred in july 2014. the interviewer was not the instructor of the course so that any probable learner's bias towards pleasing the instructor was removed. the interviews were carried out by the researcher who took note of learners’ responses to each question. thereafter, the notes were analyzed for the themes applicable to the questions raised in the interview session. in spite of the fact that the learners’ responses, which are quoted in the paper, included false starts and hesitations, they were all eliminated; their grammatical errors were not corrected, though. all of the learners’ names have been modified in order for the data to be treated confidentially. 198 beyond words results esp learners assigned higher scores to different features of the materials and teaching method genres such as clarity of course objectives (p =60), content (p = 35), activity designs (p = 65), and classroom atmosphere (p = 40). regarding the autonomy aspect it needs to be mentioned that by virtue of the fact that learners viewed the learning environment in the university to be a positive one, they were eager to learn the language by themselves after the class and take risks in using the language (questions 3 and 5). the questionnaire also asked for the issue of learners being autonomous, and if they agreed that learner autonomy was an essential and required learning purpose. the results indicated that 85% of the students agreed with the statement (question 19). moreover, 80% of the students contended that corpus instruction and other learning activities practiced in sophomore english classes assisted them to become independent learners (question 20). in the survey, more than half (65%) of the participants agreed that the materials used in the class were authentic (question 17). with respect to the authenticity of tasks, almost all of the learners in the survey (95%) agreed with the statement that the learning tasks in the esp course were authentic and were very similar to the types of the activities which they needed to carry out in their academic classes and future careers (question 18). the finding uncovered evidence of some sort proving that the learners determined the tasks to be similar to the ones they had to carry out in their specialist courses and, therefore, felt encouraged to learn related capabilities. this result can be corroborated by the high percent of learners (70%) agreeing that the teaching method could enhance their cognitive processes and the way information can be presented (question 2). in universities across "iran", students are, typically, placed according to their levels of language proficiency only the time they are in their freshman year. in this age and time, there are still not discipline-specific courses that accommodate the homogeneous learners in terms of their language proficiency. ipso facto, placement tests are not used for esp courses since the learners are enrolled in different courses regarding their major rather than their level of language proficiency. the majority of the participants (65%) in the present study claimed that there needs to be a placement test for the screening of learners with various language proficiency levels. it seems logical that the teaching and assessment processes can benefit from having the learners with similar rather than mixed level of language proficiency. the questionnaire also included questions about the transfer of the learned issue. there were four questions which asked learners’ ideas about the long-term transfer of what they learned in their esp course (questions 28 and 29), as well as the transfer of the learned issues to the subject courses (questions 30 and 31). the results of the survey signified that 85% of the students identified esp reading skills useful for their future studies and career, and 60% found esp speaking skills to be attentive (questions 28 and 29). this result is motivating in the light of suggesting that only 50% of students reported using esp reading skills on textbook reading, and 45% of students reported using esp speaking skills in subject courses (questions 30 and 31). in addition, 25% of students stated that they ‘‘never’’ or ‘‘seldom’’ have the chance to use esp skills in textbook reading (question 30), while 50% of students ‘‘never’’ or ‘‘seldom’’ use esp genre-based pedagogy for esp 199 speaking skills in subject classrooms (question 31). such a finding illuminate one of the serious restrictions of the esp course in that learners lack the context (e.g., english-mediated content courses) for output practices outside esp classrooms. in the universities in iran, there are very low number of esp classes which are held using english as the medium of teaching and communication. in order to provide an answer to the second research question which was concerned with the contribution of the genre-based esp instruction to the learners’ knowledge of genre, a semistructured interview was conducted with the learners. specifically, the questions focused on the effect of content of the textbook and teaching activity genres on their subsequent activities. after the initial step of identifying the considerable meanings in what individuals have said during the interview session, the ‘constant comparative method’ (maykut & morehouse, 1994) of analyzing qualitative data was used. this is a method which integrates inductive category coding with a simultaneous comparison of all units of meaning obtained (glaser & strauss, 1967). the time each new unit of meaning is chosen for being interpreted, it is compared to all the other units of meaning; and afterwards, it is grouped (categorized and coded) with similar units of meaning .moreover, a new classification is established provided that there are no similar units of meaning. following categorizing and coding process, the researchers intends to develop a set of categories that present a logical and sensible reconstruction of the data which was collected (lincoln & guba, 1985). the following are some samples of learners' replies to the researcher's interview questions. it needs to be mentioned that the names are pseudonyms in order to keep the interviewees' identities anonymous. mina:" we usually talked about the writer, the time and conditions and, only then moved to the determination of the main topic." learners asserted that although they can read better, but they are unaware of the approaches that they can apply while reading different texts. sina: "i think that reading is very important in our major. i do not remember the exact strategies but i think i know that i have different ways of reading different passages." maryam: "well, i just read and i can’t apply the techniques differently." some others were more aware of the strategies used in the class: sahar: "ok, i think i read as i did before, just that i pay much more attention to the introduction and topic sentence." majid: "i know more how to listen and read because i learned where i can find more information. i learned that if i do not know the meaning of some words, i should not remain there and should move." 200 beyond words mahsa: "at first i was very afraid of class presentations and lectures. i became stressed. but because we practiced it a lot in the class, now i use it a lot because i have to speak in other classes in front of others." since the present study proposed to examine the short-term effects of genre-based pedagogy, most of the learners were able to remember the exact details of their esp course. in actuality, learners’ comments and expressions offered extra information into the genre-based pedagogy in their esp class. learners’ definitions of the textbook passages transpired their familiarity with aspects of this genre. over and above, they stated that different texts along with different topics related to their major were used during their esp course; and they also mentioned that they differed in terms of the learning strategies used in the class. some of the learners made a reference to the fact that the textbook discussed the topic from the general points to more particular aspects. discussion and conclusion the present study was conducted in examining the current status of a particular esp course in "iran" from the perspective of sophomore business management students. the paper incorporated some very important features of the class such as transferability of learning, authenticity, learners' autonomy, class activities, and the teachers’ teaching method. the teachers’ choice of textbook and the use of different teaching tasks, e.g. presentations, groupwork, and outside of the class assignments including corpus tasks, reveal the authenticity of the teaching method and materials. this authenticity factor directed the learners toward getting independent researchers who could find the information in either the class discussions or outside the classroom tasks. however, the interview results provides evidence that it would be better for the teachers to teach more explicitly about the different strategies applied in the fulfillment of the language activities, since some of the students did not know about them. this suffices to justify the effectiveness of explicit instruction in raising the learners’ awareness of the techniques of successful learning. learners were aware of the significance of the language skills and their use in their future tasks; nonetheless, they have not had an opportunity to use english language in other subject classes as observed by the comparatively lower percent of agreement in the questionnaire. in essence, the oral language skills of listening and speaking are among the ignored skills in the university classes due to the entrance examinations in which the oral language skills have no specific role. little et al. (2008) argue that learner autonomy needs to be considered as an essential goal of language pedagogy by reason of the fact that it not only encourages learners, but also is a prerequisite for lifelong acquisition. tassinari (2012) proposed a model which defined four elements of learners’ autonomy (as cited in tsou & chen, 2014, p. 42) to wit: (1) a cognitive and metacognitive aspect such as beliefs and awareness, (2) an affective and motivational aspect such as feelings and willingness, (3) an action-oriented aspect such as skill acquisition and learning behaviors, and (4) a social aspect, such as relationships with learning partners, advisors, and teachers. tassinari’s dynamic model for assessment allows learners to identify and focus on their own needs and goals. genre-based pedagogy for esp 201 one of the other important findings of both the quantitative and qualitative analyses of the present study was that the majority of the participants preferred the use of interactive tasks in esp classes. collaborative group work and pair work in esp/eap classes can be employed to practice the presented language and also to facilitate peer feedback which may include peer assessment, constructive interaction, and critical thinking skills as well. these skills are specially required for business management students in that they need to develop their interactional skills too. this finding is supported by the use of only english textbooks in order for the foreign language learners to have more opportunities to hear the target language. after all, textbooks are de facto syllabi and, apart from the teacher, the most important aid in the process of language acquisition. parenthetically, they may be the only source of information as regards the curriculum for the teacher and the only resource available for learners who are learning a language in foreign language contexts. based on the findings of the interview and questionnaire, it can be deduced that an effective specialized english course should be substantially differentiated from other general english courses by focusing on specific contents and materials. the type of the syllabus needs to be appropriate for the needs of the learners. in other words, a clear framework of knowledge and capabilities should be selected so that it will be appropriate to the overall needs and aims of the learners. breen (2001) argues that: a syllabus may be formally documented, as in the aims and content of a national or institutional syllabus for particular groups of learners or (less explicitly perhaps) in the content material of published textbooks. every teacher follows a syllabus, but it may vary from being a pre-designed document to a day-to-day choice of content which the teacher regards as serving a course’s particular aims. in the latter case, the syllabus unfolds as lessons progress. (p. 151) it can be concluded that there exists a drawback concerning esp courses in" iran" that everything needs to be approved by many people in various levels of authority which causes the teachers to have less control upon what they teach. the teachers need to be flexible to keep a balance between what they find necessary and what the higher authority considers to be appropriate for learners. students’ needs should be officially considered during the process of designing the course. the teachers assume that they know the needs of the students better than authorities. therefore, needs analysis should be a central component of the esp program, and should be given specific attention from the beginning of the course through a series of systematic collection tools. consequently, the use of genre-based pedagogy can be better adapted and instructed according to the learners’ level, interest as well as their academic and non-academic needs. references belcher, d. (2006). english for specific purposes: teaching to perceived needs and imagined futures in worlds of work, study, and everyday life. tesol quarterly, 40, 133-156. 202 beyond words berkenkotter, c., & huckin, t. n. (1995). genre knowledge in disciplinary communication: cognition/culture/power. hillsdale, nj: lawrence erlbaum. breen, m.p. (ed.), (2001). learner contributions to language learning: new directions in research. harlow, essex: pearson education limited. celani, m. a. a. (2008). when myth and reality meet: reflections on esp in brazil. english for specific purposes, 27, 412-423. chen y. s., & su, s. w. (2012). a genre-based approach to teaching efl summary writing. elt journal, 66(2),184-192. freedman, a. (1993). show and tell? the role of explicit teaching in the learning of new genres. research in the teaching of english, 27, 222–251. freedman, a. (1994). ‘do as i say’: the relationship between teaching and learning new genres. in a. freedman, & p. medway (eds.), genre and the new rhetoric (pp. 191–210). london: taylor & francis. glaser, b.g., & strauss, a.l. (1967). the discovery of grounded theory: strategies for qualitative research. chicago: aldine pub. co. henry, a., & roseberry, r. l. (1998). an evaluation of a genre-based approach to the teaching of eap/esp writing. tesol quarterly, 32, 147–156. hyon, s. (2001). genre and esl reading: a classroom study. to appear in a. m. johns, genre and pedagogy: multiple perspectives. mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. hyon, s. (2001). long-term effects of genre-based instruction: a follow-up study of an eap reading course. english for specific purposes, 20, 417-438. kay, h., & dudley-evans, t. (1998). genre: what teachers think. elt journal, 52, 308–314. lincoln, y. s., & guba, e. g. (1985). naturalistic inquiry. beverly hills, ca: sage publications, inc. little, d., hodel, h., kohonen, v., meijer, d., & perclova, r. (2008). preparing teachers to use the european language portfolio: arguments, materials and resources. council of europe publishing. maykut, p., & morehouse, r. (1994). beginning qualitative research: a philosophic and practical guide. london: falmer press. master, p. (1997). esp teacher education in the usa. in r. howard & g. brown (eds.), teacher education for lsp (pp. 22–40). clevedon, england: multilingual matters. mustafa, z. (1995). the effect of genre awareness on linguistic transfer. english for specific purposes, 14, 247–256. robertson, r. (1995). glocalization: time-space and homogeneity-heterogeneity. in m. featherstone, s. lash, & r. robertson (eds.), global modernities (pp. 25–44). london: sage. swales, j. (1990). genre analysis: english in academic and research settings. cambridge, england: cambridge university press. tassinari, m. g. (2012). evaluating learner autonomy: a dynamic model with descriptors. studies in selfaccess learning journal, 3(1), 24–40. tsou, w., & chen, f. (2014). esp program evaluation framework: description and application to a taiwanese university esp program. english for specific purposes, 33, 39-53. yasuda, s. (2011). genre-based tasks in foreign language writing: developing writers’ genre awareness, linguistic knowledge, and writing competence. journal of second language writing, 20(2), 111–133. genre-based pedagogy for esp 203 appendix items strongly disagree disagree not sure agree strongly agree 1 the course objectives match the themes of the syllabus � � � � � 2 the course content is well-prepared and can effectively train students’ critical thinking, presentation, and q&a skills � � � � � 3 in-class activities are well-designed and promote positive classroom atmosphere � � � � � 4 the teacher frequently collects relevant teaching resource � � � � � 5 the teacher creates a positive learning atmosphere to motivate english learning in class � � � � � 6 the teacher provides clear, concrete and systematic explanations on the course content � � � � � 7 the teacher interacts frequently with students � � � � � 8 the teacher manages the class time effectively � � � � � 9 the teacher frequently uses methods of discussion and q&a � � � � � 10 the teacher gives appropriate assignments and assessments � � � � � 11 the course material is levelappropriate, valuing students’ affective learning � � � � � 12 the teacher uses teaching platform and integrates course materials appropriately � � � � � 13 overall, my english listening skill has improved from taking the course this semester � � � � � 14 overall, my english speaking skill has improved from taking the course this semester � � � � � 15 overall, my english reading skill has improved from taking the course this semester � � � � � 204 beyond words 16 overall, my english writing skill has improved from taking the course this semester � � � � � 17 esp materials are authentic and helpful � � � � � 18 esp tasks are authentic and helpful � � � � � 19 learner autonomy is an important learning goal � � � � � 20 corpus instruction is helpful to independent learning � � � � � 21 esp should conduct placement test � � � � � 22 esp is helpful in test improvement � � � � � 23 improved reading � � � � � 24 improved vocabulary � � � � � 25 improved speaking � � � � � 26 improved presentation � � � � � 27 improved listening � � � � � 28 esp reading skills are helpful for future academic studies and workplace � � � � � 29 esp speaking skills are helpful for future academic studies and workplace � � � � � 30 esp reading skills on textbook reading � � � � � 31 esp speaking skills in subject classrooms � � � � � 79 student centered learning and democracy beyond words vol 4, no.2, november 2016 student centered learning – an approach to fostering democracy in schools george jacobs james cook university singapore singapore & michael a. power mercer island schools mercer island, washington, usa abstract after an opening anecdote about a well-functioning small group of students, the article discusses concepts related to democracy. next, the article defines student centered learning (scl) and some scl elements, linking these elements to concepts in democracy. the following section offers various means of implementing scl. subsequently, the article looks at issues raised about the use of scl. to conclude the article, the authors maintain that scl not only promotes learning but that scl also fosters democracy. introduction a group of four grade 10 students sit around a table actively discussing their group’s writing project. one student begins by taking 30 seconds to explain what confuses her about feedback a groupmate gave her on a draft of her section of the group’s project. the other students ask basic level questions prompting her to examine her assumptions and procedures so far. once they all understand what she had in mind and why she wrote in that way, they then move on to asking increasingly challenging questions which lead her to rethinking her approach and ultimately finding a way to rewrite the draft. her team members then ask her to summarize the group’s discussion and come up with a statement which will clarify the points of confusion so what the group has learned can be generalized to future individual and group writing projects. the tone throughout is respectful and focused on bringing the whole group along to arrive at a solution, rather than calling out answers or criticizing others’ ideas and writing. the discussion is monitored by the teacher, but her role is restricted to encouraging students to follow the discussion protocol. the teacher touches base with the group twice during the 15 minute discussion to monitor how well they are working as a group and to keep them on schedule. how democracy links to student centered learning this scenario is a powerful example of how student centered learning and concepts of democracy work hand in hand to create a classroom focused on student success. most educators and most educational institutions, regardless of the age of their students or where they are located, espouse the belief that education should promote democracy. of course, as with most abstract concepts, democracy can be defined in different ways (munck, 2016), and many diverse practices have been labelled as democratic. this article looks at some of the ways education might promote democracy and proposes that student centered learning (scl) methodologies foster democratic attitudes and skills; whereas teacher centered learning (tcl) methodologies may inhibit such attitudes and skills. 80 student centered learning and democracy the article begins by briefly elaborating on concepts related to democracy. the next part of the article explains scl and selected scl elements and discusses how these elements link with concepts in democracy. the third section of the article suggests a few means by which educators might implement these elements of scl. the article’s fourth section examines concerns raised about the use of scl practices. in the conclusion to the article, the authors return to the links between scl and democracy, arguing that scl should be implemented not only to promote learning, but also to promote democracy. what is democracy? definitions of democracy vary, with many focusing on the characteristics of democratic governments. a more general definition, from the cambridge advanced learners’ diction-ary (2016), states that democracy is “the belief in freedom and equality between people.” another general definition of demo-cracy, from the collins english dictionary (2016), emphasizes the social and political nature of the term: “the practice or spirit of social equality. table 1 presents seven characteristics of democracy and what it looks like when democracy is present or absent in a classroom. what is student centered learning? scl is an approach to learning and teaching which encourages students to be more active in and to take more control of their own learning (hannafin, 2012; weimer, 2013). modern theory and research on how people student centered learning and democracy 81 learn (gardner, 2008) suggests that scl more closely reflects human learning processes than tcl in which teachers are the most active people in the classroom, and students are largely passive. other frequently cited characteristics of scl include student-student collaboration, student reflection on their learning processes, and explicit instruction in the learning and thinking skills students will need to effectively manage their learning in the present and future. within the classroom, there are seven key elements of student engagement which lead to integration of democratic principles into learning and instruction. each of these elements suggests a particular instructional approach as outlined in table 2. element of democracy: decision making an essential characteristic of democracy in the classroom is that decision making is shared. in scl, the sharing of power manifests itself in the element of learner autonomy, which means that students have some control of how and what they learn (benson, 2013). however, autonomy does not mean individualism; students are not totally on their own to decide what and how to learn. through meaningful student-student interact-ion, students learn more in community with peers and others than they would just getting teacher directed instruction. as in a political democracy, the democratic classroom has formal systems of leadership and account-ability. the role of the teacher continues to be to guide and structure the learning experience. in scl, this is done with an eye toward increased student participation and a give and take among students and teachers. scl element – learner autonomy in a democratic classroom, not only is learning a shared experience, students have a lot of autonomy in how they approach learning. within a structure set by the teacher, they have choices and opportunities to reflect on the consequences of their choices. an example of students having choices could be students in groups of 2, 3, or 4 choosing the topic on which they will do a project or smaller task and also choosing how they will gather information for the task. of course, as with other elements of scl, student choices can be guided by teachers who act as facilitators. a 82 student centered learning and democracy way to encourage reflection involves students in keeping journals in which individually and/or in groups, they consider what is going well in their learning and how they might improve moving ahead. these reflections aid individual students, in collaboration with teachers and peers, in shaping their future learning. element of democracy: knowledge generation in democratic classrooms, no one has a monopoly on creating and dispensing knowledge. in scl, this concept connects with the element of teachers as co-learners, i.e., teachers are not all knowing; they come to class with unanswered questions of their own and model open minded learning and the joy of curiosity. rather than relying totally on display questions (to which the teacher knows the answer and the students are asked to give the pre-determined right answer), the teachers mix it up with referential questions which build on the classroom discussion and present the opportunity for both students and teachers to learn something new. (richards and schmidt, 2009) scl element – teachers as co-learners two ways for teachers to implement the scl element of teachers as co-learners are for teachers to share with students about the teachers’ own failures and for teachers to let students see how the teachers go about the process of learning. an example of sharing about teachers’ failures was the list of failures in his career that a professor put together and shared with his students (jaschik, 2016). these failures included jobs for which he had unsuccessfully applied and times when his manuscripts were rejected by publications. ways to let students see teachers learning include teachers sharing what they wanted to learn, why they wanted to learn it, how they went about their learning, and what they will learn next. element of democracy: understanding it is clear that students are learning the skills of democracy when everyone in the class, students and teachers, understand what is happening and why. the class is then focussed on making meaning, making sense of the material, such that real world skills and knowledge are being built. in other words, students do not do activities just because the teacher told them to do the activities; students need to understand both the meaning of the material they are studying and how the curriculum overall brings meaning to their lives, even if indirectly. scl element – focus on meaning the scl element of focus on meaning can be promoted in many ways. for instance, teachers can begin with teachers explaining their objectives for the class and asking for student input. at the end of the class, students can individually and collectively consider the extent to which the objectives were achieved. a second way to empower students to understand what their class is doing is to involve students in shaping the class by such means as the class using materials brought or suggested by students, e.g., a song, connecting what is studied to students lives beyond the classroom, e.g., doing calculations based on shopping students’ families do, and linking class activities to students’ purposes, e.g., students writing letters to governments, organisations, and individuals suggesting and describing their view of a better society and making concrete suggestions for improvements. element of democracy: evaluation a strong sign of the presence of democracy in schools is seen when students share the responsibility for evaluating their student centered learning and democracy 83 learning and understanding the consequences – how that learning will play out in the broader society. the use of alternative assessments in the classroom – going beyond everyone taking the same paper and pencil test regardless of what is being studied and how pairs with this. whereas in tcl, teachers are often the only evaluators, determining what will be assessed and how, scl involves students in assessing themselves and peers. students partner with the teacher to identify key learning targets and outcomes and how they can demonstrate mastery or how they can identify areas in which they need more work. this not only gives the teacher a much richer view of what is going on in the students’ minds, it also builds the students’ ability to self monitor and manage their own learning, skills which transfer directly to being an independent citizen of a democratic society. scl element – alternative assessment scl’s alternative assessment element contrasts with assessment in tcl, in which assessments are set by and evaluated by teachers or outside bodies, such as companies that create standardised tests. scl seeks to broaden assessment practices. first, students can create assessment tasks. for instance, the technique exchange a question (author, 2002) begins with students writing a question and an answer for the own question. teachers advise students on the types of questions they might want to ask, e.g., questions which require explanations. next, students exchange questions with a partner, answer their partner’s question and then compare answers. a second means of implementing alternative assessment, even when assessment tasks are designed by teachers, invites students to play a role in assessing peers’ response. this assessment can be done using scoring rubrics designed by the class with input from teachers. element of democracy: embracing diversity a truly democratic society cannot function without a high level of respect for diversity of ideas, beliefs, cultural practices, and approaches to life. all of this diversity is present in most classrooms as well, although respect for diversity may be lacking. the ability to enrich one’s life through embracing diversity is a critical learning skill when students interact with peers who have different backgrounds. furthermore, when students work on less structured tasks that require higher order thinking (chi, glaser, & farr, 2014), they need to learn how to deal with uncertainty, ambiguity, and sometimes temporary failure. in educational settings, diversity has many meanings, including teaching in a variety of ways to match the varied intelligence profiles of students, using questions to promote thinking as well as display knowledge, and structuring tasks to have multiple possible valid responses. this approach to learning in the classroom helps students appreciate the advantages of living in a diverse society and engaging with people different from themselves in a wide variety of ways. scl elements – learning climate and thinking skills the various elements of scl link to each other in many ways. for instance, thinking skills and learning climate link, as can be seen when students use thinking skills to explore thought provoking (referential) questions or tasks which require students to go beyond the information given (bruner, 1973), compared to questions or tasks which merely require 84 student centered learning and democracy identification and repetition of previously presented information (display questions). obviously, attempting to answer thinking questions poses more risk of being wrong. this highlights the need for a supportive learning climate, a climate in which students are willing to take chances. one way for teachers to promote a learning climate that encourages risk taking is for the teachers themselves to admit when they do not know something or to recount times when they or various other experts were wrong. teachers can help students develop their adversity quotients (siphai, 2015), i.e., their ability to use failure as a learning experience so that students feel, “when life gives us lemons, we should make lemonade.” when we can foster a supportive learning climate, we do not need to quickly intervene when students, working alone or in groups, face adversity dealing with thinking questions. element of democracy: cooperation perhaps the most obvious characteristic of democracy in action, cooperation among the students, forms a key way that students learn to exercise their power as decision makers. students have power in numbers – their learning comes from each other, not just the teacher. collectively, they build their learning skills and strategies by interacting with peers, and develop the power to influence their learning by making their collective voices heard in collaboration with the teacher. scl element – student-student interaction group activities (groups can be as small as two members) play a vital role in scl. thus, the scl element of student-student interaction deserves particular attention. unfortunately, for whatever reason, many students do not display the attitudes and skills necessary to cooperate well with others. two ways to address this lack are, first, to make initial group tasks relatively easy ones so that students can begin to feel comfortable with group mates and confident in the ability of their collective efforts. second, group tasks should often be of such a nature that they cannot be done alone. an example is a task in which each group member has unique information, and the group cannot succeed unless that information is shared with the other group member(s). element of democracy: motivation in totally teacher centered classrooms, teachers usually rely on extrinsic motivation (“you need to learn this because it will be on the test”) to get students to engage in learning. in contrast, in democratic classrooms, the teacher fosters intrinsic motivation in which students can see how the work they are doing will lead, even if indirectly, to building the knowledge and skills they need to pursue their dreams in concert with the overall needs of society. intrinsic motivation is a “must have” of scl. rogers (1983, pp. 18-19) captured the spirit of intrinsically motivated learning in this definition of learning (emphasis in original): i want to talk about learning. but not the lifeless, sterile, futile, quickly forgotten stuff that is crammed in to the mind of the poor helpless individual tied into his seat by iron-clad bonds of conformity! i am talking about learning – the insatiable curiosity that drives the adolescent boy to absorb every-thing he can see or hear or read about [cars]. scl element – motivation the scl element of motivation plays an essential role in education (robichaud, 2013). one strategy for increasing motivation is to link learning with the needs of society (dewey, 1938). we hope that student centered learning and democracy 85 students will want to learn not primarily to help themselves, e.g., by being able to find a good paying job, but that students will also see learning as a means of benefiting society. students, individually and collectively, can contribute to society’s ability and willingness to overcome the problems confronting us and the other beings with whom we share planet earth. for instance, students can choose an ngo and see how they might contribute to its goals, e.g., helping ease the plighted of factory farmed animals. such a path towards motivation embraces what seligman (2016) called a “meaningful life.” concerns about building democracy through student centered learning while many people would agree that working towards both democracy and scl are ideal, many of these same people believe achieving democracy and scl in a classroom setting to be unrealistic, at least in any pure form. the objections we have heard most often are that democracy is not an appropriate goal for classroom learning outside of the social studies curriculum, and that even if it were, scl is not an effective means of building democratic skills and concepts because students, even university students and adult education students, much less primary and secondary students, lack the knowledge and disposition necessary to manage their own learning. this criticism is not without validity. for instance, do students have the knowledge needed to make decisions about why and how to study or to evaluate the quality of the work they do? are students, especially lower performing students, capable of developing and deploying the complex thinking skills needed to not only develop the concepts of democracy but also to put them to action in their lives? without extrinsic motivators will students study? can students successfully interact with peers, especially peers different from themselves, or will group activities degenerate into the chaos depicted in the novel lord of the flies (golding, 1954), in which a group of preadolescent boys were stranded on a deserted island and soon descended into barbarism? does society, including family life and the students’ world outside of school, such as sports, entertainment, and just socializing with their friends, prepare students for scl or reinforce dependence on teacher centered learning? as a result of these concerns raised about scl, many educators have concluded that decisions about what happens in the classroom are best left to teachers and other education professionals who, these stakeholders believe, are much better prepared to make such judgements. however, clearly a middle ground exists between pure forms of either tcl or scl. supporters of scl, including the authors of this article, may turn to vygotsky’s (1978) concept of scaffolding (wood, bruner, & ross, 1976), which forms part of a larger theory of social constructivism in which people construct understandings together in communities, often with more knowledgeable members of the community, such as teachers, guiding the less knowledgeable members of a learning community. from this perspective, the teacher becomes the more knowledgeable “guide on the side,” rather than the omniscient “sage on the stage” who controls all aspects of learning. the sage on the stage approach is less likely to lead to students internalizing democratic principles which will generalize to their development as citizens. similar to the scaffolding that 86 student centered learning and democracy supports a building as it is being constructed and is gradually removed until finally the building stands on its own, through gradual implementation of scl, the teacher and students begin to function as self-directed members of their classroom and other communities of learners. perhaps most students are not currently ready to be fully immersed in scl. however, a key aspect of a teacher’s task involves moving students towards greater readiness for independent learning, i.e., keeping our eyes on the prize, on the goal of preparing students, teachers, and other education stakeholders for increasingly greater student centeredness. in the long run, from the perspective of fostering democracy in our broader society, this is more important than preparing students for exams, especially given the ever changing nature of society and knowledge. conclusion neither building democracy in the class-room nor scl are easy to put into practice. both require learners and educators who are empowered to take greater responsibility and thereby become more effective citizens in collaborative learning communities and in society as a whole. fortunately, great rewards flow from taking on that responsibility, for countries with responsible citizens and educational institutions with responsible students offer the promise of great advances toward creating a more democratic society for everyone. suggested reference format to cite this article: jacobs, g., & power, m. a. (november, 2016). student centered learning – an approach to fostering democracy in schools. beyond words, 4(2), 79-87. retrieved from http://journal.wima.ac.id/index.php/bw george m. jacobs has written widely on such topics as cooperative learning, extensive reading, environmental education, and humane education. he teaches writing and various education courses at james cook university, singapore. he is a member of the board of the extensive reading foundation, the international association for the study of cooperation in education, and vegetarian society (singapore). & michael a. power is the director of instruction and assessment for a school district in the us. two of his previous publications are teachers sourcebook for cooperative learning, and simple, powerful strategies for student centered learning. references benson, p. (2013). learner autonomy. tesol quarterly, 47(4), 839-843. doi:10.1002/tesq.134 bruner, j. s. (1973). going beyond the information given. new york, ny: w.w. norton. cambridge advanced learners dictionary (2016). democracy. retrieved from http://dictionary. cambridge.org/dictionary/english/democrac y?a=british candy, p. c. (1991). self-direction for lifelong learning. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. chi, m. t. h., glaser, r., & farr, m. j. (eds.) (2014). the nature of expertise. new york, ny: psychology press. © georges jacob & michael a. power student centered learning and democracy 87 cohen, e. g., & lotan, r. a. (2014). designing groupwork: strategies for the heterogeneous classroom (3 rd ed.). new york, ny: teachers college press. collins english dictionary. (2016). democracy. retrieved from http://www.collinsdictionary.com/ dictionary/english/democracy dewey, j. (1938). experience and education. new york, ny: macmillan. educational broadcasting corporation. (2004). constructivism as a paradigm for teaching and learning. retrieved from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2c lass/constructivism/ index_sub1.html gardner, h. (1999). intelligence reframed: multiple intelligences for the 21st century. new york, ny: basic books. gardner, h. (2008). the mind's new science: a history of the cognitive revolution. new york, ny: basic books. golding, w. (1954). lord of the flies. london, united kingdom: faber and faber. hannafin, m. j. (2012). student-centered learning. in encyclopaedia of the sciences of learning (pp. 3211-3214). new york, ny: springer. jaschik, s. (2016). princeton academic's 'failure cv' sparks debate on success. inside higher education. retrieved from https://www.timeshighereducation.com/ne ws/princeton-academics-failure-c v-sparksdebate-success munck, g. l. (2016). what is democracy? a reconceptualization of the quality of democracy. democratization, 23(1), 1-26. richards, j. c.; schmidt, r. (eds.) (2009). longman dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics. new york, ny: longman. robichaud, a. (2013). interview with noam chomsky on education. retrieved from https://chomsky.info/20130326/ rogers, c. r. (1983). freedom to learn for the 80’s. columbus, oh: c.e. merrill. seligman, m. e. p. (2016). the three dimensions of happiness. retrieved from http://www.pursuit-ofhappiness.org/history-of-happiness/martinseligman-positive-psychology/ siphai, s. (2015). influences of moral, emotional and adversity quotient on good citizenship of rajabhat university students in the northeast of thailand. educational research and reviews, 10(17), 2413-2421. vygotsky, l. s. (1978). mind in society (ed. by m. cole, v. john-steiner, s. scribner, & e. souberman). cambridge, ma: harvard university press. weimer, m. (2013). learner-centered teaching: five key changes to practice (2 nd ed.). san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. wood, d. j., bruner, j. s., & ross, g. (1976). the role of tutoring in problem solving. journal of child psychiatry and psychology, 17(2), 89-100. . http://www.collinsdictionary.com/%20dictionary/english/democracy http://www.collinsdictionary.com/%20dictionary/english/democracy 10 ten teacher strengths for cooperative learning beyond words vol.4. no. 1. may 2016 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia ten strengths of how teachers do cooperative learning george m jacobs james cook university singapore singapore george.jacobs@jcu.edu.au www.georgejacobs.net abstract cooperative learning involves students in working together with peers to learn, to develop learning skills and to enjoy the learning process. this paper examines ten areas in which the author believes he and other teachers do cooperative learning well. these areas are: (1) keeping group size small, usually four or fewer; (2) encouraging students to form heterogeneous groups; (3) monitoring groups as they cooperate and encouraging groups to rely on themselves; (4) creating tasks that the groups find challenging, but not too challenging; (5) encouraging group members to do their fair share in their groups; (6) facilitating a feeling of positive interdependence among group members; (7) being willing to try new ideas in their implementation of cooperative learning; (8) learning from their experiences in using cooperative learning; (9) looking for opportunities to share with colleagues about their use of cooperative learning; (10) being cooperative in their lives outside the classroom. key words: cooperative learning, group activities, individual accountability, positive interdependence, cooperation as a value, teacher reflection introduction cooperative learning (cl) is the thought out, systematic use of group activities so that students are more likely to learn more, develop more and enjoy more. i first learned about cl in 1985 when i was teaching in thailand and read an article by david and roger johnson of the co-operative learning institute (http://www.co-operation.org). cl just made so much sense to me. i was already into using group activities, in my teaching, my learning (such as studying with peers) and in other areas of my life, such as playing tennis and seeking social change. by the time i moved back to se asia in 1993, i had been continuing to use cl and had already started sharing about cl with other teachers in workshops, via publications and in a video. i have been following the cl path ever since. cl still makes sense to me; i still look forward to using it when i teach my students, when i am a student and when i share with fellow educators. the purpose of this paper is to discuss ten strengths of how my fellow teachers and i use cl. how do i know about other teachers’ use of cl? in addition to conversations and correspondence with many colleagues, i have also had the good fortune to be invited to observe many teachers as they use cl and to discuss with them before and afterwards. below, each of the ten strengths is explained, with examples and with reference to some cl principles. mailto:george.jacobs@jcu.edu.au http://www.co-operation.org/ ten teacher strengths for cooperative learning 11 the ten strength strength #1 – encouraging small groups an initial question when using cl is how many students should be in each group. i have seen groups of five, six, seven and even eight or more members, but fortunately i do not see this very often, because smaller groups, even as small as two members, are, i believe, better, and i prefer for groups never to go beyond four members. here is why. in the 1990s, i attended a workshop on cl by david johnson in penang, malaysia, and one of the phrases he used that i still remember and repeat is, “it’s impossible to be left out of a pair.” in other words, if we are worried about one or more group members being, for whatever reason, excluded by their groupmates, one strategy is to keep groups small, and two is as small as groups can be. this is the cl principle of equal opportunity to participate. at the same time that small groups make it less likely that any students are excluded, small groups also make it less likely that any students can seek to avoid participation. this is the cl principle of individual accountability. another potential advantage of small groups stems from we teachers’ desire to maximize the amount each student interacts – via talking, writing, drawing, etc. – with peers. this is the cl principle of maximum peer interactions. extending this principle, after students have interacted in pairs, instead of immediately sharing what they have done with the entire class and the teacher, teachers sometimes ask two pairs to combine. in that way, students receive the benefit of more classmates’ knowledge and perspectives, i.e., two heads are better than one, and four heads are better than two. strength #2-creating heterogeneous groups once group size has been decided, the next question that fellow teachers and i face in using cl is which students should be group mates. i use heterogeneous groups, and i’m happy to report that many other teachers also do this. four common options when forming groups are: a. convenience, i.e., students form groups with whoever is sitting nearest to them. b. students select their group mates, i.e., they form groups with whomever they wish. c. random selection, i.e., some methods used to select group membership at random, e.g., in a class of 49 students, to form groups of four (with one group of five), students count to 12, and all the students with the same number become group mates, for instance, the four students who are number 11s, form a group. d. teacher selection, i.e., teachers uses various criteria to select who should be group mates. the easiest option is to form groups based on convenience, and often the most popular option among students is to form student-selected groups. groups selected at random may also be heterogeneous, but may not always be so. thus, because many teachers want heterogeneous groups, teacher selection is best and this seems to be the most common option. groups can be heterogeneous on many factors, including past achievement, ethnicity, social class, nationality, first language and sex. mixing students on past achievement can encourage peer tutoring, and both the tutees and the tutors can benefit from such arrangements (webb et al., 2009). mixing students on other factors can be beneficial in terms of exposing students to varied perspectives and 12 beyond words helping students learn to work with people different from themselves. by observing other teachers, i have learned and now sometimes use a compromise option between student-selected and teacher-selected groups. this option is to explain to students the benefits of heterogeneous groups and discuss some of the differences which exist among the members of the particular class. then, students form their own groups, with the resulting individual groups mirroring the diversity that exists within the class (slavin, 1995). strength #3 monitoring groups at one educational institution where i worked, a place for in-service teachers, i had a very busy, energetic colleague whom i would sometimes see in his office even when he had class. this mystified me until i learned that his strategy was to give the students a group activity to do, and then, he would return to his office to resume some urgent tasks. indeed, i confess that i have now and then adopted a similar strategy. however, i am happy to report that neither i nor the teachers i have observed do this often. instead, when students work in their groups, we teachers normally spend time as guides on the sides, monitoring groups and intervening occasionally to offer assistance or to highlight something we have observed. such active observation practices by teachers fit with the cl principle of group autonomy, i.e., we encourage group members to rely on each other and for different groups to look to each other for assistance, with teachers there to help, but not as the first option. two phrases for promoting group autonomy are ttt (team then teacher), and 3 + 1 b4 t (ask your three groupmates and one other group before asking the teacher). it is certainly tempting, at the first sign that a group is having difficulty or has gone astray, for teachers to intervene, to be students’ knights in shining armour. i am glad that other teachers and i usually resist this temptation. strength #4 designing doable tasks in my own experience using cl in my teaching and observing other teachers using cl, the main reason why group activities fail is that the tasks groups embark on are too difficult. yes, two heads are better than one, but two heads are not magic. to use vygotsky’s (1978) terminology, tasks need to be in students’ zone of proximal development, i.e., the tasks need to be ones that students can do, provided that help, also known as scaffolding, is available. this help can come from teachers, peers, materials and various learning and thinking strategies. i try to offer such scaffolding, and i have learned various scaffolding strategies from other teachers. in addition to direct teacher assistance, as described in strength #3 above, this scaffolding can include: a. modifying the difficulty level of texts and tasks. b. providing materials that prepare students to succeed. these materials include websites, videos, glossaries of terms and mind maps that build students’ background knowledge. c. providing rubrics and models to guide students. d. as mentioned in strength #2 above, setting up groups that are heterogeneous as to past achievement. e. allowing students to prepare before class, as in the flipped classroom model (boyer, 2013). f. teaching students how to help each other and how to receive help from others. part of this fits with the cl principle of teaching collaborative skills. these skills include asking for reasons, checking that others understand and thanking others. ten teacher strengths for cooperative learning 13 strength #5-promoting individual accountability probably the two most oft-mentioned cl principles are positive interdependence (to be discussed in strength #6) and individual accountability. individual accountability was mentioned in the discussion of strength #1, with reference to how teachers use small groups (two, three or four members per group) to encourage students to participate actively in their groups. indeed, one of the most often heard criticisms of group activities is that some members do not do their fair share in the group, i.e., they freeload off the work of others. fortunately, cl provides a range of ideas for encouraging students to each feel accountable to their groupmates, and i have seen many colleagues using these strategies, and i use many of them myself. a. each student receives specific information or is responsible for curating information on a particular topic, and then, as in jigsaw (aronson, 2016), students are responsible for teaching that information to groupmates. b. when students do projects, group members agree on a roster of tasks and due dates for the tasks and then record whether the tasks were completed by the due dates. plus, students assess their group mates’ contributions. c. students work together, but they are assessed individually. for instance, on a writing task, students give each other feedback on their drafts, but each submits an individual piece of writing. d. rather than groups nominat-ing spokespeople to present their work to the rest of the class, all group members need to have a speaking part in the group’s presentation, or a sole presenter is chosen at random. in keeping with the principle of maximum peer interactions (see strength #1), sometimes, rather than each group taking turns to present to the entire class, groups or their randomly selected representatives can present to another group. strength #6-encouraging positive interdependence too often, students sit in the same group, but they feel little commitment to their group mates, i.e., the group lacks a feeling of positive interdependence; they do not feel that their outcomes are positively correlated. for instance, students do not feel that the learning of their group mates helps their own learning or that if one of their groupmates does poorly, they too suffer. if student groups do not feel positively interdependent, they are unlikely to strive to help one another or to strive to do well themselves for the good of the group. fortunately, i have learned strategies to encourage students to feel positively interdependent, and i have seen fellow teachers using these and related strategies. here are some such strategies. a. in keeping with the cl principle of teaching collaborative skills (strength #4), teachers encourage students to express gratitude to groupmates for how they have helped the group succeed, e.g., “i appreciate the questions you asked. your questions made me see that i didn’t understand as well as i thought i had”. b. the group receives feedback based on the performance of the member randomly selected to represent the group. this strategy is deployed in the cl technique everyone can explain (jacobs, renandya, & power, 2016). in everyone can explain, students form groups of 2-4 to develop a response to a question or task. not only do they develop a response, but they also need to explain the rationale or process behind their response. the teacher calls a student randomly to give and explain their group’s 14 beyond words response to the entire class or to another group. the group, not the individual sharing the group’s response, is evaluated. in other words, they sink or swim together. c. the group or the entire class competes against a standard, such as the class average on previous quizzes. in this way, students are encouraged to help not just their own group mates, but also their other classmates. d. each group member has a rotating role in the group. roles include facilitator, question asker, comprehension checker, recorder, creator of visuals, powerpoint designer and skit director. these roles can rotate or students who are weakest in a particular role can play that role while being coached by their more proficient group mates. e. teachers explain why learning particular content and skills enable students to help others, e.g., learning an additional language enables students to help people who speak that language and are in need assistance, or learning problem solving skills enables students to address problems in their communities and beyond. this fits with the cl principle of cooperation as a value, i.e., extending positive interdependence beyond the small group. strength #7-trying new ideas among the many exciting aspects of belonging to the teaching profession are the many ideas being developed, rediscovered and combined. for example, positive psychology (seligman, steen, park, & peterson, 2005) represents a paradigm shift in psychology, and educators have adopted it to their context in what has come to be called positive education (norrish, williams, o'connor, & robinson, 2013). i have been happy to see that like myself, many other teachers are keen to consider expanding their repertoires of ways to implement cl, for example, including insights from positive psychology. many paths exist for teachers to learn new ways of using cl. in addition to journals, books, conferences and courses, the website and e-newsletter of the international association for the study of cooperation in education (www.iasce.net) deserves special mention. for example, the association’s thrice yearly e-newsletter features a list of recent journal articles related to cl. other articles in the e-newsletter discuss relevant trends in cl and related areas. strength #8-learning from experiences using cl and other student centred methods can be more complicated than using teacher centred methods. with teacher centred instruction, the key lies in how well teachers have prepared their lectures, demonstrations, etc. thus, teachers’ performance constitutes the main variable. however, with cl, teachers act as guides on the side, and what students do as they interact with classmates becomes central to the lesson’s success. teachers, myself included, need to constantly be learning about how to facilitate this student-student interaction. in addition to learning new ideas from outside sources, as discussed in strength #7, i am happy to report that my fellow teachers and i also like to learn from our own experiences. an important way that we learn from experience involves learning from our students. here are two ways fellow teachers and i learn from students. first, when students do cl differently than the ways we suggested, instead of immediately assuming that students are doing cl wrongly, we can reflect on whether students might have developed a way to cooperate that might be better, at least in some circumstances. for example, when i first starting using cl, i wanted student groups to immediately start http://www.iasce.net/ ten teacher strengths for cooperative learning 15 on the tasks before them. instead, some groups, even groups of adult students, would chit chat for a couple of minutes before engaging with the tasks. when i reflected on this, i realised that i also did this when working with colleagues, and i observed that this chit chat seemed to improve relations among group members. thus, i now sometimes include brief warm up activities or just chit chat time early in cl activities. a second way that fellow teachers and i learn from students involves asking for their suggestions about how to facilitate their interaction. of course, i do not implement every student suggestion, but i do consider all of them. for instance, in relation to strength #4, designing doable tasks, students sometimes ask me for examples of what i consider to be well-done tasks and to explain what features of the examples are especially praiseworthy. this often results in better student work, not only on the immediate task but also on future tasks. strength #9-sharing with other teachers just as our students can learn more and enjoy more by interacting with their peers, i.e., their fellow students, so too can we teachers learn more about cl and enjoy doing cl more by interacting with our peers, our fellow teachers. fortunately, many of my fellow teachers have been happy to join with me in discussing how best to do cl. this fits both with strength #7, trying new ideas, and strength #8, learning from experiences. one means of sharing with other teachers involves reflecting together on our use of cl. dewey, a pioneer in teacher reflection, made an important point when he wrote, “we do not learn from experience. we learn from reflecting on experience” (1933, p. 78). farrell and jacobs (2016) provided suggestions on how teachers can join each other to reflect on our teaching. furthermore, by sharing with fellow educators, we teachers are practicing what we preach. in other words, just as we urge students to cooperate with peers, in our reflective teaching groups, we teachers are cooperating with our peers. in this way, we are putting ourselves in students’ shoes, experiencing the joys and frustrations of cooperation. strength #10-cooperating beyond the classroom the cl principle of cooperation as a value encourages students to look for the positive interdependence (strength #6) in all situations, not just in small group classroom situations. teachers whom i know bring this principle to life in many ways. for instance, a colleague of mine teaches weekend classes for blue collar migrant labourers. a secondary school science teacher i know just returned from a trip with his students to indonesia where they installed environmentally friendly sewage systems in the homes of people in rural communities. recently, i bumped into a primary school teacher who a few years ago took a class on cooperative learning with me and now participates in a volunteer organisation that promotes vegetarianism. indeed, the spirit of volunteerism blossoms in the hearts of many teachers. furthermore, organisations of teachers seek to promote cooperation in aid of people worldwide. for instance, the japan association for language teaching has for many years had a global issues in language education special interest group (http://gilesig.org). among the varied issues they address are human rights, such as equal rights regardless of sexual preference, and protection of non-human animals. similarly, david and roger johnson of the cooperative learning institute have done a great deal of work on conflict resolution and http://gilesig.org/ 16 beyond words peace education (e.g., johnson, johnson, & tjosvold, 2012). indeed, they make the claim that cl forms an essential element in the creation of peaceful, just and equitable societies. thus, because we teachers are part of movements for social improvement beyond the classroom, we have a stronger commitment to cl in the classroom. conclusion change in education is notoriously difficult to achieve (sarason, 1990). originally, the title of this article was “ten errors teachers make in using cooperative learning”. however, influenced by the literature on positive psychology, cited in strength #7, i decided to take a more positive approach to my own and other teachers’ use of cl. that is why i changed the title to “ten strengths of how teachers do cooperative learning to highlight strengths in the ways my colleagues and i use cl. as is mentioned under strength #10, the world needs cl, not just so that students learn more, but also so that students become caring world citizens. therefore, we teachers need to celebrate our successes in promoting student-student collaboration and build on the many strengths in how we apply and develop cl. i look forward to celebrating and building with you. references aronson, e. (2016). the jigsaw classroom. retrieved from http://www.jigsaw.org boyer, a. (2013). the flipped classroom. catering for difference. teacher learning network, 20(1), 28-29. retrieved from http://teacherlearningnetwork.org.au/dl65/t ln-issue1_2013sm.pdf dewey, j. (1933). how we think, lexington, ma: dc heath. farrell, t. s. c., & jacobs, g. m. (2016). practicing what we preach: teacher reflection groups on cooperative learning. tesl-ej, 19(4), 1-9. retrieved from http://www.teslej.org /pdf/ej76/a5.pdf jacobs, g. m., renandya, w. a., & power, m. a. (2016). simple, powerful strategies for student centered learning. berlin, germany: springer. johnson, d. w., johnson, r. t., & tjosvold, d. (2012). effective cooperation: the foundation of sustainable peace. in p. coleman & m. deutsch (eds.), psychological components of sustainable peace (pp. 15-53). new york, ny: springer. norrish, j. m., williams, p., o'connor, m., & robinson, j. (2013). an applied framework for positive education. international journal of wellbeing, 3(2),147-161. doi:10.5502/ijw.v3i2.2 sarason, s. b. (1990). the predictable failure of educational reform. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. seligman, m. e., steen, t. a., park, n., & peterson, c. (2005). positive psychology progress: empirical validation of interventions. american psychologist, 60(5), 410421. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.60.5.410 slavin, r. e. (1995). cooperative learning: theory, research, and practice (2nd ed.). englewood cliffs, nj: prentice hall. vygotsky, l. s. (1978). mind in society. ed. by m. cole, v. john-steiner, s. scribner, & e. souberman). cambridge, ma: harvard university press. webb, n. m., franke, m. l., de, t., chan, a. g., freund, d., shein, p., & melkonian, d. k. (2009). ‘explain to your partner’: teachers' instructional practices and students' dialogue in small groups. cambridge journal of education, 39(1), 49-70. doi: 10.1080/03057640802701986 http://www.jigsaw.org/ http://teacherlearningnetwork.org.au/dl65/tln-issue1_2013sm.pdf http://teacherlearningnetwork.org.au/dl65/tln-issue1_2013sm.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.60.5.410 language learning strategies of japanese students joining “english speaking society” ryoichiro kobayashi ryoichiro.k@eagle.sophia.ac.jp sophia university/jsps japan abstract this research report aims to investigate what sort of factors make japanese learners of efl successful, especially in public speaking activities in universities. the present study focuses on university students who are engaged in english speech activities in a student group called the english speaking society (e.s.s.), which most of the japanese university have. the present study identifies what sort of language learning strategies (lls) successful learners (sl) in e.s.s. use. the results show that cognitive, metacognitive and social strategies are used more frequently than the other strategies of oxford (1990). the discussions are followed by some implications for non-sl to improve their speaking skills. key words: english speaking societies (e.s.s.); japanese; language learning strategies introduction in japan, although some english majoring students have speaking classes regularly at university, most students are not familiar with english conversation or presentation. under such circumstance, many universities have a student group called the english speaking society (ess). e.s.s. is organized by university students from different backgrounds to provide themselves with opportunities to use english in daily life. through different activities, such as public speaking, discussion, debate and drama, students help each other to improve their english skills. intriguingly, the majority of students in e.s.s. are those who have never been abroad or have little foreign experiences. however, some students are surprisingly more proficient than the other students, though most of them have learned english in japan. this paper aims to reveal what makes some learners successful, especially in speech activities. by identifying what sort of language learning strategies they use, the study aims to suggest some implication for the learners to become better english speakers. beyond words vol. 4, no. 2, november 2016 in the speech activity division, which is usually called ‘the speech section’, students write their own speeches and participate in oratorical contests held all over japan. usually, applicants have to pass the preliminary rounds first to proceed to perform their speeches on the stage in front of audience, and typically 8 or 10 final contestants are chosen. since impromptu speech activities impose great deal of cognitive burden on learners, it is especially difficult for those who have never studied japanese english speaking society 112 mailto:ryoichiro.k@eagle.sophia.ac.jp abroad. however, it is not always the case that returnee students win the contests. rather, there are many speakers who have no foreign experience but outperform the returnees. this study focuses on such learners who mainly studied english in japan, participated in and won several impromptu speech contests. the following section explains the previous findings about language learning strategies (lls) and the details of technical terms, which are used in e.s.s. activities. oxford’s (1990) learning strategies and e.s.s. the term “successful learners” is abstract and difficult to define, since the definition changes depending on language learning contexts (takeuchi 2003a). however, it is an undeniable fact that there are some language learners who learn languages quicker, better and more successfully. there are several definitions for the term successful learners (sl), and one of them is takeuchi’s (2003a). he argues that successful language learners share the following four characteristics: they (a) have no or little experience abroad, (b) started studying english at the age of 11 or 12, (c) use one’s first language at home in everyday life, and (d) learned english mostly in classroom and through studying by him/herself (takeuchi 2003a:41). since his definition was constructed in similar japanese efl environment, the current study modifies and applies his for the definition of sls. impromptu speech activities have no objective test for measuring students’ ability. therefore, this study adds the following definition to takeuchi’s (2003a:41): e.s.s members who (e) participated in and won several impromptu speech contests. impromptu speech activities in e.s.s. put learners in relatively different learning contexts from their learning experiences in the classroom. usually, e.s.s. english oratorical contests have prepared-speech sessions, and sometimes they also have impromptu speech sessions, where speakers are given 4-15 minutes to prepare after they are given several topics about social issues such as territorial disputes, cyber-bullying among children, consumer tax hike in japan, etc. then they have 4 minutes to present their speeches. preparation time depends on each contest, but usually it lasts for 4 or 15 minutes. some contests even have questionand-answer sessions with judges after each impromptu speech. let us now briefly review oxford (1990), which the present research is based on. one of the leading academics in this domain of research is oxford, whose book (oxford, 1990) has been one of the most renowned works in the field of llss. oxford defines llss as “steps taken by students to enhance their own learning” (oxford 1990:1). this definition is closely related to the oxford’s model of llss, which attempts to capture the whole picture of learners’ behaviors in the learning processes. learners use various kinds of 113 japanese english speaking society direct strategies include three subordinate strategies: memory, cognitive and compensatory strategies. first, memory strategies are memory-enhancing methods that help learners to have better memory skills (juffs and harrington 2012). making connections in the mental lexicon for instance, can enhance learners’ ability of memorization. second, cognitive strategies decrease the cognitive load; for example, speakers repeat the same phrases and expressions until they become able to use them without much attention paid to the forms. finally, compensatory strategies supplement the lack of knowledge or ability when facing difficulties; guessing the meanings of sentences from contexts, for instance (takeuchi 2003a). indirect strategies include the strategies learners use to self-regulate their own learning processes, rather than actual techniques to deal with languages. first, metacognitive strategies monitor and regulate one’s own learning processes. for example, by setting aims and making schedule for learning, one can achieve the goals more effectively. in the e.s.s. speakers’ context, metacognitive strategies appear as ability to schedule well one’s own practice, calculating how many days are left before the contest, for instance. second, affective strategies control one’s own anxiety (saito and samimy 1996). listening to the music while studying so that one can feel relaxed, and take some rest each time they make speeches, for example. finally, social strategies enable learners to learn from other language users or learners of the target languages. it includes studying abroad, cooperative learning with others, and holding training sessions jointly with other e.s.s. (takeuchi 2007). japanese english speaking society 114 strategies when learning languages. among a variety of classification systems, oxford’s (1990) is the most commonly used. collecting data from a number of language learners, oxford divided learning strategies into two major classifications: direct strategies and indirect strategies. each division has the three subordinate strategies: memory, cognitive, comprehensive, metacognitive, affective and social strategies. direct strategies are directly connected to the actual use of the learners’ four skills in learning languages, whereas indirect strategies are concerned with nonlinguistic factors such as autonomy and anxiety. among all six categories, metacognitive strategies have been shown to be the best predictor of sls (chou 2011; heo, stoffa and kush 2012; takeuchi 2003a). since it is logically difficult to utilize other learning strategies without metacognitive monitoring of learners’ own learning processes, the mainstream studies have been based on the assumption that metacognitive strategies lead learners to success the most (oxford 1990; wenden 1987). this has been later supported by many empirical studies (oxford 2002; takeuchi 1999; takeuchi 2002 and others) that show the frequency of metacognitive strategies usage significantly correlates with the learners’ success in language learning. methods revealing what exactly those llss are and how frequently sls use them, this study aims to provide scaffoldings for non-sls, who have never passed preliminary rounds or won any prizes in e.s.s. speech contests. as oxford (2011) emphasizes, among all six classifications of llss, metacognitive strategies are the most important, since they enable learners to control his or her learning processes. however, since there has never been any previous research about the llss in e.s.s. contexts, especially in the discourse of impromptu speech activities, it is too soon to conclude that the framework of lls researchers also holds in e.s.s. contexts. mikuma (2003) states that e.s.s. speech section offers students different learning environments from classroom learning, since it especially focuses on learning, since it especially focuses on speech activities, which are usually less considered in classroom learning than the other skills, namely reading, listening or writing (mikuma 2003). therefore, it might be worthwhile to focus on this specific e.s.s. context, since it has possibility to contribute to the mainstream of lls research by providing some e.s.s. specific findings of lls use, such as how to improve learners’ speaking skill efficiently and what is needed for learners to make persuasive presentations. followings are the research questions: 1. what llss do successful speakers use in order to prepare for impromptu speech contests? 2. what kind of tendency is there on successful speakers’ use of llss? participants the participants are five college students who are in e.s.s. speech sections in their own universities. they started learning english around the age of 12, soon after they entered junior high school, which is common in japan. none of them have lived or studied abroad in english-speaking environments for more than three years. two of them are currently juniors and the others seniors in their universities. usually in e.s.s., students finish their speech activities in ess when they become juniors or seniors. therefore, two junior participants are still taking part in several speech contests, while the seniors are actively supporting their junior friends in speech sections, helping them with practicing delivering speeches, brainstorming for speech making, and serving as judges in practice contests for freshmen, sophomores and juniors. therefore, all the participants are still involved in speech activities in e.s.s. contexts. japanese english speaking society 115 procedures in this research, strategy inventory for language learning, (sill) (oxford 1989) is used to reveal learners’ overall frequency of strategy use. then, through semistructured interviews (mackey and gass 2012) based on oxford’s (1990) framework of llss, this study aims to elicit what sort of llss they used for impromptu speech activities. the following four questions are asked in the interview session. 1. describe retrospectively what you would do for practicing impromptu speeches after you received acceptance letters/emails for speech contests, in chronological order. 2. what exactly have you done to prepare for impromptu speech contests? describe in detail. 3. other than practicing, what have you done for impromptu speech contests; for example, dealing with extra-linguistic factors such as anxiety and motivation? 4. other than impromptu speech activity, what do you usually do in order to improve your english skills, especially speaking? the interviews were conducted in japanese, audio-recorded, and later transcribed and analyzed. sill and interview session took about 120-150 minutes for each participant. this study followed the oxford’s (1990:277-282) general instructions to administrators of the strategy inventory for language learning in implementing and analyzing sill questionnaire. analysis since this study aims to explore the lls use of e.s.s. language learners, the data were collected mainly through interview session. the whole processes were audiorecorded, coded and classified into six categories according to the oxford’s (1990) classifications of llss. classifying actual llss is not a black-and-white question, since there are some llss which cut across the boundaries of the six categories. for instance, “reviewing the outlines of speeches he/she had made before” can be classified into both cognitive and affective strategies, since it enables learners to deliver their speeches more fluently, and also to be more confident, making sure how much he/she had practiced so far. therefore, this japanese english speaking society 116 study allows some overlaps among categories. this research applies detailed classification of oxford (1990:18-21). based on her exhaustive listing of llss, each strategy coded from the interview session was classified into the six categories. sill is also taken into consideration. it is true that this is an exploratory study, which is based on qualitative inspection among 5 participants’ use of llss. although its main focus is on the qualitative speculation through the semi-structured interview session, the study aims to use data from sill to observe the overall tendency of lls use among the participants. this study follows the analytical method of oxford’s strategy inventory for language learning (sill) version 7.0 (esl/efl) (oxford 1989). first, the sum of each six section are calculated, then the means and standard deviations are calculated on the basis of the sum and number of questions in each section. finally, the averages of six categories are checked against the five-level scale (from 1 the lowest to 5 the highest) of evaluation standard, which ranges from low: never or almost never used (1.0 to 1.4) and generally not used (1.5 to 2.4), medium: sometimes used (2.5 to 3.4), and high: usually used (3.5 to 4.4), and always or almost always used (4.5 to 5.0). results research question 1: all the data collected from the interview sessions were first transcribed one by one by the author. then, each answer from the 5 participants was analyzed and classified into six categories: memory strategies, cognitive strategies, compensatory strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies, and social strategies. since there are some strategies that are difficult to classify exclusively into one of the six categories, this study allows some overlaps among them, following oxford’s (1990) classification of llss. note that the strategies described in (1) through (43) are based on the raw data from the interview sessions. the interview session was semistructured as mentioned before; hence it is not that each participant answered yes/no to 43 question below each. rather, the set of strategies in (1) through (43) is the list of the results built from the scratch. tables 2 to 7 below show that the participants tended to use more cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies and social strategies than the other strategies. as for these llss, except for several general strategies such as speaking english with friends on skype, the majority of llss were e.s.s. specific (e.g., always trying to finish preparing a speech within 10 minutes though the preparation time is usually 15 minutes. using the rest (5 minutes), he/she actually practices his/her speech before presenting in front of the audience). it is logically possible that five of them used different sort of llss to the extent there is little shared characteristics. interestingly however, almost all the llss were used and shared by several learners in common. in the next section, we will see the tendency among the participants’ frequency of lls use from the results of sill. 117 japanese english speaking society lls use of the five participants found in this current study. japanese english speaking society 118 119 japanese english speaking society japanese english speaking society 120 research question 2: what kind of tendency is there on successful speakers’ use of llss? tables 8 to 14 show the results of sill for the overall six strategy uses of the five participants. all the five students’ results show that basically they use llss frequently. as for the cognitive and compensatory strategies, means of the students are classified as “high (usually used)” in the measurement approach of oxford (1990) explained above. on the other hand, for the other memory, metacognitive, affective and social strategies, the means diverge depending on each student. discussion data from the interview session provides some interesting points to discuss. first, there were noteworthy commonalities among the strategies of all the participants. as for the memory strategies, four of the five participants mentioned (1) in the table 2: “not always but trying to look up the vocabulary and expressions he/she couldn’t come up with in the dictionary, soon after making speeches.” for the cognitive strategies, (5) “trying to have some opinions about topics one hears from others or watches on tv (deciding at least pros or cons) and summarize them so that he/she can make impromptu speeches more easily” was reported by four of the participants. equally likely, several other cognitive strategies are mentioned by them, such as (6) and (7) in the table 3. as for the compensatory strategies, all the five students mentioned that they used strategies such as (15) “looking for alternative ways of saying what he/she wants to say when he/she can’t come up with the right expressions.” for the metacognitive strategies, (21) “scheduling what sort of practices he/she would need soon after he/she passes the preliminary rounds” in the table 3 was also reported by all of the five participants.” for the affective strategies, (29) “reviewing the outlines of speeches he/she had made before so that he/she can be more fluent and confident” was mentioned by three of the participants. as for the social strategies, (37) “asking friends several times a week to practice together” and (38) “listening to speeches of other members in e.s.s.” were reported by 121 japanese english speaking society all the participants. in order to analyze the common denominators among the frequently reported llss through the interview session, this research follows the interview procedures of takeuchi’s exploratory research (2003a: 109-137) about the sls (tatsujin in his term), and takeuchi’s (2003b) qualitative analysis of the llss from 67 books on “how i have successfully learned a foreign language” written by sls. results from the interview session of this current study show that all of the participants relied on certain strategies which enable them to focus on communicating the message they have through their speeches. under the time pressure, they have to deliver their speeches in front of the audience within 4 minutes. rather than resorting to avoidance, they try to find alternative ways to say what they want to say according to the participants. in addition, as one of the cognitive strategies, some of the participants reported that they repeatedly practice delivering same speeches several times. one of them even mentioned that she repeats the same speeches when she practices since she learned this is an effective way to improve fluency. cognitive strategies of this sort actually enable learners to gradually automatize these expressions to communicate what they want to say more smoothly (o'malley and chamot 1990). another highly important point is that most of the participants mentioned that they put high priority on increasing the output opportunities, as illustrated in the table 13 (the social strategies). more interesting is that four of the five participants reported that they always asked other students in e.s.s. or teachers to listen to their speeches and they also asked for feedback. not only do they get advice from people who actually listened to their speeches, but also they can get used to the stage because they can deliver their speeches in front of others. it is interesting that five of the participants mentioned that they were worried that they would fail in delivering their speeches smoothly. three of them even said that they asked their friends to listen to their speeches because they never wanted to feel embarrassed on stage. in other words, the five e.s.s. learners are highly concerned about whether they can perform their speeches communicatively, and so it leads them to use cognitive strategies in combination with social strategies. another important commonality found in the lls use of the five participants is that all of them tried to become familiar with various kinds of social issues, which they have to talk about in impromptu speech activities. some of the participants mentioned that they tried to watch news programs frequently, read newspapers occasionally, and search information on the internet so that they can obtain background knowledge of social issues, such as “territorial disputes”, “cyber-bullying among children”, and “consumption tax hike.” others reported that they visited as many english oratorical contests as they can in order to get familiarize themselves with various kinds of issues other speakers were dealing with. they also mentioned that regular meetings of e.s.s. were good opportunities for them to share ones’ ideas on various kinds of topics they have to deal with in the impromptu speech activity, with the other members so that they could learn from each other. all of the five participants reported that they tried to have their own opinions about a variety of controversial japanese english speaking society 122 issues such as abortion, death penalty and gay marriage, at least to be able to state pros or cons. thanks to this strategy, they became able to deal with a wide-range of social issues in speech contests. the third shared characteristics is that all of the participants constantly had opportunities to practice english speaking skills and making impromptu speeches, not just before each contest. it may suggest that they have certain attitudes in common toward leaning english, say, not just to win speech contests, but rather to improve one’s ability to speak fluently. commonalities found among these five sls in e.s.s. are the following three characteristics: 1. focusing on increasing their fluency, so that they can better communicate their speeches. 2. familiarizing themselves with various kinds of news topics and other social issues so that they can deal with widerange of topics given in speech contests. 3. practicing speaking english and making impromptu speeches constantly not just before each speech contest. findings in this section may shed light on the study of lls. the previous theoretical underpinnings argue that sls tend to rely on metacognitive strategies the most (chou 2011; heo, stoffa and kush 2012; takeuchi 2003a). however, this is not always the case considering the results in this exploratory research, conducted in a certain environment, namely e.s.s. conclusion the present study aimed to reveal the lls use of sls in e.s.s. speech section, especially for the impromptu speech activities. research on llss was originally a study of sls: questioning what sort of lls they use to be successful (oxford, 2011). this exploratory research applied the most commonly used framework of oxford (1990), and sill (oxford 1989) which is designed to examine how often learners use certain sorts of llss. through semistructured interviews, actual llss used by five university students who belong to e.s.s. speech section were investigated. in addition, their overall tendencies of lls use were examined with sill. it is too early to conclude that all the sls in e.s.s. speech section utilize the llss found in this exploratory research, since the number of participants is relatively small in this research. further studies are required to confirm the hypothesis that sls in e.s.s. have three commonalities found is truly shared by the majority of sls in e.s.s., but not by the others. © ryoichiro kobayashi suggested reference format for this article: kobayashi, r. (2016, november). an exploratory study on language learning strategies of 123 japanese english speaking society japanese students joining english language speaking society. beyond words, 4(2), 112-124. retrieved from journal.wima.ac.id/index.php/bw ryoichiro kobayashi is a ph.d student (theoretical linguistics) in the graduate school of languages and linguistics, sophia university in tokyo. he is also a research fellow of japan society for the promotion of science. he received his b.a. (foreign studies) in applied linguistics, and m.a. in theoretical linguistics from sophia university. his papers are available online at https://sites.google.com/site/ryoichirokobayashi/. references heo m, stoffa r and kush c (2012) factor analysis of the esl/efl strategy inventory for language learning: generation 1.5 korean immigrant college students’ language learning strategies. language, culture and curriculum, 25(3), 231-247. juffs a and harrington m (2012) aspects of working memory in l2 learning. cambridge university press. mackey a and gass s (eds.), (2012) research methods in second language acquisition: a practical guide. oxford: wiley blackwell. mikuma y (2003) eigo supiking gakushuron e.s.s. supichi jissen no rekisiteki kosatsu. [theories for learning english speaking historical investigation on speeches in e.s.s.]. tokyo: sanshusha. o'malley j m and chamot a u (1990) learning strategies in second language acquisition. cambridge: cambridge university press. oxford r (1989). strategy inventory for language learning (sill). word press. oxford r (1990). language learning strategies: what every teacher should know. heinle elt. oxford r (2002) learning strategies language proficiency, and self-regulartion. in proceedings of the 29 the jacet summer seminar, 3-19. tokyo: jacet. oxford r (2011) teaching & researching: language learning strategies. pearson education esl. saito y and samimy k (1996) foreign language anxiety and language performance: a study of learner anxiety in beginning intermediate, and advancedlevel college students of japanese. foreign language annals, 29(2), 239-249. takeuchi o (2002) what can we learn from good foreign language learners? qualitative studies in the japanese fl context. in proceedings of the 29 th jacet summer seminar, 20-26. tokyo: jacet. takeuchi o (2003a) yoriyoi gaikokugogakushu wo motomete. [for the better foreign language learning]. tokyo: shohakusha. takeuchi o (2003b) what can we learn from good foreign language learners? a qualitative study in the japanese foreign language context. system 31, 385–392. takeuchi o (2007) deta ga kataru koukatekina gaikokugogakushuho toha: “tatsujin” no eigogakushu. [data-based effective strategies for foreign language studies: strategies of successful learners]. tokyo: soshisha. wenden a l (1987) how to be a successful language learner: insights and perceptions from l2 learners. in wenden, a. l. and j. rubin (eds.), learner strategies in language learning. englewood cliffs: prentice hall international japanese english speaking society 124 https://sites.google.com/site/ryoichirokobayashi/ beyond words, vol. 4, no. 2, november 2016 contrastive and error analyses in inverted order to facilitate english language teaching shivani saini shivanisaini49@gmail.com post graduate govt. college, chandigarh, india abstract both contrastive and error analysis have vital roles in accounting for problems in teaching english as a foreign/second language (tefl/tesl). contrastive analysis (ca) compares languages and makes predictions about possible errors learners make due to the influence of their first language (l1), while error analysis (ea) analyses pupils’ compositions or conversations and investigates different sources of errors one of which is cross linguistic influence. it is obvious that ca and ea are not the same. they overlap in a certain area, but they are not competing against each other. both ca and ea can be used in a complementary role in understanding learners’ errors in second language learning. in the present article, a teaching methodology (“a contrastive approach” to ea) will be explored where the traditional order of conducting ca and ea (where ca leads to ea) has been inverted. the approach in the present study is that the job of diagnosis belongs to ea and here ca can be used as complementary to ea as a remedial procedure. keywords: contrastive analysis (ca), error analysis (ea), first language (l1), teaching introduction it is irrefutable that errors are not just inevitable but also necessary in the process of learning a language. corder (1967) considers errors to be products of a system of the learner language, as he argues that “a learner’s errors provide evidence of the system of the language that he is using (i.e. has learned) at a particular point in the course”. thus, the errors a foreign/second language learner makes in the process of constructing a new system of language need to be analyzed carefully to understand the process of language learning. errors can be regarded as the indicators of the stages of the progression between the first language (l1) and second language (l2) or foreign language (fl) systems. both contrastive and error analyses have a vital role to play in accounting for different types of errors committed by l2/fl learners. they should be viewed as complementing each other rather than as competitors for some procedural pride of place (james, 1980). there is little gain in adopting an exclusive ‘either-or’ approach and the results of doing so can be positively debilitating. contrastive analysis (ca) is normally considered as a predictive device. wardhaugh (1970) suggests that predictive ca is really a sham in that no contrastivist has ever really predicted solely on the basis of the ca. but let us not throw the baby along with the bath water. let us have both contrastive analysis (ca) and error analysis (ea) exist in harmony with each other. nickel (1971) is of the opinion that an error analysis without a contrastive analysis is quite simply impossible; pupils often make interlingual errors, which can be analyzed 158 contrastive and error analyses in inverted order with a contrastive study in much more detail. it is obvious that ca and ea are not the same. they overlap in a certain area, but they are not competing against each other. both types of analyses are needed in order to benefit from research and one influences the other in a positive way. further, helpful and useful conclusions can be drawn in order to improve second/foreign language teaching. the approach in the present study is that the job of diagnosis belongs to ea and here ca can be used as complementary to ea as a remedial procedure. this means that the first step should be deciding that which subset of attested errors is attributable to l1 influence. possessing this vital knowledge, the analyst should conduct ca in order to explain those errors. this does not mean that the present study is as richards (1974) calls it “a non-contrastive approach to error analysis”. rather it is “a contrastive approach” to ea but the traditional order of conducting ca and ea (where ca leads to ea) has been inverted. in other words, the present study is a juxtaposition of contrastive as well as error analyses (where ea leads to ca) as the focus of the study lies in the overlapped area where contrastive analysis and errors analysis complement each other rather than acting as foes as it is described in figure 1. literature review contrastive analysis contrastive linguistics is a branch of linguistics which seeks to compare (the sounds, grammar and vocabulary) two languages with the aim of describing the similarities and differences between them. contrastive analysis is the technique associated with contrastive linguistics and it may be defined as a systematic comparison of the selected linguistic features of two or more languages, the intent of which is to provide teachers and text book writers with a body of information which can be of service in the preparation of instructional materials, the planning of courses and the development of classroom techniques. procedure of contrastive analysis (ca). whitman (1970) breaks contrastive analysis down to a set of component procedures. the five steps are as follows:  taking the two languages l1 and l2  writing the formal descriptions of the two languages (or choosing descriptions of them)  picking forms from the descriptions for contrast  making a contrast of forms chosen  making a prediction of difficulties through the contrast contrastive and error analyses in inverted order 159 two different versions of contrastive analysis hypothesis. contrastive analysis hypothesis (cah) is classified into strong and weak versions. wardhaugh (1970) classifies the strong version of cah as that version that claims to predict the difficulty through contrastive analysis. the assumption is that the two languages can be compared a priori. the strong version claims the following: 1. the main obstacle to l2 learning is the interference from the l1 of the learner. 2. the greater the difference between l1 and l2, the greater the difficulty will be. 3. a systematic and scientific analysis of the two language systems can help predict the difficulties. 4. the results of ca can be used as a reliable source in the preparation of teaching materials, planning of the course and the improvement of classroom techniques. wardhaugh (1970: 126) notes that contrastive analysis has intuitive appeal and that teachers and linguists have successfully used ‘the best linguistic knowledge available…..in order to account for observed difficulties in second language learning’. he called such observational use of contrastive analysis as the weak version of cah. here, the emphasis shifts from the predictive power of the relative difficulty to the explanatory power of observable errors. this version has been developed in error analysis (ea). cah is a theory or hypothesis while ea is an assessment tool. brown (1987) also suggests that the weak version focuses not on the a priori prediction of difficulties but on the a posterior explanation of the sources of errors in language learning. according to this, only some errors were traceable to transfer and ca needs to be used hand in hand with error analysis. significance of contrastive analysis in teaching. marton (1981) is of the opinion that ca is a useful and helpful instrument to recognize the divergent and common features of two languages. of the same opinion is ausubel (1968), who stated that “if had to reduce all of educational psychology to just one principle, i would say this: the most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. ascertain this and teach him accordingly.” all in all, contrastive analysis provides teachers with a clearer understanding of the learner’s mother tongue as well as with the second language to be learnt. the teachers can provide insightful pieces of advice for their students. teachers can improve their methods, publishers can improve the textbooks’ exercises according to the newest ca results in a comprehensible and easy manner, and learners can connect their l1 and l2 in a tangible way. all “require a knowledge of contrastive grammar in order to be able to predict, explain, correct and eliminate errors due to interference between source and target language” (nickel, 1971). error analysis according to the basic tenets of error analysis, language learning is not merely the result of repetition, but the result of cognitive interaction among the learners, l1 and l2 as well as the environment of learning. that is, the development of the l2 reflects the complex interaction between language learning and mental process. the most influential publication launching error analysis as an approach in sla was s. pit corder’s (1967) article on ‘the significance of learner’s errors’ which call on applied linguists to focus on l2 learners’ errors not as ‘bad habits’ to be eradicated, but as sources of insight into the learning process. cook (2011) makes a 160 contrastive and error analyses in inverted order point that a language learner possesses a set of cognitive structures for hypothesis formation in which the making of errors is a positive sign of the learning process itself. error analysis focuses on the difficulties of the target language as well as the psycholinguistic process of language learning. the methodology of error analysis (traditional error analysis) can be said to have followed the steps below: 1. collection of data 2. identification of errors (labelling with varying degree of precision depending on the linguistic sophistication brought to bear upon the task, with respect to the exact nature of the deviation). 3. classification into error types 4. statement of relative frequency of error types 5. identification of the areas of difficulty in the target language; 6. therapy (remedial drills, lessons, etc.). in short, the main purpose behind error analysis is to analyze the learner’s errors in order to discover knowledge of the language till now and to know how the language is learnt by the particulars learners. the implication for language teaching. error analysis has brought about major changes in language teaching practices. learner errors provide the teacher with important feedback on his/her teaching and information about the types of errors produced by a particular group of students. it can also help the teacher to judge the progress made in learning the target language over a period of time (corder, 1981; brown, 1994). moreover, error analysis can provide valuable data for the development of suitable curricula, and the preparation of teaching materials, text books and examinations. corder notes that it is on the basis of information the teachers get from errors made by their students that they can vary their teaching procedures and materials, the pace of the progress and the amount of practice which s/he plans at any moment. corder lays stress on the practical uses of error analysis and applications for language teaching. error analysis enables teachers to decide whether they can move on to the next item on the syllabus or whether they must devote more time to the items they have been working on. this is the day-to-day value of errors. but in terms of broader planning and with a new group of learners they provide information for designing a remedial syllabus or a programme of reteaching. implementing the complementary amalgamation as mentioned earlier, contrastive analysis of two languages is criticized for being purely predictive in nature and it is normally generalized that most of the transfer errors predicted by contrastive analysis are actually not committed by learners of a second language. in order to overcome this drawback of ca, this study suggests conducting a complete error analysis of language learners’ errors to be followed by contrastive analysis of transfer errors to remove any possibility of any error type being predicted by ca. methods this case study is an action research which employs both contrastive analysis and error analysis to frame a contrastive grammar based on the common errors committed in writing english by the learners of english at undergraduate level. brown (1994) and ellis (1995) elaborated on how to identify and analyze learners’ errors. ellis contrastive and error analyses in inverted order 161 (1997) and hubbard & power (2003) gave practical advice and provided clear examples of how to identify and analyze learners’ errors. the initial step requires the selection of a corpus of language followed by the identification of errors. the errors are then classified. the next step, after giving a grammatical analysis of each error, provides a plausible explanation of different types of errors. purpose of the study in this study, this amalgamation of ea and ca is tested empirically in an english classroom at undergraduate level. the purpose is to ascertain the fact that a considerable amount of errors in learning a second language is made due to the influence of l1 (transfer errors or interlingual errors) and therefore the significance of using an empirically tested ca (where ea is followed by ca) in classroom cannot be overlooked. the subjects who are chosen for this study are learners of english at undergraduate level. all of them share a common first language  punjabi, which is the regional language of punjab state of india. the objective of this study is to figure out the percentage of errors committed due to the grammatical influence of the first language of the learners of english in the writing of english. the study further seeks to identify and analyse learners’ errors in writing english with the help of ea and ca. based on the results, the present article seeks to suggest a teaching method which involves the judicious use of l1 in facilitating tefl/tesl. phases and instruments the focus of the case study was to analyse the written compositions of learners of english in order to identify the common grammatical errors made by them due to the influence of their first language. the study was conducted with a random sample of one hundred and five students with thirty five students each from b.a. ii (bachelor of arts – second year), b.sc. ii (bachelor of science – second year) and b.com i (bachelor of commerce – first year). the subjects were asked to write an english composition of 100-150 words. they were given some topics for composition writing and they were instructed to choose any one topic. in order to diagnose the grammatical influence of the first language in the writing of the learners of english, error analysis of the written compositions of the l2 learners was conducted. this error analysis was focussed on the transfer errors committed by the learners. analysis of the sample compositions the errors identified in the written composition produced by the subjects were classified into the three main linguistic categories of syntax, lexicon and morphology. these three main categories were further subdivided according to the different parts of the sentence: syntactic transfer errors  article errors  preposition errors  pronoun errors  tense errors  word order errors  punctuation errors  emphasis errors  direct translation errors lexical transfer errors  word errors  redundant ‘be’ errors  conjunct verb errors  spelling errors morphological transfer errors  plural markers errors  subject / verb agreement errors 162 contrastive and error analyses in inverted order  comparative and superlative forms errors the boundaries of different categories, especially syntax and morphology, may overlap as these two categories are interrelated areas of study. morphology sometimes interacts with the study of syntax and vice versa. it must be acknowledged here that the written compositions of the learners were analysed to identify transfer errors at the syntactic, lexical and morphological levels. no attempts have been made to study and analyse deviations at the level of discourse as this was beyond the scope of this study. based on the findings of this analysis, a contrastive grammar was created covering all the areas of the target language where maximum errors are made because of the first language. results in order to examine the relative occurrence of different errors in the three groups, an overall comparison of the frequency of all errors is made in terms of number and percentage. a comparison of the overall performance of the three groups of learners is presented in the following table. there is a sharp contrast between the error rates of the three groups (see fig.2 on p. 150). the highest numbers of the errors committed by all the learners are syntactic transfer errors followed by lexical and morphological errors. the learners of b.a group produce greater number of transfer errors as compared to b.sc. and b.com. groups. moreover the error rate of b.sc. group is greater than the b.com. group. the results of the study revealed that 57% of total errors committed by learners are due to the influence of their l1. the following figure shows the overall percentage of transfer errors committed by the three groups of the learners . contrastive and error analyses in inverted order 163 figure 2: frequency distribution of errors in main linguistic categories figure 3: percentage of interlingual vs. intralingual errors the percentage of transfer errors again confirms the fact that a considerable amount of errors committed by adult learners is due to transfer. therefore the significance of using empirically tested contrastive analysis in the second language classroom cannot be overlooked. the poorer performance of b.a. group as compared to the b.sc. and b.com. groups showcases their different teaching learning environments. most of the learners of b.a. group get fewer opportunities of exposure to the target language as most of them studied in the government schools where students learn english in the efl like situation. furthermore, most of them study most of their subjects in punjabi medium which further reduces their chances for exposure to english. on the other hand, the learners of b.sc. and b.com. groups get maximum exposure to the target language as they study all of their subjects in english. alternatively, it can be stated that b.sc. and b.com. groups study english in an esl like environment where they get opportunities to learn english outside the english language classroom also. these findings lead the present study towards another revelation. the revelation is that the necessity of maximum exposure to the target language cannot be dispensed with while acquiring a second language. therefore, though the present study seeks to establish the role of first language in the english language classroom, it also strongly advocates the obligatory use of the target language in the second language classroom. in other words, the need to subject the learners to maximum exposure to english should not at all be eclipsed by the indiscriminate use of their first language. a balanced and judicious approach should be 164 contrastive and error analyses in inverted order used which justifies the use of first language as a scaffold in learning a second language. this scaffold should be gradually removed overtime to provide the learners to get maximum exposure to the target language, as it happens in an esl like situation. conclusion and recommendations for teachers based on the results of the study, the present article seeks to recommend a teaching strategy where ea and ca can be used in complementary form to use the l1 of learners in english language classroom in a judicious manner. though the present research study is based only on the errors in the written data of the students, still the same recommended strategy can be used for improving the errors made by students in speaking english. an empirically tested ca may prove to be very beneficial for language teachers. it provides an insight into those errors which are made by the learners of english as a foreign/second language due to the influence of their first language. a potential method for using both ea and ca in english language classroom for improving the writing skills of fl/l2 learners is suggested here. the figure above is a reflection of how the present study envisages the use of ea and ca in the english language classroom. all of this should be done before the practice of the given structure so that habits are formed on a conscious, cognitive basis. while following this plan in english language classroom, a teacher needs to use a juxtaposition of ea and ca for improving the transfer errors committed by students while writing english. the steps to be followed for this teaching strategy are as follows: i. first of all, a teacher needs to collect the data in the form of written compositions and record the speech of the students. the written data may be collected by asking the contrastive and error analyses in inverted order 165 ii. students to write in english on some given topics. the data in the spoken form may be collected by asking the students to try to speak in english on any topic and then recording whatever they speak in english. iii. the next step is to find out the errors in written and spoken form, carefully identify and analyze those errors which are made due to the influence of their first language. iv. finally a contrastive analysis of transfer errors has to be conducted to find out the source of particular errors made due to the influence of l1. this may be quite a painstaking study for the teacher, but the results of will definitely be worth the amount of time and effort spent on it. v. after the completion of this process, the teacher can use this newly gained insight in warning the learners of possible difficulties that will come in their learning of english because of their l1. vi. the teacher should take care to use this technique in the small groups of four to five students each, so that individual attention can be paid to the difficulties faced by each student. vii. all this should be done before the drill of a particular target language structure. frequent use of translation as a contrastive technique for learning grammatical structures would be one of the characteristics of this approach, although it would not become the only or even the main technique. as suggested above, ea and ca are indispensable for improving the teaching and learning process of a second language. l2 learners are more prone to errors made due to the influence of their l1. but just to predict the errors made in l2 on the basis of l1 using ca only can be very painstaking and of little use because most of the errors predicted by ca are actually not made by l2 learners. so it is always advisable to use empirically tested ca in classroom where ca follows ea. 2016 shivani saini shivani saini completed her ph.d in 2015 under prof. deepti gupta, ph.d.’s able supervision. it was prof. gupta who suggested that she send an article for publication in beyond words journal. she is now a teaching at the post graduate govt. college, chandigarh, india suggested reference format for this article: saini, s. 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(1970). contrastive analysis: problems and procedures. language learning, 20, 191-97 contrastive and error analyses in inverted order 167 stuttering and social anxiety disorder 102 beyond words vol.4, no. 2, november 2016 a review on stuttering and social anxiety disorder in children: possible causes and therapies/treatments nadia nathania zy14043@nottingham.edu.cn university of nottingham ningbo china ningbo, china abstract in the past two decades, stuttering and its relation to social anxiety disorder have been researched using different approaches in study fields such as neurolinguistics and neuropsychology. this paper presents a review of research publications about social anxiety disorder in children who stutter. it takes into account studies of stuttering, social anxiety disorders, the possible causes as well as attitudes and beliefs towards stuttering. also, therapies or treatments that have been conducted on both english-speaking children who stutter in the western context and mandarin-speaking children stutterers in asia, taiwan in particular; will be looked at. keywords: stuttering, stammering, social anxiety disorder, children, therapies, treatments, english speakers, mandarin speakers. introduction stuttering or stammering is a language disorder in which there is disturbance in the speech flow, preventing an individual from communicating effectively (world health organization 2010; iverach and rapee, 2014). it is most commonly associated with involuntary repetition of sounds, syllables, phrases and words (carlson, 2013). a stutterer usually becomes unable to produce sounds, which includes pauses or blocks before speech, and prolongs vowels or semivowels in an attempt to produce fluent speech (carlson, 2013). stuttering can be categorized into three subtypes (new scientist 2016). the first is a developmental disorder that appears in early childhood and continues in adulthood, related to many different brain structures. the second is neurogenic stuttering, acquired in adulthood due to a neurological event as a result of stroke, brain injury or trauma. the third is psychogenic stuttering, which is a rare form that arises after severe emotional trauma. the impact of stuttering on the emotional state of an individual can be severe, which may lead to fear of stuttering in social situations, anxiety, stress, and being a target of bullying especially in children. this article focuses on childhood stuttering and aims at giving a deeper insight into how both english and mandarin-speaking children stutterers develop stuttering and social anxiety disorder 103 social anxiety disorder, the possible causes of stuttering in children, as well therapies or treatments available. firstly, it will introduce stuttering as a childhood language disorder and also look at the autonomic nervous system in children stutterers. then, it will look at perceptions of stuttering and social anxiety disorder in children stutterers both in western and asian contexts. next, it will describe and explain the benefits of different therapies on stuttering. finally, it will conclude current status and future directions of social anxiety disorder in children who stutter, and offer some suggestions for future research in the field. research in the past two decades stuttering typically begins to occur when children are developing language and speech skills, particularly between the age of two and five years old (yairi, ambrose, and cox, 1996). stuttering, however, is most responsive to treatment during the preschool years due to significant neuronal plasticity (iverach and rapee, 2014). the disorder becomes far less treatable after the preschool years, and by adulthood it often turns out to be a longterm problem. there are two types of stuttering: more typical disfluencies and less typical disfluencies (gregory et al., 1996). stutterers with more typical disfluencies stutter without tension. this type of stutterers shows characteristics of hesitat-ing, using interjections and unfinished words, revising sentences, repeating phrases as well as 104 stuttering and social anxiety disorder words. on the contrary, less typical disfluencies stutterers exper-ience tension in their stuttering. these could be identified by their repetitions of words, interjections, sounds, and syllables for three times or more. this type of stutterers also tend to prolong the duration of a phoneme, experience blocks in their speech, and combine a set of less or more typical disfluencies characteristics consecutively in their speech. several examples of the stutterer language are shown in the table above. stuttering has been reported to have effects on the school life as well as emotional functioning of children (hayhow, cray, and enderby, 2002). this is because it is often associated with negative stereotypes (blumgart, tran and craig, 2010; klein and hood, 2004), affecting quality of life by putting an individual in threatening states, for example neurotrauma (craig, blumgart, and train, 2009). negative perceptions towards children stutterers are shown by empirical ‘evidence of preschool children who stutter experiencing bullying, teasing, exclusion, and negative peer reactions’ (iverach and rapee, 2014). these negative results that are connected with stuttering are believed to be the origin of anxiety (blood and blood, 2007). before the year of 2000, however, findings about the correlation between stuttering and anxiety showed ambiguity and inconsistency, and were difficult to interpret (menzies, onslow, and packman, 1999; ingham, 1984). the findings also included methodological flaws and weaknesses such as small scope of sampling, insufficiency to differentiate groups, and sample selection bias such that stutterers seeking treatment for their disorder were recruited as participants instead of those who stutter from the general community (menzies, onslow, and packman, 1999; ingham, 1984). the application of physiological and onedimensional anxiety measurements instead of measures designed to evaluate social anxiety specifically were also deficiencies in the methodology (menzies, onslow, and packman, 1999; ingham, 1984). regardless of the uncertainties in the findings, publications of studies in the last twenty years have shown evidence of the relationship between stuttering and social anxiety disorder to be more convincing. menzies, onslow, and packman (1999) reported that many studies have particularly established the existence of intensified anxiety in stutterers, with developing evidence showing that anxiety only occurs in performance or social-based situations. these findings are led by more studies that have been centered on social anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, and stuttering and social anxiety disorder 105 expectancies of social harm (iverach et al., 2011; craig and tran, 2006; menzies, onslow, and packman, 1999). autonomic nervous system activity in relation to stuttering and social anxiety disorder, the association between developmental stuttering and emotional processes has been researched using psychophysiological methods to assess the autonomic nervous system in preschoolage children who stutter to increase understanding of this connection (jones et al., 2014). the autonomic nervous system is the function of internal organs influenced by a division of the peripheral nervous system, which is responsible for controlling unconscious bodily functions such as breathing, the heartbeat and digestive processes (schmidt and thews, 1989). it is reported that pre-school aged children stutterers show less adaptability, poor attention span and more negative mood compared to children who do not stutter (jones et al., 2014). jones and colleagues (2014) investigated the potential differences in the autonomic nervous system activity to emotional stimuli between preschool stutterers and non-stutterers. the study included 15 male and 5 female preschool-age stutterers as well as 11 male and 9 female preschool-age non-stutterers as participants. the experiment used respiratory sinus arrhythmia (rsa) and skin conductance level (scl) to index the activity of both parasympathetic nerves that arises from the brain and the lower end of the spinal cord, and sympathetic nerves, which are located in the ganglia, near the middle part of the spinal cord supplying the internal organs, blood vessels, and glands (oxford dictionary 2016). the study discovered that preschool stutterers displayed a greater emotional vulnerability and mobilization of emotional reactivity rather than preschool children who do not stutter, showing a link between stuttering and the development of anxiety in a child stutterer (jones et al., 2014). attitudes of children in the west in the united states, weidner et al. (2015) has conducted a study on nonstuttering preschool and kindergarten children and their attitudes towards schoolmates who stutter. the purpose of the study is to understand better the origins of attitudes towards stuttering. the study examined attitudes toward stuttering using the public opinion survey on human attributes-stuttering/child (posha-s/ child) that was suitable to be used with young children. the participants were 27 preschool and 24 kindergarten nonstuttering children. the findings showed that preschool students had more negative attitudes towards stuttering compared to kindergarten students. although stuttering was viewed negatively, children actually 106 stuttering and social anxiety disorder viewed their stuttering peers positively. however, their knowledge and experience about stuttering were generally limited. overall, investigation of the specific study provided empirical evidence for the need of educating young children about stuttering and how to respond appropriately to peers who stutter (weidner et al., 2015). attitudes & beliefs of teachers in asia in taiwan, yang (2009) conducted a study to explore taiwanese teachers’ views of mandarin-speaking stuttering children. the investigation first started by inviting parents and teachers of first year elementary students in pingtung area of southern taiwan to fill out a stuttering screening form for their children or students individually. by collecting the stuttering screening forms, it was found that 1.38% of the children were reported as having stuttering. in addition, speech samples of the mandarin-speaking firstgraders were also collected using a digital audio recorder. yang (2009) used frameworks such as stuttering-like disfluency (sld) and weighted stuttering-like disfluency (wsld) to measure the average disfluency in two speech samples per student to identify children who stutter (ambrose and yairi, 1995; yairi, 1997; ambrose and yairi, 1999). the results showed that 63 students were suspected of having stuttering. following the results, the teachers who taught the stuttering students were interviewed about their students who stutter. there were 13 teachers, 8 of them were aware of their students’ stuttering, however, the remaining were not until the researcher informed them. most of the teachers did not take stuttering seriously therefore they did not ask for medical or professional assistance. seven teachers reported that the stuttering students act openly, actively and are even talkative whereas 3 teachers described the children with negative personalities, such as being nervous and shy. out of 13 teachers interviewed, 8 of them did not think that personality caused stuttering. to add, 3 teachers also reported that their nonstuttering peers did not tease the children who stutter. after analyzing the data collected, the findings of this study were inconsistent to what have been found in english-speaking cultures. previous studies in english-speaking cultures suggested that both stutterers and stuttering were perceived negatively, considering that children are able to detect stuttering as early as the age of four and a half years old leading to an initiation of bullying children stutterers (craig, hancock, tran and craig, 2003; dorsey and guenther, 2000; franck, jackson, pimentel and greenwood, 2003; klassen, 2001; ruscello, stuttering and social anxiety disorder 107 lass, schmitt and pannbacker, 1994; ambrose and yairi, 1994). on the contrary, the study of views towards stuttering in taiwan found that most first-grade students were not aware of the disfluencies of their classmates (yang, 2009). it also displayed that taiwanese teachers had more positive attitudes and beliefs toward the personality of their stuttering students. taiwanese teachers, however, had a lack of knowledge on managing their students’ stuttering appropriately. therefore, this suggests that the teachers need to receive more training about stuttering. therapy cognitive behavior therapy reviews have found that cognitive behavior therapy (cbt) is effective for treating children with anxiety disorders (james et al., 2013; cartwright-hatton et al., 2004). evidence has shown that cbt engages children who stutter, particularly those who have experienced social exclusion and negative peer reactions (grave & blisset, 2004; friedburg & mcclure, 2002; langevin et al., 2009). at the michael palin center (mpc) in london, england, cbt is applied as ‘an integrated approach to the management of stuttering’ (kelman and wheeler, 2015; cook and botterill, 2005). the therapy center builds a child-friendly environ-ment, incorporating speech management techniques as well as trainings on cognitive and social communicative skills for children of 5 to 14 years old and their parents (kelman and wheeler, 2015; cook and botterill, 2005). with younger children the therapy starts indirectly to help the family by providing the foundations that support the fluency of the child (kelman and nicholas, 2008). unlike traditional therapy of stuttering which focuses only on providing strategies for a stutterer to manage fluency, cbt focuses on discussing challenges about how language can be adapted to support a child stutterer, particularly focusing on helping the child to access their thoughts and develop strategies to manage challenging situate-ions (kelman and wheeler, 2015). it is aimed at supporting children stutterers to identify and understand the connection of their emotions and cognitions that impacts their speech by using a cognitive model (kelman and wheeler, 2015). it also trains them to create their experiences more normal by predicting and developing more helpful responses in situations in which they are likely to stutter by exploring the link of their behavior, emotions and cognitions. cbt applies creativity through methods such as children’s drawing, analogies and stories (stallard, 2014; lamb-shapiro, 2000; sobel, 2000; thomas and jolley; 1998). the children stutterers are asked to 108 stuttering and social anxiety disorder imagine situations they fear and think of possible outcomes if the worst were to happen. then, they are helped to develop strategies to cope with these situations through problem solving involving both the child and parents, encouraging him/her to seek out solutions by thinking flexibly and increasing the internal locus of control of the child (kelman and wheeler, 2015). it also involves action planning, using collaborative approach that involves the child and the therapist working together, giving him/her an ownership of the whole process by planning the agenda for each meeting and homework tasks that can be problem-solved together (kelman and wheeler, 2015). direct therapy and the efficacy of parent education studies reported that direct therapy is recommended for school-age children who stutter provided that it can improve their speech by treating them with skills that shape their fluency and modify their stuttering (yang, 2015; guitar, 2014; ramig and dodge, 2010). the treatment includes sessions that help different grades of school-age children to discover primary and secondary symptoms of stuttering through sharing sessions about stuttering experiences and emotional states during the occurrences (yang, 2015). they are also taught of the skills to modify stuttering and rehearse an easy and relaxed speaking manner (yang, 2015). in general direct therapy is suitable for stuttering children because it has helped decrease their disfluencies (yang, 2015). equally important to treating children who stutter, it is also suggested that parents have sufficient education regard-ing their stuttering children (guitar, 2014; ramig and dodge, 2010). indeed, yang (2015) reported that parents are the most critical people for stuttering children due to a primary role they play in shaping speech behavior and reducing stressful factors in the surroundings of their children. by receiving education about stuttering, parents are encouraged to understand and accept their children’s stuttering, recognize speech mechanism and the cause of stuttering, facilitate communicative environment and attent-ion, as well as strategies to improve the language abilities of their children (yang, 2015). conclusion and suggestions based on the discussion above, research has shown methodological improvements leading to more consistent evidence that support how stuttering is associated with social anxiety disorder. this essay has pointed out how social anxiety disorder can develop in stutterers, especially children, and the possible negative consequences that threaten the life quality of stutterers. it has also reviewed therapies stuttering and social anxiety disorder 109 or treatments that are suitable for children due to its critical contribution in creating better quality of life for children who stutter (iverach and rapee, 2014). however, access to published papers in english about stuttering in the context of china was limited. therefore, further research of mandarin-speaking stutterers in china is necessary to understand and provide better assistance to stutterers in the mandarin-speaking culture. © nadia nathania 2016 suggested reference format for this article: nathania, n. 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(2009). teachers’ attitudes and beliefs toward mandarin-speaking stuttering children. the poster in the 2009 conference of oregon speechlanguage-hearing association. bend, oregon. http://apps.who.int/classifications/icd10/browse/2010/en#/f98.5 http://apps.who.int/classifications/icd10/browse/2010/en#/f98.5 beyond words vol.3, no.2, november 2015  the author 2015. published by widya mandala catholic university press; all rights reserved. task based english language teaching in saudi intermediate schools sultan a. al muhaimeed dr.s.almuhaimeed@gmail.com qassim university saudi arabia this study investigates the effectiveness and appropriateness of a constructivist instructional practice for efl. it strives to determine whether adopting task-based language teaching (tblt) is a more effective means to increase students’ reading comprehension when compared to that of the traditional teaching method. it also attempts to gain understandings that accompany tblt implementation through constant comparison and contrast them with those that accompany the traditional teaching method. the mixed-method study covers quasiexperimental approach that uses one pretest and several posttests to collect quantitative data, as well as classroom observation and researcher log to collect qualitative data. the independent variable is the use of tblt and the dependent variable is the students’ reading comprehension achievement scores. a two-factor split plot analysis with pretest as the covariate is used for analyzing the quantitative data. the analysis of qualitative data includes synthesis, rich, and detailed descriptions for classroom observation and grounded theory for researcher log data. keywords: task based language teaching, constructivist instructional practices introduction the employment of tasks was initiated in the field of second language acquisition (sla) towards the end of 1960s and at the beginning of 1970s (burt & dulay, 1973; hakuta, 1976; krashen, 1994; long, 1996). tasks, at the beginning, were employed to describe particular aspects of language acquisition such as that of grammar and, later, were based on theories such as those related to language production. across time, the term “task” was sometimes used as a synonym of problem-solving and role-plays techniques and vice versa (brown, 2007). the use of tasks in english language teaching and learning was linked to the development of sla research (ellis, 2003). literature shows that tasks in the learning processes are used as means of assessment or as a method of teaching and learning. the later one is the focus of the present study and holds the terms task based language teaching tblt. tblt has developed over time until it has reached the formation and complexity this study has adopted. tblt is a method of language teaching in which meaning is primary, there are real world problems to solve, and priority is placed on the completion of the tasks, which are assessed in terms of the outcome (brown, 2007; willis & willis, 2007). a task-based learning situation is organized in accordance with the three stages of a task pre-task, during task, and post-task (ellis, 2003). this method is seen by many researchers to be emerging from communicative language teaching (clt) (brown, 2007; ellis, 2003). others see it as a new approach to english language teaching and learning (kumaravadivelu, 2006). 206 beyond words literature review there is a new social attitude that argues that there is no one comprehensive theory for learning but, instead, a combination of learning theories or inter-disciplinary learning theories (jarvis, 2006; jarvis & parker, 2005). tblt is grounded in constructivist theories, which adds strength and value to this method of teaching. the following intends to demonstrate how constructivist theories embody tblt. tblt is theoretically framed by piagetian (cognitive) and vygotskian (sociocultural) perspectives as they both emphasize the role of social interaction in cognitive development (piaget, 1970; vygotsky, 1978) and which is a fundamental component of tblt (lee, 2000). for clarification, the cognitive and sociocultural perspectives of learning, the psychological (cognitive) theories trace the arrows from the person to the external objectified culture while sociological (sociocultural) learning theories start with objectified culture and point inwards to the individual and, hence, learning should be seen from both perspectives (jarvis, 2009). principles of tblt suggest that it is theoretically framed and influenced by vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory. one principle is that learning through interaction among learners is a fundamental principle of tblt (lee, 2000). at the same time, this principle is partially resembled by or linked to mediation in the sociocultural theory and which, in essence, suggests that learning is socially constructed (vygotsky, 1978). another principle is that tasks in tblt include mediation by others in social interaction, by self through private speech, and through artifacts (lantolf, 2000). from a cognitive perspective, knowledge is the product of learning and is neither totally external nor totally internal, but a result of interaction between heredity (internal) and environment (external) (piaget, 1969). this theoretical perspective embodies the tblt method involves two factors to be present when producing the language, which are (a), the simultaneity of the information processed by the learner and (b) involvement in context (cummins, 1983). in other words, the nature of tasks requires students to have a reciprocal interaction of language with their colleagues through production (within the self) and reception (from the environment). tasks foundational thinkers across time defining and theorizing tasks have developed and accumulated across time beginning in the mid of 1980s (breen, 1989; bygate, skehan, & swain, 2001; crookes, 1986; ellis, 2003; lee, 2000; long, 1985; nunan, 1989; prabhu, 1987; richards, platt, & weber, 1985). these attempts have sometime provided literature with a broader definition of tasks (breen, 1989; crookes, 1986; richards, et al) and sometime with a narrower definition of tasks (bygate, skehan, & swain, 2001; ellis, 2003; lee, 2000; long, 1985; nunan, 1989; prabhu, 1987). the broader attempts have suggested that a task is an activity that helps accomplish language learning or simply a piece of work that provides learners with opportunity and knowledge to communicate in the target language. the narrower attempts have suggested that a task is a piece of work related to the real world, facilitated by the teacher, urged learners to comprehend, manipulate, produce, and interact in the target language, and call for primarily meaning-focused language use. task-based language teaching 207 examining the definitions of tasks by separately each foundational thinker shows that the definition and design of the tasks for this study are based on two perspectives. the first suggests that a task is an activity characterized by interaction, structuring and sequencing, focus on meaning, comprehension, manipulation, and production of the target language (lee, 2000). the second suggests that a task requires learners to use the language in a meaningful way (bygate, skehan, and swain, 2001). research on task-based learning and teaching research literature has addressed important aspects or issues of task-based learning and teaching (de bot, 2001; kim, 2008; rivers, 2010; skehan, 1998; stevens, 1983; swain & lapkin, 2000; & swan 2005). these aspects included the complexity of tasks, efficiency of task-based learning and teaching, enhancing language production when adopting taskbased learning, and criticism of task-based learning and teaching. the following presents the reviewed research literature on each of these aspects. complexity of tasks. the complexity of tasks has been a central theme for task-based research due to its immediate relevance to learner production (carless, 2008; robinson, 2001; skehan, 1998). the (inner) complexity of tasks influences learner production and, hence, attention needs to be paid for sequencing tasks on the basis of their cognitive complexity is preferable to sequencing them based on difficulty (the learner’s building new knowledge on previous obtained or learned knowledge). it is obvious that emphasis on the (inner) complexity of tasks goes along with the principles of the zone proximal development zpd proposed by vygotsky (1978). the (outer) complexity of tasks needs to be organized and designed carefully due to its beneficial effects on learner production. task-based lesson is organized in accordance with the three stages of a task (pre-task, during task, and post-task) (ellis, 2003). efficiency of tasks. learning efficiency through tasks has been demonstrated in research literature of task-based learning and teaching (brown, 2007; swain & lapkin, 2000). task-based teaching promotes pedagogical tasks which form nucleus of the classroom activity. also, oral and written tasks provided the learners with opportunities to learn language. in addition, children know far more language through activities (tasks) than what they exhibit in response to classroom drills (stevens, 1983). moreover, artifacts such as tasks helped in tracking learner development over time and also contributed to shaping the teacher’s interactions with learners as they pulled into focus a range of mediating alternatives of varying explicitness (poehner, 2009). research on efficiency of tasks in teaching extends to suggest that tasks participate in creating a real purpose for language use and provides a natural context for language study (izadpanah, 2010; swain & lapkin, 1998). in other words, learning through tasks helped students learn language since the context the tasks present does provide the students with a real learning purpose. providing learners with a purpose while performing tasks helped students also solve linguistic problems through dialogue. at last, efficiency of tasks showed a significant effect on acquisition in experimental settings (de bot, 2001; swain & lapkin, 2000). 208 beyond words enhancing tblt. another aspect of tblt research literature is related to enhancing language production when adopting task-based learning in classroom (albert & kormos, 2004; kim, 2008). for instance, creativity is found to affect participants’ output in oral narrative tasks moderately. similarly, learner’s higher level of involvement during the task promoted more effective initial vocabulary learning and better retention of the new words. also, learners need to know that the task outcome (completing the task) is the most important thing as the purpose of the task to use the language rather than display it (ellis, 2003). in addition, learning through any given task should represent a rehearsal for future social or professional interaction (rivers, 2010). criticism of tblt. however, fewer researchers had quite different opinions or were skeptical about the efficiency of tasks in language teaching (mohamed, 2004; swan 2005). for instance, task-based instruction is not greatly better than the traditional methods and is based on unproved hypotheses (swan, 2005). also, learners’ preferences relating to deductive and inductive tasks and how learners see the effectiveness of both types showed that learners see both types to be useful and there are no significant differences in learners’ preference to either type (mohamed, 2004). although those opposing perspectives about the efficiency of tasks in language teaching were explained in tblt literature as discussed below, the main purpose that made this study bring those two opposing perspectives prior to the application of this study is to have an outlook to which perspective the results of this study might support. criticizing perspectives of the efficiency of tasks in language teaching (those who are not in favor of or against task-based learning) are also explained or challenged in tblt research literature (murphy, 2003; plews & zhao, 2010; swain and lapkin, 2000). one explanation in a study about canadian english as a second language revealed that teachers adapt tblt in ways that do not go along with or contradict its theoretical principles. in other words, some teachers implement tblt in way that they do not follow all of tblt principles and, hence, students might not get the desired outcome. this makes teachers mistakenly refer this problem to the application of tblt. another explanation of task-based learning lacking significance is attributed to factors beyond its principles such as that of learners’ influence that is found to jeopardize or hinder the task designer’s goals. a final explanation for the emergence of the opposing perspectives about the efficiency of tasks in language teaching could be attributed to the need of further research to cover various aspects of task-based learning and teaching (candlin, 2001; samuda & bygate, 2008) and one of the purposes of this study is to participate in adding a line to the tblt literature. purpose of the study this study participates in the efforts invested to overcome the dissatisfaction about the students’ english language proficiency in the saudi arabian context (maroun & samman, 2008). it is based on the argument that the lack of sufficient english language proficiency, partially, is associated with the existence of the traditional way of english language teaching in schools. this traditional way of teaching includes instructional practices that are collectively referred to as ‘prompting’ because they involve the prompting and ‘drilling’ of students. due to research scope purposes, this study proposes that the traditional way of english language teaching does not help students better comprehend english when the emphasis is placed on reading comprehension. in contrast to this behaviorist approach, this task-based language teaching 209 study hypothesizes that adopting a constructivist instructional practice (task-based language teaching tblt) might lead to improved language reading comprehension. research questions 1. is using the tblt method for teaching english as a second language for male thirdgrade students in intermediate schools in saudi arabia more effective in the acquisition of the english language, in terms of students’ achievement on reading comprehension, than using the traditional “prompting” method? 2. what insights and issues can be gained about implementing tblt in this research setting? methodology design and method the study is based on a mixed method design (quantitative and qualitative) where the quantitative part includes a two-factor split-plot analysis with a pretest (covariate) and posttests as a part of quasi-experimental design. the qualitative part is based on observational data and a researcher log. table 1. two-factor split-plot analysis factor 1b factor 1a traditional teaching method group (control group) tblt teaching method group (treatment group) o o ct xe weeks 1 & 2 otet orpa otet orpa section a orpa otet orpa otet section b ct xe weeks 3 & 4 orpa otet orpa otet section a otet orpa otet orpa section b ct xe weeks 5 & 6 otet orpa otet orpa section a orpa otet orpa otet section b ct xe weeks 7 & 8 orpa otet orpa otet section a orpa orpa otet orpa section b ct xe weeks 9 & 10 otet orpa otet orpa section a orpa otet orpa otet section b o = pretest xe = experiment (treatment) group ct = traditional (control) group orpa = observation (researcher prepared assessment posttest) otet = observation (textbook established posttest) sections a & b = both of the treatment and control groups have two sections 210 beyond words researchers who employ quasi-experimental designs rely on various techniques to control (or at least reduce) the threats to the internal validity of the study. in this study, one technique is to randomly assign the classrooms to the treatment and control groups (wiersma & jurs, 2009). variables such as the students’ gender, age, and citizenship, the time of the class, classroom settings, teaching aids, the teachers, and the school are already being controlled for due to the design of the study or statistically in the analysis of the study (see figure 1). procedures and data collection tools to gather data, the study uses: (a) a pretest—to document the level of students’ english language reading comprehension they have at the beginning of the study; (b) observation of the treatment group (researcher log) and control group (classroom visits); and (c) posttests—to evaluate particular areas of student study. pretest. the primary purpose of the pretest is to function as the main covariate. it is used to provide a baseline for the students’ current english language reading comprehension levels so this study can examine the effect of treatment, relative to initial english language proficiency. the pretest also helps increase the power of the study by reducing the error that can be attributed to prior differences among students and its relation to the outcome. it is not used to place students in certain levels or groups. two reading passage practice tests were used and which were developed by ohio department of education as the pretest in this study. the two reading passages have a total of 22 questions that measure reading comprehension. test scores are going to be based on a retelling rubric. observation. this study places great emphasis on this data collection tool and is aware that field notes gathered are going to represent the eyes, ears, and the perceptual senses of the reader (patton, 2002). table 2. classroom observation checklist response elements yes no n/a comments setting the stage � � � task sequence � � � engaging the students � � � running the task � � � task completion � � � students’ attitudes � � � teacher’s attitude � � � difficulties � � � advantages � � � disadvantages � � � the form and notes provides insights and issues about implementing both of the tblt (gathered by a knowledgeable colleague) and traditional (gathered by the researcher) methods in the control and treatment groups in this research setting. observational data are accurate, detailed, and rich in nature (schram, 2006). among the techniques used when taking field task-based language teaching 211 notes is the usage of direct quotes, paraphrases, description of the context, and description of any behavioral experience that take place in the classroom (schneider, 2005). researcher log. the treatment teacher (researcher) creates a log where he writes down notes as he recalls them by the end of each day he teaches the treatment group (mcniff, lomax, & whitehead, 1996). those notes include insights and issues about implementing tblt in this research setting. out of the numerous visits of writing to researcher log, data can be described by being rich, detailed, and accurate (schram, 2006). recalled data in researcher log can take the form of direct quotes, paraphrased responses, conversations, description of the context, and description of any behavioral experience that take place in the classroom (schneider, 2005). when logging into researcher log by the end of each day, recalled data would be related to three types of interactions that take place in classrooms: student-to-student (such as group work or pair activities), studentto-teacher interaction (such as instruction by the teacher or questions and participation by the students), and students-to-curricular materials (such as textbooks and workbooks). posttests. posttests are administered at the end of each two weeks to assess students’ reading comprehension on the content covered in those two weeks. this process continues for ten weeks. each posttest consists of two formats; one is the researcher’s prepared assessment (rpa) and the other one is the text established test (tet) and which students need to do it all in english. the rpa posttest is mainly retelling where the students read a passage and then are asked to retell the passage using on their own words as they have understood it. the second posttest format, text established test (tet), is an existing instrument provided by the curriculum. retelling rubric. test scores of both the pretest and posttests are based on a retelling rubric originally designed by applegate, quinn, and applegate (2008) and developed in this study as shown in table 3. table 3. retelling rubric score description 4.0 3.0 2.0 1.0 0 a virtually perfect retelling that includes all information and a well-supported personal response a very strong retelling that includes all information, but does not include a personal response a solid retelling that includes most information but that is also characterized by some key omissions and that may include a personal response a weak retelling that includes little information but is also characterized by some glaring omissions and factual distortions and that does not include a personal response a retelling that may include nothing more than a vague idea of the topic of the text and that does not include a personal response the retelling rubric consists of five grading levels ranging from zero to four where four represents the highest grading score and zero represents the lowest one. 212 beyond words internal & external validity to establish internal validity, the relationship observed between two or more variables should be unambiguous and not attributable to something else (fraenkel, wallen, & hyun, 2012). many of the possible threats to the internal validity of the study are controlled by its design. the study has taken steps to maintain internal validity—for example; the subjects’ characteristics are captured and controlled through the pretest, which provides a base line to eliminate the threat of subjects’ characteristics to the internal validity. as for external validity, the processes and the tests are the same country-wide, the findings of this study are potentially relevant for all intermediate school students and english teachers in saudi arabia. thus, although the subjects or the study are all from buraydah, saudi arabia, the targeted population is all third intermediate level students and their teachers in saudi arabia. this will help to establish an acceptable level of external validity, especially when the study is replicated in different parts of saudi arabia. results results of the quantitative analysis of the first research question 1. is using the tblt method for teaching english as a second language for male third-grade students in intermediate schools in saudi arabia more effective in the acquisition of the english language, in terms of students’ achievement on reading comprehension, than using the traditional “prompting” method? pretest summary statistics. the average score on the pretest for all the 122 students who took the test was 19.885 with minimum and maximum scores of 11.00 and 30.00 respectively. the standard deviation for the pretest scores was 4.03. table 4 presents summary statistics for the pretest broken down by the two groups of the treatment. table 4. pretest summary statistics treatment groups n m sd tblt group 66 19.561 4.218 control group 56 20.268 3.802 an independent t-test was conducted to answer the question, “is there a significant difference in the pretest score between the tblt and the traditional teaching methods groups?” there was no statistically significant differences, (t (120) = -.965, p= .336) between students taught by the tblt method and students taught by the traditional method of teaching on their pretest score suggesting that the two groups’ initial proficiency of the english reading comprehension before administering the treatment is about the same. posttests summary statistics. there are five sets of posttests. each set consists of a standardized test and a researcher-prepared assessment. task-based language teaching 213 table 5. standardized posttests summary statistics treatment groups posttest 1 posttest 2 posttest 3 posttest 4 posttest 5 tblt group (n = 57) m 7.035 5.246 6.632 5.719 7.070 sd .906 1.675 1.046 1.998 1.226 control group (n = 47) m 1.128 1.904 5.617 1.723 3.298 sd 1.498 1.421 1.739 1.470 1.559 all five standardized posttests have a scale that ranges from zero to eight. the other five researcher-prepared assessment posttests are measured on a scale ranges from zero to four. table 5 provides summary statistics for the five standardized posttests broken down by the two treatment groups. table 5 shows that there are pronounced differences between tblt and control groups across all the five posttests measures, with the exception of the third posttest. the largest difference, (mtblt – mcontrol = 5.907) between the two groups was on the first posttest. the smallest difference (mtblt – mcontrol = 1.015) between the two groups was on the third posttest. summary statistics for the five researcher-prepared posttests broken down by the two treatment groups are presented in table 4. similar to standardized posttests there are sizable differences between the tblt and control groups on the five researcher-prepared posttests with the exception of the third posttest. the largest difference (mtblt – mcontrol = 1.014) between the two groups was on the fourth posttest. the smallest difference (mtblt – mcontrol = 0.119) between the two groups was on the third posttest. table 6. researcher-prepared posttests summary statistics treatment group posttest 1 posttest 2 posttest 3 posttest 4 posttest 5 tblt group (n = 57) m 2.228 2.667 2.360 3.237 3.239 sd 1.161 .970 1.125 .808 .872 control group (n = 47) m 1.745 1.692 2.479 2.223 2.117 sd 1.117 1.337 1.402 1.250 1.134 214 beyond words results for treatment effect. treatment effect makes up the major part of the quantitative analysis of this study in addressing the first general question. the adopted splitplot design for this analysis allows for answering several sub-questions that collectively address the general research question. standardized posttests results. a mixed split-plot design with one between-groups (tblt teaching method versus traditional teaching method) factor and one within-subjects (standardized posttest1 to posttest5) factor plus a pretest was adopted to answer the research question. pretest effect. a between-subjects test for the pretest (f (1, 101) = 25.260, p=.000) revealed that there is a significant effect of the pretest across the five posttests with a large effect size (partial 2 = .200). from this test, we can infer that having the pretest in the model contributed significantly to the model and any derived conclusion from the treatment effect is adjusted for this significant contribution of the pretest. further look at the withinsubjects test for examining whether the effect of the pretest varies significantly across the five posttests, (f (3.411, 344.509) = 2.269, p=.072) revealed no statistical significant for this variation. this test infers that the pretest effect on the posttests does not vary significantly across the five posttests. both of the between and within-subjects tests indicate that the pretest effect on the posttests is invariant across the five posttests. treatment effect. the between-subjects test for examining the treatment effect indicates that there is a significant treatment effect on the posttests scores (f (1,101) = 518.311, p= .000) with a relatively large effect size (2= .837). students taught with tblt method on average scored (m=6.373, se=0.108) higher across the posttests than students taught with the traditional teaching method (m=2.694, se= .119). looking at the treatment effect within the five standardized posttests (within-subjects effect) showed a significant interaction with the five posttests (f (3.411, 344.509) = 45.701, p= .000) with a large effect size (2= .312). based on the estimated model table 5 shows that the largest difference between tblt (m = 7.050, se = .160) and control (m = 1.110, se = .176) groups occurred on the first standardized posttest. the smallest difference was found on the third posttest where tblt students (m = 6.667, se = .178) on average scored a bit higher than control group students (m = 5.574, se = .196). table 7. standardized posttests estimated means and their standard errors treatment groups posttest 1 posttest 2 posttest 3 posttest 4 posttest 5 tblt (n = 57) m 7.050 5.285 6.667 5.774 7.091 se .160 .198 .178 .220 .182 control (n = 47) m 1.110 1.856 5.574 1.657 3.372 se .176 .218 .196 .242 .200 note. tblt= task-based language teaching figure 1 depicts the estimated means in table 7. the graph on the next page shows that tblt students, on average, performed better than control group students on all the five posttests with varying degrees. task-based language teaching 215 figure 1. estimated means of standardized posttests for tblt and control groups posttest effect. one aspect of the analysis is examining the pattern of the differences among the posttests regardless of the group (tblt vs. control) membership. the withinsubjects effect for testing the differences between the five posttests is statistically significant (f (3.411, 344.509)= 6.252, p= .000) indicating that, on average, students’ posttests scores do differ significantly from one posttest to another with a medium effect size (partial 2= .058). table 6 presents the five standardized posttests estimated means, their standard errors of estimation, and the 95% confidence interval associated with each estimated mean. table 8 standardized posttests estimated means with their standard errors and 95% confidence interval posttest m se (95% ci) 1 4.080 .118 (3.845, 4.315) 2 3.571 .147 (3.279, 3.863) 3 6.121 .132 (5.859, 6.382) 4 3.716 .163 (3.392, 4.039) 5 5.182 .135 (4.914, 5.449) the 95% confidence intervals for the posttests’ means show that all of the posttests means are significantly different from zero. figure 6 displays the estimated means of the five posttests. students’ highest score was on the third posttest when compared to the remaining four posttests. 216 beyond words figure 2. estimated means for the five standardized posttests. the fact that the five posttests were conducted over a period of 10 weeks with two weeks apart, allows for further investigation for the presence of possible significant trends in students’ scores over time. there was a significant quadratic trend (f (1, 101) = 5.107, p = .026) and order 4 trend (f (1, 101) = 19.264, p = .000). while both trends are feasibly possible to represent the fluctuation in the posttests means, order 4 appears to be the representation of that fluctuation (i.e., note the p value). the posttest means tend to decline on the second posttest, incline sharply on the third, decline again on the fourth, then moderately incline on the fifth posttest giving us the significant order 4 trend. bonferroni pairwise multiple comparisons of the posttests means gives another closer look at the posttests means’ fluctuation. table 7 presents the ten pairwise comparisons among the posttest scores with their statistical significance. eight out of the ten pairwise comparisons were large enough to be statistically significant. the largest significant difference in posttests scores was between the second and the third posttests (-2.550, with p= .000). out of the two insignificant pair wise comparisons, the smallest difference was between the second and the fourth posttests scores (-.145, with p= 1.000). table 9 bonferroni pairwise comparisons among standardized posttests posttest 2 3 4 5 1 .509* -2.041*** .364 -1.102*** 2 -2.550*** -.145 -1.611*** 3 2.405*** .939*** 4 -1.466*** note. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001. task-based language teaching 217 researcher-prepared posttests researcher similar analysis for standardized posttests is used, split-plot design, to analyze researcher-prepared posttests score. the analysis examines the effects of the three factors in the split-plot design, which are the between-groups (tblt teaching method versus traditional teaching method) factor and the within-subjects (researcher-prepared posttest1 to posttest5) factor plus controlling for a pretest as a covariate in the model. pretest effect. a between-subjects test of the pretest revealed that there was a significant effect of the pretest across the five researcher-prepared posttests (f (1, 101) = 13.611, p= .000) and effect size (2 = .119) this test infers that having the pretest in the model contributed significantly to the model and any derived conclusion from the treatment effect on researcher-prepared posttests scores is adjusted for this significant contribution of the pretest. a within-subjects test for examining if the effect of the pretest varies significantly within the five researcher-prepared posttests revealed no statistical significant for this variation (f (4, 404) = .106, p= .980) with a small effect size (2= .001). this test indicates that the pretest effect on the posttests does not vary significantly across the five posttests. both of the between and within-subjects tests suggest that the pretest significant effect on the posttests is invariant across the five posttests. these findings are similar to those obtained when using standardized posttests scores. that is the pretest does have about the same significant effect on the five posttests. treatment effect. the between-subjects test for examining the treatment effect indicated that there is a significant treatment effect on the posttests scores (f (1,101) = 24.483, p= .000) with relatively small to moderate effect size (2=0.195). students taught with tblt method on average scored (m=2.768, se= .101) higher across researcherprepared posttests than students taught with the traditional teaching method (m=2.024, se= .111). looking at the treatment effect within the five researcher-prepared posttests (withinsubjects effect) revealed a significant interaction of the treatment with the five posttests (f (4, 404) = 9.061, p= .000) with a medium to a large effect size (2= .082). table 10. researcher-prepared posttests estimated means and their standard errors treatment groups posttest 1 posttest 2 posttest 3 posttest 4 posttest 5 tblt (n = 57) m 2.247 2.691 2.382 3.260 3.261 se .149 .148 .164 .132 .127 control (n = 47) m 1.722 1.662 2.452 2.195 2.088 se .164 .163 .180 .145 .140 note. tblt= task-based language teaching figure 3 on the next page depicts the estimated means in table 10. 218 beyond words figure 3. estimated means of researcher-prepared posttests for tblt and control groups based on the estimated model, table 10 shows that the largest difference between tblt (m = 3.261, se = .127) and control (m = 2.088, se = .140) groups occurred on the fifth researcher-prepared assessment. the smallest difference was found on the third posttest where tblt students (m = 2.382, se = .164) on average scored a bit lower than control group students (m = 2.452, se = .180). the graph shows that tblt students, on average, performed better than control group students did on four of the five posttests. students from both groups scored about the same with slightly higher scores in favor of the control group on the third researcher-prepared posttest. posttest effect. as in the analysis of standardized posttests, the following shows examination of the pattern of the differences among researcher-prepared posttests regardless of the group (tblt vs. control) membership. the within-subjects test for examining the differences between the five posttests is not statistically significant indicating that, on average, students’ posttests scores did not differ significantly from one posttest to another (f (4, 404)= .341, p= .850) and a small effect size (2= .003). table 9 presents the five researcher-prepared posttests estimated means, their standard errors of estimation and the 95% confidence interval associated with each estimated mean. task-based language teaching 219 table 11 researcher-prepared posttests estimated means with their standard errors and 95% confidence interval posttest m se (95% ci) 1 1.984 .111 (1.765, 2.204) 2 2.176 .110 (1.959, 2.394) 3 2.417 .122 (2.176, 2.658) 4 2.728 .098 (2.533, 2.922) 5 2.674 .094 (2.487, 2.862) the 95% confidence intervals for the posttests mean show that all of the posttests means are significantly different from zero. figure 8 displays the estimated means of the five posttests. students’ highest score was on the third posttest when compared to the remaining four posttests. figure 4. estimated means for the five researcher-prepared posttests table 12 presents the ten pairwise comparisons among researcher-prepared posttests scores with their statistical significance. five out of the ten pairwise comparisons were large enough to be statistically significant. the largest significant difference in posttests scores was between the first and the fourth posttests (-.743, with p= .000). out of the remaining five insignificant pairwise comparisons, the smallest difference was between the fourth and the fifth posttests scores (.053, with p= 1.000). interestingly enough when the five significant contrasts depicted on the graph in figure 8, it is obvious that there is a consistent gradual pattern of significant differences. differences between the posttests start to be significant as we move from the first to the third posttests and gradually continue to be significant all the way to the fifth posttest. difference between the first and the second posttests was not large enough to be statistically significant. similar pattern inhibited in the second row of table 10, 220 beyond words where the significant differences started in comparing the second posttest with the fourth and the fifth posttests. comparison between the second and the third posttests were deemed not to be significant. such pattern does not exist when comparing the third posttest to the fourth or the fifth posttests as the means in these comparisons are from posttests either next to each other or very close. this is also true for the last comparison between the fourth and the fifth posttests. furthermore, all differences have negative values indicating that there is a gradual improvement in students’ performances over time except between the fourth and the fifth posttests where that difference was very small in magnitude yet positive value. this difference is not significant and could be an artifact of a random error in the sample. table 12. bonferroni pair wise comparisons among researcher-prepared posttests posttest 2 3 4 5 1 -.192 -.432* -.743*** -.690*** 2 -.240 -.551*** -.498*** 3 -.311 -.258 4 .053 note. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001. results of the qualitative analysis of the second research question 2. what insights and issues can be gained about implementing tblt in this research setting? observational visits to the control group. findings interpreted out of observational data associated with the control group have shown trends, attitudes, advantages, and disadvantages. one of these trends is that teaching via the traditional method is monotonous. in other words, the way the lessons were introduced, run, and assessed, students and teacher’s attitudes, difficulties, advantages, and disadvantages were pretty much similar across most of the observational visits. the monotonous nature of the traditional teaching method yielded almost similar observational notes for the students and teacher’s attitudes, difficulties, and advantages and disadvantages. students’ attitude lacked interest in the reading lessons. this interpretation is obtained from a number of responses and actions done by the students across the several visits. for examples, eyes wandering in the ceiling and sometimes yawning of students were pretty much common across most of the observational visits. in the third week, one student said quietly to his neighbor, “do we have to study this?” showing little care to be overheard by the investigator who was sitting next to them. teacher’s attitudes, on the other hand, provided another evidence of inadequacy of the traditional teaching method. the teacher was tensed with the situation when students were not paying the expected attention across most of the observed reading lessons and, hence, repeatedly asked students, in a tune that showed inconvenience, to follow with him and concentrate at the reading passage. the advantages of the traditional teaching method seemed to be far less than the observed disadvantages. one advantage of the traditional teaching method was that it was easy for the teacher to teach and enabled him to have control over class the entire duration of task-based language teaching 221 the lesson. another controversial advantage was that students were quiet across most of the lessons observed. disadvantages, on the other hand, could be seen from three main perspectives. the first one was that the traditional teaching method was highly teacher-centered. in other words, it was the teacher who did most of the work in the reading lesson. the teacher would read the passage, explain the reading passage, assign two or three students to read, give instructions to students, and read exercises and ask students to do them. the teacher alone used about 70 to 80% of time of the duration of the reading lesson. the second perspective was that the students were bored with the english language reading class. students used from 70 to 80% of time listening to their teacher while speaking. students did not have any types of activities to do during the reading lesson except the one they do individually towards the end of the lesson. the third perspective of disadvantages was that the traditional teaching method heavily relied on prompting practices. in other words, instruction and explanation were always orally by the teacher. students also did several drills to memorize the correct pronunciations of some english words. observational visits to the tblt group. findings interpreted out of observational data associated with the tblt group have shown trends, attitudes, advantages, and disadvantages. one of the trends was that teaching via the tblt method took longer time to describe. in other words, written notes about the teaching and learning situations while implementing tblt had more descriptive details. the reason behind that is that the nature of the tblt method consists of various elements that lead to more actions to take place in classroom from all parties involved in the lesson being taught. in essence, there were more things that took place while running the lesson and, hence, needed more words to describe them. another interpreted trend about the implementation of tblt was consistency. in other words, the skeleton of the reading lesson taught via tblt consisted of three main stages. the first one, pre-task, aimed at engaging students into the main goal of the lesson. the second stage, running the task, described students while they were actually doing what they were intended to do. in the third stage, task completion, students provided their teacher with a product for the purposes of assessing to what extent students had achieved the main goal of the lesson. having said that the observational data suggested consistency following the three stages of the tblt method, teaching and learning were also characterized by having a great deal of variety. in other words, various activities took place during the three fixed stages of the tblt method. for example, in a reading lesson in the second week about calvin hutt’s career life, students in the pre-task stage provided their classmates with lists of video games they were playing at home and read a passage about calvin hutt’s career life in the running task stage. students in the task completion stage imagined they were participating in a live competition show to answer a question asked by the interviewer where they told the audience (their teacher and other groups of students) as much details as they could about calvin hutt’s career life. the most prevailing trend across most of the nine observational data categories was that learning via the tblt method was learner-centered. learner-centered meant here that that the students were the central focus of instruction and students participated in creating their learning situations. to clarify this notion, a careful investigation is bestowed to the nine observational data categories. students were described or mentioned by the observer almost 222 beyond words in every cell across all columns unlike the teacher whom the observer mentioned fewer times and described in roles of being a facilitator rather than a source of instruction. in other words, students were active learners (i.e., they were discussing, negotiating, reading, and displaying their understanding of what they had been learning). this meant the learning situation via the tblt method revolved around the learners. students had realized in the first week of the study the difference occurred in the way they were taught and which appeared in one student’s comment to his group, “we are studying differently.” studying via tblt or “studying differently” had positively enhanced students’ verbal responses towards the learning situation, and which was revealed in multiple occasions across the following weeks of the study. for instances, students tended to organize themselves at the beginning of each lesson, join their groups, and show readiness to start the reading lessons without much efforts or further notices from the treatment teacher (researcher). also, the students always showed engagement in group works and enthusiastically shared their responses with their classmates. careful analysis of the two categories of observational data related to the advantages and disadvantages of the implementation of the tblt method showed that the advantages and disadvantages went along with or supported by the interpreted trends earlier. examples of advantages related to learners included; that students were very active in terms of asking questions and sharing responses, negotiation of meaning was always present among groups of students while reading passages, focus was on students since they tended to speak far more than their teacher, presence of peer or collegial learning as students learned more details about the reading passage from shared responses by groups of students, and students’ comprehension of meaning was always the ultimate aim targeted by the practices involved in the tblt lesson. interpreted advantages related to the work of the teacher were much less than the observed ones about the students. the reason was that the teacher was not the central focus or the main source of information and, hence, focus was more on the students who were making action. among the advantages that described the work of the teacher included that he was modeling the role of a facilitator as he was passing among groups providing them with guidance, monitoring group works, relaxed, and frequently used his sense of humor. disadvantages were minimal and related to the work of the teacher in the classroom rather than that of students. the most prevailing disadvantage about the implementation of the tblt method was that it was demanding on the teacher and required mental and physical attendance by the teacher. at last but not least, implementing tblt required more time and, hence, any unintended loss of time might easily lead to failure to achieve the main goal of the lesson as planned. at last, teaching via the tblt method was not easy work for the teacher and required certain skills and background about the tblt method before implementing it on the classroom, and which the treatment teacher had while he was teaching. researcher log the analysis of data collected via researcher log showed that they revolved around four categories. not surprisingly, the two most prevailing categories were about the students’ roles and attitudes in the classroom. the collected data under those two categories support the observational data interpreted under table 12 and which adds further strength to the findings. the third category was very much related to running tblt as a method of teaching with emphasis on reading comprehension in an english as a second language classroom in this research setting. the fourth category of data was related to the role and impression of the task-based language teaching 223 teacher (researcher) in the classroom while he was teaching via the tblt method in this research setting. figure 9 shows the numbers of counted key words that describe each category.1 figure 5. number of counted key words under the four categories the reasons that made students’ roles and attitudes be the two most prevailing categories in a reading lesson taught via the tblt method could be linked to the reality that they had played a central role or were the action makers during the flow of the reading lesson. data out of researcher log repeatedly described the roles of students they had been playing in the classroom. the three most frequent roles included reading, discussing, and sharing. collected data also tended to report what students had been doing in the classroom. students started every reading lesson with a group discussion, the pre-task stage, involving an activity that imitated students’ daily lives and which helped engage the students in the intended reading content. every group of students extended its work after the engaging activity to read the reading passage, group members discussed their understanding of what they had read, and formulated an agreed-upon response to share with other groups. the second half of the prevailing data was a description of students’ attitudes towards the reading lesson. the two most common words used to describe the students’ attitudes were enthusiasm and involvement. enthusiasm and involvement in this setting referred to the manner in which the students were performing the aforementioned roles (reading, discussing, and sharing). two examples derived from the raw data could give a picture of enthusiasm and involvement of students in the reading lesson. in the third week, two groups of students had an argument about who should have the turn first to start sharing their responses with other groups. the group that started first usually had the opportunity to share another time as long as the time allotted for group sharing was not consumed. the second example was about a student who actually broke the boundaries of group work in the fifth week. when the turn was for his group to share with a response, that student enthusiastically stood up and orally narrated the whole of the reading passage consuming more than the time allotted for his group. in the meantime, the teacher (researcher) tried to politely give the chance to another group but the student would not stop and continued all the way to the end of his long response. 1 figure 9 includes counted numbers of key words under each category and excludes neutral words such as articles, prepositions, and verbs to be. 224 beyond words students’ attitude towards the reading lesson taught via the tblt method was positive. interpreted data showed that they even loved and enjoyed what they were doing in the reading lesson. beside the never observed complain or lack of interests tokens that universally accompany any an undesired class by students at the age of the students participating in the study, the treatment teacher (researcher) considered an incident that had happened in the fourth week as an evidence or at least an indicator that the students loved the reading lesson taught via the tblt method. it was wednesday (the last day of school week days in saudi arabia) when the teacher (researcher), as usual after teaching students the reading class, headed towards the teachers’ office room. the counselor stopped the treatment teacher and asked him if he gave his instructions to five of the students not to participate in a tour outside the school hosted by an outsider organization. the treatment teacher told the counselor that he had not given any instructions in this regards. in the middle of that conversation, the treatment teacher was shocked out of surprise and wondered about the reason that prevented the five students from going on the tour as he knew that every student wished to participate in similar tours. the treatment teacher asked the counselor about the reason that made the students opted not participate in the tour. the counselor replied that the students said that they had had an english reading class and they did not want go on the tour. that incident was complemented by a phone call after the end of the study by the original teacher to the treatment teacher (researcher) stating that some students asked him to teach them the way the treatment teacher (researcher) was teaching them. the third category was related to the application of the tblt method in this research setting. interpreted data out of researcher log suggested some difficulties that the treatment teacher had faced when implementing the tblt method. one of those difficulties was that the students did not know the meaning or not used to group work. at the beginning, students were sitting in groups but working individually which made the treatment teacher correct that at once explaining duties and expectations out of group work. another difficulty, which might be a consequence of the first one, was the existence of minimal side talks (not related to the lesson at hand) among some students at the beginning of the study. however, as the study progressed and students understood the meaning of group work, those minimal side talks started to vanish. the last difficulty was related to the challenge of time. time was congesting and reading lessons taught in this study tended to finish exactly by the end of the allotted duration of time and sometime a minute or two minutes were to be borrowed from the breaks following the lessons. that warned that any unintended loss of time might severely prevent students from achieving the goal of the lesson as planned. the fourth category was related to the teacher’s (researcher) role and impression in this research setting. interpreted data out of researcher log showed that the treatment teacher (researcher) had described what he was doing in every class he had taught. the way he was teaching was consistent across all lessons and strictly followed the principles of the tblt method he was implementing including the three stages of a tblt lesson (pre-task, running the task, and task completion). the treatment teacher precisely followed the lesson plans he designed for every reading lesson class. to engage students in the main task of the lesson, those lessons tended to start with group activities that were derived from students’ daily lives while ensuring the achievement of the main goal of the lesson (running the task) was through a retelling activity that too imitated students’ real lives. the teacher’s (researcher) impression showed always satisfaction about the way he taught and the way students were task-based language teaching 225 working in the classroom. however, a couple of times the tblt teacher mentioned that he was exhausted and that might be linked to the continuous physical motion the treatment teacher was doing while passing among groups and paying attention to groups’ discussions as well as participating with them. discussion both the quantitative and qualitative analyses provided detailed description of the analysis and the findings of the study. while each analysis revealed specific findings that were related to the nature of the data collection tools used to answer one of the two research questions, this discussion attempts to combine findings of both quantitatively and qualitatively collected data to provide a full or complete picture about the findings of the study. the overall of the statistical analyses of the quantitatively collected data provided valuable findings to answer the first research question. the major finding that explicitly answered this question was: yes, the application of the tblt method for teaching english as a second language for male, third-grade students in intermediate schools in saudi arabia was more effective in the acquisition of the english language, in terms of students’ achievement on reading comprehension, than using the traditional “prompting” method. in other words, the application of tblt method in this research setting helped increase the students’ achievement scores in reading comprehension. that major finding was statistically reported by two sources of data (researcher-prepared assessments and standardized text-established tests), and which even increased the validity of the findings. the pretest results also showed that students were equal across the control and treatment groups eliminating the possibility for effect of initial level of the english language reading comprehension before the application of the tblt method. the average scores of both types of posttests (researcherprepared assessment and standardized text-established tests) of the control and treatment groups were highly significant in favor of the treatment group. qualitatively collected data on the other hand greatly helped describe and explain the surroundings of the application of the tblt method in this research setting. because neither group knew their group identification (treatment or control) nor knew the way they were going to be taught before the beginning of the study, this study assumes that students in both groups have a very low level of possibility to form a prejudice that might interact with their attitudes towards the learning situations. hence, the interpreted qualitative data showed that teaching via the tblt method in this research setting helped students develop desired attitudes towards the learning situations, unlike the traditional teaching method that showed that students had developed undesired attitudes towards the learning situations as elaborately explained under the analyses of the qualitative data. another vital finding interpreted from the qualitative data was that teaching via the tblt method required both of the students and their teacher to play roles or involve in practices that went along with the practices of the constructivist learning theory, unlike the traditional teaching method which involved practices and roles of students and their teacher that went along with the behaviorist learning theory. interpreted quantitative and qualitative data when combined showed that they had provided support and evidences for the findings suggested by each set of data. in other words, qualitative findings that suggested that the tblt method had helped the students in the treatment group develop desired attitudes towards the learning situations were supported by the quantitative findings that showed that the tblt method had also helped students 226 beyond words increase their achievement scores in reading comprehension of the english language. also, the quantitative findings that showed that the traditional teaching method did not help students in the control group increase their achievement scores in reading comprehension as compared to that of the tblt method were supported by the qualitative findings that showed that the traditional teaching method also did not help the students develop desired attitudes towards the learning situations as that of the tblt method. conclusion the study has strived to find out whether or not the tblt method can help the students better acquire the english language through increasing their achievement scores on reading comprehension and also seek for insights or issues that can be gained about implementing the tblt method in this research setting. literature reviewed has shown that the tblt method is theoretically framed by the constructivist learning theory. the study has examined the effect of tblt on reading comprehension in two intermediate schools in saudi arabia through a time frame of ten weeks. the treatment group is compared to the control group on the outcome after controlling for the students’ preexisting knowledge of the english language as a covariate. findings out of the pre-test have shown that students in both of the treatment and control groups are equal in terms of their prior knowledge of reading comprehension of the english language. findings out of the posttests have shown that students in the treatment group have scored significantly higher than those in the control group. findings out of the qualitative data have shown that the tblt method has helped students develop desired attitudes towards the learning situations and has involved practices and roles of students and their 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(2009). research methods in education: an introduction (9th ed.). new york, ny: library of congress 88 second language writing instruction beyond words vol.4, no.2, november 2016 second language writing instruction: teaching writing to english language learners aseel kanakri ph.d. candidate & graduate assistant college of education kent state university ohio. u.s.a. abstract this article discusses the academic writing challenges and needs of english as second language (esl) students. specifically, it aims at in-depth understanding of the needs of esl students in academic environments with regards to academic writing across the disciplines. it also elaborates on the role of genre study (theory) in helping esl students overcome their challenges and meet the requirements of their academic disciplines. this article calls for the importance of understanding esl student’ needs and challenges which can help in developing better instruction, dictate the curriculum, and provide a systematic support for these students to succeed and complete their degrees. keywords: second language academic writing; academic writing instruction; challenges and needs; genre study; genre theory. introduction according to the institute of international education, the number of international students enrolled in u.s. higher education increased by eight percent in 2013/14 to reach 886,052 students, with 66,408 more students than in 2012 enrolled in colleges and universities across the united states. these students come to the united states to pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in various academic disciplines. to be successful members of the academic communities of their disciplines, these students must learn and understand the norms, standards, and procedures of academic writing in their field of study. hyland (2006) notes that to successfully participate in a community, students must learn to communicate in a manner that is approved and accepted by that group. academic writing in most universities is the primary tool to assess and evaluate students’ demonstration and understanding of their fields. it is also used as a means to keep track of students’ progress (hyland, 2006). if writing holds such great importance for students in all disciplines, writing academically for english as a second language learners (esl) is even more challenging since these students come from non-english speaking countries to study in “english dominant” universities. esl students “must learn about the ways in which individuals think about and use language within an academic setting which generally fall under the rubric of academic discourse” (de poel & gasiorek, 2012, p.295). esl students come from a variety of linguistic, cultural and educational backgrounds which suggests that these students may have varying needs and could face different challenges before they could succeed in their academics since “the nature and functions of discourse, audiences, and persuasive appeals often differ across linguistic, cultural, and educational contexts” (cccc statement, 2001, p. 670). therefore, l2 learners should acquire the standards, conventions, lexicon, and the rhetorical structures of their disciplines in order to succeed and avoid being excluded second language writing instruction 89 from that discourse community and disciplinary knowledge. these students are expected to master the writing of formal essays, critiques, formal reflections, and research article, all of which are required in courses across the curriculum in u.s. institutions of higher education (hinkel, 2002, 2004, 2015; hyland, 2002; 2004). therefore, it is crucial for institutions and educators to identify the academic writing challenges and needs of esl students in order to help in developing better instruction and provide a systematic support for these students to succeed and complete their degrees. thus, this article aims at in-depth understanding of the needs of esl students in academic environments with regards to academic writing across the disciplines. academic writing nature academic writing is understood by many scholars as the ability of second language writers to write in academic contexts by applying academic writing conventions, rhetorical structures, lexicon, and standards of academic writing in u.s. institutions of higher education (casanave, 2002; hinkel, 2002, 2003,2004; hyland, 2002). therefore, for esl students to be successful in their disciplines, it is very important that students learn and master the linguistic and rhetorical forms of writing within the specific academic genres in their disciplines. one way to achieve this goal is through formal instruction of these conventions in the context of academic writing courses in colleges and universities. through formal instruction in these classes, students learn the conventions of different academic genres such as reflections, reports, and research article, persuasive and argumentative essays. the role of the teacher here is very important as these students need as much support as they can get to help them acquire and apply these new and unfamiliar conventions to their writing in order to be successful in academia and be part of their respective discourse communities (ferris & hedgcock, 2004; lillis & turner, 2001). many researchers suggest thinking of students’ needs beyond the linguistic boundaries and taking into account the sociocultural stance of academic literacy (hyland, 2002, 2006; ivanic and weldon, 1999; norton, 1997). what these researchers suggest is that academic writing is more than the conveying of content, it also carries a representation of the writer's’ identity, perspectives and thoughts. considering this dimension provides students with the ability to construct their own representation that is socially acceptable in their own community of practice and becomes part of the academic discourse and knowledge. moreover, hyland (2002) argues that writers “have to select their words so that the readers are drawn in, influenced and persuaded” (p.1093) and should also show “authoritativeness” of the written text in different disciplines. in order for these students to speak with authority, they have to use different and new identities, voices and adopt the beliefs, values, and language of their disciplinary community. for students to be part of their communities, they also have to understand and acquire knowledge and competence about the “discursive practices” and the expectations of different academic disciplines (hyland, 2004). in fact, this entails the need for students to have new perspectives and relate the knowledge of their disciplinary communities in different ways. academic writing then requires not 90 second language writing instruction only understanding of the conventions and the rhetorical structures of students’ disciplines but also knowledge about the language structure and the terminology used in that discipline which in turn requires different identities and ways of selfrepresentation (bruce, 2008; hyland, 2004; russell, 2002). while this may apply to native speakers studying in different disciplines, it represents a huge challenge since esl students come from different cultures, with different linguistic knowledge and conventions of writing. research shows that second language writers always negotiate their background knowledge--cultural, linguistic knowledge--and their l1 conventions with the nature, goals, and expectations of academic writing in l2 (csizer & dornyei, 2005; leki, cumming, & silva, 2008). this finding suggests the need for teachers to understand and focus on the individual characteristics of their students so they can help them acquire the conventions of l2 to improve their academic writing in different disciplines. some of these characteristics are prior knowledge, purpose of learning, motivation for learning, the culture they come from, and their proficiency in l2. considering these variables, teachers may locate problems facing students in their academic writing and understand where they come from since every esl writer has his/her own perception and understanding of what academic writing is since they are used to different systems of thinking and different styles of writing. many researchers emphasize the importance of understanding the goals and motivation of students in becoming part of their disciplinary communities (baldwin, 2001; hornberger, 2003). realizing the importance of considering l2 writers’ characteristics advances our understanding of the nature of academic writing. academic writing as a complex highly specialized cultural and linguistic system can simply be understood not only by considering the linguistic and disciplinary knowledge, but also by considering the interaction between the second language writer and the sociocultural environment/system where academic writing happens and how they make meaning of it (mahn, 2008; yang, baba, & cumming, 2004). esl researchers like matsuda (2003) and mahn (2008) show that thinking about academic writing as a continuous interaction between second language learners and the academic context leads to “qualitative transformation” of the l2 writer and academic writing itself as a process the happens at the same time. this suggests that second language academic writing is not a form of reproduction and imitation of the rhetorical conventions of a specific discipline, but it is an active ongoing process between esl writers and the l2 academic writing using different cultural, social, and individual characteristics which intersect and change over time (cumming, busch and zhou, 2002). recently, there seems to be an increased interest shift from the undergraduate student writing to the graduate student writing. these students may experience different threats to their identities because they are not only asked to understand the rhetorical, linguistic and cultural conventions of their disciplinary communities, but also expected to write theses and dissertations, conference proposals and book reviews, publish article, and work collaboratively on research with faculty and other graduate students. research has found that esl graduate students have identity conflicts due to their disciplinary experience in their l1. they face difficulties with the second language writing instruction 91 new language, styles of writing, and culture, and it becomes hard for them to express all this knowledge in writing in english (casanave & hubbard, 1992; connor & kramer, 1995; leki, 2006; raymond & parks, 2002). research shows that masters students regard themselves as beginners in the field, rely mainly on grades and do rarely see themselves as part of a community of practice (casanave, 2002) compared to phd students who are usually required to know the literacy practices that govern their disciplines (belcher, 1995; cadman, 1997). some studies further show graduate students either do not take academic writing classes or just take general-focus l2 writing courses. even for these general classes, esl graduate students maintain that these courses do not support their learning and even at times conflict with the needed disciplinary practices (hansen, 2000; schneider & fujishima, 1995). other studies show l2 graduate academic writers’ success only when professors believe the fact that these students will not simply align with themselves to the standards of the disciplines, but rather alter and shape it with the rich cultural background knowledge they are bringing to this discipline (see belcher, 1997; casanave, 2002). more research was concerned with the relationship between students and their academic advisors. this kind of research revealed that l2 students were disadvantaged by not getting opportunities to work with advisors on publications because of their lack of experience in academic writing and therefore preventing these students from participating in the larger disciplinary community and establish their professional presence (see dong, 1998; tardy, 2005). another graduate writers’ success was found when students collaborate with peers and mentors especially when working on publications across linguistic and cultural boundaries to expand the “center-based knowledge” from their own perspectives (cho, 2004). the research suggests that there should be more research to study in-depth the nature of the relation between graduate students and their mentors (advisors), and their negotiation of their social responsibilities in terms of academic and scholarly writing. understanding this kind of interaction will help educators and teachers get a closer look at the needs and challenges of second language writers and guide future research to empirical research that looks for suggestions and recommendations for meet these challenges and needs. second language academic writing instruction to help l2 learners improve their academic writing skills, educators and scholars should first consider what is valued and not valued in their disciplines in colleges and universities, and what the professors’ expectations are. and then the educators and scholars should have a deeper understanding of the students’ challenges based on empirical research so that they can recommend practical solutions for the students to overcome their academic writing challenges. three broad-based reports from studies conducted by hale et al., (1996); the (icas) intersegmental california academic senate, (2002); and rosenfeld, courtney, and fowles, (2004) investigate the academic written assignment required of students in different academic disciplines such as humanities, fine arts, engineering, science, and general education majors. these studies investigated eight american and canadian universities, 33 universities and 109 community colleges in california, and 33 92 second language writing instruction u.s. universities respectively. the first study (hale et al., 1996) surveyed the academic writing tasks required from students in different disciplines such as english, chemistry, history, and computer science, while the second study (icas, 2002) focused on the characteristics of academic writing ability necessary for postsecondary students in california. the third study investigated the kind of academic tasks and their specific rhetorical structure that are needed for students in different disciplines. the findings reveal some recurring themes placing the content knowledge and the language used in their disciplines as a priority. students should show grammar competence, complex sentence structures, development of academic vocabulary and punctuation conventions (hinkel, 2015). the second theme is that the written work of the students was seen as a reflection of the students’ mastery and understanding of the course material. in addition, there seemed to be a clear focus on the quality of the written product including content organization, grammatical accuracy and the use of academic vocabulary. the need for such reports is of high importance as research shows that a majority of undergraduate and many graduate students in u.s. colleges and universities are poorly prepared for their academic writing tasks in their disciplines including native speakers and second language writers (hinkel, 2015). these kinds of reports will guide the forms of instructions and practices needed and recommend what should be included in the curriculum for successful academic writing. the findings of the reports discussed above express the need for direct and explicit instruction in academic english to increase l2 students’ awareness of the rhetorical structures, language expectations and different modes of their disciplines (hinkel, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2015; schleppegrell, 2004; silva, 1993). from the findings of the faculty surveys, the instructors’ practices besides the curriculum should fulfill the need of l2 writers with the academic vocabulary and grammatical structures needed by these students to be able to make meaning and interpret knowledge in their different disciplines. they also suggest that students learn the “discourse organization skills” and the ability to organize the ideas in a clear systematic way since each discipline has its own structure for formal academic writing. other areas that need to be addressed are editing skills to overcome at least the punctuation and spelling errors. the research conducted after these reports about l2 writers’ challenges and needs suggests or uncovers that little seems to have changed in academic writing in the disciplinary courses (see hedgcock, 2005; hinkel, 2009, 2011; nation, 2005, 2011, 2013, song, 2006). song (2006) investigated the effectiveness of contentbased language instruction on freshman esl undergraduate students’ academic writing performance on the long term. he sought to find out whether this kind of instruction helps students to overcome challenges they had in their academic writing. song found out that most of the challenges are mainly because of limited knowledge of the target language (academic terminology), lack of interest, and undeveloped l1 reading and writing skills. the study compared content-linked esl students’ academic achievement with that of non-content-linked esl students. students were asked to expand the writing they did for their classes from their disciplines drawing on material and content and apply what they learned from the esl class, including linguistic and rhetorical conventions for academic writing. findings second language writing instruction 93 from this study and similar studies (see kasper, 1997; murie & thomson, 2001) show that esl students in the content linked esl program performed significantly better than the non-content linked group. the researcher noted that the improvement of these students’ academic writing proficiency, which may also be used to overcome the challenges of the other students, is due to the collaborative nature of the program that supports these students by providing counseling, tutoring, and conferencing. an important implication from this study is that esl students need not only academic proficiency but also the available services that could help them be integrated in the academic community. this study also calls for teachers to have awareness of students’ need for more support to discuss the issues that esl writers face in their writing assignments, and understand students’ needs and problems more and in detail. the importance of instructors’ support was also emphasized and proved to help second language writers improve their academic writing skills and performance (storch, 2009). in her study, storch investigated l2 developments in reading and writing of 25 esl students after a semester of study. the findings claimed improvement in the students’ academic writing skills in terms of structure and content development; that is, in presenting more well-developed and coherent arguments, and more appropriate conclusions. these improvements are important because they are elements of good academic writing and express what is expected from students to acquire in their different academic disciplines (leki, 2007; storch & tapper, 2000). storch’s study found that esl students do not know how to cite and quote sources in a correct way and that they seem not to elaborate on or add to these sources, which suggests an issue of voice and the ongoing concerns about plagiarism in academic writing. these problems may have resulted from the lack of feedback and the limited time of the study, which was only one semester. nation (2008) maintains that one important method in helping l2 students learn the rhetorical organization and content development of their disciplines is for students to read like writers. reading like writers requires a close examination and careful analysis of the text features and the way it is organized. however, hinkel (2015) clarifies that for this analysis to be successful “the curriculum and instruction need to focus on the valued features of coherent and accurate prose and how it is constructed. it is difficult to learn writing without a clear understanding of the structure of writing, information sequencing, and key points” (p.73). another method that is suggested by many researchers to help l2 writers acquire the discourse conventions is by using models (bruce, 2008; hyland, 2003, 2006; leki, 1995; macbeth, 2010). macbeth (2010) for example examined the usefulness of using models with her 19 undergraduate english language learners in their first quarter of college in an intermediate-level esl composition course over a 10-week period. the students were asked to write an essay discussing the differences and similarities in two articles after analyzing several sample essays (on different topics) and examining a template of rhetorical moves common to the comparison and contrast essays. the researcher found that models “offered students something they could do to turn in an assignment on time” and not something they can rely on but rather as a starting point to display basic 94 second language writing instruction principles they should lead to shape a more sophisticated academic writing prose. it was also found that analyzing the model and identifying its insufficiencies were important to the students’ development of competent academic writing. these findings were similar to the findings by leki (1995, 2007). both studies confirm the importance of models and offer l2 writers with very clear guidelines about the writing style, the text structure, and the audience. it’s also safe to assume that it increases the student’s awareness of the appropriate language and vocabulary expected in different disciplines. this approach can play an important role in decreasing the challenges l2 academic writers face in many different ways. one reason that the academic discourse properties are difficult for esl writers to attain is that they represent “culturally bound, conventionalized, and abstract characteristics of academic prose that are frequently absent in written discourse in rhetorical traditions other than the english dominant educational environments (hinkel, 1999a, 2014, 2015). this entails the need of esl writers for a deep understanding of the l2 academic culture including the text’s linguistic features, purpose, audience, text organization, and clarity of ideas and support of main ideas. all these elements increase l2 writers’ awareness of these structures and develop the communicative skills necessary for students to participate in particular academic discourses (hyland & hamp-lyons, 2002). negotiating and understanding the requirements of academic discourse can have important consequences for second language academic writers. by getting this kind of required genre awareness, students will not just imitate and copy a style of writing given to them as a model, but they will also be able to start developing a type of ownership and authority of the written form through multiple voices and identities in academic writing (canagarajah, 2001). another need suggested by the research is the need for collaboration between disciplinary specialists, writing specialists, teachers and students. this shows that academic writing in a second language is a socio-cultural journey where experts and educators can work together and identify students’ needs in order to address these needs and challenges in the curriculum. in addition, research shows that feedback and student conferencing play an important role to negotiate students’ use of lexical phrases, meaning, and strategies. studies show that feedback and conferencing not only lead to improved grammatical accuracy (ferris, 2003; polio, fleck, & leder, 1998) but also lead to improvement in lexical complexity (e.g., leki, 2007; storch & tapper, 2007). other needs include the students’ need to know what kind of support and resources are offered to them. it is also worth mentioning here that besides all the previously discussed needs by both undergraduate and graduate students, there seems to be a recent increased attention to l2 students’ needs for thesis and dissertation writing preparation in addition to scholarly writing for the purpose of publication. genre study genre study advocates the explicit study of the conventions and expectations of the target discourse community that students belong to (brick, 2012; casanave, 1995, 2002; hammond & derewianka, 2011; hyland, 2002, 2004; johns, 1997, 2002, 2003; prior, 1995, 1998; swales, 1990; swales & feak, 2004). those who work second language writing instruction 95 with genre analysis believe that the close examination and analysis of texts can provide students with the structures and features for writing in their specific disciplines. in addition, genre study assists students with the contexts and functions these features and structures serve for discourse communities and shows the importance of cultural and social contexts of language use (hammond & derewianka, 2011; swales, 1998). hyland (2004) refers to genre analysis as a ‘‘visible pedagogy’’ (p.8) as students are supposed to apply the findings of genre analysis to specific language use and therefore to production and independent construction. there are three approaches to genre analysis: english for specific purposes whose scholars draw on work from the field in which the discourse analysis aims at helping students recognize the language patterns they will encounter in their academic disciplines (swales, 1990, 1998; bhatia, 1993). the main focus is to identify the “communicative purpose and formal language features of genres in these contexts” (hammond & derewianka, 2011, p. 186). second is the work of new rhetoric on genre. the emphasis here lies in getting more in-depth understanding of the social and cultural contexts where different genres occur and the social purposes these genres serve or are used for (hyon, 1996). the third approach to genre studies is the systemic functional linguistics, which was developed in australia and incorporates many features that shape this approach (halliday, 1994; halliday & hasan, 1985). hammond and derewianka (2011) summarize these features as “a focus on the interrelationship between language text and the context in which those texts occur; analytic tools deriving from the description of discourse and language resources of english and an emphasis on the interrelationship between spoken and written modes of english” (p.187). these features assist l2 writers to predict the language patterns governed by specific social functions in different disciplines. this will facilitate identifying how academic texts are organized and what makes them coherent. this model suggests that esl students should first develop content knowledge, and then talk about the content using the structure discussed above. all these approaches suggest that programs should incorporate not only the teaching of text structure and organization of different genres, but also the relationship between these structures and the social functions they serve in different discourse communities. most research associated with genre theory/study focuses on the teaching practices and pedagogies since the main concern of genre study is to identify and analyze formal features of academic texts which suggests explicit type of instruction (casanave, 2004; hyland, 2003, 2006; hyon, 1996). therefore, the main focus on research is how genre study can help esl writers overcome the challenges and meet the requirements and expectations of their different disciplinary communities and what practices teachers and educators should implement or take into consideration to achieve these needs and goals. in an attempt to address the challenges faced by esl novice and more experienced academic writers to start writing academic articles, swales (1990) developed cars (create a research space) model after extensive analysis of examples of academic articles expressing the steps and strategies to write and organize an introduction of academic articles. with this model swales implies that for identifying the formal 96 second language writing instruction features of texts in various disciplines, he would argue for a pedagogy that values ‘‘explicitness over exploration and discovery’’ (p. 82). bhatia (1993, 1997) influenced by the work of swales later on also developed a model to discuss the steps necessary for any student to understand the genre they are studying. this model, which was developed by taking into consideration the interests of esl students, finds out that the communicative purpose is of crucial importance for the analysis of any genre in any discipline. bhatia’s argument shows that genre is learned by participating in the activities of the target community. in other words, learning a genre is contextual emphasizing the engagement of students in discourse communities and not only a textual kind of engagement (casanave, 1995, 2002; johns, 2002; tardy, 2006). analyzing and teaching the genre is descriptive in nature and not prescriptive. a descriptive approach to genre study implies that what all students have to do to understand the genre in their disciplines and produce good academic articles is to simply study the basic textual features and structures. this suggests that genre is about teaching fixed patterns of forms while it should be regarded as tendencies that “encourage students to understand the choices they make in the production of particular texts so they draw on this information for their own rhetorical and communicative purposes” (paltridge, 2012, p.181). genre teaching practices. as mentioned above, the genre-based approach implements tasks that encourage students to explore the cultural context of their disciplines; it helps l2 writers understand the relationship between the genre and the cultural context where specific genres are used. these tasks serve as an eye-opener to consider writing as multi-dimensional, “where the processes involved and the features of the text produced are very much shaped by sociocultural norms and interpersonal relationships within the context in which the writing takes place” (storch, 2009). one task recommended by swales (1990a) is to ask eap (english for academic purposes) students to interview experts from their different disciplines to get a clear picture of their interest, concerns, and expectations. this way, esl students will be able to understand the expectations from their disciplines and get better understanding of the requirements for becoming a successful member of that specific discourse community. another task is to analyze the target situation. these kinds of tasks require cooperation between the teacher and student to identify the language demands relevant to students’ needs and goals. research has showed that second language writers face a challenge to establish an “authorial” identity or voice in their disciplines since each discipline has its own way and structure to show authority and voice; what is appropriate in one discipline may not be so in another. one example is the use of selfmention and hedges (see brick, 2012; hyland, 2001, 2002, 2005). some students believe that it is not acceptable to incorporate self-reference in academic writing while it is used but for different functions in some disciplines. using hedges is another problem facing l2 writers; students might not only lack the knowledge of how to use them but also may not understand their use when they read. therefore, assisting students in understanding the function of these structures and noticing their different uses can help students develop an appropriate second language writing instruction 97 voice and authorial identity in their writing (brick, 2012). analyzing models of specific genres is also an example of other teaching practice tasks associated specifically with the systemic functional linguistics. this kind of tasks gives esl writers the opportunity to closely analyze texts and identify the rhetorical features and understand the features they will incorporate later when they perform academic writing in their disciplines (bhatia, 1997; christie, 1995a).this also entails that teachers and students work together to write a sample of a specific genre following the analysis of the model and supported by the teacher. getting support and feedback from teachers is crucial here as it may play an important role in increasing the students’ confidence and helping them to be successful when they start writing independently (cope & kalantzis, 1993). teachers can also utilize the models to help l2 writers overcome the problem of citation practices and plagiarism (chandrasoma, thomson, & pennycook, 2004; sapp, 2002; sutherland-smith, 2004). after raising students’ consciousness and recognition on how to establish voice and identity in different disciplines, the teacher can also emphasize the importance and different citation practices by identifying these structures in the model text and later experiment with these in their own academic writing. identification of grammatical structure also seems to be a common type of task in genre-based approach. a great deal of research determined the importance of grammar and lexical instruction for second language academic writers (christie & derewianka, 2008; ferris, 2011; kaplan, 2005). these studies found that the grammatical and lexical structures used in the writing, and how and why they were used can change the text’s structure, cohesion, clarity, and communicative purposes. therefore, it is very important for l2 writers who find learning grammatical structures challenging to study and apply in their disciplinary writing to learn the specific grammatical and lexical structures used in their discourse community. the genre-based approach helps esl students identify and focus on the grammatical patterns and how they vary between genres (hammond & derewianka, 2011). it seems very important to address all these needs and tasks in the curriculum and instruction of esl students. curriculum designed based on genre-based approaches should be able not only to develop the ability of students to write a text by recognizing linguistic features and organization, but also to understand values and attitudes of the particular discourse community. even though there is a constant debate about the explicit pedagogy of genre teaching and the most effective way to help students develop knowledge about language, genre theorists believe that language is a system of making meaning-what halliday calls “a social semiotic system”--governed by the social and cultural conventions. © aseel kanakri 2016 suggested reference format to cite this article: kanakri, a. (2016, november). second language writing instruction: teaching writing to english language learners. beyond words, 4(2), 88-101. retrieved from http://journal.wima.ac.id/index.php/bw 98 second language writing instruction aseel kanakri is a ph.d. candidate and a graduate assistant at the college of education at kent state university, ohio. she specializes in curriculum and instruction and teaching english as a second language (tesol). she has a master’s degree in rhetoric and composition from the university of akron. she is also a senior lecturer of english at the university of akron. her research interests are esl, curriculum & instruction and literacy studies. email: akanakri@kent.edu references belcher, d. (1995). writing critically across the curriculum. in d. belcher & g. braine (eds.), academic writing in second language (pp.135-154). norwood, nj: ablex. belcher, d. 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(2004). chinese and three japanese adult learners of english. writing and vocabulary in foreign language acquisition, 4, 13. http://h/ beyond words, vol. 4, no. 2, november 2016 corpus-based websites to promote learner autonomy in correcting writing collocation errors pham thuy dung phamthuydung@ftu.edu.vn faculty of business english foreign trade university hanoi, vietnam abstract the recent yet powerful emergence of e-learning and using online resources in learning efl (english as a foreign language) has helped promote learner autonomy in language acquisition including selfcorrecting their mistakes. this pilot study despite conducted on a modest sample of 25 second year students majoring in business english at hanoi foreign trade university is an initial attempt to investigate the feasibility of using corpus-based websites to promote learner autonomy in correcting collocation errors in efl writing. the data is collected using a pre-questionnaire and a post-interview aiming to find out the participants’ change in belief and attitude toward learner autonomy in collocation errors in writing, the extent of their success in using the corpus-based websites to self-correct the errors and the change in their confidence in self-correcting the errors using the websites. the findings show that a significant majority of students have shifted their belief and attitude toward a more autonomous mode of learning, enjoyed a fair success of using the websites to self-correct the errors and become more confident. the study also yields an implication that a face-to-face training of how to use these online tools is vital to the later confidence and success of the learners. key words: corpus-based websites, collocation errors in efl writing, learner autonomy introduction collocations, “a combination of words in a language, that happens very often and more frequently than would happen by chance” (oxford learners’ dictionaries), have long been considered a challenge efl learners face in language production (both spoken and written). even competent learners still make collocation errors (altenberg & granger, 2001; nesselhauf, 2003, cited in hinkel, 2011). this is because collocation acquisition requires “some constraints that are completely unmarked for non-natives unless they are aware” (lombard, 1997: 4, cited in pei, 2008). the vital role of using collocations properly in efl learning has been well-documented in previous studies which shared a similar conclusion that collocation competence is particularly significant in helping efl learners communicate more effectively (e.g to produce more fluent and natural language discourse) “coming close to that of a native speaker” (mccarthy, 1990; ellis, 1996; lewis, 1997; produromou, 2003 (cited in ebrahimibazzaz et al., 2015)). it is therefore without surprise that ample past research has focused their attention on finding efl learners’ collocation errors and suggesting solutions to support the collocation acquisition (lombard, 145 corpus-based websites to promote learner autonomy 1997; altenberg & granger, 2001; nesselhauf, 2003). whilst research on collocation errors is not a new topic for discussion, literature shows that study on learner autonomy in correcting collocation errors remains underresearched. given that writing is the area where language learners may frequently make collocation errors (darvishi, 2011) where they need to learn autonomously (kulsirisawad, 2012), finding out the measures to be taken for learners to self-correct collocation errors in writing is without doubt of an urgent essence. the recent yet powerful emergence of e-learning and using online resources in learning efl has helped promote learner autonomy in language acquisition including self-correcting their mistakes. one of which is corpora embedded in certain websites such as www.netspeak.org/, and linggle.com/# which allow users to search for collocations and how common they are used in a large corpus of various authentic sources of language. past research, nevertheless, suggests that these useful resources are far from familiar to efl learners the majority of whom still rely on teachers for spotting and correcting errors, and that teachers are used to doing this jobs, especially in writing classes (william, 2003; lee, 2003). this is perhaps the case of students and teachers of faculty of business english, foreign trade university. the researcher has been teaching academic writing courses for students of the faculty for almost 3 years and she recently found that underlining and correcting students’ collocation errors in their essays are her mustdo jobs. she also came to the realization that doing this met the expectation of her students who would dependently come to ask her for what problems with the chunk they made and how to rectify the error right after they received the essay back from her. it is therefore vital to have insights into the feasibility of using corpus-based websites to promote learner autonomy in correcting collocation errors in writing of the students. the recent participation of the researcher in a tesol talk event organized by rmit and acet vietnam in hanoi has in fact helped generate ideas of using websites to promote learner autonomy in collocation selfcorrection. literature review a very recent and remarkable attempt to uncover the feasibility of using collocation tools in second language writing is the study by nurmukhamedov in 2015 that examined the effect of three collocation tools (two online namely the longman dictionary of contemporary english and macmillan collocation dictionary and one paper: wordandphrase.info on accurate production of collocations in l2 writing of 45 students taking an intensive english program (iep) in the southwestern part of the usa. after being trained to use the collocation tools, the students were asked to use the tools to correct 16 miscollocations (8 verb + noun; 8 adjective + noun) embedded in an essay-format collocation test. one of the important findings of the study is that although the level of effectiveness when using 3 different sources of collocation reference is not similar, the participants all showed more preference towards online tools as these are more time corpus-based websites to promote learner autonomy 146 http://www.netspeak.org/ http://linggle.com/ saving and help the students better locate the correct collocations. collocation in second language writing the word collocation originated from a latin word named ‘collocare’ which means to ‘set in order’ or ‘to arrange’ (martynska, 2004: 2, cited in ridha & riyahi, 2011). although scholars have attempted to define collocation from a number of perspectives ranging from morphology (nation, 1990, cited in yumanee & phoocharoensil, 2013) where “col-“ means “together’, ‘with’; -locmeans “to place or put’’; -ate is a verb suffix, and ion is a noun suffix to syntax (mccarthy & o’dell, 2005: 5, cited in yumanee & phoocharoensil, 2013) as the syntagmatic relationships between words e.g. rotten+food=rotten food; putrid + fish =putrid fish; rancid + butter=rancid butter etc., agreement seemed to be reached on what is generally meant by collocation. researchers have all came to the same idea that collocation refers to the co-occurrence of lexical items with high chances rather than random frequency (hill, 2000; li, n.d; j.r. nattinger & j.s. decarrico, 1992; j. sinclair, 1991, cited in hatami, 2015). in the same light, collocation in this study is understood as the combination of two or more words which are likely to be put together according to the common practice made by native speakers of the english language. in writing in a second language (l2), using collocation properly is considered a challenging task even to students fluent in speaking, listening and reading. this is because using collocations require an in-depth understanding of the native speakers’ common norms and practice of combining words into chunks, which may go beyond the basic knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. approaches to correcting collocation errors providing feedback is undoubtedly one of the most important jobs of a teacher who wishes to help students with the errors they make and help improve the students’ performance. among four language macro-skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing, writing together with speaking are two most essential areas where feedback plays vital roles. although there remain disputes over the necessity of teacher’s feedback in writing, past research show that feedback in writing help enhance the development and confidence as a writer of students (peterson, 2010). there are generally two types of teacher’s feedback namely direct and indirect. while the former refers to a combined job of teachers who do not only point out learners’ errors but also provide a particular correction, the latter is the type supplied when the teachers just simply mark the errors without suggesting any alternatives to replace the erroneous words and phrases (jafarpour & sharifi, 2012). in english writing classrooms, writing teachers commonly use direct feedback (williams, 2003). lee (2003) claimed that most writing teachers corrected student’ essays because they felt that it was their duty to mark and correct all students’ errors and previous studies have also shown that “learners expect accurate correction of writing assignments by teachers” (jennings, 2008). the underlying reason of this approach can perhaps be traced back to teacher-centred learning where teachers are supposed to be the transmitter of knowledge and students are the receivers whose job is to copy down the correction passively (kulsirisawad, 2012). jafarpour & sharifi (2012) also further argued that some teachers tend to give very detailed 147 corpus-based websites to promote learner autonomy indirect feedback by coding mistakes to indicate the precise location as well as the type of error, while others provide encoded feedback with the location in the paper without any suggestion about the type, which leaves the task of errors correction to the learners. indirect feedback thus may be of a greater help than direct type in “activating writers to pass from composing processes to the final written product” (keh, 1990, cited in jafarpour & sharifi, 2012). online corpora corpus, as a large database of texts, has been shown effective in “draw learners’ attention to word patterns, collocation information, and contextual environments … and increase learners’ depth of vocabulary knowledge” (lai, 2015). being aware of the role of language corpora, a substantial number of websites have taken advantage of corpus and used concordance software to extract instances of a specific search word or search phrase from a corpus and present these instances in their immediate linguistic context. the output is referred to as a concordance and can be used by language learners, as conroy (2010) claimed, to learn about specific grammatical and lexical patterns in the l2 in a form of data-driven learning (cobb, 1997; gaskell & cobb, 2004; johns, 1994; kaur & hegelheimer, 2005; milton, 2006; shei,2008a, 2008b; sun, 2003; todd, 2001). according to kaur and hegelheimer (2005: 290), this type of data-driven learning can “help [students] become autonomous learners and also provide them the opportunity to act as researchers” (cited in conroy, 2010). aligned with the above, kirk (2002) and chambers (2005) argued that university students become more independent and better at critical thinking and problem-solving when learn the language using date-driven approaches. the learners become less dependent on their teachers and their teachers become less concerned with the textbook and more focused on their role as a coach for learners rather than as a language expert (aston, 1997). the idea of using corpus-based websites to promote learner autonomy is not totally novel to the literature of efl teaching and learning. researchers all agreed that using these online resources has two-fold benefits. on the one hand, it “can help relieve teachers of the need to act as proofreading slaves” (milton, 2006: 125). in the same vein, yoon (2011) further suggested that the role of the teacher is changed radically to a coordinator whose task is to empower learners as researchers to analyze the corpus data and make their own discoveries. on the other hand, doing this essentially means offering learners a great chance “to acquire the means and confidence to self-edit in the future” (milton, 2006: 131). sharing a similar viewpoint of using corpora to enhance autonomous learning, mull (2013) called for assistance from the teacher to create room for learners to self-answer and become confident in the course of searching for the answer. in brief, using corpus-based websites allows students to play a more active role in their learning and become more autonomous (bloch, 2007; keck, 2004; baghestani, 2009; boulton, 2010; gavioli, 2005, cited in yoon, 2011). dobb (1997) encourages the use of a corpus for the purpose of enhancing active and discovery-style learning in which students use a corpus and create their own grammatical rules. corpus-based websites to promote learner autonomy 148 learners’ beliefs and attitudes. despite the fact that language teachers introduce paper-based or call-mediated collocation tools to their students, it is still up to their learners to accept these tools or not. learners’ attitudes also play a role in the successful use of collocations (nurmukhamedov, 2015). towards the use of corpora in identifying and correcting writing mistakes, efl learners generally hold positive attitudes and find corpora helpful in writing (yoon & hirvela, 2004; o’sullivan & chambers, 2006). beside providing the learners with authentic language, fast and convenient access is another plus of using corpus-based tools to detect writing errors and searching for the solution. for example, chambers and o’sullivan (2004) found that students preferred using a corpus over a dictionary because the corpus was faster (cited in baghestani, 2011). regarding collocation errors, a recent study by nurmukhamedov (2015) which aims to evaluate the effectiveness of 3 different websites as collocation tools in helping l2 writers deal with miscollocations found that in general l2 writers favor online collocation tools over paper dictionaries because of easy navigation. in his study, the students showed very positive perceptions of collocation tools which are said to be helpful and user-friendly. problems of using corpora for selfcorrection. despite the great benefits of using corpus-based online collocation tools discussed above, such tools do have certain limitations. when navigating corpora, learners may face a number of difficulties that are even the obstacles of native speakers of the language (yoon & hirvela, 2004; gaskell & cobb, 2004; kennedy & miceli, 2001, cited in jagusztyn, 2014). besides, it is quite time-consuming and frustrating to face a large number of “authentic sample sentences” (granger & tribble, 1998, cited in lai, 2015). also, taking the target information from the corpora seems to be challenging to some groups of learners (gabel, 2001, cited in lai, 2015). this is probably because the output is shown in unfamiliar formats to the learners’ level of knowledge and experience (yoon & hirvela, 2004). methods this pilot study seeks the answer to the following questions. 1. how much change is there in the students’ belief and attitudes toward learner autonomy in correcting collocation errors in their writing before and after using the two suggested websites? 2. to what extent do the students succeed in self-correcting the collocation errors in their writing using the two suggested websites? 3. to what extent do the students feel confident about their ability to self-correct collocation errors in writing before and after using the two suggested websites? research participants this pilot study was carried out on 25 second year students of business english major at foreign trade university, who took the writing class of the researcher from april to june, 2016. the main objectives of the writing course were first to provide the students with paraphrasing, summarizing and synthesizing skills and rhetorical techniques. by the end of the course, the students are able to write summary, response and persuasive essays effectively. the research took response essays, one of 3 assignments of the course to investigate collocation errors and the students’ 149 corpus-based websites to promote learner autonomy willingness and ability to self-correct the errors using suggested websites by the researcher, thereby working out the feasibility of generating using these online resources in learning and correcting collocation errors autonomously by the students. in detailed, as the last assignment of the writing course before taking the final exam in which they are asked to write a persuasive essay, the students were assigned to write a response paper to an article in the economist outside class within one week. as the students were not restricted about the length of the paper and they were permitted to write at their own pace away from pressures of writing the paper in class within an allotted time, together with the comfort and encouragement made by the researcher for the students to write down whatever they think and their reactions are in the paper, the researcher hoped to collect as much and unbiased information as possible regarding the collocation mistakes made by her students. corpus-based websites corpus-based websites features corpus http://www.netspeak.org/ a search engine which allows users to search for missing words in a phrase, check which of two or more words is most common, check in which order two or more words are commonly written, and to check which of its synonyms are commonly written. corpus comprises about 3.8 billion phrases up to a length of 5 words (so-called n-grams) which were collected by google from the english web (frendo, 2012) http://linggle.com/# a search engine permits its users to search for various targeted parts of speech missing in a phrase. corpus contains parts of speech from british national corpus and example sentences from the new york times. (chang, 2013) data collection instruments. the research uses both quantitative and qualitative approach for data collection and analysis. the main instruments are a questionnaire consisting of 7 questions and an interview composed of 3 questions. the questions of the pre-questionnaire aims to find out the students’ willingness to selfcorrect collocation errors autonomously, the reasons, their uses of websites in the selfcorrection, the difficulties they think they may encounter and the extent of confidence to find out the relevant collocation among various options suggested by the websites. the post interview seeks answers to the matters of whether the students find the websites effective to the improvement of their writing and to their capacity to learn autonomously, whether they feel more confident to use these online resources in their writing and which problems they faced when working with the websites. data collection procedure. the research data was obtained through a step-by-step procedure as follows. 1. the researcher obtained the consent of the students to participate in the study. corpus-based websites to promote learner autonomy 150 http://www.netspeak.org/ http://linggle.com/ 2. the researcher delivered the prequestionnaire one day after the participants handed in their response paper. the participants had another one day to complete the questionnaire. 3. the researcher sent a manual of how to use 2 websites: to check and self-correct collocation errors to the participants via email after the submission of the assignment as the students stay at home preparing for their final exam and the researcher could not meet them in person. the manual was written by the researcher in vietnamese and included snapshots taken from the 2 websites to illustrate for each use of the websites to facilitate the students’ comprehension of how they were about to work with the websites. 4. the researcher sent the soft copy of each participant’s paper along with the highlight in yellow of collocation errors and asked the participants to use the 2 recommended websites to self-correct the errors and send her back their paper including the correction within one week. 5. the researcher launched a short online interview to the participants. data analysis. the collected data was first put into tables corresponding to each question of the pre-questionnaire. the data obtained from the interview was then added to see changes regarding the participants’ perception and willingness to self-correct their collocation errors using suggested websites. main findings and discussion research question 1. how much change is there in the students’ belief and attitudes toward learner autonomy in correcting collocation errors in their writing before and after using the two suggested websites? figure 1: students’ choice between direct and indirect feedback in writing there was one response invalid of the pre-questionnaire as the participants did not follow the instruction in the questionnaire that she would go to question 3 and 4 respectively if she chose a and b in question 2. in fact, she answered both question 3 and 4 which make her contribution irrelevant. it can be clearly seen from the above bar chart that there has been a remarkably positive shift in the belief and attitudes of the students toward their willingness and awareness of the responsibility to self-correct 151 corpus-based websites to promote learner autonomy collocation errors they make in their writing before and after using the websites. one of the striking features is that there was nearly one third of participants still relied on their teacher for collocation correction before being introduced to the websites. the figure is quite similar to what jennings (2008) found concerning the dependent learning style of students in writing class, which has been discussed earlier in the paper. this number, however, has decreased two-third to merely 3 respondents expecting their teachers to supply the correct collocations for the wrong ones they make in their essay. in the prequestionnaire, nine students chose to ask their teacher to correct all of the collocation mistakes in their essay as they believed it would help save time and effort on searching for the correct answer as well as guarantee the reliability of the answer thanks to the wide range of vocabulary the teachers are supposed to know. there was a significantly two-fold rise in the students who showed their willingness and perhaps their awareness of learner autonomy in collocation self-correction. while the traits of independent learning of some students and the long retention of collocations in the memory were to be explained for why about a half of the sample went for making self-correction, further reasons involving the usefulness of the suggested websites were revealed for the choice of self-correcting collocation errors among a huge 90 percent of the participants. interestingly, a student in the pre-survey despite willing to find the correct collocation herself using the sources the teacher suggests, still expected that “in the end, i also hope teacher give or suggest me right answers.” similarly, another student both wished to be provided with the correct collocation and the sources as she wanted to “see the immediate condition in which collocations are used.” after using the two suggested websites, these two students changed their viewpoints and chose to make the correction themselves as long as the teacher helped detect the errors. research question 2. to what extent do the students succeed in self-correcting the collocation errors in their writing using the two suggested websites? from the above table, it can be concluded that a remarkable approximately 80% of the students have succeeded correcting the corpus-based websites to promote learner autonomy 152 collocation errors using the two suggested websites. according to the post interview, the majority of these students shared it was the relevant formulated search terms that resulted in the successful correction of the collocation errors. however, not all of the participants succeeded in their first search. participant no.3, for example, shared that she had failed several times and became exhausted and bored. fortunately she then did not give up but kept typing other possible key words and finally arrived at the correct answer. she also further insisted that as she had never checked collocation online but been more familiar with looking it up in a paper dictionary, she found it quite difficult to decide the key words and symbol to search and later to select the most relevant option to the context of her writing among various ones suggested by the website. the problem of navigation and selecting the most appropriate phrase among a large number of output in the corpora this student encountered is in line with granger & tribble’s findings in their research in 1998. it can be inferred then that patience is one of the keys to the success of efl learners in using online resources to self-correct collocation errors in writing and that if the learners become more familiar with the tool, they are more likely to be motivated to make use of the resource for better learning, which has once been suggested by yoon & hirvela (2004). research question 3: to what extent do the students feel confident about their ability to self-correct collocation errors? figure 2. students’ confidence before and after using the website it can be clearly seen from the pie charts that in general the students have become more confident after using the suggested websites to self-correct the collocation errors in their paper. the number of students confirmed to be very confident and confident has enjoyed more than two-fold and three-fold rise respectively, making these sectors up to substantially two-third of all students population. on the other hand, although there is now on average one in three students still unready to use the websites to self-correct collocation errors in writing, this is undoubtedly a radical change compared to up to a vast majority of three quarters with limited confidence before using these online tools. this is indeed a positive sign and to a certain extent demonstrates the usefulness of the corpus-based websites in improving learners’ confidence – one of the determining factors of learner autonomy when it comes to correcting collocation errors. among a number of explanations to be made for this change, teacher’s help via detailed guide of 8% 17% 46% 29% very confident confident quite confident before 29% 37% 21% 13% very confident confident quite confident after 153 corpus-based websites to promote learner autonomy using the websites together with the willingness to explore and learn and the patience of the students themselves play the most vital role. a student revealed in the interview that she found it quite easy to find the correct collocation because the teacher had given her a very detailed guide, especially in vietnamese which made the whole process much simpler, about which key words and symbols to be used in the search box for which targeted type of collocation. another student, however, admitted that although she found the guide of some help, she failed to find the correct answer until up to 3 times of failure, she finally arrived at the result perhaps mainly thanks to her patience. although the two cases seem to be of opposite concerning the helpfulness of the guide, the students all end up showing more confidence after being introduced to these new tools. conclusion the results of this pilot study open opportunities to the use of the corpus-based websites investigated in the study and other similar websites in promoting efl learners autonomy regarding correcting collocation errors in writing. the study reveals that efl students when introduced to the online collocation tools are more willing and ready to learn autonomously, able to correct more miscollocations in their writing and become more confident to correct the errors. the study has several implications. first, it is essential that efl students be introduced and familiarized with available online collocation tools, especially those free of charge as many of them may be willing and ready to use the tools for better writing and may miss a valuable chance to self-correct collocation errors in writing without such an introduction. oftentimes, learners “have no knowledge of collocation dictionaries or other potential resources for working with collocations independently” (henriksen, 2013, p. 42). for example, a participant shared in interview that she would like to say thank to the researcher for introducing her to such a new and effective type of collocation reference that she had never heard of, which has helped her correct miscollocations herself. she also further stated that this indeed changed her belief about the ability and responsibility of students in revising writing assignments. second, introducing is inadequate and training must go hand in hand. it is essential that learners be provided with strategies on how to find collocations using collocation tools in writing (ranalli, 2013; seesink, 2007, cited in nurmukhamedov, 2016). kaur and hegelheimer (2005) also reminded language teachers that in order to improve learners’ call competence, teachers need to provide students with guidance. this is because learners are believed to make progress with the application of a new tool as long as learners are not “left on their own to complete the tasks” (p. 299). thus, whenever callmediated collocations tools are employed, teachers need to train the students. in this study, although the researcher has made effort to train the participants how to use the 2 corpus-based websites via a detailed guide in their mother tongue containing illustrations in an effort to motivate the students to use the websites, some students still complained having difficulties formulating the search corpus-based websites to promote learner autonomy 154 terms and selecting the best options among a varied number of suggestions. this is perhaps because the guide was sent via email and the students may have needed a face to face training in which the teacher demonstrates how the websites work and how to use them in searching for targeted formulaic sequences, and then the student practice in consultation with the teacher. it is therefore more likely to be of a greater help if the teacher had organized a training session. last but not least, it is possible to draw from the study that no matter how userfriendly online collocation tools might be, it is self-motivation of the students that decides whether or not they would give up the task of using the tools to self-correct writing miscollocations. as mentioned earlier, some students honestly shared that they have overcome frustration of failing to find the correct collocations and finally succeeded mainly thanks to their patience. it is therefore important that learners be exposed to benefits of using online collocation tools so that they become more motivated to take advantage of the online resources to learn autonomously and effectively. © pham thuy dung pham thuy dung is a faculty member of business english, foreign trade university, teaching . business english. correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to pham thuy dung, faculty of business english, foreign trade university, hanoi, vietnam. contact: phamthuydung@ftu.edu.vn suggested reference format to cite the article: dung, p. t. 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(2013). analysis of collocational errors of thai efl students. learn journal: language education and acquisition research network, 6(1), pp.88-98. 157 corpus-based websites to promote learner autonomy http://iteslj.org/techniques/williams-feedback.html 125 experience and teacher talk does “experience” bring about any significant difference in efl teacher talk? vahid rahmani doqaruni rahmanidoqaruni@stu-mail.um.ac.ir english language and literature department, faculty of letters and humanities, ferdowsi university of mashhad, iran & ebrahim khodadady (corresponding author) ekhodadady@um.ac.ir english language and literature department, faculty of letters and humanities, ferdowsi university of mashhad, iran abstract the rationale for the present study is based on the fact that understanding the teaching pro cess and the development of teachers is incomplete unless the teachers' classroom behavior, especially their talk, is objectively explored. to this end, four male teachers offering en g lish as a foreign language (efl) were recruited and divided into two groups, namely inex perienced and experienced. to secure the objectivity in data collection they were observed in their classes and one lesson of each teacher was audio-recorded. the audio-recordings were then fully transcribed and analyzed through micro structural approach of schema theo ry. the approach is based on the assumption that any word uttered by the teacher represents a specific concept commonly known as a schema. the schema enters into a hierarchical r e lationship with other schemata to constitute species, genera and semantic, syntactic and parasyntactic domains of language. the teachers’ talks were thus parsed into their constitu t ing schema types, species, genera and domains and certain codes were assigned to them to run statistical analyses. the findings showed that the inexperienced teachers significantly outnumbered their experienced counterparts in all schema categories and thus challenged “experience” as an effective variable in efl teaching. keywords: teacher talk, schema theory, novice and experienced teachers introduction teaching english as a second language (l2) in general and as an efl in particular has witnessed an expanding development and modernity in the last two decades. a beyond words vol.4, no. 2, november 2016 mailto:rahmanidoqaruni@stu-mail.um.ac.ir mailto:ekhodadady@um.ac.ir experience and teacher talk 126 large number of books and articles which examine different aspects of teacher educa tion and behavior from professional, cogni tive, social, as well as contextual perspec tives is presently accessible (e.g., bartels, 2005; borg, 2003; burns & richards, 2009; johnson, 2000, 2005, 2009; richards, 1998; richards & farrell, 2005; richards & lockhart, 1994; tedick, 2004; tsui, 2003; woods, 1996). the point of all these studies has been to furnish us with a gen eral picture of what teachers do in the class room. as gatbonton (1999, p. 35) stated, "it is clear that these studies have contribut ed greatly to the current understanding of the teaching process, its procedures and methodologies and as a result have had an impact on teacher training". however, keeping in mind the end goal to pick up a more profound understanding of the teach ing process, these studies of teachers' class room practice should be supplemented with studies of teachers' talk inside the class room context. since all dimensions of classroom process involve teacher talk and it assumes numerous parts in l2 class rooms, studying teacher talk has always been one of the most vital parts of class room research (rahmani doqaruni, 2015). nevertheless, despite the fact that teacher talk has been of extensive enthusiasm for understanding and attempting to develop language teaching pedagogy (e.g., chaudron, 1988; cullen, 1998, 2002; seedhouse, 2004; thornbury, 1996; walsh, 2002; yanfen & yuqin, 2010), little atten tion has been paid to teacher talk from a schema-based perspective. a schema is defined as a single or phrasal word, whether uttered or written, in an authentic text which comes along with other words to be heard or read at a specific place and time (khodadady & seif, 2006). in line with the previous research (e.g., khodadady & eslami, 2013; khodadady & khosravany, 2014; khodadady & lagzian, 2013), this study analyzed teachers' talk in the classroom context by categorizing their spoken words into three linguistic domains: semantic, syntactic, and parasyntactic. they were further broken into the subcate gories of genera and species to account for their specific linguistic functions in teach ers’ talk (see appendix a). the reason be hind such an analysis is that "the ac ceptance of schema as the building block of authentic textual products provides lin guists and language teachers alike with an objective measure to form their analyses and pedagogy on, respectively" (khodadady, 2008a, p. 434). meanwhile it is interesting to know that most of the previous studies have ap proached teacher talk by using either expe rienced or inexperienced teachers as sole subjects. however, as gatbonton (2008, p. 163) suggested, 127 experience and teacher talk although one can gather insight from novice teachers' thinking and behavior in dependently of experienced teachers and vice versa, examining both sets of teachers together in the same study allows one to compare them on very specific points and identify more clearly how they differ or how they are similar to each other. thus, the purpose of the present study is to address the association between teach ers' experience and different types of sche mata they use in their talk in efl class room contexts. to meet this objective, the following research questions were formu lated. 1. is there any significant difference in the number of common and distinct semantic, syntactic and parasyntactic domain types employed by inexpe rienced vs. experienced teachers? 2. is there any significant difference in the number of common and distinct semantic, syntactic and parasyntactic genus types employed by inexperience ed vs. experienced teachers? 3. is there any significant difference in the number of common and distinct semantic, syntactic and parasyntactic species types employed by inexpe rienceed vs. experienced teachers? literature review the researchers have explored the rela tionship between teachers' experience and different aspects of their behavior inside the classroom context from different perspec tives in the field of l2 education. mok (1994), for example, conducted a case study with experienced and inexperienced esl teachers to examine their real concerns and changing discernments after some time. she identified five common categories of concern such as teachers' self-concept, atti tudes, teaching strategies, materials used, and expectations. she also asserted that the diverse views expressed by the inexperi enced teachers on teaching suggested that they gradually moved beyond the class room and viewed their profession in a more extensive context more quickly in contrast with the experienced teachers who pro gressed more slowly. akyel's (1997) com parative investigation of experienced and novice esl teachers demonstrated that ex perienced teachers managed a more exten sive scope of instructional options in re sponse to their students in contrast with novice teachers who translated learner re sponses as deficiencies. in addition, it was found that inexperienced teachers favored the flow of instructional activities but were worried about the suitability of their in structional strategies. the findings were in accordance with the past literature as the research in l2 teacher education had sug gested that less experienced teachers were worried about classroom administration and keeping up the flow of instructional rou experience and teacher talk 128 tines (johnson, 1992; numrich, 1996). richards et al. (1998) were interested in how novice and experienced teachers plan the same reading lesson. they found that novice teachers were not able to see the ad vantages of using a story as a part of a read ing lesson because of their restricted com prehension of the nature of l2 reading. tsui's (2003) study of four esl teach ers with various levels of experience and expertise showed that novice and experts are qualitatively distinguished on numerous critical viewpoints such as planning and decision-making processes. in light of this finding, she proposed that one can form hypotheses about inadequacies in the nov ice teachers' pedagogical knowledge by recognizing what parts of pedagogical knowledge are lacking in the novice teach ers' repertoire however existent in their ex perienced counterparts. this in turn may lead to revising teacher training programs to fill the gaps. mackey et al. (2004) claimed that teachers' use of incidental fo cus on form techniques is affected by teachers' experience to a substantial degree as experienced esl teachers make use of more incidental focus on form techniques than novice teachers. gatbonton (2008) examined the cate gories of pedagogical knowledge of novice esl teachers and compared these catego ries to those found for experienced teachers in her earlier study (gatbonton, 1999). the results of her study showed that the peda gogical knowledge of novice teachers were comparable to that of experienced teachers regarding major categories such as lan guage management, procedural issues, and handling student reactions and attitudes but not in terms of details within these catego ries. she then claimed that the fact that the novice teachers were similar to the experi enced teachers may suggest that they had already been in the process of acquiring many skills expected of experienced teach ers. pouriran and mukundan (2012) report ed the findings of an empirical study that examined whether efl teachers' use of in cidental focus on form techniques was af fected by their level of experience. they found that experienced teachers were dif ferent from less experienced teachers in terms of type and frequency of corrective feedback types they used in their classes. moreover, the results revealed that experi enced teachers used incidental focus on form techniques more frequently than nov ice teachers which has previously been re ported in the literature (e.g., mackey et al., 2004). as the literature reviewed within the context of l2 shows, despite the fact that teaching experience has been regarded by applied linguists as an important variable in language teaching, no study, to the best of our knowledge, has ever tried to explore the relationship between teachers’ experience 129 experience and teacher talk and their talk in classrooms from an empir ical perspective. by resorting to the micro structural approach of schema theory (micast) the present study was therefore conducted to fill the gap and find out whether experienced and novice teachers differ significantly from each other in the schemata they employ to teach efl to their learners. participants methods the institutes in which they were teaching. the participants were four efl teach ers who were teaching general english courses in two private language institutes in babolsar, northern iran. all teachers were male and their ages ranged from 23 to 47. the literature in l2 teacher education has revealed that experienced teachers are those with many years of teaching behind them, with many interpreted in various studies as at least four to five years (e.g., gatbonton, 1999; tsui, 2003, 2005). novice teachers are those who are still undergoing training, who have just completed their training, or who have just commenced teaching and still have very little (e.g., less than three years) experience behind them. in accord ance with the previous literature, the partic ipants' teaching experience in this study varied from less than 3 to more than 15 years; two of the teachers with less than three years of pedagogical practice were labeled as less experienced and the other two teachers with more than fifteen years of pedagogical practice were viewed expe rienced. all four teachers had completed their b.a degree in english language and gone through teacher training courses in all the participants consented to taking part in the study. data collection to collect the required data for this study, one of the researchers observed the classrooms as a non-participant and made audio-recordings from one lesson of each teacher. one class at pre-intermediate level was selected from each teacher. each class had between 10 to 15 students who were between 14 and 20 in age. a tape-recorder was used for making the audio-recordings of the whole class. an mp3 play er/recorder was also placed near the teach er in each class both to record whole-class interaction and to capture teacher's voice more clearly. using the above-mentioned method, seven hours of naturally occurring data was obtained from the four teachers participating in this study. the audio recordings were then fully transcribed and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. theoretical foundation this study employs the micast to explore the experienced and inexperienced teachers’ talk. it provides researchers with a more precise tool for the analysis of dis experience and teacher talk 130 course than other approaches. the micast treats single and phrasal words constituting authentic texts as schemata (khodadady, 1997) and assigns them into three main domains: semantic, syntactic and parasyntactic. each domain is hierar chically formed by its genera, which are in turn composed of species and types. the semantic domain, for example, consists of four genera, i.e., adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and verbs, which are open in type. similar ly, each genus contains specific species. the genus of nouns is, for example, sub sumed under adjectival, complex, com pound, conversion, derivational, gerund, nominal, and simple noun species. and fi nally each species comprises schema types such as “age”, “belt” and “box”, to name a few. the syntactic domain which is closed in nature includes conjunctions, determin ers, prepositions, pronouns and syntactic verbs. as the last linguistic category, parasyntactic domain consists of abbrevia tion, interjection, name, numeral, para adverb, particle and symbol genera. (ap pendix a provides the schema species and genera semantic, syntactic and parasynt actic domains employed by teachers.) procedure after transcribing the audio-recordings of the teachers’ talk, their talk was broken into single word and phrasal schemata. fol lowing khodadady (1997, 2008a), the parsed schemata were assigned to three domains, i.e., semantic, syntactic and parasyntatic. the genera and species of the se domains (see appendix a) were then specified and codified in microsoft office excel. data analysis in order to find out whether experi enced and novice teachers differ from each other significantly in terms of the schema tokens and types they use in their talk, chi square test was employed. spss software was used to run the statistical analyses. in addition, the data were analyzed qualita tively to find out why they differed in their talk. general patterns findings table 1 presents the domain tokens and types by teachers cross-tabulation. as can be seen, experienced teachers have used 5795 semantic, syntactic and parasyntactic schema tokens. this number, however, rises to 6378 for their inexperi enced counterparts. as it can also be seen, the schema types employed by inexperi enced teachers (985) are almost 10% more than those of experienced teachers (811). the difference becomes more obvious when semantic schema types are taken into consideration. the experienced teachers, for example, have used 93 different adjec 131 experience and teacher talk tives among which “good” has a token of 24. their inexperienced counterparts have, nonetheless, employed more adjectives, i.e., 108, but in less frequency. for exam ple, they have used “good” 19 times. table 2 shows the number of schema domain types used by experienced teachers and their inexperienced counterparts. in order to take into account schema types common to both experienced and inexperi enced teachers and explore the significance of their difference, a third category was added to the analysis, i.e., common, as shown in table 2. the overall pattern which emerges from table 2 is that the in experienced teachers have outnumbered their experienced counterparts in all do main types. however, as can be seen, most of the distinct domain schema types em ployed by inexperienced (n=471, 77.2%) and experienced (n=320, 73.7%) teachers are semantic in nature. parasyntactic do main schema types come in the second place. the fewest schema types employed by teachers are syntactic in domain. the data presented in table 2 above also reveal that most of the schema types shared by both experienced and inexpe renced teachers are semantic (n=216, 57.6%), highlighting their superiority over their syntactic and parasyntactic counter parts in teachers’ talk. the pearson chi square p-value shows that inexperienced teachers have used significantly more se mantic, syntactic and parasyntactic domain types than experienced teachers have (x 2 =1.522, df=4, p<.05). answering the first research question, there is a significant difference in the number of semantic, syn tactic and parasyntactic domain types em ployed by inexperienced and experienced teachers. 132 experience and teacher talk genus table 3 presents the schema genus types by teachers cross-tabulation. as can be seen, the three most frequent exclusive schema genus types are semantic in nature, i.e., nouns (n=384), verbs (n=250) and adjectives (n=135), respectively. the same pattern appears for common schema genus types, i.e., nouns (n=94), verbs (n=83) and adjectives (n=33). the names genus of parasyntactic domain come next in terms of exclusive schema types for both experienced (n=55) and inexperienced (n=54) teachers. similar to the domain types, the pearson chi-square p-value shows that inexperienced teachers have used significantly more semantic, syntactic and parasyntactic genus types than experienced teachers have (x 2 =2.261, df=30, p<.05). answering the second research question, there is a significant dif ference in the number of semantic, syntactic and parasyntactic genus types employed by inexperienced and experienced teachers. species the number of semantic, syntactic and parasyntactic species types used by experienced and inexperienced teachers are given in appendix a (due to its length). as can be seen, the two most frequent exclusive species types are semantic in nature, i.e., simple nouns (n=288) and simple verbs (n=88). the third most frequent schema species type is parasyntactic in d o main, i.e., names (n=86). the simple adjectives (n=82) take the fourth place in the species types. similar to the domain and genus types, the pearson chi -square p-value shows that inexperienced teachers have used significantly more semantic, syntactic and parasyntactic species types than experienced teachers have (x 2 =3.993, df=170, p<.05). answering the third research question, there is a significant difference in the number of semantic, syntactic and parasyntactic species types employed by inexperienced and experienced teachers. 133 experience and teacher talk genus adjectives count 60 75 33 168 % within genus 35.7% 44.6% 19.6% 100.0% % within experience 13.8% 12.3% 8.8% 11.8% adverbs count 10 12 6 28 % within genus 35.7% 42.9% 21.4% 100.0% % within experience 2.3% 2.0% 1.6% 2.0% nouns count 162 222 94 478 % within genus 33.9% 46.4% 19.7% 100% % within experience 37.3% 36.4% 25.1% 33.7% verbs count 88 162 83 333 % within genus 26.4% 48.6% 24.9% 100.0% % within experience 20.3% 26.6% 22.1% 23.5% conjunctions count 0 4 6 10 % within genus 0% 40.0% 60.0% 100% % within experience 0% .7% 1.6% .7% table 3 experienced/inexperienced vs. genus cross-tabulation experience total experienced inexperienced common determiners count 1 12 25 38 % within genus 2.6% 31.6% 65.8% 100% % within experience .2% 2.0% 6.7% 2.7% prepositions count 4 4 16 24 % within genus 16.7% 16.7% 66.7% 100% % within experience .9% .7% 4.3% 1.7% pronouns count 5 6 30 41 % within genus 12.2% 14.6% 73.2% 100% % within experience 1.2% 1.0% 8.0% 2.9% syntactic verbs count 3 4 20 27 % within genus 11.1% 14.8% 74.1% 100% % within experience .7% .7% 5.3% 1.9% abbreviations count 13 17 15 45 % within genus 28.9% 37.8% 33.3% 100% % within experience 3.0% 2.8% 4.0% 3.2% interjections count 9 2 9 20 % within genus 45.0% 10.0% 45.0% 100% % within experience 2.1% .3% 2.4% 1.4% experience and teacher talk 134 table 3 experienced/inexperienced vs. genus cross-tabulation (continued) discussions teacher knowledge cannot well be comprehended unless it is approached from the point of view of schema employed by cognitive psychologists to portray how knowledge is stored in memory subjectively or macro-structurally (e.g., rumelhart, 1980) and how it is utilized objectively or micro-structurally in testing (khodadady & herriman, 2000), reading comprehension ability (khodadady, 1997) and translation (khodadady, 2008b). the results of previous studies and the present one show that approaching the schema from these two perspectives yields two different results regarding experience. macro-structuralists believe that the schemata of both expert and novice teachers affect their specific characteristics (tsui, 2003). for example, livingston and borko (1989, p. 37) state that, …the cognitive schemata of experts typically are more elaborate, more complex, more interconnected, and more easily accessible than those of novices…therefore, expert teach ers have larger, better-integrated stores of facts, principles, and experiences to draw upon as they engage in planning, interactive teaching and reflection. the quotation above is based on the macro-structural approach of schema theory (macast) whose advocates, according to khodadady (1997), define schema in broad and 135 experience and teacher talk vague terms such as “elaborate”, “complex”, “interconnected” and “accessible” (livingston & borko, 1989, p. 37), to name a few. they are too subjective to be verified by empirical research. in contrast to macast, the micast defines schemata as concepts represented by the words produced by individuals such as teachers. they can be analyzed, categorized and assigned to various linguistic domains, genera, and species and thus be objectively ex plored not only by themselves but also in relation to variables such as teaching experience. following macast, carter et al. (1987), for example, provided their expert, novice and postulant participants with a hypothetical scenario, “a short note left by the previous teacher, a grade book with grades and attendance recorded, student information cards con taining demographic information on one side and teacher comments about the student on the other, corrected tests and homework assignments” and then asked them “to write a lesson plan for the first two days of instruction” (p. 149). the very scenario and using lesson plans for mathematics and science classes instead of the participants’ class performance in efl classes render their “nine propositions representing qualitative differences…among expert, novice, and postulant teachers” (p. 149; emphasis added) questionably simple because le s son plans are not the same as actual teaching. teacher knowledge cannot well be comprehended unless it is approached from the point of view of schema employed by cognitive psychologists to portray how knowledge is stored in memory subjectively or macro-structurally (e.g., rumelhart, 1980) and how it is utilized objectively or micro-structurally in testing (khodadady & herriman, 2000), reading comprehension ability (khodadady, 1997) and translation (khodadady, 2008b). the results of previous studies and the present one show that approaching the schema from these two perspectives yields two different results regarding experience. macro-structuralists believe that the schemata of both expert and novice teachers affect their specific characteristics (tsui, 2003). for example, livingston and borko (1989, p. 37) state that, …the cognitive schemata of experts typically are more elaborate, more complex, more interconnected, and more easily accessible than those of novices…therefore, expert teac h ers have larger, better-integrated stores of facts, principles, and experiences to draw upon as they engage in planning, interactive teaching and reflection. the quotation above is based on the macro-structural approach of schema theory (macast) whose advocates, according to khodadady (1997), define schema in broad and vague terms such as “elaborate”, “complex”, “interconnected” and “accessible” (livingston & borko, 1989, p. 37), to name a few. they are too subjective to be verified by empirical research. in contrast to macast, the micast defines schemata as concepts represented experience and teacher talk 136 by the words produced by individuals such as teachers. they can be analyzed, categorized and assigned to various linguistic domains, genera, and species and thus be objectively e x plored not only by themselves but also in relation to variables such as teaching experience. following macast, carter et al. (1987), for example, provided their expert, novice and postulant participants with a hypothetical scenario, “a short note left by the previous teacher, a grade book with grades and attendance recorded, student information cards con taining demographic information on one side and teacher comments about the student on the other, corrected tests and homework assignments” and then asked them “to write a lesson plan for the first two days of instruction” (p. 149). the very scenario and using lesson plans for mathematics and science classes instead of the participants’ class performance in efl classes render their “nine propositions representing qualitative differences…among expert, novice, and postulant teachers” (p. 149; emphasis added) questionably simple because le s son plans are not the same as actual teaching. teacher knowledge cannot well be comprehended unless it is approached from the point of view of schema employed by cognitive psychologists to portray how knowledge is stored in memory subjectively or macro-structurally (e.g., rumelhart, 1980) and how it is utilized objectively or micro-structurally in testing (khodadady & herriman, 2000), reading com prehension ability (khodadady, 1997) and translation (khodadady, 2008b). the results of previous studies and the present one show that approaching the schema from these two pe r spectives yields two different results regarding experience. macro-structuralists believe that the schemata of both expert and novice teachers affect their specific characteristics (tsui, 2003). for example, livingston and borko (1989, p. 37) state that, …the cognitive schemata of experts typically are more elaborate, more complex , more in terconnected, and more easily accessible than those of novices…therefore, expert teachers have larger, better-integrated stores of facts, principles, and experiences to draw upon as they engage in planning, interactive teaching and reflection. the quotation above is based on the macro-structural approach of schema theory (macast) whose advocates, according to khodadady (1997), define schema in broad and vague terms such as “elaborate”, “complex”, “interconnected” and “accessible” (livingston & borko, 1989, p. 37), to name a few. they are too subjective to be verified by empirical research. in contrast to macast, the micast defines schemata as concepts represented by the words produced by individuals such as teachers. they can be analyzed, categorize d and assigned to various linguistic domains, genera, and species and thus be objectively e x plored not only by themselves but also in relation to variables such as teaching experience. 137 experience and teacher talk following macast, carter et al. (1987), for example, provided their expert, novice and postulant participants with a hypothetical scenario, “a short note left by the previous teac h er, a grade book with grades and attendance recorded, student information cards containing demographic information on one side and teacher comments about the student on the other, corrected tests and homework assignments” and then asked them “to write a lesson plan for the first two days of instruction” (p. 149). the very scenario and using lesson plans for mathematics and science classes instead of the participants’ class performance in efl clas ses render their “nine propositions representing qualitative differences…among expert, nov ice, and postulant teachers” (p. 149; emphasis added) questionably simple because lesson plans are not the same as actual teaching. however, carter et al. (1987) found that the rich and elaborate schemata of expert teachers fundamentally empower them to allocate the importance and the relevance of in formation to their planning and teaching. this clarifies why expert teachers can give careful consideration to information that is critical to teaching. by contrast, their novice counter parts’ schemata are still in the beginning phase of decision-making. consequently, they are less efficient in figuring out whether the information is pertinent, and they analyze substan tially more information before they reach decisions. this in turn affects both their planning and teaching, and results in less efficiency on novice teachers’ part (livingston & borko, 1989). bereiter and scardamalia (1993), however, attributed these characteristics of exper tise identified in the literature to experience which enables experts to perform with effortless automaticity. they argue that one of the main differences between experts and novices is the experts’ propensity to reinvest the resources unchained by the use of routines to deal with more advanced problems and to challenge what appears to be unproblematic and rou tine. in the same way, different patterns of teacher talk between experienced and ine xperi enced teachers in the present study can be attributed to their cognition, however, from a di f ferent perspective. considering teacher development as a continuum, gatbonton (2008) be lieved that we could put inexperienced teachers and experienced teachers in the early and later stages of this continuum, respectively. taking this continuum into account, it is not far from reality to contend that the thinking and classroom behavior of experienced teachers are likely to be more stable and less variable in comparison to their novice counterparts. as gatbonton (2008, p. 162) stated, "the stability arises because they [experienced teachers] already have had ample opportunities to deal with recurring issues and, consequently, have had occasions to retain what works and eliminate what does not". this statement does not, experience and teacher talk 138 however, hold true within the real efl context of the present study. this is because unlike gatbonton who followed the macast and based her recurring issues on “pedagogical knowledge inferred from the novice teachers’ reports of their thoughts” (p. 164; emphasis added), the present study has followed the micast and recorded what teachers do in their classes from the beginning to the end of their teaching sessions. while inferences made from teachers’ thoughts might never materialize in real situations, what they teach in their classes does represent their “pedagogical knowledge” objectively. this study is, therefore, based on the assumption that the more teachers’ schemata the learners are exposed to in their efl classes, the more likely they would use their sentential and discoursal context to internalize the teachers’ schemata as their own intake. as its r e sults show, the number of schemata the inexperienced teachers employed in their classes was significantly more than the experienced ones in linguistic semantic, syntactic and parasyntactic domains, indicating that their “pedagogical knowledge” is superior to that of experienced teachers and thus challenges the nature of “recurring issues” linguistically. an other explanation might be related to the “recency effect” of the teachers’ past training. the inexperienced teachers are more likely to remember theoretical constructs and pedagogical ideas they have recently learned from their recently completed studies. this could explain their richer schema compared to the more experienced teachers who have completed their studies many years earlier. in order to explore the linguistic richness of schemata employed by teachers, their talk was further examined using the measure of lexical variation (lv) adopted by meara et al. (1997). lv is the type-token ratio which is used to assess the lexical richness of teacher talk. in other words, lv ratios show the diversity of words in teacher talk. the higher a r a tio, the fewer repetitions there are. its calculation is straightforward: however, carter et al. (1987) found that the rich and elaborate schemata of expert teachers fundamentally empower them to allocate the importance and the relevance of in formation to their planning and teaching. this clarifies why expert teachers can give careful consideration to information that is critical to teaching. by contrast, their novice counter parts’ schemata are still in the beginning phase of decision-making. consequently, they are less efficient in figuring out whether the information is pertinent, and they analyze substan tially more information before they reach decisions. this in turn affects both their planning and teaching, and results in less efficiency on novice teachers’ part (livingston & borko, 1989). bereiter and scardamalia (1993), however, attributed these characteristics of expe r tise identified in the literature to experience which enables experts to perform with effortless 139 experience and teacher talk automaticity. they argue that one of the main differences between experts and novices is the experts’ propensity to reinvest the resources unchained by the use of routines to deal with more advanced problems and to challenge what appears to be unproblematic and rou tine. in the same way, different patterns of teacher talk between experienced and inexperi enced teachers in the present study can be attributed to their cognition, however, from a di f ferent perspective. considering teacher development as a continuum, gatbonton (2008) be lieved that we could put inexperienced teachers and experienced teachers in the early and later stages of this continuum, respectively. taking this continuum into account, it is not far from reality to contend that the thinking and classroom behavior of experienced teachers are likely to be more stable and less variable in comparison to their novice counterparts. as gatbonton (2008, p. 162) stated, "the stability arises because they [experienced teachers] already have had ample opportunities to deal with recurring issues and, consequently, have had occasions to retain what works and eliminate what does not". this statement does not, however, hold true within the real efl context of the present study. this is because unlike gatbonton who followed the macast and based her recurring issues on “pedagogical knowledge inferred from the novice teachers’ reports of their thoughts” (p. 164; emphasis added), the present study has followed the micast and recorded what teachers do in their classes from the beginning to the end of their teaching sessions. while inferences made from teachers’ thoughts might never materialize in real situations, what they teach in their classes does represent their “pedagogical knowledge” objectively. this study is, therefore, based on the assumption that the more teachers’ schemata the learners are exposed to in their efl classes, the more likely they would use their sentential and discoursal context to internalize the teachers’ schemata as their own intake. as its r e sults show, the number of schemata the inexperienced teachers employed in their classes was significantly more than the experienced ones in linguistic semantic, syntactic and parasyntactic domains, indicating that their “pedagogical knowledge” is superior to that of experienced teachers and thus challenges the nature of “recurring issues” linguistically. an other explanation might be related to the “recency effect” of the teachers’ past training. the inexperienced teachers are more likely to remember theoretical constructs and pedagogical ideas they have recently learned from their recently completed studies. this could explain their richer schema compared to the more experienced teachers who have completed their studies many years earlier. experience and teacher talk 140 in order to explore the linguistic richness of schemata employed by teachers, their talk was further examined using the measure of lexical variation (lv) adopted by meara et al. (1997). lv is the type-token ratio which is used to assess the lexical richness of teacher talk. in other words, lv ratios show the diversity of words in teacher talk. the higher a ra tio, the fewer repetitions there are. its calculation is straightforward: lv = no. of types / no. of tokens x 100 in this study, types were defined as all the different words in the corpus, and tokens as the total number of running words. type was taken to include both the base form and all its derivations, despite any differences in orthography and pronunciation. as table 4 shows, the lv ratio of experienced and inexperienced teachers varied. lex ical variation ratios were higher for inexperienced teachers (15.44%) than their experienced counterparts (13.99%). this finding shows that the experienced teachers’ classes are lexical ly poorer than those of their inexperienced counterparts. in other words, contrary to what bereiter and scardamalia (1993) claimed, inexperienced efl teachers perform with more effortless automaticity than the experienced teachers in employing schemata in their classes. the findings obtained via the micast are not only superior to those of macast objectively, but also multidimensional in analysis in that the micast approaches schemata both linguistically and cognitive ly (khodadady & yazdi, 2015). while the schema “older”, for example, belongs to the linguistic species of comparative modifiers within the linguistic genus of adjectives comprising the linguistic semantic domain, it was juxtaposed by one of the experienced and inexperienced teachers with other words to produce a sentence representing a single concept called cognitive species (khodadady & bagheri, 2014). a compari son of the species produced by the teachers shows which one places “older” within an unambiguous species presented as input to his students: experienced teacher: 141 experience and teacher talk you said number one is the man in the middle. yes, why you say he’s number one, saeed? how can you understand that what in the picture? i mean the person on the cd say that. we say he is number one. do you remember any descriptions of this man older thirty? inexperience teacher: i'm not talking just about the kids, old people, your parents. what do they like to talk about: their jobs, work, their career, games, computer games, voting. these days they're talking about government, yes gov ernment politics. mostly older people are talking about politics a lot. it seems that efl teachers undergo some sort of attrition over years in which teaching becomes a routine job for them and they produce species whose constitut ing schemata are not pedagogically pre sented in appropriate syntactic order such as “this man older thirty”. while the expe rienced teacher’s four species appearing be fore the species of which the schema “old er” forms a part, provide no background knowledge for his learners to compare “this man” in terms of his age, the inexperienced teacher brings up “kids” and then moves to “old people” like the learners’ “parents” leading to their comparison with “older people” whose hobby is talking about poli tics in iran. conclusion with a specific end goal to pick up a more profound knowledge of teacher talk, this study examined the use of schemata by efl teachers in their talk. the rationale for this exploration is that understanding the teaching process and the development of teachers is incomplete unless the teachers' classroom behavior, especially their talk, is taken into consideration. despite such an importance, however, there are relatively few studies that address the question of how background knowledge is developed and the ways in which experienced teach ers’ knowledge development differs from less experienced and novice teachers. the scarcity of such studies is partly attributed to the nature of knowledge which is tacit. unlike performance in the classroom, teachers’ knowledge is not only unobserva ble but also often very difficult to elicit. yet, as bereiter and scardamalia (1993) convincingly asserted, understanding teachers’ knowledge and how it is devel oped as teachers live through their experi ences is vital to the understanding of other aspects of their professional life. the results of the present study showed that the number of schemata the inexperienced teachers employed in their classes was significantly more than the ex perienced ones in linguistically established semantic, syntactic and parasyntactic do experience and teacher talk 142 mains. in addition, this study is a further proof of superiority of the micast over the macast as the former deals with the objective reality inside the classrooms while the latter is principally of subjective nature. the authentic data collected in this study through observations of real classes are hoped to reinforce “the links between research and teacher development, creating in teachers an awareness of the contribution which research in their own classrooms can make to their professional growth” (borg, 1998, p. 281). © vahid rahmani doqaruni & ebrahim khodadady (corresponding author) vahid rahmani doqarumi is a ph.d. candidate in teaching english as a foreign lan guage, english language and literature department, faculty of letters and hu manities, ferdowsi university of mashhad, islamic republic of iran. & ebrahim khodadady is assistant professor of applied linguistics, english language and literature department, faculty of letters and humanities, ferdowsi univer sity of mashhad, iran suggested reference format for this article: doqarumi, vahid r. & khododay, e. 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(2010). a study of teacher talk in interactions in english clas ses. chinese journal of applied linguistics, 33 (2), 76-86. pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses 47 beyond words vol.4. no. 1. may 2016 graduate school, widya mandala catholic university surabaya, indonesia the pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses in their interactions with foreign in-patients sapto dwi anggoro stikes hang tuah surabaya surabaya. indonesia saptoanggoro@yahoo.com abstract in hospitals, most nurses are responsible not only for caring but also building interpersonal relationships with their patients. joint commission international (jci), nurses encounter foreign in-patients. this study investigated the ability of local nurses to communicate with english speaking patients in the hospital. pragmatic awareness is the issue that becomes the focus to obtain better understanding on the nurses’ communicative aspects. it discussed how the nurses achieved successful or unsuccessful interactions in using therapeutic principles audio recording, observations and interviews were used to see how their pragmatic awareness were applied in terms of of pragmatic principles and speech acts. the study also looked after the strategies used when unsuccessful communication with english speaking patients was solved. some findings showed that the participants of the study could apply 11 out of 16 therapeutic communication techniques during their interactions with foreign in-patients. meanwhile. 7 (seven) therapeutic techniques were not frequently used. in many cases the nurses avoid to apply some techniques because they were not confident their communication would be successful. a few techniques were reported to have difficulties and led to some misunderstandings. most of the problems experienced by these nurses was triggered by languagebarrier, or their inability to formulate utterances that suited the constructions of therapeutic communication techniques. pragmatic awareness was seen to be the major issue. it was indicated by some misunderstandings or pragmatic failure that the nurses made signalled by unexpected perlocutionary force by their foreign in-patients. recommendations can be made in terms of language training concerning the strategies to formulate utterances in line with therapeutic communication techniques. furthermore. nurses’ pragmatic awareness needs to be raised by improving language knowledge, especially the one dealing with pragmatic aspects. subsequently it is recommended that the hospital allow language instructors to assist and monitor the nurses in case misunderstanding and other forms of communication problems occur. it is also important that every nurse is provided with a guide book that allows them to use it as a reference when unexpected miscommunication take place during the caring processes. keywords: pragmatic awareness, indonesian nurses, foreign in-patients, therapeutic communication techniques introduction the issues of global village era have brought great concerns to local businesses and services in indonesia. attempts of improvement are inevitable to business and service providers, including healthcare services. there have been increases in numbers of foreign patients who need medical treatments in some hospitals in surabaya. the presence of foreign patients in some hospitals, in some cases, has triggered some issues among health care practitioners. among other problems related to foreign patients, communication is presumed to be the most serious problem among healthcare practitioners. it was reported that some nurses were in great 48 pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses difficulties when they had to communicate with their foreign in-patients due to misunderstandings. it was also admitted by some nurses at a private hospital acquiring joint commission international (jci) in surabaya. they had communication problems with their foreign in-patients coming from varieties of countries that speak english in different manners. based on these issues this study entitled “the pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses with their foreign patients” is expected to provide essential information concerning communication problems occuring between indonesian nurses with their foreign inpatients. the purpose of this study was primarily to investigate the ability of the local nurses to communicate with english speaking patients in the hospital. pragmatic awareness was the issue that became the focus to obtain better understanding on the nurses’ communicative aspects. the study discussed how the nurses could achieve successful interactions with their english speaking patients; how their pragmatic awareness applied to the application of pragmatic principles and speech acts; and how the nurses solved the problems in case of unsuccessful communication with english speaking patients. in hospitals, nurses are responsible not only for caring but also building interpersonal relationships with their patients. examining nurse-patient conversations could have important implications for nursing practice and nurse education. improvements in nurses’ communication skills could lead to better patient care, better outcomes, and hence better results for the society. literature review the nature of nurse-patient communication traditionally nursing is viewed as a treating job for sick patients. in line with the global development in nursing, today nurses take some more roles rather than just caregivers. “changes in nursing have expanded the professional nursing role to include increased emphasis on health promotion and illness prevention as well as concern for the patient as a whole. among other roles, a nurse is expected to take the role of a communicator and educator (potter and perry. 2009 p.9)”. they are the front liners in hospitals, spending most of their time working to serve patients. communication is central to the nursepatient relationship in hospitals. it covers interactions with patients and families, other nurses, health care professionals, resource persons and the community. the quality of communication is a critical factor in meeting the needs of individuals, families and communities. without clear communication, it is impossible to give comfort and emotional support, give care effectively, make decisions with clients and families, protect patients from threats to well-being, coordinate and manage patient care, assist the patient in rehabilitation, or provide patient education. in many cases nurses communication strategies could lead to the success of nursing process. chitty (1997) stated that nurses can achieve successful communication on most occasions if they plan their communication to meet four major criteria: feedback, appropriatenes, efficiency, and flexibility. effective nurses do not assume that they fully understand what the patients are telling them until they feed the statement back and receive confirmation. feedback is meant to make sure that the information is correct. for example, a nurse restatement saying, “if i understand you correctly, you have pain in pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses 49 your lower abdomen every time you stand up.” the patient would then agree or correct what the nurse has said: “no, the pain is there only when i arise in the morning.” in this context, the nurse would accept the patient’s confirmation and treat it as the true state of the patient. appropriateness is related to the amount of message. when a nurse is required to give information, she or he should not speak less not more than it is required. if this condition is met, appropriateness is achieved. thus, communication occurs accordingly. for example, if a patient asks, “when is my lunch coming?” the nurse, knowing that the patient has already eaten lunch, will be alert to other inappropriate messages by this patient that may signal a variety of problems, in this instance, the inappropriate message does not match the context. efficiency could refer to the use of simple and clear words that are timed at a pace suitable to participants. messages must be adapted to each patient’s age, verbal level, and level of understanding, for example, when a nurse explains to a five year old child that he is going to have a nebulae therapy the next morning. this message would not be efficient because the patient does not get any knowledge on that. flexibility is an aspect of communication that allows the speaker to be more adaptable. flexible communicator bases messages on the immediate situation rather than preconceived expectations. when a nurse student who plans to teach a patient about diabetic diets enters the patient’s room and finds her crying, she must be flexible enough to change gears and deal with the feelings the patient is expressing. pressing on with the lesson plan in the face of the patient’s distress shows a lack of compassion as well as inflexibility in communicating. in line with this, chitty (1997) insisted that the constant absence and ignorance of any of the four criteria can create disturbed communication and hamper the implementation of the nursing process. therapeutic communication technique when communication is incomplete, inappropriate, or absent, patients may experience fear and confusion that leads to increased risk to their safety (peplau. 1952). nursing practice is equipped with a strong basis of communication skill. “therapeutic communication promotes understanding that helps establish a constructive relationship between the nurse and the patient (berman, snyder, kozier & erb: 2008, p. 467).” unlike the social relationship where a specific purpose or direction may be absent, the therapeutic helping relationship is patient and goal directed. there are sixteen techniques of therapeutic communications. they are using silence, providing general leads, being specific and tentative, using openended questions, using touch, restating or paraphrasing, seeking clarification, perception check or seeking consensual validation, offering self, giving information, acknowledging, clarifying time or sequence, presenting reality, focusing, reflecting, summarizing and planning (berman, snyder, kozier & erb: 2008, pp. 469-470). using silence. this technique refers to accepting pauses or silences that may extend for several seconds or minutes without interjecting any verbal response. examples could be illustrated as a nurse sitting quietly (or walking with the patient) and waiting attentively until the patient is able to put thoughts and feelings into words. providing general leads. using statements or questions that (a) encourage 50 pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses the patient to verbalize.(b) choose a topic of conversation. and (c) facilitate continued verbalization. examples of providing general leads:  "can you tell me how it is for you?"  "perhaps you would like to talk about..."  "would it help to discuss your feelings?"  "where would you like to begin?"  "and then what?" being specific and tentative. making statements that are specific rather than general, and tentative rather than absolute. asking broad questions that lead or invite the patient to explore (elaborate. clarify. describe. compare. or illustrate) thoughts or feelings. examples:  rate your pain on a scale of 0-10." (specific statement)  "are you in pain?" (general statement)  "you seem unconcerned about your diabetes" (tentative statement), or "you don't care about your diabetes and you never will" (absolute statement). using open-ended questions. asking broad questions that lead or invite the patient to explore (elaborate, clarify, describe, compare, or illustrate) thoughts or feelings. open-ended questions specify only the topic to be discussed and invite answers that are longer than one or two words. examples of open-ended questions could be:  "i'd like to hear more about that."  "tell me about.... "  "how have you been feeling lately?"  "what brought you to the hospital?"  "what is your opinion?"  "you said you were frightened yesterday. how do you feel now?" "i'd like to hear more about that."  "tell me about.... "  "how have you been feeling lately?"  "what brought you to the hospital?"  "what is your opinion?"  "you said you were frightened yesterday. how do you feel now?" using touch. actively listening for the patient's basic message and then repeating those thoughts and/or feelings in similar words. this conveys that the nurse has listened and understood the patient's basic message and also offers patients a clearer idea of what they have said. an emphasis could be done by putting an arm over the patient's shoulder, of placing a hand over the patient's hand. restating or paraphrasing. actively listening for the patient's basic message and then repeating those thoughts and/or feelings in similar words. this conveys that the nurse has listened and understood the patient's basic message and also offers patients a clearer idea of what they have said.  patient: "i couldn't manage to eat any dinner last night— not even the dessert."  nurse:"you had difficulty eating yesterday."  patient:"yes. i was very upset after my family left."  patient:" i have trouble talking to strangers."  nurse:"you find it difficult talking to people you do not know?" seeking clarification. it is a method of making the patient's broad overall meaning of the message more understandable. it is used when paraphrasing is difficult or when the communication is rambling or garbled. to clarify the message, the nurse can restate the basic message or confess confusion and ask the patient to repeat or restate the message. nurses can also clarify their own message with statements, e.g.  "i'm puzzled."  "i'm not sure i understand that."  "would you please say that again?"  "would you tell me more?"  "i meant this rather than that."  "i'm sorry that wasn't very clear. let me try to explain another way." pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses 51 perception checking or seeking consensual validation. it is defined as a method similar to clarifying that verifies the meaning of specific words rather than the overall meaning of a message, e.g. patient: "my husband never gives me any presents." nurse: "you mean he has never given you a present for your birthday or christmas?" patient:"well—not never. he does get me something for my birthday and christmas, but he never thinks of giving me anything at any other time." offering self. it is used to suggest one's presence, interest, or wish to understand the patient without making any demands or attaching conditions that the patient must comply with to receive the nurse's attention. or, providing, in a simple and direct manner, specific factual information the patient may or may not request. when information is not known, the nurse states it and indicates who has it or when the nurse will obtain it.  "i'll stay with you until your daughter arrives."  "we can sit here quietly for a while; we don't need to talk unless you would like to."  "i'll help you to dress to go home, if you like." giving information. this aims at providing, in a simple and direct manner, specific factual information the patient may or may not request. when information is not known, the nurse states this and indicates who has it or when the nurse will obtain it.  "your surgery is scheduled for 11am tomorrow."  "you will feel a pulling sensation when the tube is removed from your abdomen."  "i do not know the answer to that, but i will find out from mrs. king, the nurse in charge." acknowledging. giving recognition, in a non judgmental way, of a change in behavior, an effort the patient has made, or a contribution to a communication. acknowledgment may be with or without understanding, verbal or non verbal.  "you trimmed your beard and mustache and washed your hair."  "i notice you keep squinting your eyes. are you having difficulty seeing?"  "you walked twice as far today with your walker." clarifying time or sequence. it is carried out to help the patient clarify an event, situation, or event related to time.  patient:"i vomited this morning."  nurse:"was that after breakfast?"  patient: "i feel that i have been a sleep for weeks."  nurse:"you had your operation monday, and today is tuesday." presenting reality. this usually refers to a circumstance where a nurse helps the patient to differentiate the real from the unreal.  "that telephone ring came from the program on television."  " i see shadows from the window coverings."  "your magazine is here in the drawer. it has not been stolen." focusing. this technique is meant to help the patient expand on and develop a topic of importance. it is important for the nurse to wait until the patient finishes stating the main concerns before attempting to focus. the focus may be an idea or a feeling; however, the nurse often emphasizes a feeling to help the patient recognize an emotion disguised behind words. patient:"my wife says she will look after me, but i don't think she can, what with the children to take care of, and they're always after her about something—clothes, homework, what's for dinner that night." nurse:"sounds like you are worried about how well she can manage. 52 pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses patient:"my wife says she will look after me, but i don't think she can, what with the children to take care of, and they're always after her about something—clothes, homework, what's for dinner that night." nurse:"sounds like you are worried about how well she can manage. reflecting. this technique was used when a nurse intended to direct ideas, feelings, questions, or content back to patients to enable them to explore their own ideas and feelings about a situation. patient: what can i do? nurse: what do you think would be helpful? patient: do you think i should tell my husband? nurse: you seem unsure about telling your husband. patient: what can i do? nurse: what do you think would be helpful? patient: do you think i should tell my husband? nurse: you seem unsure about telling your husband. summarizing and planning. such technique is commonly found when a nurse states the main points of a discussion to clarify the relevant points discussed. this technique is useful at the end of an interview or to review a health teaching session. it often acts as an introduction to future care planning.  "during the past half hour we have talked about... "  "tomorrow afternoon we may explore this further."  "in a few days i'll review what you have learned about the actions and effects of your insulin."  "tomorrow, i will look at your feeling journal." subsequently, tasks and skills required in each phase of helping relationship can be classified into four parts. they are the preinteraction phase, introductory phase, the working phase, and the termination phase. pre-interaction phase. the nurse reviews pertinent assessment data and knowledge, considers potential areas of concern, and develops plans for interaction. the required skills for the nurse include: organizing data gathering, recognizing limitations as well as seeking assistance as required. introductory phase. it could be accomplished in several steps. opening the relationship is the first step. both patient and nurse identify each other by name. when the nurse initiates the relationship, it is important to explain the nurse's role to give the patient an idea of what to expect. when the patient initiates the relationship, the nurse needs to help the patient express concerns and reasons for seeking help. the subsequent step is to clarify the problem. vague open-ended question, such as "what's on your mind today?" is helpful at this stage because the patient initially may not see the problem clearly the nurse's major task is to help clarify the problem. the nurse activities involves attentive listening, paraphrasing, clarifying, and other effective communication techniques. a common error at this stage is to ask too many questions to the patient instead of focusing on priorities. the last step is in term of structuring and formulating the contract (obligations by both the nurse and patient). nurse and patient develop a degree of trust and verbally agree about (a) location, frequency, and length of meetings, (b) overall purpose of the relationship, (c) how to handle material confidential, (d) tasks to be accomplished, and (e) duration and indications for termination of the relationship. working phase. this is the phase where a nurse and his/her patient pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses 53 accomplishes the tasks outlined in the introductory phase, enhance trust and rapport, and developing care. this stage includes two activities: exploring thoughts and feelings, and taking action. the former requires the nurse to assist the patient to explore thoughts and feelings, and acquires an understanding of the patient. meanwhile, the latter, insists on planning programs within the patient's capabilities and considers long-and short-term goals. the patient needs to learn to take risks (i.e., accept that either failure or success may be the outcome). the nurse needs to reinforce successes and help the patient recognize failures realistically. the abilities required are decision-making, goal-setting, and reinforcement skills; as for the patient: risk taking is a common situation. termination phase. nurse and patient accept feelings of loss. the patient accepts the end of the relationship without feelings of anxiety or dependence. the skills required for the nurse in this stage is summarizing. on the part of the patient,he/she needs the ability to handle problems independently. pragmatic awareness a speaker of a particular language is considered successful when he/she could send an appropriate message by which a listener could react properly. in efl settings, a speaker may or may not be aware of pragmatic failure. j. thomas (1983) defines pragmatic failure in cross-cultural pragmatic failure as “the inability to understand what is meant by what is said.” she points out that pragmatic failure may occur in any occasions “in which the hearer perceives the force of the speaker’s utterance differently from the speaker’s intent.” pragmatic failure is possibly due to failure to express or interpret speakermeaning or failure to observe cultural values. pragmatic awareness could be a fundamental issue in language use. nikula (2002) stated that pragmatic awareness is understood as a reference to features of language and interaction, with which language users orient to aspects of language use that pertain to its social and interpersonal functioning. it denotes a speaker’s competence to carry out successful communication. raising pragmatic awareness can foster what kramsch (1993: 236) calls ‘intercultural competence’, where speakers of other languages can become aware of what she terms ‘the third place’. to add a definition of pragmatic awareness alcon and jorda (2008) describes it as the conscious, reflective, explicit knowledge about pragmatics. it thus involves knowledge of these rules and conventions underlying appropriate language use in particular situations and on the part of members of specific speech communities. pragmatic principles. what may constitute the rules of speaker’s meaning is perhaps a more intense discussion in the field of linguistics. pragmatic proponents have provided theories to better understand existing phenomena underlying human communicative activities. under the description of mey’s term (2007) “pragmatic principles” such linguistic behavior could be explained. the most relevant underlying theories include communicative, cooperative and politeness principles. communicative principle is proposed based on the fact that people talk with the intention to communicate something. communication does not always reveal 54 pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses logic or truth but of cooperation. in this in this regard leech added that when people speak they could intend to something beyond what they say. communicative principle is essentially pragmatic since it suggests the language use emphasizes the users’ point of view in accordance to the available circumstances of context and speech. another aspect of pragmatics suggests language users to participate in mutually accepted, pragmatically determined context. as proposed by grice (1975) cooperative principles consist of four pragmatic subprinciples, or maxims, i.e.: the maxim of quantity, quality, relation, and manners. maxim of quantity deals with the sufficiency of information being delivered. in this phase one is required to make contribution as informative as required. in other words, he/she should not provide more information than necessary. too much or too little information shared under certain circumstances would be considered as violations. it is assumed that either following or violating the maxims could bring particular influences in communication. those in favor of using cooperative maxims would develop good communication strategies. similarly, mey (2001) stated that when we fail to use the maxims, communication would be difficult and possibly break down altogether. along with the development of pragmatic issues, politeness strategy has become an important aspect of language use. it provides an understanding of how a language user can successfully communicate the language within the members of a society. to watts (2003:39) politeness can be identified as follows: 1. politeness is the natural attribute of a 'good' character. 2. politeness is the ability to please others through one's external actions. 3. politeness is the ideal union between the character of an individual and his external actions. the concept of politeness is directed to language use which looks upon acceptability among the speakers of the language. this principle suggests that language should be acceptable regarding the contexts, showing respects among the language users as well as providing respectable interrelationship. to some extent this includes social aspects of communication. much of what is said is determined by social relationship. social distance is an indicator whether individuals have a close or a more distant relationship. as the social distance between speakers increases, the greater requirement for polite use of language.” addressing a boss ‘sweetheart’, for instance, is considered inappropriate and impolite, unless the boss and employee know each other well and over time have developed a close relationship. thus it is clear that the words people use tend to as well as the topics they discuss are largely influenced by their social relationships, indicating whether they are disparate, equals, or intimates. in general terms, politeness is relevant with ideas like being tactful, modest, and nice to other people. in the study of linguistic politeness is represented by the concept of ‘face’. “some illocutions (e.g., orders) are inherently impolite, and others (e.g., offers) are inherently polite” leech (1983:83). in general giving orders could sound rude and demanding to the hearer. hence, unexpected reactions are likely to emerge. yet offers are always polite because the speaker seems to attend to the hearer’s favor. mey (2007) argued that such concept might not apply without pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses 55 regards for the contextual factors that define politeness in a given situation. this could be due to the social position of the speakers that may indicate different politeness values for individual cases. another possibility is that politeness also depends on the positive or negative effects it has on the person who is given the order. politeness strategies could be categorized into negative and positive face. in negative face, a speaker tends to display the need to be independent, to have the freedom of action, and not to be imposed on by others. positive face, on the other hand, is the need to be accepted, even liked, by others, to be treated as a member of the same group, and to know that his or her wants are shared by others. based on the natural way of interaction, a speaker could communicate in different ways. to get more acceptability in interaction, politeness technique could be applied. in general cases, direct messages tend to threaten face, whereas indirect messages have more acceptable responses. previously another proponent of politeness principle set up some notions of politeness maxims. leech’s view of politeness involves a set of politeness maxims analogous to grice’s maxims. among these are (leech, 1983:132):  tact maxim: minimize cost to other. maximize benefit to other. could i interrupt you for half a second – what was the website address?  generosity maxim: minimize benefit to self. maximize cost to self. could i copy the web address?  approbation maxim: minimize dispraise of other. maximize praise of other. mary you’re always so efficient – do you have copy of that web address?  modesty maxim: minimize praise of self. maximize dispraise of self. oh i’m so stupid – i didn’t make a not of that web address. did you?  agreement maxim: minimize disagreement/maximize agreement between self and other. yes, of course you’re right, but your decision might make her very unhappy.  sympathy maxim: minimize antipathy/maximize sympathy between self and other. i was very sorry to hear about your father’s death. speech acts. in view of pragmatics speech acts cover actual situations of language use. mey (2007) states “speech acts are verbal actions happening in the world.” this means uttering a speech act, a speaker does something with his/her words. an utterance ‘you’re fired’ (yule, 47:1996) indicates that someone will lose a job. when a boss produces such utterance to an employee, this will be taken as a true state by which he/she could no longer work for the company. the speech acts theory provides analysis for utterances in daily conversations. back and harnish (1979) stated that speech acts are a complex combination between utterances, locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. among other discussions, mey (2007) argued that illocutionary has been the focus of speech acts theory. a speaker’s intention could be understood by the illocutionary force that the hearer receives. moreover perlocutionary act is accepted as a response of illocutionary force of an utterance. speech acts can also be either direct or indirect. a speech act takes a direct form if its intent is clearly conveyed by the words and structure of the utterance. ‘take off your shoes’ is of course a direct speech act, taking the form of an imperative sentence 56 pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses whereas ‘could you take off your shoes?’, though takes an interrogative form, it functions as a request. thus, the utterance is classified as an indirect speech act. “an indirect speech act is an utterance that contains the illocutionary force indicators for one kind of illocutionary act but which is uttered to perform another type of illocutionary act (smith, 1991: 19)”. varieties of situations are available for the use of indirect speech act. a declarative used to make a statement is a direct speech act, a declarative used to make a request is an indirect speech act. yule (2002:55) provided a number of examples as follows: it's cold outside i hereby tell you about the weather (direct speech act) i hereby request that you close the door (indirect speech act) another possibility of the transformation of direct into indirect speech acts when a speaker wants hearer not to stand in front of the tv: move out of the way! (imperative direct speech act) do you have to stand in front of the tv? (interrogative indirect speech act) you're standing in front of the tv (declarative indirect speech act) you'd make a better door than a window (declarative indirect speech act) yule (2002) also asserted that the use of indirect speech acts is mainly related to the speaker’s intention to show politeness in english. the desire to be polite also influences what kind of speech act one decides to use. thus, one may choose an indirect speech act instead of a direct one in order to be more polite (leech, 1983). the relationship between politeness and speech acts seems therefore very much similar to that between direct and indirect speech acts. methods participants the participants of this research were a male and two female indonesian nurses from a joint commission international (jci) accredited hospital in surabaya. they were: nurse h, nurse e, and nurse r. they were chosen as participants of this study because they had the experience of treating foreign patients in the hospital for more than 2 years. they were undregraduate alumni of a nursing school where they had taken two english courses: general english and english for nursing. they also scored fairly high for english proficiency test. subsequently, four foreign in-patients were selected. they were: mr. dc, mr. alex, mr. lv, and ms. rita. mr. dc was from netherland, whereas mr. alex and mr. lv were from the united states. meanwhile ms. rita were from khazaktan. they were all in surabaya for work. data and source of data the sources of data were verbal and non-verbal language uses in conversations and observation notes. the data obtained were verbal and non-verbal language uses, which correlated with the interactions of the local nurses and their foreign patients between the local nurses and their foreign patients. irrelevant expressions were eliminated. several conversations sessions were carried out between the indonesian nurses and their foreign in-patients. mr. dc was treated by nurse h who was in charge of the caring processes. mr. alex and mr. lv were cared by nurse e, and in the meantime, ms. rita was taken care by nurse r. every language used by both the local nurses and their foreign in-patients was recorded and pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses 57 transcribed. the conversations were extracted into several aspects of pragmatics, consisting of speech acts and pragmatic principles, applied in the nurse-patient interactions. additional source of data were taken from observation notes. video recording was unavailable due to ethical issues. the presence of the researcher at the site where nurse-patient interactions took place was not admitted either. the observation notes were used, instead. however, the nurses and the foreign patients was aware of the study. research instruments as in many cases of qualitative research, the researcher of the study was the key research instrument. he played an important role in interpreting the data collected from the participants. as stated by yin in duff (2008) that the use of multiple sources of data could provide possibility to corroborate and augment evidence from other sources. mcmillan (2008) added that instruments of data collection in case studies are mostly observation and interview. hence, in attempt to obtain sufficient evidence, the instruments applied were in terms of interviews and audio-recordings. interviews were conducted to discover some information on the part of the nurses. the researcher formulated several question items so that nurses’ attempts in maintaining therapeutic communication with the foreign in-patients occurred. considerations towards the strategies they used, and problems they encountered, were very essential in this study. the interviews were in the form of semi-structured interviews to allow the interviewer to compromise the form of open and structured interview (richards, 2008). in this way the researcher understood what topics need to be explored and formulated questions accordingly prior to the interviews. in spite of the carefully planned scenario as characterized in structured interviews, during the processes the researcher treated the participants, in this case, the nurses in such a way that they had sufficient flexibility as characterized in open interviews. direct observation played an important role in this study. analysis on pragmatic awareness should involve description on how meaning was delivered and perceived by the participants and their patients. in this respect duff (2008) asserted that observation is necessary when one of the research objectives is to study linguistic performance. interpretations on meanings frequently required verbal and non-verbal language behaviors, where the presence of the researcher could be crucial. in line with this cowie (2008) defined observation as the conscious noticing and detailed examination of participants’ behavior in a naturalistic setting. in this study direct observation was very limited to ethical issues where the hospital only permitted the researcher to see the nurse-patient’s interactions outside the intervention processes that require the nurses to focus on the caring processes. however, observations were still carried out to help the researcher learned the atmosphere, situations and settings of the interactions. the observation notes were also treated as additional data for analysis. setting of the research the setting of the research was a private hospital in surabaya acquiring jci accreditation where foreign patients are mostly treated for medical assistance. the three participants of the study were involved in nurse-patient interactions taking place in in-patient wards. the research lasted for two months, lasting from august until october 2015. 58 pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses data collection procedure in applied linguistics, data collection may include several instruments or techniques, as stated by duff (2008). research instruments in this study included interviews and observation. each of the instruments was used to collect data and provided relevant data for analysis. furthermore duff (2008) also stated that data collection is adapted to accommodate underlying research questions and provide necessary answers for those questions. data collection was carried out in a number of phases. in order to gain access for further data collection, the researcher contacted the hospital management for a permit. the subsequent phase involved field observation regarding decisions on the schedules of data collection and appointment with the nurses to try out observation sheets and interview forms. revisions were made later on if there are necessary changes need to be made. at this stage the researcher also assembled key contact information and surveyed some data. several pre-interview sessions were also planned to learn and prepared strategies for deeper insights of the communication problems occurring during nurse-patient interactions. the nurses were asked questions about overall circumstances concerning their day-to-day interactions with their foreign patients. this helped the researcher to formulate more accurate interview items with the patients. other description that was relevant was also collected during this phase. in order that the interviews take place effectively, the researcher carefully carried out the semi-interview technique. following kothari (2004), he planned the interviews in advance and fully learned the problem. during the interviews he acted informally and friendly as well as established proper rapport with the interviewees so as to raise their motivation to communicate. it was indeed worth valuable data. the subsequent phase in data collection was from nurse-patient interactions which were recorded. due to ethical issue in the hospital, video-recording was not possible and audio-recorder was used instead. to obtain natural and genuine data from the patients, the nurses were instructed to record their conversations without prior consent. when the conversation was finished, the nurses asked the patient for permission regarding the recording. if the patient agreed, the recorded conversations were accepted for data of the study. however, when the patient rejected, the researcher would delete the recording. since the researcher did not gain direct access to the patients, the observation was reported by the nurses through several interviews with the researcher. this technique was applied to provide answers to the related research questions regarding the situations in the wards and the associated contexts given in every interaction. it also applied to conditions when their patients experience communication difficulties during the caring processes. in this case the nurses acted as observers to find relevant data. in other word, direct observation was carried out throughout data collection phase. data analysis procedure data analysis in this study was generated from sources of data in terms of interviews, and recordings. from the interviews, the researcher took relevant data concerning the patients’ statement which correlated to the nurses’ ability to communicate and at the same time identified some communication problems. every utterance which was relevant to this pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses 59 was taken as research data for further analysis. data collection and analysis was carried out integratedly. data analysis procedure was carried out in line with the aspects of case study. in qualitative studies, data collection and analysis occur simultaneously and continuously, so it should not be considered as separate steps (hood, 2008). the steps associated with both, data collection and analysis are adapted from richards (2003) that started from collecting data in the forms of words and expressions produced by the nurses and their foreign in-patients. the data were then grouped according to the sequence of therapeutic communication techniques. the subsequent process of data analysis was carried out by putting all the selected words and expressions into their category corresponding to each therapeutic communication technique. in the next phase, words and expressions that highlight the success and failure of the nurse-foreignin-patient communication were identified and eventually the last step of data analysis was to elaborate all pragmatic properties in justifying the success and failure of the nurses’ words and expressions. data analysis in this study was presented in accordance to the scenes in which the indonesian nurses interacted with their foreign in-patients. each of the scenes provided answers of each research question and consequently they covered the following items: 1. situation and context 2. the strategies of speech acts 3. degree of the indonesian nurses’ pragmatic awareness/unawareness 4. the strategies used to overcome unsuccessful communication situation and context were any circumstances that occured during the local nurse-foreign inpatient interaction. the setting of interaction as the care-giving process administered including time, place, participant and the topic were discussed. this was meant to provide more understanding towards meanings shared between the local nurses and their interactions. the researcher attempted to display any circumstances that may contribute to the interpretations of the local nurse-patients’ interaction. any interactions occurring outside the therapeutic communication were not analyzed. at the subsequent level of analysis, the researcher took some data relevant to the nurses’ pragmatic awareness. when misunderstandings took place, the points to which corresponded to the nurses’ unawareness were discussed. misunderstandings were identified from the researcher’s perspective in case of the nurses’ inability to deliver messages to the patients properly. misunderstandings in this sense could be identified from the nurses’ pragmatic failure that corresponds to the implications of speech acts and other relevant pragmatic principles, such as: gricean maxims (1975): quantity, quality, relative and manner as well as politeness principles: tact, generosity, approbation, modesty, agreement and sympathy maxims leech (1983). the final stage of analysis was the description of collected data on the strategies when the nurses experience unsuccessful communication. when the nurses failed to express utterances as to instruct, give order, and persuade, they made use of certain strategies that brought meanings clearer to the patients. the use of any signs or attempts made to help communicate with their foreign patients were analyzed and described at this point. 60 pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses triangulation data triangulation was used in this study as data was taken from audio recording transcripts and interviews. some data which were collected through audiorecordings somehow, did not provide clear information of what happened in the realtime conversations. another thing was unclear speech productions and background noise could be considered as distortions that could lead to misinterpretations. to avoid all those things, the researcher arranged some sessions of interviews with the nurses. all their answers were then used to confirm the obtained information. findings and discussion: nurse h in this study, the nurse was involved in an interaction with mr. dc. his interaction was noted and analyzed in regards to the therapeutic communication techniques. it was found that in this study he used only three dominant techniques. they were in terms of: providing general lead, being specific and tentative and using open-ended questions. in providing general leads, nurse h could apply some strategies that allow the patients to describe his feeling and find topic that seems to be the relevant issues to the patient. however, in many cases nurse h did not provide some leading statements like: “alright,” “i’m listening,” “i see,” and similar expressions by which the patient would be encouraged to continue his statements. the subsequent therapeutic communication technique used by nurse h was being specific and tentative. in general, nurse h uttered closed questions to indicate something as specific or tentative until a feedback was given by the patient. among various strategies, nurse h tended to specify uncertainty with closed questions, but she rarely produced narrow down information statements. consequently, confusions occured frequently when nurse h formulated multiple questions. in some conversations he asked more than one question at a very limited time without giving sufficient time for the patient to answer one by one. as a result perlocutionary acts provided by the patients were not acceptable and missed the focus. this could be subjected to committing violation in maxim of quantity. when a long information or question is used, it is less possible for the participants to arrive at mutual understanding. the data indicated that in addition to general leads, nurse h was also in favor of using open-ended questions to obtain information. in doing so, he also used multiple questions to explore the patient’s problems. when two, or more, questions were asked in a row, only one was answered, usually the last. this was possibly due to insufficiency of time given to the patient. the nurse did not provide enough time for a pause so that the patient could take his turn before another question was formulated. yet, only one was answered, instead of two as it was requirred. it was the last question that normally got the answer, but the first was ignored. it was because the patient tried to keep up with the nurse’s pace. again, it was assumed that nurse h violated the maxim of quantity and manner. in every conversation, it is expected that a speaker should say or share information briefly and clearly. the problem appeared when the nurse violated the maxim. another consideration should also be viewed from the perspective of tact maxim, where the speaker, in this case, the pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses 61 nurse minimize cost to other and maximize the benefit to other. when these two maxims were violated, communication could be unsuccessful and misunderstanding was likely to take place. nurse e nurse e was in interactions with two foreign in-patients. they were mr. alex and mr. fernando. it was reported that she used eight therapeutic communication techniques during her interactions. she successfully performed four communication techniques in terms of: open-ended questions, restating or paraphrasing, offering self, and clarifying time or sequence. apart from that, the four other techniques were found to be a little problematic. in providing general leads, nurse e seemed to be familiar with situations where she was supposed to provide some variations to open topics for the patients. in some interactions she sometimes could make use of general leads when she sensed that the patients were curious about the progress in their caring processes. she was quite successful in using this technique. there was no significant misunderstanding taking place as the nurse used general leads. however, a minor problem could be noted for lacking of using fillers, such as: “yes”, “then” and some other expressions. when she followed every information shared by the patient and indicated her presence, the patient would have explained more. the strategy of using fillers would then make the patients more active. though misunderstanding did not happen in providing general leads, nurse e received unexpected response as she was trying to start the conversation. “are you busy?” was not typically a starter in nursepatient interaction. it was supposed to begin with greetings and followed by questions or statements, directing the patient to say or tell his conditions or if he had some pain or problems with mobility. such problem was not necessary because the nurse had to be aware that nurse-patient conversation followed this pattern in most cases. moreover, this communication problem took place because the nurse violated maxim of relation, in which it requirred that the speaker and the hearer be consistant in making relation to the information being shared. for nurse e specific and tentative statements were accepted as a way to trigger more information from the patients. when something was unclear, nurse e made sure of the precise information by using short questions which were tentative until it was confirmed by the patients. applying this strategy, nurse e did not simplify questions so that they could be understood more clearly by the patient. some problems appeared when the patient had to deal with complicated questions. in being specific and tentative the nurse experienced a difficult situation. she was going to ask about the menu that the patient desired for lunch on the next day, before he was scheduled for discharge plan. in this case the nurse uttered “tomorrow is already here before you go home. for lunch maybe?” the patient was confused because the question was very complicated. as a consequence, the perlocutionary act showed hesitation and misunderstanding. the message would have been answered correctly if the nurse had simplified the question. this problem could be considered as a violation of quantity maxim. for a successful conversation complicated questions should be simplified. when patients stated unclear messages, the nurse was supposed to confirm or validate the information. one way to do it was through restating or paraphrasing. this 62 pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses strategy was necessary to anticipate the loss of information at a certain degree and to reassure what was exactly meant by the patient. in some situations nurse e was capable of making restatements as they were intended to conclude and elicit emphasis on certain messages. restating was also accepted as a strategy for an indication that a message was considered as well understood and clear. in other situations, nurse e experienced difficulties understanding the messages from the patients. to some extent she did not understand the meaning of questions the patients asked. in order to seek clarification the nurse did not directly produce questions to discuss the points of confusion. instead, nurse e restated the last part of the questions delivered by the patients that was actually an act of guessing. in general, this strategy did not help much and the patients continued asking with the hope that nurse e got the points of the questions. to anticipate greater confusion, nurse e tried using different words to find the expected information as intended by the patients. in using the technique of seeking clarification, nurse e failed to deliver the messages effectively. as misunderstandings took place she was not supposed to use repetitions nor restatements too often because it was an act of violating quantity maxim, where messages should not be too lenghty. when the nurse sensed misunderstanding she should point out the problem and directly asked for an explanation. otherwise, misunderstanding would be more serious and complicated. nurse e attended the patient for varieties of purposes, one of which was at the moment when she came to give information. a slight information was almost mistaken at the moment the patient asked for information regarding the cause of his disease. when she provided information “maybe yes. but i think...” actually the first statement was not correct but she did not directly say “no,” instead. the subsequent statement was the correction made by the nurse. she should avoid producing any statements that could potentially contribute to misperception. this was also considered as violation of quality maxim, requirring the speaker to be true. nurse r nurse r used six therapeutic communication techniques in her interactions with her foreign in-patient, miss rita. among other techniques she appeared to use: general leads, being specific and tentative, restating or paraphrasing, offering self, giving information, and clarifying time and sequence. nurse r has similar experiences with her colleagues, nurse h, and nurse e. in providing general leads she frequently started with questions as her other colleagues. she formulated broad questions to start conversations and fond out what was informed from the patient. however, in the analyzed data she appeared to use indirect speech act in her attempt to get information from her patient. instead of using broad questions that generally signals of requesting information, she uttered a statement that also requiring the patient to provide answers. as she said “yesterday you feel sick in the stomach”, the patient produced the correct perlocutionary act. she explained what problem she had at night. to make specific and tentative statements, in one ocassion nurse r confronted difficulties that caused the patient fail to understand because she raised two questions and the patient only answered one. as she said “still fluid or..? did you have breakfast?” such questions were impossible to be answered at once. pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses 63 moreover the given answer was “a little”. this was quite ambiguous because the answer could apply to any of these two questions. it was more complicated as the nurse did not discuss further about this misunderstanding. this problem was considered as violation of the maxim of manner. further in some interactions, nurse r was found to apply restating and paraphrasing technique. she was aware of a situation where sometimes the patient attempted to express ideas, and in return, restating or paraphrasing was requirred to show that the patients’ ideas could be accepted as true. when the nurse restated “ye, absorb for toxin”, the patient’s message was emphasized and the information was confirmed. for most of the nurses, offering help to the patients was always done carefully. in offering self, nurse r carried out her job very well. in one situation she attended the patient when it was time to take the medicine. she said “there is four tablets for diarhea, protection your stomach. this is your glass.” the illocutionary act of such expression was of course not meant to hand over an empty glass. this was actually a request, ordering the patient to immediately take the medicine and in case of troubles, the nurse was ready for an assistance. the above discussion was to provide descriptions on the nurses’ pragmatic awareness in doing their therapeutic communication techniques. the analysis was based on the interactions they encountered with their foreign in-patients. in such interactions, pragmatic awareness was not determined by how many therapeutic communication techniques they had performed but how well they elaborated their pragmatic knowledge in communicating with their foreign in-patients. thus, the number of techniques applied by each of the nurses was not accepted as the indicator of the nurses’ pragmatic awareness. in one hand, one interaction may require only a few techniques and on other hand, more techniques were likely to be used, depending on the complexity of the topic and circumstances available at a particular interaction. conclusion working with foreign in-patients requires good communication skills. for indonesian nurses, interactions with foreign in-patients could be accepted as a challenge because nurse-patient’s interactions should characterize therapeutic communication. in such communication every nurse is expected to contribute to the patients’ healing process through therapeutic communication techniques applied throughout the caring processes in the hospital. from the analyzed data it was found that the three nurses participating in the study were aware of the application of therapeutic communication technique in every interaction. eight of the 17 therapeutic communication techniques studied in this research were frequently used. from the eight, four techniques, i.e., providing general leads, restating or paraphrasing, offering self, and giving information were used with less difficulties. the other four techniques: being specific and tentative, using open-ended questions, seeking clarification, clarifying time or sequence, were experienced as difficult. in every attempt to get accurate information, the nurses frequently made use 64 pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses of questions which were specific and tentative. this technique was usually associated with strategies by which nurses triggered their patients were expected to provide more information, but in some interactions, the use of specific and tentative statements was not effective. this was because the nurses sometimes set up multiple questions in a row, and only the last question was answered to convey information requirred for medical records. confusion or misunderstanding was likely to occur due to this factor. the nurses were not able to maintain the flow of conversation that the patients were likely to skip a number of questions and end up giving very limited answer and even ambiguous statements. open ended question is another strategy to collect data from the patients. many types of information can be explored when the nurses formulate open ended questions. however, some investigations are not very effective when questions are not focused correctly. as what happens in using specific and tentative questions, the nurses occasionally produce unclear messages by proposing two different questions at once. open ended questions can be effective when the nurse gives sufficient time for the patient to provide answers, describe or explain in a detailed manner. with active listening, the nurses may also provide general leads, motivating the patients to discuss their problems more. when the nurses failed to apply this technique properly, information may not be shared adequately. misunderstandings were found in some situations. among other techniques, seeking clarification was found to be the most difficult practice for most of the nurses. when they were in the middle of misunderstanding, in most cases, they did not use proper technique of seeking clarification. instead of clarifying, they used tentative expressions and at different times they uttered restatements. as a rule, this technique suggested that having failed to clarify, they were expected to confess confusion and directly asked for an explanation.thus, the risk of getting more serious communication problem could be minimized. some conversations indicated problems when the nurses were involved in interactions where clarifying time or sequence was required. they could not justify whether or not the accepted information was valid. for example, when a patient clarified his discharge time, the nurse was supposed to know in advanced that the patient was planned to leave the hospital in a given time. when the nurse failed to provide such clarification, the patients would later lose their trust in the nurses who were expected to be good resource persons. using silence and using touch were hardly observable during the study, but the nurses admitted doing so in almost every practice of the nurse-patient interaction. both techniques were reported based on the interviews. using silence was very likely to occur in the beginning of conversations where nurses gathered data and information when they set up questions for the patients to answer. during that time, the nurses gave sufficient time for the patient to collect any information about symptoms, pain, and other related problems. in the meantime, using touch was used as a strategy for the nurse to show emphaty to the patient and build emotional relations as well as trust between nurses and patients. the nurses, in this case, admitted the use of this technique in times when they saw the patients encountering hard times. pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses 65 some strategies in therapeutic communication were not frequently practiced and the skills did not appear to be very familiar to the nurses. the most inactive skills applied in therapeutic communication were:  perception checking or seeking consensual validation  acknowledging  clarifying time or sequence  presenting reality  focusing  reflecting  summarizing and planning the nurses admitted that they felt inconfident to deeply interact in communication that required high command of english. they did not want to experience difficulties that ended up in misunderstandings. some expressions were hard to formulate. inadequate skills in using english was a major problem for the nurses in communicating with foreign in-patients. moreover, pragmatic principles were given less attention due to the nurses incapabilities in elaboratin therapeutic communication skills and their pragmatic awareness. suggestion therapeutic communication is a compulsory curriculum, designed under the subject of nursing communication. in this subject, nursing students learn how to handle patients and improve their communication skill that should characterize therapeutic communication. they learn how to work and interact with patients at different levels of age, nursing processes, diseases, and unit of society (individuals, groups, families, and communities). training on therapeutic communication in english is necessary to encourage indonesian nurses to provide better healthcare service and communication skill to foreign patients. attempts on raising language competence are needed to be made. some of the results in this study have shown that unsuccessful communication depends on the nurses’ inability to predict patients’ responses regarding utterances they use to elicit the expected reactions. they failed to achieve the intended or produce perlocutionary forces. to achieve this level of ability, nurses need to learn organizational knowledge, in which they elaborate grammatical and textual knowledge. at another level, they also require pragmatic knowledge, in which functional and sociolinguistic knowledge are put into practice. this complex organization of language knowledge leads nurses to raise their pragmatic awareness. hence, language training should be managed in a way that it can adopt both therapeutic communication techniques and pragmatic principles especially in the field of speech acts. in the future, nursing schools should provide a course in the curriculum that facilitates learning in real situations, requiring nurses to interact with foreign patients. such course is not yet provided in the curriculum. as a matter of fact, hospitals in big cities, like jakarta, surabaya, denpasar and other regions in bali are visited by many foreigners who come for education, shopping, business, as well as recreation. they certainly need medical assistance in cases of accidents and other health problems. it is expected that hospitals having regular visits of foreign patients make contributions to nursing schools in giving 66 pragmatic awareness of indonesian nurses feedbacks in order that nurse educators are aware of the developing issues related to foreign patients treated in those hospitals. this will later provide continuous updates for the development of caring processes for nurses, who potentially deal with foreign patients. without continuous and persistent efforts to develop nursing students’ skill in therapeutic communication, advances in this area will not be achieved. in line with this issue some researches also need to be conducted to study the possibilities of improving communication strategies for indonesian nurses in international hospitals and designing a course related to the use of therapeutic communication in english and publishing coursebooks under this subject. the findings are hopefully beneficial for nurses, nurse educators, and other healthcare practitioners, who work with foreign patients. in hospitals where foreign patients are generally treated, communication problems encountered by indonesian nurses can be solved through providing resources for guidance. in the first place, the presence of language instructors in communication problems occuring between indonesian nurses and their foreign patients, will be of a great value. it is possible that language barriers take place when indonesian nurses are involved in very complicated interactions. the role of language instructors can be as mediators or resource persons that assist the nurses to anticipate for potential language barriers occuring in their interactions with foreign patients. for practical uses, it is also possible that nurses provide themselves with a guide book that contains formulaic expressions listing choices of expressions in relevant to the use of each technique in therapeutic communication. in many conditions, nurses encounter difficulties when sudden flow of messages is exchanged and responses are to be made. with this very limited time available in interactions, they need 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